When the sun appeared, countless people cheered, celebrating the departure of the heavy rain.

But when the sun refused to set, the survivors panicked.

Temperatures rose, water levels dropped, plagues broke out, and survivor bases everywhere descended into chaos. The officially organized survivor bases fared slightly better, while unofficial survivor bases suffered countless deaths and injuries, with corpses littering the ground everywhere.

The official survivor bases had warned the unofficial ones in advance, but no one took it seriously, leading to the massive plague outbreak.

On the water surface near Kunlun Mountain, a pigeon soared through the sky, guiding the giant beast behind it.

"It's hiding in the underwater abandoned buildings!" Yun Xiuzhi shouted.

The giant beast transformed by Li Xuan violently destroyed everything, demolishing all buildings within range. Its terrifying strength toppled concrete walls, and its claws tore through what even steel could not withstand.

Soon, the mutated zombie hiding underwater was forced to emerge.

The pigeon in the sky locked onto the mutated zombie's position, and the giant beast swiftly struck, killing it with a single blow.

The mutated zombie was pierced through, opening its rotten mouth to bite the sharp claws, only to have the bones in its face sliced open by the razor-sharp claws. Its entire jaw detached and sank to the bottom.

Squelch!

The claws pierced through the mutated zombie's skull and fished out the supernatural characteristic inside.

The giant beast swallowed it in one gulp, with no visible changes to its body.

Yun Xiuzhi landed on the giant beast's head and asked, "What supernatural characteristic was it? Intelligence enhancement characteristic?"

This mutated zombie was discovered by her. Since the sun rose, Yun Xiuzhi had been frequently soaring around the area, searching for traces of mutated zombies. After several searches without finding any, just when she thought no mutated zombies existed here, she spotted a strange zombie that actually threw stones at her.

Ordinary zombies lacked intelligence, acting solely on their craving for flesh and blood. Since this strange zombie could use stones, it must possess some intelligence.

Yun Xiuzhi was overjoyed, convinced it was a mutated zombie. After careful observation, she surprisingly discovered this strange zombie was quite ordinary—its combat ability was no different from regular zombies, with nothing exceptional in either strength or speed.

The giant beast shook its head. "Not intelligence characteristic. Hearing enhancement characteristic."

Hearing enhancement?

There was such an enhancement?

"No wonder I felt it wasn't much different from ordinary zombies. So it's such a trash supernatural characteristic," Yun Xiuzhi complained.

She had thought she struck gold.

Intelligence characteristic sounded impressive just by its name—definitely something valuable.

"It's useful. Every characteristic has its use. Maybe someday the hearing enhancement characteristic will come in handy," Li Xuan said.

So far, he had obtained five supernatural characteristics: strength characteristic, adaptation characteristic, scale armor characteristic, claw and fang enhancement characteristic, and hearing characteristic. If this were made public, many people would be astonished.

Mutated zombies were rare, hidden among zombie hordes and difficult to detect. Each region had extremely limited numbers of mutated zombies. To obtain more supernatural characteristics, one had to search other regions, but other regions also had survivor bases.

Moreover, not everyone was qualified to hunt mutated zombies.

Mutated zombies possessed intelligence and could command other zombies. Ordinary survivors wouldn't even be able to escape if they encountered one.

Official survivor bases could bully mutated zombies with firearms and explosives, but ordinary survivor bases lacked large quantities of guns and explosives. They would need to expend tremendous manpower and resources to capture a mutated zombie, and with the slightest carelessness, could be counter-killed by the mutated zombie.

Yun Xiuzhi gazed at the water surface. "There are very few zombies here. This might be the only mutated zombie. If we stay here, we won't find new mutated zombies unless some migrate here from outside."

Mutated zombies were rare individuals among zombies. With fewer ordinary zombies, mutated zombies would certainly be even scarcer. Bustling metropolises with large zombie populations were most likely to produce mutated zombies. Before the apocalypse, the population around Kunlun Mountain couldn't compare to big cities, so naturally the zombie numbers after the apocalypse couldn't either.

"We'll leave when the timing is right," Li Xuan said.

Recently, he hadn't obtained any intelligence about mutated zombies—mostly irrelevant information with a small amount about future version powerhouses.

For example, the fate of Huo Lingling's sister Huo Shuangshuang had changed. Because Huo Lingling wasn't at the survivor base, after awakening her ability in the second version, Huo Shuangshuang formed a team with independents to search for her younger sister outside, missing the Mountain-Moving Black Spiders' attack on the survivor base and temporarily escaping death.

Later, Huo Shuangshuang gathered a group of ability users to besiege the Mountain-Moving Black Spiders, but ultimately the entire team was wiped out, and Huo Shuangshuang still died at the hands of the Mountain-Moving Black Spiders, only the time of death had changed.

Additionally, Li Xuan had transformed into the giant beast and ventured deep into the Kunlun Mountains, searching for the ancient tree hidden in the depths.

After searching, he didn't find the ancient tree, only some strange plants he couldn't name—probably protected plant species from before the apocalypse. They tasted terrible, worse than cabbage.

After capturing the mutated zombie, the two returned to the tower cabin. Now that the water level had dropped, the buildings beneath the tower were exposed above water, but they didn't immediately move down.

The buildings below had been soaking in water for a long time—who knew how many viruses they contained? Moving down to live there now would be asking for fever and dehydration.

"You're back! I warmed up some beef cans, let's eat together!" Huo Lingling said, bouncing around like an innocent spirit from an anime.

