Bringing the Supermarket to the Apocalypse Chapter 4

Chapter 4:  White Crystals

“There’s actually a fighting strength ranking?”

Seeing the sentence prompt on the apocalypse watch, Lin Feng smacked his lips in disapproval. He didn’t think that this super-computer’s capabilities were this comprehensive, almost as if it was an online game. Of course, the difference between reality and game was that there was no resurrection, and more so was that it wasn’t possible to delete yourself and start fresh.

Lin Feng chose the confirm option, as he wanted to see how the so-called fighting strength ranking came about.

“Display real name or not?”

Another prompt appeared on the apocalypse watch.

Lin Feng chose not to use his real name, instead he chose to be anonymous. Lin Feng just came to this world, so he didn’t want to cause any problems for himself.

The apocalypse watch gave out flashes of light, and a ranking appeared on the screen.

It was something similar to a ranking table, and displayed on it were names and fighting strengths. Written at the top was Tianqi city, which meant that this ranking was only for one city.

Lin Feng saw a rank with his name, and behind it was someone anonymous. His rank was in the 50,000s.

Why would there be a ranking system? Dong Wu didn’t know either. He only knew that, upon entering the apocalypse, the apocalypse watch had this ranking after it was updated. After training his fighting strength for three years, his fighting strength that used to be the same as ordinary people with a value of 60, had now become 120. In the Tianqi city fighting strength ranking, his rank was in the 150,000s.

The strange thing was that at the end of every month, a white crystal would appear in the storage space of Dong Wu’s apocalypse watch. Dong Wu didn’t know where the white crystal came from, only that every month was like this. He was already accustomed to this.

Lin Feng withdrew his gaze from the apocalypse watch, and directed it at the base in front of him.

A stone wall that was more than three metres tall was covered in sharp metal spikes. The spikes seemed to cover the wall all the way to the top. On the top of the spiked wall, were guards. Each guard was stationed about 50 metres apart from one another and were armed with guns. The main entrance to the base was a door made of worn-down iron, which only opened a small gap just for people to enter and leave. Beside the entrance, were two watchtowers. Lin Feng couldn’t see if there was anyone inside the watchtowers, but guessed there would be someone there to guard as well.

The car was not permitted to enter the base. As a result, Lin Feng had the off-road vehicle stopped at the designated parking lot outside the base. The parking space didn’t require a fee, however, the owner is responsible for whatever damages occur to their vehicle.

Under the guidance of Dong Wu, they arrived at the registration office outside the entrance of the base. After paying one white crystal, Lin Feng received this month’s entrance permit for the base.

One white crystal was needed each month. From this, it seems that except for the one white crystal in Dong Wu’s apocalypse watch that is used for residence, the rest that he required in order to live was from coming out to hunt zombies. It was evident that life was hard.

The limit for taking out things from the supermarket had been reached. Not taking into account the base cost, Lin Feng only possessed two white crystals.

The value of one white crystal, with respect to food, was equivalent to one dollar in Lin Feng’s world. Considering that one pound of rice, in Lin Feng’s world, one pound of rice was about three dollars, and in this world, a pound of rice could be exchanged for three white crystals.

However, from another standpoint, it would be worth a lot of money. Especially when living in a apocalyptic world like these people. It’s not like killing someone over a bit of white crystals hasn’t happened before.

The original plan was to stay in a hotel for one crystal a day. However, Lin Feng soon gave up on this idea, and instead came with Dong Wu to where he used to stay.

The inside of the base was similar to slums because of the tents of all sizes which constituted as the living area. It was very much similar to that of an ordinary slum. The advantage was that it was free, only requiring that one have the entry permit in order to stay there.

The main living area was near the middle of the base. There were hotels and hostels, and even restaurants and recreational areas. There were also common people, ordinary salary workers, as well as some people who looked like doctors waiting to earn some salary in order to live in this apocalyptic world.

The centermost place of the base was the core area, and the subordinates of the head, Zhang Lang, also stayed there. In addition, there were also some cultivators. These cultivators were responsible for taking care of powerful zombies in crucial moments, and, as such, their status was priceless.

The place Dong Wu lived was in the outermost area of the base. In the past, he and Lao Li stayed here together, even eating was a problem, and they didn’t have money to stay in the base’s living area.

Now that Lao Li was unfortunately turned into a zombie, there was even more space for Lin Feng to stay.

The reason why Lin Feng didn’t stay in the living area is because he just recently came to this apocalyptic world, and didn’t understand anything with regards to any affair. Although Lin Feng had a supermarket, it was better left unmentioned.

The tent Dong Wu stayed in in the outermost of the base was both big and small. It more than a dozen square metres.

While Dong Wu guided Lin Feng to his tent, he shook hands and chatted with the neighbours along the way. Lin Feng saw that these neighbours are basically the old, weak, and the sick. They practically had no fighting strength. The complexion of these people were wax yellow, and it was evident that it was because of a lack of nutrition over a long period of time.

What was most important, wasn’t that the complexion of these people was bad, but their expression. On the way, Lin Feng saw that their eyes looked empty, evidently due to losing the hope of living after a long period of time. Having no hope with regards to living, makes the future of the newer generation hazy.

Entering the tent, Lin Feng saw two very simple wooden beds and living appliances. The quilt was not thick, however, in this apocalyptic world, having shelter was hard enough.

