With more animals nearby looking for water to drink, Luo Xun and the others found it difficult to go out. Fortunately, they did not have to, they had just searched the nearby mutant farmland and were not planning to go to the city base until early August. Naturally, they could leisurely spend their time at home planting fields, playing games and raising the children.
The group of people with free time brought back the last batch of crystals and rested for the night. After they returned to the warehouse where the colorful crystals were left in a pile and were summarily sorted.
Everyone on the Otaku squad helped with this project. There were too many cores, who knew how long it would take to finish.
Don"t look at the first two days when everyone was quickly collecting cores, they were only shoveling the items into a bag, it was similar to panning for gold.
During the screening, each person had one large and several smaller bags with cores inside. They needed to distinguish the cores as soon as possible along with separating other common cores out. The remaining ones with unclear properties would be set aside to be identified later.
The workload was not small. In order to avoid distraction and wrongly sort the cores, Luo Xun set up a work schedule after the first day.
Every day after getting up early, they would go look after the crops and sort crystal cores before lunch.
After a lunch break, they would spend three hours in the afternoon with the crystal cores. Then they could go to the game room and play or other things they wanted to do.
With this way being busy every day, Luo Xun and the team still had not finished after half a month. This made everyone"s heart happy but their hands sore.
However, during this half month, Luo Xun did not only do this. His and Yan Fei"s room had been arranged with furniture and clearly divided cabinets for the rooms.
They placed their king size bed inside with a table, wardrobe and other things. There was also their previous cabinet and one newly made with metal.
Outside the room, there was a large television hanging on the wall, shelves for game consoles, desks for the baby, bookshelves and a new carpet on the floor.
That piece of carpet was handmade by Luo Xun using the raw material that everyone had no ideas to use – leather.
After the start of the apocalypse, Luo Xun had encountered several mutant animals. It was a headache, the birds were good because their feathers could be used for clothing or bedding but the animal fur was not as easy to use.
Until now, although Luo Xun had saved those skins. They were left in the corner to gather dust after being washed and dried. If they were not adding things for the baby, he would not have thought of those skins.
Their home had a large piece of sheepskin and rabbitskin. After mutation, their hair had become rough and hard with incomparable thickness.
If one made clothes out of the fur, they were afraid that walking would be impossible.
Luo Xun thought again and again and decided to take a piece of rabbit skin, nail a thin sponge and layer of solid canvas to wash into a carpet.
This thing was much thicker than a normal carpet. It would keep the ground warm and give anti-fall measures which would be perfect for the baby.
As for the wool and rabbit hair, it could be woven into thread…but the team had no need for these things for the time being. Plus they did not have or know how to use a spinning machine.
Such a carpet was also placed in Xu Mei and Song Lingling"s room and prepared for the children.
This morning, they washed and neatly dressed their baby. Luo Xun held him in front of the window while checking the roof to make sure there were no stray animals. Although they had painted their roof with a layer of camouflage to deceive eyes sometimes their roof was too alike a mutant plant.
A few days, a silly bird fell on their roofs and curiously examined the leaf-like metal on the roof.
Fortunately, they found out in time, after it left a few bird droppings it was caught and graced their table.
At this time, white clouds were floating in the sky and the pond reflected the sunrise. Birds were leisurely floating in the water while animals occasionally approached the sh.o.r.e to drink water.
Luo Xun looked at the scene, the area was full of wanton growth with mature rice plants, along with the pond and animals, the scenery was heaven-like.
In the distance, the water birds also stuck their heads underwater from time to time…
Luo Xun suddenly turned around to Yan Fei, "Dear, are we not being silly?"
Yan Fei started and wondered where he was coming from.
Luo Xun pointed out the window, "Why are those birds here?"
"Because of the water?" Yan Fei was still puzzled, there were other animals around not just the water birds.
Luo Xun shook his head. "Just because there is water, they will come to make a family?" Mutant animals big and small were in the area. A few days ago when Luo Xun went to dig out cores, they found more than one nest with babies inside!
Were the baby cubs just that small? Or would they grow after mutation? Luo Xun was not sure and dared not speculate.
Yan Fei did not understand Luo Xun"s meaning but looked at him with raised eyebrows asking for an explanation.
Luo Xun pointed outwards with a slightly proud smile, "Birds cannot survive only on water. They have gathered at the edge of the pond and have never left…"
He had not finished when Yan Fei also came to a conclusion. "You mean to say, there are fish in the water?"
Luo Xun fiercely nodded.
In regards to the original farmland, how could there be fish just after some rain? And why hadn"t the fish mutated into zombies? Both of these questions were unanswered at the moment.
More because Luo Xun had not approached the pond so it was not certain that there were fish, the idea was just a guess.
The couple took their baby downstairs and went to the kitchen for a meal. The dining hall was basically only used in the morning. Everyone spent lunch in the bas.e.m.e.nt and the evening would gather in the games room.
When they arrived at the first floor, Luo Xun had not time to speak with everyone about his hypothesis when Li Tie and several others had eager faces while holding their laptops. They rushed over while waving.
"Luo Xun, last night or early this morning we received a new message!"
Luo Xun watched as Li Tie opened and organized the doc.u.ments from the server.
In the past city had joined other bases in visiting some mines. There was some news and follow up and now the military had arrived at the mining area and set up a small new base specifically for mining. It was said that the first batch of ore had been harvested and was being transported back.
The base seemed to have the intention of repairing the railway transport. But who knew whether the damage was serious after the apocalypse and whether there would be an accident with the trains.
What was most shocking was some experimental research and report on ability users.
The human body also contained a crystal core, those that saw the news would not help but get gooseb.u.mps.
Luo Xun and the team were shocked to see the news but they already had some hidden speculations about this.
There were zombies and mutant animals, why couldn"t humans have them? In particular, since ability users relied on cores to upgrade, they did not believe that humans were that different from other organisms.
It was just that guesses were just guesses. They chose to subconsciously ignore it until there was clear evidence.
In particular, Luo Xun had never heard of this matter during his past life. He was afraid that once the news spread out, things would become very chaotic. Materials and food could already spark conflict between neighbors. What would happen when cores were added to the equation?
Materials and food were a little different since they could only be judged by the outside, but crystal cores gave off energy that was not really measurable.
The group of people was shocked after reading these encrypted messages since there was other information about an in-depth study on crystal cores along with less important information.
"Leader…"
"Luo Xun…"
"Captain…"
The team looked at Luo Xun with helpless expressions which added pressure onto the leader"s back.
He took a deep breath, looked around and tried to keep his voice steady. "This…personally I do not think that the higher-ups will publicly publish this information because the impact of the announcement would be great and potentially cause a backlash."
The crowd nodded.
"So we don"t have to worry about it right now."
As soon as Luo Xun finished, Zhang Yi provokingly said, "I have a problem."
Luo Xun guessed that he would not be saying anything good. Sure enough, Zhang Yi spoke, "How did they find out that there is a crystal core in the brain of an ability user? Open brain surgery? Experimental lab rats?"
Sure enough, nothing good to say.