Return (3)

"How much blood do I have left before I die?" Arnold said in a small voice. He now felt nauseous, but there was nothing to throw up.

"You would enter Class IV hemorrhagic shock when you lose 2000mL of your blood, making it most certainly fatal. Your survival rate will drop to 0% when you lose 2500mL of blood."

Arnold sighed. Instead of holding on, he decided it would be better to sleep in order to recuperate his body.

"Andy, I'm going to go to sleep now. If any zombies or other dangerous organisms are coming, please wake me up and notify me immediately." Arnold informed.

"Acknowledged."

Arnold finally lost his consciousness after leaving everything, including his own safety, to Andy.

***************

When Arnold woke up again, he found that there was a bright sunlight shining into the house. However, it was not as bright as it was when he fell asleep.

"Andy, how long have I been asleep."

"You have been asleep for 18 hours. It is now 10:23am the next day." Andy replied succinctly.

"Have I survived?"

"Yes. The stem cells managed to completely heal your organs within your body. However, you are still suffering from anemia. Full recovery can be achieved in three days. Please consume enough nutrients these three days in order to fully recover."

Arnold nodded. He took two nutrition tablets from a packet and swallowed them with the help of some water. After taking a good rest, Arnold felt much better. However, there was still felt quite fatigued and dizzy. "Andy, can you please help me create the best cutivation technique suited for my body?"

Arnold originally wanted to wait until he went back to the base before starting to cultivate his body, since he was in a rush to get back and help his mother. Also, people with higher spiritual energy can sense the amount of spiritual energy another person had if their spiritual energy was less than the former. How could Arnold explain his sudden increase of spiritual energy to others?

Unfortunately, he now had no choice. Since a Level 4 zombie (the eagle)'s slight tear could already damage his internal organs, he needed something to protect himself. There was also not enough bullets left for his pistol. Finally, he still have not activated his esper powers yet.

Andy scanned Arnold's body and started deducing the best cultivation method by looking through the AI's massive archives. He started designing a cultivation technique best suited for him using these information.

After a whole hour, Andy finally managed to compile all the data.

"I have optimized a cultivation technique for you, Master."

Arnold nodded.

"Should I directly transfer the manual to your memory?"

"Sure."

Suddenly, Arnold felt a sharp pain in his brain, giving him a slight headache. Swarms of infomation invaded his brain, causing him to black out for a second. After contemplating everything he just received, Arnold sat down on the ground in a lotus position. He placed his hands on his knees and started a breathing technique as prescribed by the manual.

"Andy, alert me if there are any intruders." Arnold thought in his mind.

"Acknowledged."

Arnold could feel a swarm of energy entering through his nose and into his lungs. The spiritual energy continued downwards before being trapped in his navel -- the lower dantian. Arnold stood up with his eyes closed. He started moving his body. If one were to see him right now, they would see him performing hand and leg motions similar to that of tai'chi, or qigong. Each motion helped the spiritual energy within his dantian to move into his blood veins, completely revitalizing his whole body.

The spiritual energy that flowed through his veins produced heat that emnated through his body. Arnold started unconsciously sweating from his whole body. As his body was already in perfect shape and form since creation, there were no impurities to be expelled. Therefore, the only things that were expelled from his body was his sweat. There were no smelly black soot that was usually present in other novels or bodies.

After practicing for an hour, Arnold felt much stronger than before. He went over to a wall and punched it with his fist. The wall immediately crumbled to pieces. Arnold nodded with satisfaction. "With the increase in power, I could now at least fight against Level 4 zombies in level grounds." He thought.

Therefore, Arnold no longer had anything to be afraid of, since the area he was in did not contain any zombies higher than Level 4, according to the people back at the base.

It was still morning when Arnold left the dilapidated house, so the sun was still shining down on him. With the spiritual energy in his veins, he could now walk much faster than before. Although there was still a lack of blood in his body, so he still felt quite fatigued. Arnold went back to find the eagle's corpse, hoping to find its zombie core. However, the only thing he found was blood that was splattered all over the pavement and bits and pieces of raw meat scattered around. The zombie core was gone. "It must have been eaten by one of the zombies." Arnold thought.

With the loot that was supposed to belong to him gone, Arnold felt slightly disappointed. He decided to vent his disappointment at some of the level 5 zombies close by. Arnold wrapped spiritual energy around both his fists, a technique learned from the manual, and punched right at two zombies' faces at the same time. Their head completely bursted, with brain matter splattering around. Arnold took a huge step back to prevent the debris from falling on to him. The spiritual energy prevented his fists from getting dirty as well.

When the headless zombies fell to the ground, Arnold crouched in front of them. Taking out one of his fighting knives, he started digging around in their bodies to find their zombie cores. He found a core in one of the zombie's abdomen and the other in his chest. Then, after reinforcing his hand with spiritual energy, he grabbed the cores. Arnold pour some water on the cores to wash the guts from the zombies off of them and placed the cores in his backpack. Then, he continued walking back towards the base.

With his backpack full, there was no need to hunt for more zombie cores anymore. He simply needed to head home as quickly as possible. Arnold started jogging. He passed by many different terains -- through some grassland, a rather large park and another suburban area. When nighttime arrived, he decided to rest inside one of the houses within the suburban area. Arnold found that this house was much larger than the one before. However, the roof was completely torn away. The wooden floorboards were torn apart and one had to step on the terrain below. The stairs towards the second floor were broken off, and there were holes on the ceiling of the first floor, allowing the moonlight to come inside.

Before Arnold went to sleep, he decided to feed on one of the level 5 zombie cores. He placed the core on top of his belly button. The core was instantly sucked in. Spiritual energy pervaded his whole body again, increasing the amount by a whole volume. The spiritual energy from the zombie core had much higher quality than the ones naturally occuring in nature, giving Arnold a feeling of pleasure as he circulated the energy throughout his body.

After completely digesting the zombie core, he asked Andy to be on lookout for him and fell asleep.

The next day was quite important for Arnold. The terrain between his current position and the next suburban area was a vast plain without any shelter. Meaning he had to walk for 24 hours non-stop before he could take a rest, as going to sleep in the wild might cause the attraction of zombies. Also, if it started raining, there was nowhere for Arnold to hide. Therefore, he had to run as fast as possible to the other side.

Arnold woke up at 5am and immediately ate a nutrition bar. Then, he practiced a round of cultivation before heading off. He started running in a certain direction. He saw the sun rise from the mountains in the east. However, he did not have time to admire the scenery. He ran and ran. Whenever he started to become tired, he would suck on a zombie core, revitalizing himself again. This continued until nighttime finally arrived again.

It was fortunate that he had infrared imaging technology on his right eye, or else he would not be able to see anything. Nighttime was also a time that the zombies become more active. It seemed that the dark virus, the virus that caused the apocalypse, was more comfortable in a cooler environment. Arnold continued running forwards. Whenever a zombie was in his way, he would immediately detour, as he was afraid any sounds might attract other zombies.

It was at this time that he finally saw the first human being since leaving the laboratory. However, the person seemed to be in a dangerous position.