Chapter 16: Rice Grain

A group of nine people silently hurried on the road; Wei Dalei and several male students took turns pushing the flatbed cart, squeaking as they went ahead; the girls were in the middle; while Chen Mu, Tang Jing, and Dong Junwei walked at the rear.

Since the doorway was where Gu Ping had met his misfortune, when passing, everyone deliberately took the other side, and, being extremely nervous, kept looking around.

Dong Junwei frowned all the way; obviously, she was losing confidence in the road ahead for survival.

We had thought that reaching this storage room would at least offer some safety, but who knew it would still be precarious.

"Should we change locations?" Chen Mu understood Dong Junwei's thought.

"At this point, where is absolutely safe? At least the storage room itself is fairly clean, with no spiders or centipedes; that thing that just killed Gu Ping must have crawled out of the grass." Tang Jing analyzed.

"But we can't keep going like this." Dong Junwei sighed.

Tang Jing said: "Actually I have some ideas, but I haven't had time to implement them before Gu Ping met with misfortune; it's also my fault for not thinking things through."

Tang Jing, who held the position of military advisor, also felt somewhat responsible.

"What ideas?" Dong Junwei asked hurriedly.

Tang Jing didn't answer directly, turning to ask: "Chen Mu, is your ability related to the weight of objects?"

Chen Mu nodded: "Indeed, it can also be said to be about density; for example, controlling plastic is far easier than metal."

"Besides that?"

"Precision and speed of change." Chen Mu answered.

"Speed?" Dong Junwei didn't understand.

"For example, like this."

Chen Mu took out the weapon in his hand and, in an instant, changed it from an iron ring into an iron rod, but the process seemed as if the iron mass were first melted and then slowly shaped into a rod.

"If it were plastic or wood, the speed of change would be much faster, but metal and stone require more effort."

Staples are 99% iron, with a surface coating of nickel to prevent rust.

The density of iron is moderate among common metals, less than that of gold and silver but greater than that of aluminum and tin.

Tang Jing said: "In other words, the greater the density of an object, the finer the control required, and the slower your speed of change."

"That's right."

"That also makes sense." Tang Jing nodded and then said: "May I touch this iron rod?"

Chen Mu didn't understand what she wanted to do, but he still handed her the weapon.

For Tang Jing, this iron rod transformed from a staple was somewhat heavy; she had to grip it with both hands to hold it.

It felt cold to the touch.

Just as she had imagined.

Tang Jing returned the iron rod and said: "It didn't heat up."

"Hmm." Chen Mu had obviously considered this question as well.

Tang Jing said: "When metal is bent and shaped, it usually generates some heat, but your piece underwent such a huge transformation without any heat, indicating that this is not a physical-level change."

"What does that indicate?" Dong Junwei didn't understand.

"Just as Chen Mu just summarized, special abilities on one hand follow some rule, but on the other hand they conflict with the physics we learned."

"Therefore I boldly hypothesize that everyone's ability only needs to be internally logically consistent, without having to conform to existing common sense."

"But what use is knowing this?" Chen Mu asked.

"Of course it's useful; the physics and chemistry that industrial civilization relies on are precisely a series of rules summed up through constant exploration and verification by generations of people, and if special abilities also have their own fixed logic, then sooner or later we can fully master them and make the most of them."

Tang Jing said this, paused slightly, then added: "Chen Mu, do you still remember what I told you this morning? The future of humanity may well be technological development based on special abilities."

Chen Mu: "You mean..."

Dong Junwei glanced at the two of them and said: "Tang Jing's meaning is that we should more systematically understand the existing special abilities."

Tang Jing nodded: "The class monitor is right."

Dong Junwei sighed: "It's a pity that so few people have awakened."

Of the nine people remaining, only four have awakened special abilities.

Chen Mu's ability to change the shape of objects;

Wei Dalei's strength enhancement;

Zhao Xiao Yan's enhanced sense of smell;

Zhu Hao's unicorn.

Among them, Zhu Hao still doesn't know what this ability is good for; sometimes he also uses his horn to butt walls, but aside from being extremely hard, the horn seems to have no special function.

This leaves Zhu Hao currently bearing the title of a special ability user in name only, ultimately good for nothing.

Tang Jing also sighed: "Yes, the data sample is too small to conduct analysis; currently, only Chen Mu's ability still has some research value."

Chen Mu felt a bit creeped out by what she said.

Tang Xueba has recently been paying him extra attention, probably because she has set her sights on his ability and constantly wants to study it.

If you gave her a lab, she might end up dissecting Chen Mu.

Chen Mu felt a bit embarrassed and said: "Shouldn't we first get through this immediate difficulty? Honestly, a mishap like Gu Ping's could happen to any of us."

Perhaps because Chen Mu brought up bad memories, Tang Jing and Dong Junwei didn't continue the topic of special abilities.

The group moved forward quickly; everyone was obviously uneasy about hiking in the wilderness and wanted to reach the destination as soon as possible.

The independent storage rooms around the cafeteria are connected by cement roads, but perhaps because they know no outsiders will come here, the road quality is poor, often developing cracks; with today's human builds, falling in wouldn't be a problem, but a moment's carelessness could trap a foot.

Fortunately, Chen Mu and the others had walked this route before, and now it's daytime, so nothing went wrong along the way.

Soon they reached the storage room where they had previously gotten water.

Yesterday's water on the ground has long since dried up, leaving no trace.

Nobody dared to delay; they immediately got to work.

Chen Mu changed the iron rod in his hand once more into a spear, handed it to Wei Dalei and said: "Old Wei, go puncture the rice sack, but don't make the opening too big, or you might bury yourself."

In fact, Chen Mu's worry was completely unnecessary.

Because the size of that spear was simply insufficient to cause much damage to the rice bag.

Although Wei Dalei was strong, he only managed to make a hole after stabbing several times in a row, and two grains of rice popped out.

After stabbing a few more times, more and more rice began to be squeezed out.

"That's enough, these are already enough."

Now, a single grain of rice looked to everyone like a big winter melon; as more and more grains fell, everyone worried whether the cold-iron flatbed cart could bear the weight.