# 900 PIONEERS DIED LAST NIGHT… But WEAKEST Player in Death Tundra Got DAILY INTEL SYSTEM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyxnipvaWKE

[00:00] I woke up shivering in a snow hole.
[00:02] wrapped in a down jacket that couldn't keep out the cold.
[00:04] My body temperature had dropped dangerously low and I had almost nothing left to eat.
[00:11] 7 years ago, an advanced civilization came to Earth and shut down all our technology and resources.
[00:16] Everything fell apart.
[00:19] No energy, no food, total chaos.
[00:22] Then they opened up a wild world called the wasteland and gave us a chance.
[00:25] People like me, called pioneers, could go in, gather resources, and send them back.
[00:33] The better the stuff we found, the more our country received in return, sometimes thousands or even millions of times more.
[00:39] I just turned 18 and passed all the tests to become a pioneer.
[00:42] But my luck was terrible.
[00:45] Other pioneers landed in forests full of fruit or warm islands where they could catch fish.
[00:49] Me?
[00:52] I got dropped into the eternal winter tundra, a place so deadly they classified it as an S-rank death zone for humans.
[00:59] All I had was a down jacket,
[01:02] a metal shovel, and one energy bar from the government starter kit.
[01:06] I dug a snow hole just to survive the first night.
[01:08] When the daily settlement came, I had to upload what I'd gathered.
[01:13] Three pieces of frozen moss, hard as rocks.
[01:16] The system rated them as garbage.
[01:18] Zero return for my country.
[01:20] On the ranking board, the top pioneers were sending back monster meat and rare herbs, earning glory for their nations.
[01:27] I scrolled all the way down to find my name.
[01:29] Rank 9,981 out of about 10,000.
[01:32] Because of me, our country's overall ranking had dropped and the winters back home got 5% worse.
[01:40] I couldn't even kill myself to escape.
[01:42] The system warned that suicide would cost our country future pioneer slots.
[01:47] Back on Earth, people argued about us in chat rooms.
[01:49] Some defended the low-ranked pioneers, saying our environments were brutal.
[01:54] Others called us cowards and weaklings.
[01:56] They didn't know that on my very first night, a freezing storm had destroyed my legs.
[02:00] I could barely walk
[02:03] in snow up to my knees, finding even frozen moss was a miracle.
[02:08] I chewed my last piece of that bitter, foul-tasting moss and swallowed it down.
[02:14] Outside, the wind screamed like ghosts.
[02:16] My eyelids grew heavy.
[02:18] I knew what was happening.
[02:21] My body was shutting down from the cold.
[02:24] Once I fell asleep, I'd never wake up.
[02:25] I didn't want to die.
[02:27] I didn't want to be remembered as the man who dragged his country down.
[02:29] If only I'd been given somewhere even slightly better.
[02:32] Then, right at the edge of darkness, I heard it.
[02:34] A sharp, clear chime inside my head.
[02:37] Completely different from the cold mechanical voice of the national system.
[02:41] This sound had a strange rhythm to it.
[02:44] Almost alive.
[02:46] My eyes snapped open.
[02:49] Golden words floated across my vision.
[02:51] A hidden ability had awakened inside me.
[02:53] They called it the daily intelligence system.
[02:55] It wasn't the blue screen from the advanced civilization.
[02:57] These were warm gold colored letters that moved with my eyes.
[03:00] The first message told me that 80 m from my snowhole, there was a
[03:05] shelter left behind by a previous survivor.
[03:07] Inside it, fire starting tools, three blocks of high energy coal, and dried meat.
[03:12] My heart exploded with hope.
[03:14] I didn't care where this power came from.
[03:16] A drowning man doesn't question the rope.
[03:19] He grabs it.
[03:21] I bit down hard, dragged myself out of the hole with my shovel, and crawled through the blizzard.
[03:25] Ice and wind cut my face like knives, but I couldn't feel anything except the fire burning inside me.
[03:32] 80 m of frozen hell, clawing forward on hands and knees.
[03:36] The golden arrow in my vision stopped and pointed straight down.
[03:38] right here.
[03:40] I knelt in the snow, raised my shovel with everything I had left and slammed it down.
[03:45] Once, twice, three times.
[03:49] The impact split my palms open, and the hard-packed ice cracked apart.
[03:54] Open for me.
[03:54] I slammed the shovel down and cracked through the frozen ground.
[03:59] Inside, I found a leather pack covered in frost.
[04:01] My hands were shaking so badly, I could barely undo the
[04:06] straps. But when I opened it, I wanted to cry.
[04:11] fire starting tools soaked in oil, three fist-sized chunks of black shiny coal, and a piece of dried meat with strange silver lines running through it.
[04:20] Nothing fancy, no special effects, just the stuff that would keep me alive.
[04:25] I crouched down, shielded the wind with my body, and struck the flint.
[04:28] The spark caught the tinder instantly.
[04:30] Then something amazing happened.
[04:32] The black hole touched the flame and burst into blue fire.
[04:38] 10 seconds later, a wave of heat blasted outward so strong that even the freezing wind backed off.
[04:43] I actually started sweating through my jacket.
[04:47] Back on Earth, you need a whole furnace of coal to get that kind of heat.
[04:51] Here, one fist-sized piece did the job.
[04:54] If this stuff could be sent back to our country, even at a 100 times return, it could solve an entire neighborhood's energy crisis.
[05:01] Once I warmed up, the hunger hit me like a truck.
[05:03] I bit into the dried meat.
[05:05] It was rock hard at first, but it melted in my mouth and
[05:08] sent a warm current flowing through my whole body.
[05:10] My satiety shot up from 0 to 45.
[05:13] Then a message appeared.
[05:16] This highquality food had permanently strengthened my body and even raised my stamina limit.
[05:20] The feeling came back to my legs.
[05:22] The frostbite on my hands started healing.
[05:24] I could move again.
[05:27] That silver star rated meat had basically brought me back from the dead.
[05:31] I wrapped the leftover meat carefully and crawled back to my snowhole.
[05:33] I was alive.
[05:35] Meanwhile, back on Earth, two officers from the Special Action Bureau showed up at my parents' apartment in H City.
[05:40] They brought boxes of supplies, electricity cards, canned meat, fruit, even antibiotics.
[05:47] In a city running on power rationing during a brutal winter, that stuff was worth a fortune.
[05:53] My mom tried to refuse.
[05:55] She said I was ranked near the bottom and hadn't brought back anything useful for the country.
[05:59] She felt too ashamed to accept it.
[06:01] But the officer raised his voice and told her what the commander had said.
[06:05] That fighting to survive in an impossible
[06:09] situation is itself a kind of greatness.
[06:12] And the country would never let a hero's family go cold and hungry while he bled on the front line.
[06:17] He told my parents that the eternal winter tundra was one of the deadliest zones in the entire wasteland and that I was the only pioneer from our country still alive in that region.
[06:28] My parents had been too afraid to watch the live streams.
[06:30] They only knew my rank was low.
[06:32] They had no idea I was surviving in hell.
[06:34] That just staying alive was already a miracle.
[06:37] As the officers left, the younger one asked his captain if I could make it through the night.
[06:43] The captain pulled his hat low and sighed.
[06:45] It was my fourth day in the tundra.
[06:48] They called it death's harvest day.
[06:50] Back in the wasteland, the high energy coal burned far longer than I expected.
[06:54] I used the warmth to dig out my snow hole and make it bigger, then finally got a full night of rest.
[06:59] When I woke up, the system greeted me with cold numbers.
[07:02] 889 pioneers had died overnight.
[07:07] 62% killed by night attacks,
[07:11] 25% by the environment, 10% by suicide.
[07:15] Almost 900 people gone in a single night.
[07:17] Some of them were probably names I'd seen on the rankings just yesterday.
[07:22] That was the wasteland.
[07:24] 7 years of global broadcasts had taught Earth one thing.
[07:27] Humans were no different from ants in this place.
[07:29] My situation was still desperate.
[07:31] I had 2/3 of a piece of dried meat and two chunks of coal left.
[07:36] At best, that would last me three and a half more days.
[07:39] I gripped my shovel tight.
[07:41] I had to go on the offensive.
[07:43] And right on Q, that beautiful chime rang in my head again.
[07:46] The daily intelligence system had refreshed.
[07:48] The system chimed again, and this time it was different.
[07:53] It told me I could now choose what kind of information I wanted.
[07:55] For options appeared in gold letters, supplies, environment, danger, or world knowledge.
[08:02] My gut said to pick supplies again, but I forced myself to think.
[08:07] This was one of the deadliest places in the entire wasteland.
[08:09] I needed to understand the land around me if I wanted to survive.
[08:13] Longterm.
[08:13] Still, I was scared.
[08:16] What if there was nothing out there but empty snow?
[08:20] Then I'd have wasted my one daily chance.
[08:23] After a long internal debate, I went with environment.
[08:26] A golden 3D map unfolded across my vision.
[08:28] My position glowed red in the center and everything within 3 km appeared in wireframe.
[08:34] North and west were painted deep red, dangerous, impassible.
[08:38] But to the northeast, about a kilometer and a half away, a large area pulsed with faint blue light.
[08:45] Then came the warning that made my stomach drop.
[08:48] In 71 hours, an A-class blizzard was coming.
[08:50] My snow hole wouldn't survive it.
[08:52] The only chance of making it through was to the northeast.
[08:57] The system zoomed in on that blue zone.
[08:59] It was a massive frozen lake sitting on top of an underground river, still alive with activity.
[09:04] And at one specific spot, the ice was only 20 cm thick.
[09:09] Living water meant fish.
[09:09] Fish meant a longterm food source.
[09:12] I packed my remaining meat against my body,
[09:14] strapped the shovel to my back, slung the leather bag on my hip, and pushed out into the wind.
[09:21] Back on Earth at the Special Action Bureau's intelligence center, officers were monitoring all the pioneers on huge floating screens.
[09:28] They went through the reports.
[09:30] One of our top guys was dealing with poisonous bugs in a dark jungle.
