Natural Disasters Strikes: I stockpiled like crazy! - Chapter 132

Chapter 132: Mental Exploration
Aboveground, the wind howled like a beast with endless hunger, tearing through the buildings and walls of the military base as if trying to rip apart the last fragments of human resistance.

Heavy snow fell from the eternal night sky, blanketing the ground in a suffocating white shroud.

The soldiers inside the enclosed sentry towers felt something strange about this night’s winds.

Their intuitions were right as beyond what the naked eye can see, colorful strands like ribbons danced with the wind.

….

The fruit rested lightly in Nanzhi’s hand, its icy surface smooth and cold.

Delicate frosty web-like patterns over the skin, chill from the fruit seeped into her palm.

She brought it to her lips, her breath hitching slightly from the cold.

She took a careful bite.

The fruit cracked softly, releasing a cool sweetness that melted across her tongue.

Nanzhi didn’t expect it to be sweet.

It’s like eating plum sorbet mixed with big chunks of crushed ice.

The chill flowed down her throat like a slow stream of frozen water.

Just one fruit made her body shudder violently.

It’s like she had fallen inside a frozen lake!

So cold!

Nanzhi quickly placed stoves in her room and tossed coals inside before burning them.

The heat from the stoves dispersed a small amount of cold from her body.

Nanzhi’s teeth chattered as she endured until the cold was gone.

Then it happened—a faint flicker in her mind.

The red light in her Mind Palace jerked violently before jumping up and down, almost as if it was urging her to continue.

[You’ve increased +1 point of your mental power.]

[Mental Power: 150]

Ecstatic, Nanzhi devoured another one.

It was cold but no longer as cold as what she experienced a minute ago.

[You’ve increased +1 point…]

[Mental Power: 151]

[You’ve increased +1 point…]

[Mental Power: 152]

Midway, Nanzhi threw the blankets and stowed the burning stoves in personal inventory, letting her body adapt to the cold.

At last, after a harrowing 30 minutes, the eleven fruits were finally devoured.

Her mental power had increased to 161.

She gathered her mental power onto her palm, observing the changes.

Though it was subtle, she could feel the red strands had become much denser, and her control of the objects became smoother.

The one that had the biggest change is her Mind Palace.

Underneath where she is standing, she faintly sees a dead patch of yellow grass amidst the crack of what seems to be white tiles.

Lin Weihao’s previous words came to her mind.

‘You said before that your Mind Palace is a sketchy outline of pillars and structures.’

She looked around, but to her dismay, the surroundings were still as dark as ever.

Nanzhi was about to conclude it a day when her mind thought of something.

She closed her eyes and released her mental power outward.

Like a stone was thrown into a calm lake, it traveled like a rippling, broad wave in all directions.

This is the new skill she gained from figuring out the Wolf King’s location in the last moment of their battle.

She likes to call it mental exploration.

Her mental power dropped slowly as the wave of mental power spread.

[Mental Power: 161]

[…159]

[…154]

Nanzhi thought it would be a failure, but as her mental power spread to ten meters of range, it brushed onto a solid surface.

Her eyes snapped open.

She spun her attention in that direction.

Sending another wave, the same prickling sensation appeared in her mind.

Too bad when she ran and tried to touch it, her hand touched nothing.

The excitement in her heart cooled down, replaced by a deep thought.

Her knowledge of the Mind Palace is very lacking, and Lin Weihao was not around for her to ask.

Pondering deeply, she raised her hand to give another try.

But this time, instead of touching it directly, she carefully and patiently directed her remaining mental power to cover her whole hand.

Right now, her mental exploration skill can only detect, but it lacks the ability to clearly discern.

Almost instantly, she felt a cold and hard surface, texture similar to a stone.

Her palm brushed across the surface, trying to feel what it was.

She felt something like engravings, like one would find in a landmark’s signage or on a gravestone.

What exactly is this place?

What exactly is her Mind Palace?

The system fell silent, not giving her any hint.

Unable to guess, she continued, feeling every corner of this ‘stone.’

The unknown engravings occupied almost the entire surface.

Additionally, she found out, there was not only a single slab but eight more.

They formed a circle.

After half an hour, the sensation under her palms disappeared, and her brain was throbbing.

Her mental power had depleted.

The mental exploration is overpowered yet its consumption was high.

Nanzhi had to stop and recover mental energy.

When she recovered it, she inspected it again until the time in her Game Lobby dwindled to an hour and half.

Nanzhi reluctantly stopped and entered the daily dungeon.

Unlike the last time, the white chicken had become fatter.

When it saw Nanzhi, it frighteningly stood up, revealing the ten eggs underneath its body.

“Good.”

The kernels didn’t go in vain.

She praised it, ruffling its white feather before filling its bowl again with corn kernels.

The chicken trembled under her touch and dared not to move lest it become a soup or a drumstick.

Whatever those are…

Nanzhi picked up one egg, inspected it, and was startled by its large size.

It’s twice the size of her fist.

She withdrew an egg from her inventory and compared it side by side.

The size difference is four times.

Her eyes inadvertently landed on its back.

How did it manage to push this big egg out?

Did the kernels have some effects similar to growth hormones on animals?

Or are animals in this place just built differently?

The system stayed quiet and didn’t answer her questions.

She spent twenty minutes building three chicken coops based on what she saw in the book and tossed another layer of dried hay inside each of them.

Afterwards, she took out the buckets of snow and placed them on the edge of the safe zone to let it melt.

She was planning to use the melted water to clean the mud off the thick winter fabrics she obtained from the textile warehouse.