Chapter 42: The Mutated Crystal Core

He pressed the button on the Flame Dagger's hilt. The red-hot glow vanished, but the blade still radiated a residual heat that made the air around it shimmer and distort.

After shaking the dagger a few times to cool it, he touched its tip to the bulging muscle on the zombie's shoulder. With a slight application of pressure from his wrist, the sharp point slowly pushed down...

"Huh?"

Chen Yuan felt a sudden resistance from his wrist and paused, surprised. He watched as the point of contact and the surrounding skin dimpled under the pressure, but the skin itself refused to break. He couldn't help but frown.

He knew how sharp the Flame Dagger was; it could normally cut through flesh like tofu. But the zombie's skin, which looked as thin as paper, possessed such incredible toughness. This skin had definitely mutated. It only looked thin. In other words, its defensive properties were remarkably similar to his own thermostatic suit.

Chen Yuan steadied himself, then gradually increased the force on his wrist.

After sinking in to a certain degree, the zombie's skin was finally pierced.

Sssss... Splurt...

A dark green blood oozed from the wound. A fishy, foul stench instantly assaulted his nostrils, making him gag. He adjusted the mask on his face, then forcefully carved out the muscle on the shoulder.

He could clearly see the muscle fibers, the thick fascia, and the coarse, blackened bone underneath. He tapped the bone with his knife, producing a dull thudding sound. Chen Yuan secretly shook his head. The physical structure of this advanced zombie had completely mutated. Not only had its strength skyrocketed, but even its bones had been reinforced. His point-blank plasma shot earlier hadn't been able to blast through it, a testament to its incredible hardness.

According to Lan Ya, only one in a hundred ordinary zombies had the potential to become an advanced one. This was why, even with over ten thousand zombies in all of Jiangcheng, there were only a few hundred advanced ones. But after experiencing it firsthand today, he realized that these few hundred zombies were absolutely capable of breaking through a shelter.

"This is big trouble..."

Chen Yuan shook his head helplessly. He had originally thought he had made sufficient preparations, but now it seemed he was far, far from ready.

He bent down to pick up his plasma cannon from the ground, then tied the tow rope to Tieniu. The other end of the rope... hmm, he tied it to the advanced zombie's ankle. He couldn't be bothered to study the ordinary zombies, but this advanced one was definitely worth researching. It was already as dead as it could be, so this was just a form of recycling.

The corpse was dragged across the frozen, snowy ground, leaving a corroded trail in its wake. Stepping over the scattered body parts on the ground, Chen Yuan's eyes gradually grew firm. In this man-eat-man world, the only thing he could do was to constantly grow stronger.

After a great deal of effort, he finally managed to get his spoils of war inside the tent. The trees he had chopped down had already been processed into logs and stacked neatly in a corner. The corpse of the advanced zombie was tossed into another corner.

Chen Yuan stood beside it and issued a command to Tiedan. "Dissect the body. See what's inside."

「Roger.」

Tiedan extended its offensive mechanical arm, and its sharp conical drill began to bore into the corpse's chest. The drill spun at high speed. When it touched the black bone, the friction-generated heat cauterized the blood and sent up wisps of a scorched, acrid smell.

Chen Yuan waited patiently on the side. He wanted to see just what it was that Lan Ya had been searching for with such effort.

Time ticked by. When the entire corpse had been split in two...

"What is this?"

Chen Yuan signaled for Tiedan to stop, his gaze fixed on the depths of the zombie's abdomen. There, a dark green crystal, about the size of his palm, appeared before his eyes. The crystal was shaped like a diamond, pointed at both ends and about as thick as a sausage.

Wearing the gloves of his thermostatic suit, Chen Yuan picked up the crystal. It was slightly heavy in his hand. When held up to the light, he could see some kind of liquid substance swirling inside.

He didn't know what it was and didn't dare to rashly break it open. Instead, he held it up in front of Tiedan and said, "Scan this. What is it?"

「Report, Master. Scan results: Mutated Crystal Core.」

Hearing this unfamiliar term, Chen Yuan's brow furrowed slightly. He continued to ask, "What is it used for?"

「The genetic material within the crystal core can be extracted and used to modify human genes.」

"Modify... genes?"

Chen Yuan stared at the small object in his hand, an expression of utter disbelief on his face. He had heard of gene modification; it was a process that used a genetic map to alter human DNA to prevent hereditary diseases. But this thing could do that?

Have to try it, have to try it.

He took the mutated crystal core and hurried over to the store. His fingers flew across the screen. However, even after scrolling through the entire thick volume of blueprints, he couldn't find any related applications.

Just as he was wondering, his eyes unconsciously glanced at the upper right corner of the screen. The small words 「Apocalypse Store 2.0」 lay there quietly.

If 2.0 doesn't have it... does 3.0?

The moment the thought popped into his head, a sense of anticipation grew within him. The last upgrade had added the Blueprints and Upgrades functions. If he upgraded it again, would it gain the ability to process mutated crystal cores?

His finger tapped the version management tab, and he saw the list of materials required to upgrade to Apocalypse Store 3.0. Looking at the long list of materials, the corner of his mouth couldn't help but twitch.

「Tungsten 0.5kg, Gold 0.5kg, Silver 0.5kg...」

In addition to these precious metals, it also required special plastics, a super server, marble, and jadeite.

Chen Yuan scratched his head. The rest I can sort of understand, but what do you need marble for?! And jadeite?! What are you planning to do?! Huh?!

He gritted his teeth, hard, and turned his gaze to the feature description for the upgrade.

「Apocalypse Store 3.0: Features a complete upgrade system. Allows for pre-loading of materials to shorten upgrade times.」 「Provides material identification, decomposition, and extraction functions.」 「Adds new producible item blueprints.」

The three short descriptions left him a bit dazed. But after a moment's thought, it seemed these functions were actually quite practical. In any case, this apocalypse wasn't going to be over in a day or two. The sooner he upgraded, the sooner he could enjoy the benefits.

Gold and silver... he knew where to find those.

Special plastics... Chen Yuan covered his face. That stuff was usually used as an insulating layer for electrical cables. In other words, he had to go dig up cables. That's a pretty criminal shopping list...

As for the super server, there was a cloud computing company in Jiangcheng. According to news reports from his memory, they had buried servers at the bottom of the river, using the flowing water for cooling. It had caused a huge sensation at the time and had put Jiangcheng on the map as a southern computing hub. But now, the entire river was frozen solid. Digging out a server would be incredibly difficult.

On the other hand, marble and jadeite were relatively simple. He just had to recall for a moment to know that there was a large jewelry store on the first floor of the Xingyao Shopping Mall.

As for tungsten, a material with super-high hardness, he had some on hand from the materials research institute. But the quantity wasn't enough. It looked like he would have to make a trip to the mines outside the city.

The materials needed for the upgrade weren't numerous, but they were all pretty "criminal" to acquire.

But what could he do? The atmosphere had been hyped up to this point; how could he give up now?

Gritting his teeth, Chen Yuan decided to start taking action the very next day.