[09:32] Another elite was running out of water on a frozen plane.
[09:37] Meanwhile, a pioneer from another country had landed on a tropical island and was cracking open coconuts like he was on vacation.
[09:45] The room buzzed with frustration.
[09:47] Our people were chewing bark to survive while others relaxed in paradise.
[09:50] Their commander, a tiny woman named Leil Lee, who scared everyone despite being only 5 feet tall, shut them all up with one look.
[09:58] Then someone in the corner spoke up.
[10:00] They detected unusual data from the eternal winter tundra.
[10:04] An explorer named Linen, alive for over 42 hours in a zone with a 95% death rate in 3 days.
[10:11] And he'd just gone live.
[10:14] They threw my feed onto the main
[10:16] screen.
[10:19] Instead of a frozen corpse or someone barely hanging on, they saw me marching through a blizzard with a shovel on my back, heading somewhere with purpose.
[10:25] Everyone was confused.
[10:27] Leaving shelter in this weather looked like suicide.
[10:31] The commander ordered one of her analysts to monitor me closely and figure out how I'd survived.
[10:36] If my methods could help future pioneers last even one extra day in the tundra, it would matter.
[10:41] Out in the wasteland, I reached the spot the golden arrow pointed to.
[10:45] It looked like nothing, just flat, endless snow, wind howling across it like always.
[10:50] But I knew what was underneath.
[10:52] I checked my status.
[10:55] Satiety at 80, body temperature holding at 35.6, two chunks of coal left, most of my dried meat, and about 17 hours until the next settlement.
[11:04] My broadcast had started, so I said a quick hello to my family.
[11:08] Dad, mom, Sha Sha, it's linen.
[11:11] The wind's a bit strong today.
[11:14] I'm fine.
[11:14] Two sentences cost me a drop in body temperature.
[11:16] So, I shut my mouth right
[11:18] After. The chat exploded.
[11:20] People couldn't believe I was smiling after nearly dying yesterday, and they were confused about why I'd walked so far into the middle of nowhere with nothing around.
[11:31] I rested for a moment, then turned toward that flat stretch of snow.
[11:33] I pulled out my shovel and locked my eyes on the weak point glowing in my vision.
[11:37] The intelligence wouldn't lie to me.
[11:41] This spot right here was my lifeline.
[11:44] Every swing of the shovel sent pain shooting through my hands.
[11:46] The ice was hard as granite in the -40° cold.
[11:50] My satiety was crashing and the system warned me I was burning calories five times faster than resting.
[11:57] The warmth was draining out of me like sand through an hourglass.
[11:58] People in my live stream were telling me to give up.
[12:03] They said the ice on the eternal winter tundra was too thick that I'd need a drilling machine to get through it.
[12:07] They called me a foolish kid and begged me to go back to my hole.
[12:11] Back home, my mom was crying silently.
[12:14] My dad was gripping the couch so hard he left marks.
[12:16] My little
[12:19] Sister Shia Sha couldn't see the screen, but kept cheering me on anyway.
[12:23] At the Special Action Bureau, the analyst, Su Wan, was watching my body readings drop off a cliff.
[12:27] She calculated that the ice should be at least a meter thick.
[12:32] She almost said the word death, but stopped herself.
[12:35] My arms went numb for one second.
[12:37] Even I doubted myself.
[12:40] The ice was so thick it felt hopeless.
[12:43] But I bit my tongue, tasted blood, and kept going.
[12:45] I had to trust the system.
[12:48] If I stopped, the sweat would freeze on my body and steal whatever heat I had left.
[12:53] That would be the real end.
[12:54] The people mocking me in the chat went quiet.
[12:57] Even the harshest ones had to admit there was something about my stubbornness that got to them.
[13:00] Then the clouds cracked open.
[13:03] A thin beam of sunlight hit the snow right where I was standing.
[13:05] The ice shattered.
[13:07] Black lake water shot up from the pressure difference and splashed my face.
[13:11] Freezing cold, but I threw my head back and laughed like a mad man.
[13:14] I'd broken through.
[13:16] I almost fell in, but I scrambled back just in time.
[13:18] The chat
[13:21] Exploded.
[13:21] People couldn't believe it.
[13:23] Some said I was a human drilling machine.
[13:25] Others said I was lucky the ice wasn't too thick.
[13:27] Then someone asked the real question.
[13:29] How was I going to catch fish with no rod, no net, not even a piece of string?
[13:34] That shut everyone up fast.
[13:37] My parents had barely started celebrating before they realized the same thing.
[13:39] My dad slapped his forehead and wished he'd sent me his old fishing gear.
[13:41] My sister quietly reminded them that pioneers could only bring three basic items.
[13:43] But I wasn't worried.
[13:45] I knew something they didn't.
[13:48] When the ice breaks open, oxygen rushes into the water.
[13:50] Fish that have been suffocating under the ice swarm toward the hole to breathe.
[13:52] All I had to do was wait.
[13:54] A few minutes later, dark shapes rose to the surface.
[13:57] I held still, watching, waiting for the perfect moment when a black fish drifted right above my shovel.
[13:59] I flexed every muscle in my arms and scooped it straight out of the water onto the ice.
[14:01] It was an iron scale black fish about
[14:22] the length of my forearm, covered in scales hard as metal, common in wasteland, rivers, and lakes.
[14:28] Tough meat, bad taste.
[14:31] But out here, it was life-saving protein.
[14:33] The chat went wild again.
[14:36] People were amazed I'd used my shovel as a fishing tool.
[14:38] Someone pointed out that the fish weren't stupid.
[14:42] They were oxygen starved, and I'd outsmarted them.
[14:44] But catching the fish cost me everything I had.
[14:46] My satiety had crashed to five out of 120.
[14:49] My vision was going black.
[14:51] I pulled out my last piece of silver star dried meat, the one I'd been keeping warm against my body, and tore off a strip that caused its own storm online.
[15:01] People noticed the silver glow on the meat.
[15:03] A retired pioneer named Wu Jing sent a special message confirming it was Silverstar grade food and praised my courage, strength, and luck.
[15:12] Then some guy from another country posted an angry comment saying I was wasting strategic level resources by eating them instead of uploading them to my nation.
[15:21] That set off a firestorm.
[15:21] My countrymen told him
[15:23] to shut up and get lost.
[15:23] I found it.
[15:26] I needed it to survive and nobody was going to tell me otherwise.
[15:31] The meat warmed me from the inside out.
[15:33] My satiety jumped back up and my stamina cap increased again.
[15:37] Feeling returned to my frozen limbs.
[15:37] I grabbed the shovel immediately and crawled back to the ice hole.
[15:42] Those fish needed my help getting out of that cold, dark water.
[15:47] I scooped out a second iron scale black fish and laid it next to the first one.
[15:49] Two fat, shiny black fish sitting on the ice.
[15:54] They were the most beautiful things I'd ever seen.
[15:56] After 3 days of starving, even the fishy smell was heavenly.
[16:01] Fishing fans back on Earth caught wind of what I was doing and flooded into my stream.
[16:05] They couldn't believe someone was ice fishing with a shovel.
[16:07] But then the fish stopped coming.
[16:09] Half an hour passed with nothing.
[16:11] The dark water went still as a mirror.
[16:13] The oxygen effect had worn off.
[16:16] The fish had taken their breath and swam away.
[16:18] People in the chat told me to call it quits.
[16:20] Three fish was already a miracle.
[16:23] Don't be greedy.
[16:25] Decided to wait just a little longer.
[16:27] The cold crept through the ice into my knees and my fingers started going stiff again.
[16:31] I was about to give up and leave.
[16:34] Then a blinding flash of silver streaked through the black water.
[16:36] Something huge, more than twice the size of the black fish.
[16:41] I tensed every muscle and waited.
[16:44] The moment the silver shape passed over my shovel, I swung it upward with everything I had.
[16:48] A beautiful, crystal clear fish flew out of the water and landed on the ice.
[16:52] But this fish wasn't done.
[16:55] Instead of flopping around helplessly, it slammed its tail against the ice, launched itself into the air, and arked straight toward the hole.
[17:02] It was trying to escape back into the water.
[17:06] In that split second, I didn't even have time to stand.
[17:08] I threw myself forward and swung the shovel sideways like a baseball bat, smashing the flat side right into the fish.
[17:15] The impact sent it flying 8 m across the ice until it crashed into a snowbank and finally stopped twitching.
[17:23] If I'd been a tenth of a second slower, it would have been
[17:26] Gone.
[17:29] It was half a meter long, pure silver from head to tail, scales shining like polished metal.
[17:34] The system told me it was an ice silver pillar fish, a rare species from the bottom of frozen lakes.
[17:39] Eating it would greatly increase cold resistance.
[17:44] Exactly what I needed most.
[17:46] The chat went insane.
[17:49] People were screaming about how close the fish came to escaping, calling my shovel swing a stroke of genius.
[17:54] They started imagining what I could do with an actual fishing net or rod.
[17:58] I'd dominate this entire lake.
[18:00] The troll from earlier, the one who'd yelled at me for eating Silverstar food, was called out by the crowd.
[18:07] He muttered something about it being luck.
[18:09] Everyone told him to shut up.
[18:12] Back home, my dad jumped off the couch, slapping his leg, shouting that I'd inherited his fishing talent.
[18:16] My mom laughed through her tears and reminded him about the time he spent a whole day fishing and came home with nothing but an old shoe.
[18:25] In the corner, my little sister Shia Sha couldn't see
[18:27] any of it, but she could hear our parents bickering and joking for the first time since I'd left.
[18:33] She hugged her doll and silently prayed for me to come home in 26 days, whispering that she'd be okay, never seeing again if it meant I'd make it back.
[18:42] Before my body temperature dropped too far, I spotted another silver flash in the water.
[18:47] This time I was ready.
[18:49] I scooped it out and smacked it three times before it could even think about jumping.
[18:53] A second rare fish secured.
[18:55] I wanted to keep going, but I forced myself to stop.
[19:00] Even if I caught more, I couldn't carry them in this weather, and leaving fish out here would attract predators.
