October 20th, the twelfth day after the end of the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays, was also the first day of Zhang Yanhang’s return to the Main World. At midnight, in the living room of Apartment 702, Building 6, Unit 3, East River District.
As Zhang Yanhang made his choice, the Time Pause Skill instantly disappeared. Simultaneously, a darkness overcame his vision, which then deepened, and it just kept getting darker.
"This familiar feeling is really nice, it’s ultimately the room of the Main World. Even though it’s pitch black, there’s a sense of ease that isn’t found in the Ashen World."
Although it was very dark around him, Zhang Yanhang didn’t entertain the idea of turning on the light. He simply walked silently to the door and re-locked it.
"Let’s go home and get some good rest. After all, I haven’t slept for four days straight; it’s indeed time to sleep soundly," Zhang Yanhang murmured as he descended the stairs at the pace of a normal person, careful not to walk too fast and disturb the neighbors who were already asleep.
But even at a normal pace, it took Zhang Yanhang only a dozen seconds to complete his descent. Standing at the foot of the stairs, he used his Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil Skill to quickly scan the surroundings. Upon detecting no abnormalities, he immediately sped home at a rate of eighty-two meters per second.
Once home, as Zhang Yanhang lay in bed playing with his phone, he suddenly felt like he had forgotten something important. "What have I forgotten?" Follow current novels on novᴇlfire.net
After carefully recalling recent events, Zhang Yanhang opened his Cainiao Station app and saw a package that had been sitting unclaimed for three days.
"The Black plums I bought before leaving, they haven’t gone bad now, have they? Even if not, there’s a good chance something else unfortunate could have happened in these three days..."
At that thought, he immediately scanned the Cainiao Station in Xingfuli District with his Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil Skill. With his current coverage, he wasn’t just able to scan the entire district; he could even scan the neighboring districts and ones further away.
After all, the range of his Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil Skill grew not only with the Skill’s Level but also increased with the rise of the Intelligence Attribute—every point of Intelligence Attribute extended the range by twenty-five meters.
Thus, his coverage had grown by six hundred meters from its initial three thousand one hundred twenty-five meters to three thousand seven hundred twenty-five meters, meaning he could scan several districts in every direction, with at least several dozen districts encompassed within his overall coverage.
To put it simply, something easier to understand: the delivery distance for takeout is generally no more than four kilometers. Beyond that, you can’t search for it anymore, yet within that small four-kilometer radius, there are at least a thousand related restaurants and retail stores.
So, from this perspective alone, Zhang Yanhang’s current scanning range of his Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil Skill is indeed quite broad. However, he still wasn’t quite satisfied.
The main issue was the overall scanning strength of the Skill—it performed poorly against solid, high-density objects like Crimson Iron Ore Veins, reaching only a few hundred meters at best, which he found quite dissatisfactory.
Due to his urgent desire to improve the scanning strength, upon accumulating enough Soul points for the upgrade of Technique Immunity LV.6, Zhang Yanhang felt he would prioritize enhancing his Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil Skill.
As for the Death Wave Skill? Zhang Yanhang feared that after Promotion, the Stamina consumption of Death Wave would significantly increase. Therefore, without finding a way to greatly raise his Stamina limit, he might delay Promoting the Death Wave Skill.
After a brief scan of the neighborhood’s Cainiao Station, Zhang Yanhang discovered a beaten-up cardboard box in a corner. Inside the tattered box were the Black plums he had purchased.
But it was unclear whether the issue was with Pinduoduo or due to the extended time the package spent in delivery—one could clearly see the skin of most Black plums was shriveled and wrinkled. Luckily, they hadn’t rotted and seemed to be barely edible.
He also scanned the special Black plum, which seemed to have shrunk considerably from the beginning, appearing almost like an oversized raisin with a wrinkled and bumpy surface, triggering no appetite in anyone.
Fortunately, it emitted discreet fluctuations of Spiritual Energy. As long as it had this characteristic, many Awakeners could eat such items, even if they looked like poop (and could even be real poop). Of course, this didn’t include Zhang Yanhang, considering that the Evil Odor Blood Absorption Moss was still in the safe, thriving in all its glory.
"Now that it’s midnight, Cainiao Station is already closed. I’ll wait until tomorrow to pick up this box of Black plums. Since it’s been there for three days with no issues, another half day shouldn’t cause any problems either."
After scanning and seeing that the Black plums in the Cainiao Station were fine, Zhang Yanhang leisurely continued to play with his phone. Although he felt tired after working nonstop for four days and nights, he strangely couldn’t fall asleep.
"Could it be that today’s adventure is about to occur? Surely it’s too early for that, right? It’s only midnight..." Zhang Yanhang thought for a moment, then expanded his Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil to its maximum range, hoping to find some related clues.
But after a thorough search, other than some couples energetically trying for a third child in the middle of the night, Zhang Yanhang found nothing out of the ordinary.
Unwilling to give up, he scanned again, but still found no potential trigger for an adventure. The only modest benefit was that, within the range of his Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil, he discovered quite a few Awakeners. Zhang Yanhang wasn’t too surprised by this.
After all, with Qin Island City having a population of twenty million, that would naturally mean twenty thousand Awakeners, with the majority of them living in the urban area. Therefore, Awakeners were quite common overall; nearly every time he used Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil to scan his surroundings, he would encounter a bunch of Awakeners.