Chapter 110: The Meaning of the Safe Zone

Without zombies blocking them, the group moved extremely fast.

Holy crap! So much food! We got rich!

Here there are bagged roasted chicken and pizza!

Inside the second-floor mall, with Lin An leading, the group even excitedly scrambled around on shopping carts.

Ah~

Big pack of beef shank!

Pig's head meat!

Instant sliced duck!

Seven or eight tall, sturdy students placed one foot on the shopping cart pedal, the other foot pushing the ground hard like pedaling a skateboard.

Swish~

Like a slide, several people shuttled back and forth between the shelves, continuously throwing food from the shelves into the cart.

Haha, following Lord Lin An out is really awesome!

A buzz-cut male student, face full of excitement, piled up a small mountain in the shopping cart in just a few minutes.

Yeah, with an adult holding the line, we don't need to worry about zombies at all!

Damn, going out for supplies with those Awakened Ones before was like letting the devil into the village!

Sneak in, no shooting.

Several people laughed and joked a few sentences; under Lin An's powerful mental detection, they were completely unafraid of possible ambush by residual zombies trapped somewhere.

Gao Tian watched the lively atmosphere of his classmates, and his originally low mood these past days also seemed to be lifted.

On the other side, the more steady students kept moving bag after bag of rice without stopping; only occasionally glancing at the frolicking few, they couldn't help but show a hint of a smile.

Lin An shuttled through the drinking water area, the white light in his hand flashing continuously; each flash stored hundreds of barrels of mineral water.

Hearing the laughter and chatter around him, he also relaxed quite a bit.

Although they are all adults, after all they are still a group of students, possessing childlike minds.

Lin An laughed and shook his head, leaving them to it.

After all, everyone was just overly excited seeing so much food, and they didn't slack off or waste time.

He glanced at the storage space inside his ring; there was about 60 cubic meters left.

Two licker corpses, half a suturer corpse, occupying a corner.

Barrels of water and a small amount of emergency military compressed biscuits were piled in a corner; the rest were spare combat uniforms and various mutant materials.

The ring's space is huge; when empty it's close to 70 cubic meters, and if used entirely to store food it could hold about 90 tons.

In terms of the base's food consumption, that could sustain about three thousand people for roughly three months.

Brother Lin, why are you storing so much water?

There's a small stream behind the academy's hill; we usually get our water there.

Gao Tian curiously ran up to Lin An; the food planned for loading on the second floor is already about enough, next we just need to go to the third floor to get small-volume, high-calorie food.

Compared to before when he feared Lin An, now he also discovered that Lin An is not the type who likes to kill at the slightest disagreement, as rumored.

Quite the opposite, Lin An gives him the feeling of an older brother who encourages him, making people feel trusting and at ease.

After finishing collecting the last barrels of water, Lin An walked toward the pile of rice the others had stacked, saying as he went:

I know there's water behind the hill, but the water resources there will soon become unusable.

First, the stream itself has a small flow, only being larger in spring and autumn; its source is likely a branch somewhere near the river.

Second, the water that exists in nature now is no longer suitable for drinking; haven't you noticed that drinking a lot of it makes you feel fatigued?

Gao Tian froze, suddenly recalling that when someone at the academy was hungry they would drink water to fill their stomach, and the next day the whole person looked like they hadn't slept for ten days straight, their face deathly pale.

After thinking of this, he hurriedly asked:

Could the water be problematic!!

He was a little afraid.

A person can survive without food for a week or even ten days.

But a person without water..

Three days! Three days and organ failure sets in, leading to death.

Without water, the recorded upper limit is only seven days before death.

If the water resources in nature run into trouble, Gao Tian can't imagine how we'll survive going forward.

Lin An saw his terrified expression and let out a light sigh.

It's not that the water has a problem, but the whole environment. The world we live in has already been contaminated and eroded by spiritual energy.

Accordingly, whether it's water, animals, plants, or crops—anything exposed to the air will be eroded by spiritual energy.

Once too much of this contaminating spiritual energy is ingested, an ordinary person's body cannot bear it. Not only will it heavily consume their own vitality, but continuous consumption will lead to death from vitality exhaustion.

Gao Tian, hearing this, stood stunned on the ground—anything exposed to the air would be contaminated...

That doesn't mean that after eating these packaged foods, all of humanity will go extinct, does it?!

Now there's still plenty of preserved food, but that's only because the apocalypse just broke out.

He dare not imagine what to do when, in half a year, a year, these foods are all eaten up or even expired.

Grain can't be eaten, animals will mutate, plant fruits will be contaminated, water can't be drunk...

He felt somewhat hopeless.

The enemy has tens of billions of zombies and mutants, the environment will deteriorate with meteorological disasters, and now even food has become a problem.

Could humanity really be headed for extinction?

Seeing his fear, Lin An lightly patted his shoulder.

It's not completely without a solution.

As long as we find spiritual-energy plants later, we can artificially cultivate spiritual-energy food. These special foods not only do not harm the body, but also slowly improve physical fitness.

However, the cultivation cycle for spiritual-energy food is not short, and it also requires a spiritual-energy core as nourishment.

Once planted, it requires a long wait.

Therefore, we need to establish a Safe Zone.

Lin An looked out the window; the flashing lightning illuminated his eyes, and the violent rain striking the window was like tiny pebbles.

Only by holding onto the land beneath our feet, holding onto our piece of pure land.

Only then does our future have hope.

Gao Tian nodded heavily, but he didn't notice that Lin An's eyes were somewhat desolate.

Actually, there is still a sentence he hasn't spoken in his heart...

Only by relying on the Safe Zone can we establish the final refuge...

Humans.

Only then is there hope.

That is a responsibility Lin An has always been unwilling to bear...

That is a path of salvation filled with thorns, bloodshed, and death.