[19:04] I tied all five fish together with the cord from my jacket, covered the hole with snow, and headed back.
[19:08] The return trip was brutal.
[19:13] The wind had shifted and was blowing straight into my face.
[19:15] Five fish weighing less than 20 lbs felt like a thousand.
[19:19] I made it back to the snow hole just before my temperature hit the danger line.
[19:24] I crawled inside, sealed the entrance with snow blocks, and left only a small breathing hole.
[19:26] After
[19:29] catching my breath, I pulled out one of my coal blocks.
[19:30] Last night, I'd burned a whole piece and nearly roasted myself in the tiny space.
[19:35] This time, I was smarter.
[19:37] I split the coal into four pieces.
[19:39] I only needed to keep the temperature above freezing, not turn the place into a sauna.
[19:44] This way, my fuel could last seven or eight more days.
[19:46] The familiar blue flame flickered to life, and warmth slowly filled my little cave.
[19:51] I looked at my five fish lined up on the ground and smiled.
[19:54] I sat by the blue flame and started cooking one of the silver fish.
[19:56] After it thought a bit, I cut it open, cleaned out the guts, and laid it on my shovel over the fire.
[20:03] The pale meat slowly turned into something beautiful, half-transparent, like jelly, sizzling against the metal.
[20:13] Then the other silver fish woke up.
[20:15] It slammed its tail on the ground, launched itself at my face with a mouth full of tiny razor teeth.
[20:19] If it had connected, it would have torn a chunk right out of my cheek.
[20:24] But I'd learned to never let my guard down in this world.
[20:26] I leaned back,
[20:30] flipped the shovel around, and smacked
[20:32] it right on the head. Then I brought the
[20:34] blade down and took the head clean off.
[20:37] The mouth was still opening and closing
[20:39] on the ground. "You don't mess with a
[20:41] survival game veteran," I muttered and
[20:43] put the fish back on the grill. A few
[20:45] minutes later, the most incredible smell
[20:48] filled my cave. Nothing like regular
[20:50] grilled fish. This was sweet and fresh,
[20:53] like a bamboo forest after ring. The
[20:55] silver skin turned golden and crispy,
[20:58] dripping clear oil that sizzled when it
[21:00] hit the coal. I tore off a piece and ate
[21:03] it. No fishy taste at all. The texture
[21:05] was like the finest tofu, but with a
[21:07] satisfying chew. When I swallowed, it
[21:10] was like a gentle fire spreading through
[21:12] my whole body, pushing the cold out of
[21:14] my bones. My satiety shot up, my stamina
[21:17] cap rose again, and best of all, my cold
[21:20] resistance jumped to 23%. I could
[21:23] actually feel the difference. The air
[21:25] didn't bite as hard anymore. Before,
[21:27] even sitting by the fire, my back was
[21:29] always freezing. Now, the cold felt
[21:32] bearable. I ate every last bit, even
[21:34] crunched through the bones. The system
[21:37] confirmed I'd gained a permanent buff.
[21:39] Basic cold resistance. I crawled to the
[21:42] entrance and stuck my hand out into the
[21:44] wind. My body heat was draining 20%
[21:46] slower than before. For a place like
[21:49] this, that was huge. I thought about my
[21:51] parents and Sha Sha. If they could eat
[21:53] this fish, they wouldn't have to freeze
[21:55] anymore either. When the daily
[21:57] settlement timer hit 5 minutes, I was
[21:59] ready. I still had the other silver
[22:01] fish, the one I'd beheaded. I pressed my
[22:04] hand on it and uploaded it. The system
[22:06] scanned it and rated it C rank rare.
[22:09] Then it flagged it as a brand new
[22:10] species never uploaded before. Numbers
[22:13] started spinning on my screen 10 times
[22:16] 100,000
[22:18] until they stopped on a number that
[22:19] knocked the air out of me. 10,000 times
[22:22] multiplier critical hit bonus. My
[22:25] country just received 10,000 ice silver
[22:28] pillar fish delivered straight to a
[22:30] government cold storage facility. Before
[22:32] I could even process that, a second
[22:34] reward popped up. Because I'd uploaded a
[22:37] new species for the first time, I'd
[22:39] earned a special prize, a survival blind
[22:41] box. Three glowing crates appeared in my
[22:44] vision. White for basic supplies,
[22:46] dropped within 500 m with exact
[22:49] coordinates. Safe, easy to find, but
[22:52] nothing game-changing. Blue for advanced
[22:54] gear like warm clothing and medicine.
[22:56] Dropped within a kilometer with a smoke
[22:58] signal. Moderate risk, good reward. Gold
[23:01] for legendary items like vehicles or
[23:04] weapons dropped randomly within 3 km
[23:07] with no marker. Nearly impossible to
[23:09] find in a frozen wasteland. Meanwhile,
[23:12] back on Earth, things weren't great for
[23:14] my family. My uncle Lyn Jian Jun and his
[23:17] wife were running out of food. Their
[23:19] 5-year-old son was screaming from
[23:21] hunger. My aunt figured out that the
[23:23] government had sent my parents emergency
[23:25] supplies because of my situation. And
[23:27] she convinced my uncle to go ask for
[23:29] some. He didn't want to. He felt
[23:31] ashamed. But his starving kid left him
[23:33] no choice. They bundled up the whole
[23:35] family and headed to my parents' door.
[23:38] Back in my cave, I stared at those three
[23:40] boxes. The smart choice was white.
[23:42] Guaranteed supplies. Zero risk. Blue was
[23:45] tempting, but gold. Three kilometers in
[23:48] the eternal winter tundra would kill
[23:50] most pioneers. You'd freeze to death
[23:53] before you found anything in that vast
[23:55] emptiness. I glanced at the golden text
[23:58] floating on my vision. My intelligence
[24:00] system, right? I wasn't a normal
[24:02] pioneer. I had a cheat code. The bigger
[24:05] the wave, the bigger the catch. The
[24:07] higher the risk, the higher the reward.
[24:10] I'll take the legendary box. The
[24:12] legendary blind box was deployed
[24:14] somewhere within 3 km. I forced myself
[24:17] not to rush out looking for it right
[24:18] away. Instead, I checked the daily
[24:21] rankings. I scrolled down the list and
[24:23] found my name, number 98. I laughed out
[24:26] loud in my little snow cave. One fish,
[24:29] one single rare fish, had launched me
[24:31] from dead last all the way into the top
[24:33] 100. The top spots were still held by
[24:36] lucky pioneers who'd landed in rich,
[24:38] warm places. But I was right there on
[24:40] the board now. And that mattered because
[24:42] the higher your rank, the better your
[24:44] family was treated back home. My sister
[24:46] Shia Sha had an eye condition. Maybe
[24:49] with a higher ranking, she could get
[24:50] special resources for treatment. The
[24:53] system confirmed it. Stay in the top 100
[24:55] next month and I'd earn a basic body
[24:57] enhancement fluid to boost my overall
[24:59] fitness. Beyond that, if I survived 3
[25:02] months, I'd enter the survivor grand
[25:04] rankings with all the veterans from the
[25:06] first seven batches. The rewards there
[25:08] were on a whole different level. I
[25:10] checked my stats. Satiety was full at
[25:13] 160. Temperature stable. I had the cold
[25:16] resistance buff, two chunks of coal,
[25:18] fire tools, and two blackfish left. Not
[25:21] bad at all compared to a few days ago
[25:23] when I was chewing frozen moss and
[25:25] waiting to die. I closed the stream and
[25:27] fell asleep instantly, dreaming about
[25:30] tomorrow's blind box hunt. While I
[25:32] slept, my viewer count exploded past
[25:34] 10,000. People had noticed an unknown
[25:37] fish push someone into the top hundred
[25:39] and wanted to know more. At the Special
[25:42] Action Bureau, Commander Lelay Lee was
[25:44] reading the daily report and getting
[25:46] angrier with every line. Other count's
[25:48] pioneers had stumbled into orange groves
[25:51] and jinseng patches, easy pickings in
[25:53] warm climates with ridiculous
[25:55] multipliers. Meanwhile, most of our
[25:58] pioneers were stuck in barren, frozen
[26:00] wastelands where finding clean water was
[26:02] a struggle. That was the brutal truth
[26:04] behind our country's low ranking. Our
[26:07] society was holding together on old
[26:09] grain reserves and careful rationing.
[26:11] Some tiny nations with one top ranked
[26:14] pioneer were living better than us, even
[26:16] exporting surplus. Then Suan messaged
[26:18] her. I'd uploaded a rare species and
[26:21] triggered a 10,000 times multiplier.
[26:24] 10,000 ice silver pillar fish delivered
[26:27] to the national cold storage. I was now
[26:29] the fifth pioneer from our country to
[26:31] crack the top 100. Ley was shocked but
[26:34] stayed practical. 10,000 fish sounded
[26:36] like a lot, but for a nation of our
[26:38] size, it was a drop in the bucket. The
[26:41] real goal was sustainable production,
[26:43] farming in the wasteland. For now, the
[26:46] priority was keeping me alive. She
[26:48] ordered Sue want to keep monitoring me
[26:50] and send more supplies to my family.
[26:52] Back home, my parents were having
[26:54] dinner, a few potatoes my mom had turned
[26:57] into three dishes, and a soup thanks to
[26:59] the government supply boxes. Shiao Sha
[27:02] asked if I'd have enough to eat after
[27:03] uploading my fish. Dad started bragging
[27:06] about how I'd inherited his fishing
[27:08] skills before mom shut him up. Then came
[27:10] a knock at the door. Dad guessed right.
[27:13] It was my uncle's family. His wife had
[27:15] seen the supply delivery and figured she
[27:17] could get some. Their little boy was
[27:19] crying about being hungry loud enough
[27:21] for the whole building to hear. But
[27:23] before my parents could even decide what
[27:25] to do, the neighborhood director showed
[27:27] up and chased my uncle away, scolding
[27:29] him for trying to mooch off a pioneer's
[27:31] family rations. The neighbors piled on
[27:34] too, reminding everyone how my uncle's
[27:36] family had treated us badly before.