Huo Lingling had now learned to make fire and heat food, currently serving as the team's little cook, though this little cook only knew how to heat food.

Huo Lingling poured the self-heating rice into a large bowl, then placed the heated beef can on top of the rice. Using chopsticks, she vigorously mixed it so every grain of rice absorbed the fragrance of the meat broth.

"Li Xuan, your beef mixed rice!" Huo Lingling held the large bowl, handing it to Li Xuan.

Then, Huo Lingling mixed another large portion of beef rice for herself, separating a small amount into a small bowl for Yun Xiuzhi.

The two humans and one bird ate quietly, creating a very warm atmosphere.

The next day

"Pack your things, we're preparing to leave," Li Xuan told the two.

"Okay!" Huo Lingling jumped up, happily packing food and stuffing her favorite clothes into her backpack.

Yun Xiuzhi didn't have much strength and couldn't help much. She asked Li Xuan, "Where to?"

"City G!" Li Xuan said.

Yun Xiuzhi thought about her memories of City G. "Ah? Go there? Are you sure? I remember there was a zombie horde outbreak there once! Because the local official survivor base didn't have enough firearms, their defenses were breached by the zombie horde, and they retreated to neighboring City W!"

"I know you want to find mutated zombies, but you can't search like this! What if some zombies evolve strange supernatural characteristics and infect you?"

City G must have plenty of mutated zombies, which also meant City G was extremely dangerous.

The giant beast's scales could withstand zombie bites, but the giant beast hadn't reached the point where it could single-handedly crush a city's worth of zombies. If some zombies evolved supernatural characteristics similar to claw and fang enhancement, they could pierce the giant beast's eyelids or nasal cavity, thus infecting it.

Additionally, official survivor bases throughout Xia Country had discovered many new types of supernatural characteristics, such as parasitism, self-destruction, corruption, erosion, tentacles, and more—too many to guard against effectively.

"City G has a survivor base, but it's not an official one. It was established by survivors, located in the mountains west of City G," Li Xuan said.

"Are we joining City G's survivor base?"

Li Xuan nodded then shook his head. "Temporarily joining. After getting what we want, we'll leave. We'll also search City G for supernatural characteristics suitable for me."

"City G is very far from Kunlun Mountain. You came out from Kunlun Mountain a couple days ago and didn't find what you wanted, right? Leaving like this—won't you miss out?" Yun Xiuzhi asked.

"My plan was wrong. Kunlun Mountain currently doesn't have what I'm looking for. When the timing is right, we'll return to Kunlun Mountain."

Li Xuan's original plan was to arrive at Kunlun Mountain early, find the ancient tree, and try to pick the fruit that could become a divine fruit ahead of time. If the ancient tree hadn't borne fruit yet, he would first locate it, then return just before the second version arrived to pick the divine fruit immediately.

But the depths of Kunlun Mountain had no ancient tree matching the conditions, causing his entire plan to fall apart.

If he hadn't obtained the hearing enhancement supernatural characteristic here, his trip to Kunlun Mountain would have been a complete waste of effort.

Going to City G wasn't a spur-of-the-moment idea either.

He had obtained a piece of intelligence yesterday.

[Twin Characteristics: Two months later, a mutated zombie golden eagle born with twin characteristics will attack the survivor base west of City G. Its first attack captures two people and infects eight; its second attack captures two and infects eleven. The ruler of City G survivor base sets up an ambush intending to capture the mutated zombie golden eagle and seize its supernatural characteristics, but unfortunately gets captured himself.]

[During the mutated zombie golden eagle's sixth attack on City G survivor base, a Hound Transformer bites off half its wing, limiting its flight capability. Ultimately, City G survivor base succeeds in killing the mutated zombie golden eagle at the cost of a hundred lives. The Hound Transformer gets infected with zombie virus and is killed by base survivors.]

[The mutated zombie golden eagle's supernatural characteristics are: Speed Enhancement and Wing Enhancement.]

[The ruler of City G survivor base is a Black Bear Transformer who has absorbed an External Skin Enhancement characteristic.]

Both of the mutated zombie golden eagle's characteristics were highly compatible with his giant beast transformation. The giant beast wasn't slow—that was relative to humans. Its massive size meant every step covered distance equivalent to humans running over a dozen steps, naturally making it seem not slow. But compared to flight-capable birds, the giant beast's speed wasn't fast.

The speed characteristic could somewhat compensate for the giant beast's speed deficiency, while wing enhancement could evolve the wings on the giant beast's back. Perhaps the giant beast might even gain the ability to fly because of this.

Yun Xiuzhi teased, "I thought you'd never admit your plan was wrong."

"Wrong is wrong. We're a team—no need to deceive you about such matters," Li Xuan said.

Huo Lingling ran out at this moment with a large travel backpack on her back. "I packed clothes and food, and I've prepared two more travel backpacks!"

Yun Xiuzhi looked at the two travel backpacks in the room filled with food and clothes. "You mean I have to carry one too? Look into my eyes and tell me if that's what you mean!"

The travel backpacks could fit a hundred Yun XiuZhis!

Huo Lingling scratched her head sheepishly. "My brain is slow—I didn't think about you not being able to carry it."

Li Xuan connected the two travel backpacks with rope, then transformed into the giant beast, securing the rope between his scales.

"Get on. We're leaving."

"Yay! Let's go!" Huo Lingling climbed enthusiastically onto the giant beast's head.

"Aren't you turning into a snake?" Yun Xiuzhi flew to Huo Lingling's side, stepping on the giant beast's scales.

"No, turning into a snake isn't fun—no hands."