Now that it was evening, the over-fatigued Dong Wu went to bed quite early. Entering the apocalyptic world for the first day, Lin Feng laid on the bed and sleeplessly tossed and turned about, before taking out the apocalypse watch to examine it.

Besides the previously mentioned functions, Lin Feng realised the apocalypse watch also had a forum, and in it were the comments of many people. Lin Feng saw posts that were about killing zombies. There were also some about the characteristics of zombies. This knowledge made Lin Feng, who recently entered this world, very excited as he slowly read the information.

The ordinary zombies in this world had no intelligence, and only relies on the desire for food in order to attack people. However, zombies of higher class used intelligence. For example, a class one zombie is not that easy to deal with as a class one zombie’s fighting strength is equivalent to that of the difficulty of dealing with five ordinary zombies.

The class two zombie is even harder to deal with. Once a class two zombie appears on the perimeters of the base, it will draw out the defenders of the base to go and kill it. Only the cultivators in the base are able to deal with those powerful zombies. With regards to ordinary people, those who should be afraid are the dozens who are part of combat teams, and who may not be enough to deal with a class two zombie.

For more fearsome zombies, written accounts on the forum were rare. Those cultivators who had genuine strength won’t senselessly read these posts, let alone be active in the forum. Normally, the readers were ordinary, low-level people. Therefore, besides understanding simple knowledge, Lin Feng didn’t acquire much valuable information from this forum.

Lin Feng saw that beyond Tianqi city’s fighting strength ranking, there were even rankings for the entire country and even the entire world. Only, Lin Feng’s current fighting strength is too low, and based on the apocalypse watch’s calculation, he was only a level 1 cultivator. His ranking was in the 50,000s, and he didn’t have the authority to see what rank he was in the country and in the world.

How this ranking was specifically calculated, Lin Feng didn’t know. However, it could be learned from Dong Wu. It is not only the cultivator status that allows one to enter the rankings. For example, Dong Wu, isn’t a cultivator, yet he still managed to attain a rank in the 150,000 range.

Lin Feng couldn’t see too much of the higher ranks, and could only see the past few hundred rankings. Most of these people used their real names, and there were also some who were anonymous. Presumably, this ranking is a way to signify status, so as the ranking increases, so does status.

Why would there be this ranking? And why did a white crystal appear every month in Dong Wu’s apocalypse watch? Lin Feng felt that perhaps white crystals had something to do with the apocalypse watch’s fighting strength ranking. Or perhaps there some unknown secrets in it. Lin Feng sighed, this world was simply getting increasingly mysterious.

Finished with looking at the apocalypse watch, Lin Feng thought to go to the supermarket. Although the chances for today were completely used up, Lin Feng still wanted to see how the inside of the supermarket actually was. Although it was said previously that he was this supermarket’s supplier, Lin Feng has not actually entered the supermarket to take a good look inside of it.

The supermarket was a large chain supermarket. It was filled with a large variety of items: food, goods, clothing, shoes, and many electrical appliances with everything readily available. There were not only these. What Lin Feng was more concerned about, was whether the warehouse was brought along with Lin Feng.

After all, it was a supermarket. It was impossible to have all the goods on the shelves. Lin Feng remembered that this supermarket had a warehouse that was larger than the supermarket itself. When Lin Feng was stocking up, he went inside once, and there were too many goods inside to count. There was a very large amount. Lin Feng remembered that, in his own world, there was a certain country with a nuclear plant that leaked. This led to people panicking, and it was said that salt was able to prevent radiation, so many people flocked to buy salt.

At that time, this supermarket sent out news stating that members of the public should not panic. The salt in the supermarket warehouse was enough for the whole city for one entire year. There were several dozen pounds.

Only goods like salt that was not selling well had a large stock. Other permanently-ready products like consumer goods, well you can imagine the remaining quantity.

Sure enough, Lin Feng came to the warehouse as he thought of that, and upon opening the door of the warehouse, Lin Feng was shocked by the huge amount of goods inside.

The laid out rice, oil, salt and other living supplies almost reached the ceiling; the many different goods that were stockpiled were too much to count.

After this daytime experiment, Lin Feng knew that time in the supermarket was still. In other words, the expiration date of things in there didn’t matter. If this is the case, then Lin Feng doesn’t need to worry about the problem of food expiring.

Deciding in his mind, Lin Feng returned back to reality.

Lin Feng took out the crystals from the exchanged rice, and carefully examined them.

The white crystal is formed from the head of a class one zombie, however, it was not dirty. On the contrary, it was still quite sparkling and translucent.

The reason why they were called white crystals was because this fingernail-sized crystal contained some kind of white mist. Upon careful inspection, Lin Feng realised that this white mist was flowing slowly.

From what Dong Wu said, the crystals that come from these zombies’ head contained some kind of energy, which could upgrade cultivators, and could also be used as power. Specifically how this was done, Dong Wu wasn’t sure, however, Dong Wu knew there was a weapon that could use these crystals and discharge their energy. But since crystals were hard to come by, using a weapon that discharges energy from crystals would greatly deplete the resource. It was not something ordinary people like Dong Wu would have high hopes for.

Looking at the white crystals in his hand, Lin Feng carefully examined it.

It was at this moment, that a vision occurred.

Chapter end