[27:39] After they left, the director knocked
[27:41] and told my dad not to be too
[27:42] soft-hearted. She handed over 3,000 yuan
[27:45] in bonus money and said more supplies
[27:47] were coming. She told him I was doing
[27:49] our whole neighborhood proud. The next
[27:52] morning, I woke up in my cave. The
[27:54] system greeted me with its usual cold
[27:56] report. 1285 pioneers had died
[28:00] overnight. Day five. The wind was still
[28:02] howling outside my snowhole, but I'd
[28:05] slept better than any night since I
[28:06] arrived. The intelligence system
[28:08] refreshed, and I picked the survival
[28:10] option without hesitation. Golden text
[28:13] appeared with the exact coordinates of
[28:15] the legendary blind box 2.8 8 km away,
[28:19] buried 1.5 m deep under last night's
[28:22] blizzard. I packed up, shovel, half a
[28:25] grilled fish, jacket zipped tight.
[28:27] Before heading out, I opened my live
[28:29] stream and said good morning. My viewer
[28:32] count had shot up overnight thanks to
[28:34] the 10,000 times upload. People were
[28:36] calling me a legend just for being alive
[28:38] on day five in the tundra. When I told
[28:40] them I was going to find the airdrop,
[28:42] the chat panicked. They said visibility
[28:44] was under 10 meters and I was walking to
[28:47] my death. A retired pioneer named Wu
[28:49] Jing told me not to risk everything for
[28:52] a reward. That troll from the other
[28:54] country showed up again, mocking me and
[28:56] calling our pioneers arrogant fools.
[28:59] What nobody knew was that I had exact
[29:01] coordinates. I wasn't searching blind.
[29:03] The trek was brutal. Kneeed deep snow,
[29:06] grade eight winds, every step draining
[29:08] my stamina. But my new cold resistance
[29:11] was making a real difference. The
[29:13] freezing air still stung my face, but my
[29:15] skin seemed to hold heat better now.
[29:17] Yesterday's version of me couldn't have
[29:19] made this trip. 2 hours later, the
[29:21] golden arrow pointed straight down. I
[29:24] started digging. The snow was frozen
[29:26] rock hard, and every hit rattled my
[29:28] hands. 10 minutes, 20 minutes of
[29:30] non-stop shoveling. Then, my blade hit
[29:33] something solid. I threw the shovel
[29:34] aside and dug with my bare hands. A blue
[29:37] gold metal box sat at the bottom of the
[29:39] pit covered in strange high-tech
[29:41] patterns. I pressed the button. The lid
[29:44] popped open. Inside was a set of folded
[29:46] silver white metal parts. Portable polar
[29:49] snow vehicle. Legendary grade. Made from
[29:52] lightweight memory alloy. Folds down to
[29:54] suitcase size. Equipped with a high
[29:56] efficiency pedal-driven transmission
[29:58] system. Works on any snow or ice
[30:01] terrain. Max load 300 kg. a humanpowered
[30:05] snowmobile in the eternal winter tundra.
[30:08] This was like getting a sports car in
[30:09] the desert. I pulled the parts out and
[30:12] with a few clicks and stretches, the
[30:14] metal unfolded like magic into a sleek
[30:16] silver sled low to the ground, wide ski
[30:19] runners on each side, a comfortable
[30:22] reclined seat in the middle, an
[30:24] extendable cargo rack in the back, and a
[30:26] pair of shiny metal pedals. I sat down,
[30:29] put my feet on the pedals, and gave one
[30:31] push. The gears hummed, the rear track
[30:34] bit into the snow, and the whole thing
[30:36] shot forward across the surface like it
[30:38] was nothing. Smooth, fast, gliding over
[30:42] waste deep snow as if it were flat road.
[30:44] The chat completely lost it. They'd been
[30:46] expecting to watch me struggle through a
[30:48] blizzard and maybe freeze to death.
[30:51] Instead, they saw me half reclined on a
[30:53] silver machine, legs spinning like a
[30:55] bicycle racer, cruising across the
[30:57] frozen wasteland. Wu Jing broke down the
[31:00] engineering. The reclined position cut
[31:03] wind resistance, the tracks prevented
[31:05] slipping, and the gear system multiplied
[31:07] my leg power. He called it an incredible
[31:10] design. The viewers gave me a new title
[31:12] after that, the fastest man on the
[31:15] eternal tundra, or as they shortened it,
[31:17] speed king. I hopped on the snow vehicle
[31:20] and raced toward the frozen lake. What
[31:22] used to take hours of painful walking
[31:24] now took 30 minutes. The gears
[31:26] multiplied my leg power and I was
[31:28] cruising at 20 km an hour across the
[31:31] snow. Even better, I had the cargo rack.
[31:34] I could carry back as many fish as I
[31:36] wanted. When I reached yesterday's
[31:38] fishing spot, I noticed something that
[31:40] made me tense up. Huge claw prints were
[31:42] pressed deep into the snow around the
[31:44] ice hole. Something big had been here. A
[31:47] snow demon bear, judging by the size and
[31:49] spacing, it had smelled the fish and
[31:51] come investigating. I scanned the area
[31:53] but saw nothing nearby. So, I got to
[31:56] work. The hole had frozen over again,
[31:58] but since I'd covered it with snow
[32:00] yesterday, it wasn't as thick. A few
[32:02] swings of the shovel cracked it open,
[32:04] and black shapes immediately rose toward
[32:07] the oxygen. Three fat black fish in 30
[32:10] minutes. Good, but not what I was really
[32:12] after. I had an idea. Last night, when I
[32:15] gutted the silver fish, I'd found black
[32:18] scales and shell fragments in its
[32:19] stomach. These silver fish ate the black
[32:22] fish. I chopped up one of my black fish
[32:24] into bloody chunks and lowered the mess
[32:27] into the water on my shovel. The chat
[32:29] thought I'd lost my mind, wasting
[32:31] precious calories on bait. For 15
[32:33] minutes, nothing happened. The blood
[32:35] seemed to have scared the black fish
[32:37] away. My heart was pounding. If this
[32:39] didn't work, I'd thrown away good food
[32:41] for nothing. Then the deep water lit up
[32:44] with silver light. A whole school of ice
[32:46] silver pillar fish drawn by the meat.
[32:49] They swarmed the bait, tearing at the
[32:51] chunks right on my shovel. But catching
[32:53] them was a nightmare. The first time I
[32:55] swung up, the fish twisted its body and
[32:58] slid right off the edge back into the
[33:00] water. These things were way more active
[33:02] today, pumped up by the feeding frenzy.
[33:04] I kept throwing in bait and scooping.
[33:07] Eight out of 10 attempts failed. Fish
[33:09] would land on the ice and bounce right
[33:11] back into the hole. The chat was
[33:13] screaming with frustration, begging for
[33:15] me to have a net instead of a shovel.
[33:17] But the bait was irresistible. The
[33:19] silver fish kept rushing in one after
[33:22] another. I started finding the rhythm,
[33:24] slow on the approach, explosive on the
[33:26] lift. One fish landed and stayed, then a
[33:29] second, then a third. By the time I'd
[33:32] used up all three black fish worth of
[33:34] bait, I had seven silver fish on the
[33:36] ice. The weather warning flashed red.
[33:39] The Aclass blizzard was now 52 hours
[33:41] away, and the temperature had dropped to
[33:44] -38. Plus, those bare tracks reminded me
[33:47] this place wasn't safe. I packed up
[33:49] seven silver fish, roughly 40 pounds
[33:52] total, each one worth about 10,000 yuan
[33:55] on Earth's international auction market.
[33:57] If I uploaded them and triggered a high
[33:59] multiplier, we'd be talking tens of
[34:01] millions. But I wasn't going to do that
[34:03] yet. I needed to eat them myself first,
[34:06] keep building my cold resistance. As
[34:08] long as I stayed alive, this lake would
[34:10] be an endless supply point for me and my
[34:13] country. I stacked the fish in the cargo
[34:15] box like firewood. The sled dipped under
[34:18] the weight but held firm. Before
[34:20] carrying 40 lb through kneedeep snow
[34:22] would have killed me. Now I just sat
[34:24] down, slammed the pedals and the tracks
[34:27] bit into the snow. I was gone in
[34:29] seconds. Back in the chat, someone had
[34:31] just come from watching Ziaoju stream.
[34:34] One of our country's top seed level
[34:36] pioneers, a former special forces
[34:38] soldier. He'd started in a much better
[34:40] location near a pond and spent an entire
[34:43] day weaving a fish trap. When he finally
[34:45] pulled it up, he'd caught three tiny
[34:47] black fish that barely weighed a pound
[34:49] combined. Meanwhile, I'd scooped seven
[34:52] rare silver fish with a shovel. The chat
[34:54] found it hilarious. At the intelligence
[34:57] bureau, Suan shook her head at how
[34:59] simple the viewers were being. They
[35:01] didn't understand how many factors had
[35:03] to line up. the extreme cold, the
[35:05] perfect hole placement, my unusual cold
[35:08] resistance. Take away any one piece and
[35:10] none of this would have worked. Then a
[35:12] new data report popped up on her screen.
[35:15] She pushed her glasses up and stared. In
[35:17] total resource acquisition among all
[35:19] eighth batch pioneers across the entire
[35:22] country, I was now ranked second. Back
[35:24] on Earth, my uncle's wife was seething
[35:27] with jealousy watching my stream. She
[35:29] tried to downplay what I'd done. Just a
[35:31] few fish. What's the big deal? Then she
[35:34] looked out the window and froze. Another
[35:36] military truck had pulled up to my
[35:38] parents' building and soldiers were
[35:39] carrying in three huge crates, bigger
[35:42] ones than last time. She couldn't
[35:44] believe it. Just one day later, more
[35:46] supplies, all because of one fish I'd
[35:49] uploaded. The young soldier named Wong
[35:51] Gang delivered the boxes to my parents
[35:54] personally. He even said hello to Shia
[35:56] Sha on his way in. My parents tried to
[35:58] refuse again, saying they had too much
[36:00] already, but the neighborhood director
[36:02] told them everything I'd earned was paid
[36:04] for with my life, and they should accept
[36:06] it without guilt. Wong Gang opened one
[36:09] of the crates, and inside were three of
[36:11] those crystal clearar silver fish, the
[36:13] same kind I'd been catching. He told my
[36:16] parents to eat those themselves. No
[36:18] sharing. After everyone left, my dad
[36:20] opened the fish box. Even dead, those
[36:23] white jade-like fish looked
[36:24] extraordinary. Mom cried again, thinking
[36:27] about me suffering out there alone. Dad
[36:30] told her to stop crying. Keeping
[36:31] themselves healthy was the best way to
[36:33] support me. Then he made a decision.
[36:36] They had more rice and flour than they
[36:37] could eat. So he told mom to share some
[36:40] with old Mr. Lee next door and Grandma
[36:42] Jang downstairs, the only neighbors
[36:44] who'd helped our family when times were
[36:46] hard. As for my uncle's family, not a
[36:48] single grain. Dad's voice went cold.
[36:51] When Shia Sha had a high fever last
[36:53] year, my uncle wouldn't even lend us one
[36:55] pill, saying he was saving medicine for
[36:57] his own kid. Dad said he didn't have a
[37:00] brother anymore. Mom agreed without
[37:02] argument. In our apartment, Shia Sha
[37:04] couldn't see any of it, but she could
[37:06] feel the warmth filling the room. Back
[37:08] in the wasteland, I made it to my snow
[37:10] hole with the sled loaded down with 40
[37:13] lb of fish. Without that vehicle,
[37:15] hauling this catch through the snow
[37:17] would have killed me. I folded the sled
[37:19] back into its suitcase-sized block and
[37:21] dragged everything inside. I lit a small
[37:24] piece of coal and started cooking. The
[37:26] oil sizzled out of the silver fish meat,
[37:29] filling my little cave with the most
[37:30] incredible smell. Deep ocean freshness
[37:33] mixed with rich fat. The skin blistered
[37:36] and cracked open to reveal snow white
[37:38] flesh as delicate as garlic cloves.
[37:41] After days of frozen moss and survival
[37:43] rations, this feast felt like heaven.
[37:46] After eating, I checked my stats and
[37:48] grinned. My cold resistance had jumped
[37:50] to 20%. It seemed like every few fish
[37:53] pushed the number higher. In a place
[37:55] where the temperature could drop without
[37:57] warning, every percentage point could
[37:59] mean the difference between life and
[38:01] death. I didn't waste time relaxing. I
[38:04] grilled the rest of the fish over the
[38:06] coal, cooking each one until it was dry
[38:08] enough to store for days. When the daily
[38:11] upload timer hit 5 minutes, I had to
[38:13] think carefully. Today's haul was huge,
[38:15] and I wanted to send more home. Better
[38:17] uploads meant higher rankings, better
[38:20] rewards for my family. Maybe even
[38:22] treatment for Shia Xiao's eyes. But I
[38:24] had to be realistic. Those bare tracks
[38:27] at the lake meant I couldn't go back
[38:29] anytime soon without knowing the
[38:31] predator's schedule. The A-class
[38:33] blizzard was coming in less than 2 days.
[38:35] I might be stuck in this hole for a
[38:37] while with no way to get more food.
[38:38] These grilled fish might be all I had
[38:40] for the foreseeable future. I couldn't
[38:42] afford to upload everything. I put my
[38:45] hand on one golden brown silver fish.
[38:47] Upload. I uploaded one grilled silver
[38:49] fish. The system rated C++ rare and gave
[38:54] a 100 times multiplier. Cooked food has
[38:56] a fixed return rate, but the quality
[38:58] score was high. When I checked the
[39:00] rankings, I jumped from 98 to 42,
[39:03] straight into the top 50. The reward for
[39:06] staying there next month would be five
[39:08] bottles of body enhancement fluid
[39:10] instead of just one. I started thinking
[39:12] about what came next. The earliest
[39:14] pioneers, even the small girls among
[39:17] them, were incredibly strong now. They'd
[39:19] been eating monster meat and drinking
[39:21] enhancement fluids for years, constantly
[39:24] evolving through the special energy in
[39:26] wasteland food. Survival of the fittest.
[39:29] Literally, if I could hunt a monster
[39:31] beast, I get better resources and grow
[39:33] stronger myself. A few days ago, that
[39:36] idea would have been insane. But with my
[39:38] intelligence system, it wasn't
[39:40] impossible anymore. I closed my eyes,
[39:43] feeling hopeful for the first time in a
[39:44] long while. Meanwhile, my stream was
[39:47] blowing up even though I was offline.
[39:49] Foodies from around the world piled into
[39:51] the chat after seeing my grilled fish.
[39:54] People from other countries were
[39:55] drooling. Someone from France said it
[39:57] looked better than top grade fua gr. A
[40:00] guy from England asked if Silverar food
[40:02] really made your body warm up with one
[40:04] bite. And someone from another country
[40:06] was quietly asking how much one fish
[40:08] cost. At home, my mom had taken one of
[40:11] the silver fish the soldiers delivered
[40:13] and made a simple stew with just ginger
[40:16] and salt. As it cooked, the meat didn't
[40:18] fall apart. It melted into a rich milky
[40:21] white broth. The smell drifted through
[40:24] the entire hallway. My dad shared some
[40:26] rice and flour with the two neighbors
[40:28] who'd actually helped our family during
[40:30] hard times. Everyone was grateful, but
[40:32] he refused to give my uncle's family a
[40:34] single grain. When Shia Sha sipped the
[40:37] fish soup, a wave of warmth spread
[40:39] through her body. My parents felt it,
[40:41] too. Dad said his old leg pain eased up
[40:44] for the first time in years. Mom told
[40:46] him to shut up and keep drinking. Over
[40:48] at my uncle's place, their kid was
[40:50] crying for meat again. My aunt told my
[40:52] uncle to go beg from my parents one more
[40:54] time, but he reminded her of what she'd
[40:56] said when I'd knocked on their door
[40:58] asking for food before. Can you even pay
[41:00] it back? She told me. Now she couldn't
[41:03] remember saying it. Back then, they'd
[41:05] avoided our family because Shia Sha was
[41:07] sick and used too many resources. Now
[41:10] they were eating the consequences. At
[41:12] the intelligence bureau, Suan was
[41:14] stunned again. Uploading cooked food
[41:16] meant I'd secured all three pillars of
[41:18] survival: water, fire, and shelter, even
[41:22] in the deadliest zone on the map. She
[41:25] calculated that my progress speed would
[41:27] beat nearly 89% of all pioneers,
[41:30] including those in warm, easy regions.
[41:33] She rarely praised anyone. But after a
[41:35] long silence, she whispered one word.
[41:38] Impressive. Deep inside our country at
[41:41] the highest security facility, the
[41:43] National Fortune Monitoring Center,
[41:45] three senior leaders were staring at a
[41:47] massive holographic display. The
[41:49] national crisis level sat at a
[41:51] terrifying 85%.
[41:53] Strategic resource reserves were at a
[41:55] pathetic 12%. They were discussing the
[41:58] possibility of having to abandon part of
[42:00] the population the way Western nations
[42:02] had already done. Then a chime sounded.
[42:05] The blue resource bar suddenly jumped 12
[42:08] to 18% in one leap. Six whole points.
[42:11] The old men scrambled to find the
[42:13] source. It wasn't from a regular
[42:15] harvest. The system used weighted
[42:17] calculations and what had triggered the
[42:19] spike was a rare cold resistance
[42:21] resource that could dramatically improve
[42:23] the next batch of seed level pioneers
[42:26] survival chances. The three leaders
[42:28] looked at each other and burst out
[42:29] laughing for the first time in who knows
[42:31] how long. Find out which seed level
[42:34] pioneer did this. One of them ordered.
[42:36] They must be heavily rewarded. They
[42:38] didn't know yet that it wasn't a seed
[42:40] level pioneer at all. It was just me.
[42:42] Deep in the night, I was half asleep in
[42:45] my snow hole when I heard it. Heavy
[42:47] footsteps crunching through the snow
[42:49] right outside my entrance. Less than 3
[42:51] meters away, I grabbed my shovel without
[42:54] making a sound and smothered the glowing
[42:56] coal with snow. Total darkness, total
[42:59] silence, a thick, rotten smelling breath
[43:02] seeped through the ventilation hole.
[43:04] Something huge was sniffing around my
[43:06] door. I held my breath and gripped the
[43:08] shovel so tight my knuckles went white.
[43:11] If it broke through, I'd have to fight
[43:13] for my life. 1 minute, 2 minutes. Time
[43:16] froze. Then the footsteps changed
[43:18] direction and moved away, heading
[43:20] northwest toward the spot where I dumped
[43:23] fish guts and heads the day before. The
[43:26] blood smell had lured it away. My back
[43:28] was soaked with cold sweat. If I'd been
[43:30] lazy and buried those scraps near the
[43:32] entrance, I'd be dead right now. Morning
[43:35] came. The system told me 3,980
[43:38] pioneers had died overnight. Nearly
[43:41] 4,000 in one night. That number was
[43:43] supposed to be going down. This batch of
[43:46] pioneers was stronger than previous
[43:47] ones. Raised on wasteland enhanced food.
[43:50] Instead, the death toll was climbing. I
[43:53] chose the danger option on my
[43:54] intelligence system for the first time.
[43:56] My vision transformed. A special filter
[43:59] appeared, like thermal imaging combined
[44:01] with trail tracking, showing me every
[44:04] creature's movement path from the past 7
[44:06] days. The effect would last 5 days. I
[44:09] looked at my entrance and my blood ran
[44:11] cold. A sickly green trail circled right
[44:14] outside my snow bricks. Two dense
[44:16] glowing spots were pressed against the
[44:18] cracks. Something had shoved its face
[44:20] right up to my wall, sniffing. The
[44:22] system identified it as a snow demon
[44:24] wolf. It had been there from 3:20 to
[44:27] 3:45 in the morning. And the label said
[44:30] one chilling thing, behavior, marking
[44:32] prey. I'd been marked. Snow demon wolves
[44:35] were pack hunters, smarter and more
[44:38] terrifying than any wolf on Earth. Once
[44:40] they targeted you, you either killed
[44:42] them all or died. I had no real weapon,
[44:45] just a shovel. This shelter was done.
[44:47] Between the wolves and the Aclass
[44:49] blizzard coming in less than 2 days, I
[44:52] had to leave. The system kept reminding
[44:54] me that my only chance of surviving was
[44:56] to the northeast. I packed everything
[44:58] onto the snow vehicle. Five Silverstar
[45:01] grilled fish, my tools, all of it loaded
[45:04] into the metal cargo box. When my stream
[45:07] turned on automatically, 20,000 viewers
[45:09] flooded in. They were shocked to see a
[45:11] box full of gleaming grilled fish and
[45:14] even more shocked when I said I was
[45:16] abandoning my shelter. The chat begged
[45:18] me to stay, said I was being reckless,
[45:20] but I'd already made up my mind. I
[45:22] climbed onto the sled and rode straight
[45:24] into the blizzard. As I pedled through
[45:26] the wind, my danger vision picked up
[45:29] something. A faint yellow trail on a
[45:31] slope to my left, diving straight down
[45:33] into the frozen ground. I stopped and
[45:36] read the tag. A tundra giant snow rat in
[45:39] deep hibernation had burrowed in 3 days
[45:41] ago to escape the coming blizzard. My
[45:44] mouth watered. I had fish, but in
[45:46] extreme cold, what you really need is
[45:48] red meat and fat. This was my chance.
[45:51] The viewers had no idea what I was doing
[45:53] when I got off the sled and walked
[45:55] toward a patch of empty snow with my
[45:57] shovel raised. They thought I'd lost it.
[45:59] Nothing was there, just snow. I scraped
[46:02] away the surface layer, found the frozen
[46:04] soil underneath, and pried open a chunk
[46:06] the size of a basketball. Warm musky air
[46:09] drifted up from the dark hole. I leaned
[46:12] in and looked. Down in the burrow, a
[46:14] massive white ball of fur was curled up
[46:16] tight, its thick coat rising and falling
[46:19] with slow sleeping breaths. A tundra
[46:22] giant snow rat. This thing was nothing
[46:24] like the rats back on Earth. Half a
[46:26] meter long, muscles bulging everywhere,
[46:29] two front teeth the color of dirty metal
[46:31] and sharp as chisels. Even asleep, its
[46:34] claws looked like steel hooks. The chat
[46:36] was screaming at me to be careful.
[46:38] Apparently, this creature could bite
[46:40] through a grown man's finger, and even
[46:42] snow demon wolves avoided picking fights
[46:44] with it. Cold air rushed into the hole,
[46:46] and the rat twitched. Its little green
[46:49] eyes cracked open, confused and angry.
[46:51] It bared those dagger teeth and let out
[46:54] a low screech. I didn't give it a
[46:56] chance. While its nerves were still
[46:58] sluggish from the cold, I raised the
[47:00] shovel high, twisted my whole body into
[47:02] it, and brought the sharpest edge down
[47:05] on the top of its skull. One hit, it
[47:07] collapsed without even a cry. I grabbed
[47:09] it by the scruff and hauled it out. The
[47:12] thing weighed at least 20 lb, like
[47:14] picking up a bag of oil. Its belly was
[47:16] packed with winter fat. The chat went
[47:18] crazy, calling it a walking block of
[47:21] premium pork belly. Someone said the
[47:23] calories in this one animal equaled 30
[47:26] lbs of lean meat. Others pointed out
[47:28] that its fur, called silver frost down,
[47:31] was waterproof and windproof, perfect
[47:33] for making gloves or knee pads. Then I
[47:36] reached back into the burrow and pulled
[47:38] out its food stash. Seven thumb-sized
[47:40] blueberries, still firm and glowing even
[47:43] after being buried in frozen soil. Ice
[47:46] blueberries loaded with vitamins and
[47:49] energy, worth more than gold in a frozen
[47:51] wasteland. Not every snow rat hoards
[47:53] this much. I got lucky, but I also
[47:56] wouldn't have found any of it without my
[47:58] danger vision showing me the trail. I
[48:00] tossed the rat and berries into the
[48:01] cargo box and kept moving. Back at the
[48:04] intelligence bureau, Suan briefed the
[48:06] team on my latest finds. Everyone was
[48:09] baffled. The eternal winter tundra was
[48:11] supposed to be a dead zone. Yet, I kept
[48:13] pulling out fish, fruit, and meat while
[48:16] their carefully selected elite pioneers
[48:18] were still struggling. The higherups
[48:21] were asking pointed questions. If I'd
[48:23] been chosen as a seed-level pioneer from
[48:25] the start, would the country be in a
[48:27] better position right now? Suan offered
[48:30] her theory. She believed I might have
[48:32] awakened a special ability, something
[48:34] like a sixth sense. A few legendary
[48:36] pioneers in other countries had shown
[48:38] similar traits, an uncanny instinct for
[48:41] finding resources and avoiding death.
[48:44] The most famous was the top ranked
[48:45] pioneer from another nation who seemed
[48:47] impossibly lucky at every turn.
[48:50] Commander Lelay Lee's eyes lit up. If I
[48:52] had a sixth sense, everything made
[48:54] sense. Our country had once had a
[48:56] pioneer like that, too. But he died
[48:58] trying to rescue a teammate. She gave
[49:01] the order, "Upgrade me to seed level
[49:03] pioneer status immediately. Move my
[49:05] family to the capital's core district
[49:07] with top tier support. And if I proved I
[49:10] could survive long-term, consider
[49:12] promoting me to apocalypse bearer, a
[49:14] special designation allowed by the
[49:16] advanced civilizations rules. Only one
[49:19] per country, per batch." Nobody knew
[49:21] exactly what it did yet, but every
[49:23] expert believed it would be critically
[49:25] important for whatever came next on
[49:27] Earth. My promotion to seed level made
[49:30] my stream visible to millions more
[49:32] people. International media picked up my
[49:35] story with dramatic headlines about
[49:36] racing against death in a frozen
[49:39] wasteland. I didn't know any of that. I
[49:41] was pedalling through the blizzard,
[49:43] scanning the world through my golden
[49:45] danger vision. And what I saw made my
[49:47] scalp tingle. The tundra that looked
[49:49] like empty white. nothing to everyone
[49:51] else. Through my eyes, it was absolutely
[49:54] teeming with life. Every few hundred
[49:56] meters, my danger vision lit up with
[49:58] yellow trails diving underground. Snow
[50:01] rats, ice foxes, thunder chickens. I
[50:04] counted at least 20 hidden animal dens
[50:06] in half a day of traveling. If I could
[50:08] find a safe base to ride out the
[50:10] blizzard, this whole area would be an
[50:12] endless supply of food and resources.
[50:15] But I forced myself not to stop. The
[50:17] Aclass blizzard was 28 hours away.
[50:19] shelter first, everything else later. I
[50:22] also saw plenty of dangerous trails,
[50:24] green, deep red, even dark purple,
[50:27] wolves, bears, giant ice worms. This
[50:30] place was crawling with predators.
[50:32] Humans were at the bottom of the food
[50:34] chain here. But the good news was that
[50:36] most of these creatures were following
[50:38] their instincts, finding places to hide
[50:40] from the coming storm. By nightfall, I
[50:43] still hadn't found shelter. I dug a
[50:45] quick snow hole, ate some grilled fish
[50:47] in the dark, and skipped the daily
[50:49] upload. Every piece of food was my
[50:51] lifeline now. I needed rest, and I
[50:53] needed a plan. Back on Earth, my family
[50:56] got a surprise visit. Wong Gang showed
[50:58] up with armed soldiers and told my
[51:00] parents I'd been promoted to seed level
[51:02] pioneer. The government wanted to move
[51:04] them to the capital district where
[51:06] they'd get top tier support. My dad
[51:08] hesitated. He didn't want to be a
[51:10] burden, and he'd lived in that apartment
[51:12] for decades. Then Wong Gang played his
[51:14] trump card. Only the capital's best
[51:17] medical facilities could heal Xiao<unk>s
[51:19] eyes. My parents agreed immediately.
[51:22] That was my dream, too. The whole
[51:23] neighborhood watched in shock as my
[51:25] family was escorted into an armored
[51:27] military SUV. My uncle and his wife
[51:30] stood in a corner, faces white with
[51:32] regret. Next morning, I crawled out into
[51:35] even worse conditions. Visibility under
[51:38] 10 m, temperature at -40. I chose
[51:41] environment on my intelligence system.
[51:43] The map spread out huge this time 10 km
[51:47] in every direction thanks to having the
[51:49] vehicle and there were two shelter
[51:51] markers. Option A, an abandoned bear
[51:54] cave 5 km to the left about -20 inside
[51:59] cramped no resources. Rating D. Option
[52:03] B. A thermal cave 15 km to the right.
[52:07] Semi underground, constant temperature
[52:09] between 0ero and 5°. Massive space, its
[52:12] own water source. More details pending
[52:15] exploration. Rating a 3 seconds of
[52:18] thought. The bear cave was safe and
[52:20] close. The thermal cave was incredible,
[52:23] but dangerously far. 15 km in this
[52:26] weather, even with the sled, would push
[52:29] me to my absolute limit. If I didn't
[52:31] make it, I was dead. I turned right.
[52:34] Short-term safety wasn't worth long-term
[52:36] survival. That thermal cave could change
[52:38] everything. The viewers flooded in when
[52:40] my stream went live. Someone had done
[52:43] the math. My total resource stockpile
[52:45] ranked in the global top 10 among all
[52:47] eighth badge pioneers. Despite being in
[52:50] the worst environment of anyone, they
[52:52] begged me to survive. At the
[52:54] intelligence bureau, Leil Lee and Suan
[52:57] sat staring at my feet in silence. The
[52:59] whole command hall was quiet. They were
[53:01] waiting to see a hill, a rock formation,
[53:04] anything that could be shelter. Minutes
[53:06] passed. 20, 40, nothing but endless
[53:10] white. Suan, who'd lost both parents to
[53:12] the wasteland and had spent her life
[53:14] trying to beat it with data, started to
[53:16] doubt. Could any human really overcome
[53:18] this? Even someone like me? The wind
[53:21] shifted to a direct headwind. Despite
[53:24] pedaling with everything I had, the sled
[53:26] barely moved. It was like pushing
[53:28] through cement. The viewers could see me
[53:30] slowing down, freezing up, going
[53:33] nowhere. The system flashed warnings. 12
[53:36] km still to go. 5 hours until the
[53:38] blizzard hit full force. Temperature
[53:41] -50. My blood felt like it was turning
[53:43] to ice. Frost sealed my eyebrows shut.
[53:46] My energy was almost gone. I let go of
[53:49] one handlebar and reached into my
[53:51] jacket. I pulled out a Silver Star
[53:53] grilled fish, my emergency reserves. The
[53:56] food I'd been saving for the worst
[53:58] moment. This was that moment. I bit into
[54:00] the first fish and swallowed it in a few
[54:02] bites. Then the second, then the third.
[54:05] The heat from three fish exploded inside
[54:08] me like a volcano. My frozen purple skin
[54:11] turned red and actual steam rose off my
[54:13] body. The system announced I'd broken
[54:16] through a genetic lock. Under extreme
[54:18] cold pressure combined with enough
[54:19] highquality food, I'd unlocked mid-level
[54:22] cold resistance. It felt like wearing
[54:24] invisible armor made of lava. The cold
[54:27] didn't disappear, but it couldn't reach
[54:29] me the way it used to. I screamed and
[54:31] slammed my feet down on the pedals. The
[54:34] sled roared back to life and ripped
[54:36] through the headwind that had nearly
[54:38] stopped me dead. Then I looked back. One
[54:40] glance was enough to make my skin crawl.
[54:42] A few kilome behind me, where the sky
[54:45] met the ground, a white wall hundreds of
[54:47] meters tall was rolling toward me in
[54:50] absolute silence. It connected heaven
[54:52] and earth like a tidal wave made of ice
[54:55] and wind, flattening everything in its
[54:57] path. The A-class blizzard had arrived,
[55:00] and it was chasing me. Back on Earth,
[55:03] tens of thousands of viewers went
[55:05] completely silent. No jokes, no
[55:07] arguments, no commentary. This wasn't a
[55:10] movie where the hero always survives at
[55:12] the last second. Pioneers actually died.
[55:15] Screens actually went black forever.
[55:17] Everyone just clenched their fists and
[55:19] prayed. At the intelligence bureau,
[55:21] Suan's face went white. She pulled up
[55:24] the data. This blizzard would drop
[55:26] temperatures to -65. She listed what
[55:29] weaker storms had done to other
[55:30] pioneers. A C-class cold rain had cost
[55:33] one country's best pioneer his limbs. A
[55:36] B-class sandstorm had killed three
[55:38] special forces veterans, leaving nothing
[55:41] behind. And I was facing an A-class.
[55:43] Survival probability basically zero.
[55:46] Commander Ley slammed her small hand on
[55:48] the desk. so hard the water glass shook.
[55:51] She refused to accept it. She'd seen me
[55:53] upgrade my body just moments ago.
[55:55] Mid-level cold resistance. If I found
[55:58] even a shallow cave, I could make it.
[56:01] She leaned forward over the table and
[56:03] whispered through gritted teeth. Hold
[56:05] on. My world shrank to two things. My
[56:07] heartbeat and the death closing in
[56:09] behind me. 10 minutes until impact. Then
[56:12] I saw it. A massive rock formation
[56:15] breaking the wind ahead. And at its
[56:17] base, a crack in the stone with a faint
[56:19] orange glow leaking out. Geothermal
[56:22] heat. A way to live. The chat erupted.
[56:25] People screamed at their screens for me
[56:26] to go faster. I roared and poured every
[56:29] drop of energy into my legs. The sled's
[56:32] chain screamed for the first time, a
[56:34] sound I'd never heard before. 400 m,
[56:37] 300. The white wall caught up. The
[56:40] pressure difference hit my back like a
[56:41] giant hand shoving me forward. The sled
[56:44] and I were practically airborne. 100 m.
[56:47] I wrenched the handlebars and the sled
[56:49] shot into the crack like a silver
[56:51] bullet. I crashed. The sled tipped
[56:53] sideways. I crawled out gasping, shaking
[56:57] alive. The legendary sled, the
[56:59] intelligence system, mid-level cold
[57:02] resistance. If I'd been missing any
[57:04] single one of those three things, I'd be
[57:06] a frozen corpse right now. One wrong
[57:08] step at any point in the last week and I
[57:11] was dead. This was a hell mode start.
[57:13] and there was zero room for error.
[57:15] Outside, the Aclass blizzard slammed
[57:17] into the rock with a sound like the
[57:19] world ending. The blizzard hit the
[57:21] mountain like a fist. The whole rock
[57:23] groaned, then freezing air rushed into
[57:25] the cave entrance like it was alive.
[57:28] Blue ice spikes shot inward along the
[57:30] walls and floor, growing meters long in
[57:33] seconds, reaching deeper and deeper like
[57:35] the fangs of some giant beast. They only
[57:38] stopped when they met the geothermal
[57:40] heat rising from below. The ice froze in
[57:42] place, forming a terrifying but
[57:45] beautiful wall of jagged crystal across
[57:47] the entrance. The door was sealed. I was
[57:50] locked inside, but I was alive. I
[57:52] checked my sled, scratched up, but the
[57:54] core mechanics were fine. My supplies
[57:57] were low. The snow rat, the blueberries,
[57:59] and two fish. Not much, but I'd made it.
[58:03] For the first time, I really looked at
[58:05] my new home. It was incredible. Over 500
[58:08] square meters of space with ceilings
[58:10] more than 10 m high. The ground was
[58:12] rough and covered in loose rocks, but
[58:14] nothing I couldn't clean up. Strange
[58:16] blue glowing moss grew along the wet
[58:18] walls, fed by the geothermal heat,
[58:21] casting a soft light that pushed back
[58:23] the darkness. I picked some up. The
[58:26] system labeled it ordinary and more
[58:28] importantly, not edible. Pioneers before
[58:30] me had learned the hard way. Glowing
[58:33] moss and mushrooms were a death
[58:34] sentence. Water dripped from cracks high
[58:37] in the walls, collecting into a clear
[58:39] stream that wounded across the floor and
[58:41] disappeared into a dark tunnel deeper in
[58:43] the cave. The temperature read 6° 6
[58:47] above zero. I almost teared up. My old
[58:50] snow hole cost me health just sleeping
[58:52] in it. The bear cave option would have
[58:54] been -20. I'd have burned through food
[58:57] just to stay warm. But here, built-in
[58:59] heating, running water. I could lie down
[59:02] and do nothing for an entire day without
[59:04] losing a single point of health. I joked
[59:07] to myself that I was going to lie flat
[59:08] and let the other pioneers handle
[59:10] things. But my hands were already
[59:12] moving, clearing rocks, and exploring
[59:15] every corner. Viewers from around the
[59:17] world were pouring into my stream.
[59:19] Someone from another country said their
[59:21] top pioneer was fighting a groundhog
[59:23] over water rights. Others were jealous
[59:26] of my heat source. One person begged me
[59:28] to mail them some of the glowing moss. A
[59:31] viewer from up north admitted I was
[59:32] tougher than their own country's famous
[59:34] pioneer. My countrymen were grinning
[59:37] eartoear with pride. At the intelligence
[59:39] bureau, Ley ordered every team to drop
[59:42] what they were doing and produce a full
[59:44] evaluation of my cave. Dozens of
[59:46] analysts scrambled. Within minutes,
[59:49] reports came flooding in. Water source
[59:51] rated B, heat source rated A. Then Suan
[59:54] stood up and delivered the bombshell. My
[59:57] shelter's overall score ranked 10th in
[59:59] the entire world among all eighth batch
[01:00:02] pioneers globally and I'd found it in
[01:00:04] the deadliest zone on the map. Ley said
[01:00:06] her earlier judgment had been too
[01:00:08] cautious. I already qualified to become
[01:00:11] the apocalypse bearer. And if I could
[01:00:13] hold this position, I might even compete
[01:00:15] for pioneer king of the entire eighth
[01:00:18] batch, the highest title possible.
[01:00:20] Meaning one person could single-handedly
[01:00:22] shift a nation's fate. Our country had
[01:00:25] only won that title twice across seven
[01:00:27] previous batches. But while everyone
[01:00:29] celebrated, Suan quietly looked at two
[01:00:32] things on her screen. The cave entrance
[01:00:34] now completely sealed behind a wall of
[01:00:36] ice. In the dark, unexplored tunnel
[01:00:39] leading deeper underground. She adjusted
[01:00:42] her glasses, her expression troubled.
[01:00:45] The ice had locked the door. The
[01:00:46] blizzard was raging outside. My food
[01:00:49] would run out eventually. I was safe,
[01:00:51] but I was also trapped. I didn't waste
[01:00:53] time sitting around. I jumped between
[01:00:55] the rocks like a mountain goat, checking
[01:00:58] every corner of my new home for safety.
[01:01:00] Viewers were impressed by how fast I
[01:01:03] moved through the jagged terrain.
[01:01:04] Someone called me a snow leopard. After
[01:01:07] closing my stream, I checked the daily
[01:01:09] rankings. 2 days without uploading
[01:01:11] anything had dropped me to 179th. No
[01:01:15] rewards, but I couldn't afford to give
[01:01:17] up food right now. My stats looked solid
[01:01:19] though. Satiety maxed at 300.
[01:01:22] temperature stable, mid-level cold
[01:01:24] resistance active. The downside was that
[01:01:26] regular fish couldn't push my body
[01:01:28] further anymore. I'd need monster meat
[01:01:30] or something even better to keep
[01:01:32] evolving. That's when I noticed the
[01:01:34] smell, a sharp ammonia stink rolling up
[01:01:37] from deep in the cave. I activated my
[01:01:39] danger vision and looked up at the
[01:01:41] ceiling. The place was covered in faint
[01:01:43] red trails. Thousands of them, dark
[01:01:46] cavern demon bats, second tier monsters.
[01:01:49] They'd been roosting here and had gone
[01:01:51] into hibernation about 20 days ago. I'd
[01:01:53] noticed them when I first entered, but I
[01:01:55] had no choice then. The good news, only
[01:01:58] one species, all asleep. The bad news,
[01:02:01] if they woke up, thousands of blood
[01:02:03] sucking flying monsters would turn me
[01:02:05] into a dried husk, and I didn't even
[01:02:08] have a real weapon. The air currents
[01:02:10] told me the cave system below was
[01:02:12] enormous. multiple branching tunnels,
[01:02:14] some ventilated, some sealed, and filled
[01:02:17] with bad droppings. Those droppings were
[01:02:20] actually valuable as fertilizer and
[01:02:22] could even be processed into explosives,
[01:02:24] but that was a problem for later. I
[01:02:26] retreated to the front of the cave where
[01:02:28] the air was cleaner and got some sleep.
[01:02:30] Next morning, the storm was still
[01:02:32] raging. Nearly 5,000 pioneers had died
[01:02:36] overnight. I stretched out on the warm
[01:02:38] ground and couldn't help smiling.
[01:02:40] Geothermal heating was the greatest
[01:02:42] luxury I'd experienced since arriving. I
[01:02:45] chose environment on my intelligence
[01:02:47] system, wanting to map what was beneath
[01:02:49] me. The golden hologram that appeared
[01:02:51] was staggering. A massive underground
[01:02:54] cross-section showing countless
[01:02:56] branching tunnels like a giant ant
[01:02:58] colony. Bat caves, underground rivers,
[01:03:01] magma pools, all laid out below my feet.
[01:03:04] But what froze me in place was something
[01:03:06] at the very bottom. 2 and 1/2 km down. A
[01:03:09] glowing purple inverted pyramid icon
[01:03:12] pulsed in the darkness. The system said
[01:03:14] I triggered a world secret. A ruined
[01:03:16] temple called the Wind and Snow Shrine,
[01:03:19] and it suggested I go there. It might
[01:03:21] grant supernatural abilities.
[01:03:23] Supernatural abilities. I'd never heard
[01:03:25] of such a thing. The strongest pioneers
[01:03:28] had evolved their bodies to incredible
[01:03:30] levels, matching third tier monsters in
[01:03:32] raw power. But actual supernatural
[01:03:34] powers, that was new. I had to go. In a
[01:03:38] place like the eternal winter tundra,
[01:03:40] strength was the only thing that kept
[01:03:42] you alive, and my intelligence system
[01:03:44] was telling me to check it out. But
[01:03:46] first, breakfast. I pulled out the giant
[01:03:48] snow rat, 20 lb of pure winter fat, and
[01:03:51] pink meat. I set up a proper cooking
[01:03:54] station for the first time. Stone slabs
[01:03:56] balanced on rocks over a small piece of
[01:03:58] glowing coal. When the stone was searing
[01:04:01] hot, I laid thin slices of wrap meat on
[01:04:03] top. The fat hit the heat and exploded
[01:04:06] with flavor. It sizzled and shrank,
[01:04:08] edges curling golden brown, filling the
[01:04:11] entire cave with the most incredible
[01:04:13] smell. Raw, primal, meaty richness. Then
[01:04:17] I crushed three iced blueberries in a
[01:04:19] stone bowl, making a cold purple sauce.
[01:04:22] I picked up a dripping, crackling slice
[01:04:24] of meat and dipped it in the berry jam.
[01:04:27] Hot fat met cold sweet fruit. Crispy
[01:04:29] outside, tender inside, juice bursting
[01:04:32] in my mouth. I closed my eyes inside.
[01:04:35] Perfect. The chat lost their minds.
[01:04:38] People from every country united in one
[01:04:40] opinion. I was torturing them. Someone
[01:04:42] begged me to stop. Another said they
[01:04:44] refused to believe this was real. Others
[01:04:47] demanded to know how I'd invented
[01:04:48] gourmet cooking in a frozen death zone.
[01:04:51] At the intelligence bureau, Suan watched
[01:04:53] me on screen and smiled. While other
[01:04:56] eighth batch pioneers were still
[01:04:58] scrambling for food and shelter, I was
[01:05:00] sitting in my heated cave grilling meat
[01:05:02] with berry dipping sauce. I was starting
[01:05:05] to enjoy life out here. And that
[01:05:07] confidence came from having a home worth
[01:05:09] defending. Back on Earth, the top
[01:05:11] military and political leaders were
[01:05:13] having a strategy meeting about the
[01:05:15] wasteland. Ley presented the status of
[01:05:17] our country's seedle pioneers. Ziao
[01:05:20] Taihu, the special forces veteran, was
[01:05:23] hiding in a tree hollow with a poisoned,
[01:05:25] swollen arm, eating insect eggs to
[01:05:28] survive. He'd found the antidote plant,
[01:05:30] but a monster bug was guarding it. Li
[01:05:32] Chingqing had found water, but it was
[01:05:34] contaminated, and she was getting sick.
[01:05:37] Only Mushu, stationed in an open mining
[01:05:40] area, was doing well enough to upload
[01:05:42] resources regularly, but she desperately
[01:05:44] needed shelter. The old commander asked
[01:05:47] about the international situation. other
[01:05:49] count's pioneers were doing somewhat
[01:05:51] better overall, mostly because they'd
[01:05:53] landed in easier spots. Then he asked
[01:05:56] about me. He remembered the kid in the
[01:05:58] eternal winter tundra and wanted to know
[01:06:00] if my snow hole had survived the Aclass
[01:06:02] blizzard. Ley had been saving me as her
[01:06:05] big reveal, but the commander beat her
[01:06:07] to it. She switched to my feet. The
[01:06:10] sound of sizzling meat filled the war
[01:06:12] room. There I was, jacket off, happily
[01:06:14] grilling snow rat in my heated cave. The
[01:06:17] commander's cigarette fell out of his
[01:06:19] mouth. He laughed and called me a little
[01:06:21] punk. Everyone else was starving in the
[01:06:23] wilderness and I was having a barbecue.
[01:06:25] One expert criticized my attitude,
[01:06:28] saying enjoying food was the wrong
[01:06:30] mindset for long-term survival. The
[01:06:32] commander slammed the table and shut him
[01:06:34] down. He said pioneers had every right
[01:06:37] to manage their own survival however
[01:06:39] they chose, and people who'd never set
[01:06:41] foot in the wasteland shouldn't judge.
[01:06:43] Ley proposed making me a candidate for
[01:06:45] the apocalypse bearer designation. The
[01:06:48] commander said my shelter ranking was
[01:06:50] impressive, but the decision was too
[01:06:52] important to rush. He ordered a few more
[01:06:54] days of observation, then a secret vote
[01:06:57] at the next meeting. In my cave,
[01:06:59] breakfast was just the warm-up. The real
[01:07:01] work started after. I rendered the snow
[01:07:03] rat's belly fat in a stone pot, cutting
[01:07:06] the thick white slabs into chunks and
[01:07:08] melting them down. While the oil
[01:07:10] simmerred, I sliced the remaining meat
[01:07:12] into finger thick strips with the edge
[01:07:14] of my shovel. It wasn't a knife, but in
[01:07:17] my hands, it worked like one. I laid the
[01:07:19] strips around the coal to dry into
[01:07:21] jerky. The viewers couldn't believe how
[01:07:23] fast I worked. Someone joked, "My hand
[01:07:25] speed proved I'd been single for 20
[01:07:27] years." Others said, "I must be playing
[01:07:29] on fast forward." When the crackling oil
[01:07:32] turned golden and clear, I poured it
[01:07:34] into a stone bowl. 1.2 2 L of purified
[01:07:37] animal fat. Good for cooking,
[01:07:40] waterproofing my skin against frostbite
[01:07:42] or burning as lamp fuel. Next, I spread
[01:07:45] the rat's fur out on flat rock and
[01:07:47] scraped it clean. Silver frost down,
[01:07:49] waterproof, windproof, incredibly warm.
[01:07:52] Then, I cracked the skull open and
[01:07:54] pulled out the two front teeth and four
[01:07:56] leg bones. Those curved teeth had the
[01:07:58] perfect shape for fish hooks once I
[01:08:00] sharpened them. With proper hooks, my
[01:08:02] fishing efficiency would skyrocket. 40
[01:08:05] minutes start to finish. Five pounds of
[01:08:07] dried meat, a full hide, two teeth for
[01:08:10] bones, and over a liter of oil. Even the
[01:08:13] unusable scraps got frozen into the ice
[01:08:16] wall at the entrance for future bait. I
[01:08:18] packed a light bag with some jerky,
[01:08:20] drank a few mouthfuls of melt water, and
[01:08:23] gripped my shovel. The golden map
[01:08:25] flickered on my vision. That strange
[01:08:27] purple inverted pyramid was still
[01:08:29] glowing deep underground, 2 and 1/2 km
[01:08:32] below my feet. a civilization ruin. The
[01:08:35] wind and snow shrine. The system said it
[01:08:38] might grant supernatural abilities. My
[01:08:41] shelter was good, but it wasn't perfect
[01:08:43] yet. Maybe whatever was down there could
[01:08:45] change that. I headed into the dark
[01:08:47] tunnels below. At the intelligence
[01:08:49] bureau, Ley came back from her meeting
[01:08:51] and nearly lost it when she saw what I
[01:08:53] was doing. Her apocalypse bearer
[01:08:55] candidate was crawling into a pitch
[01:08:57] black underground tunnel. She called it
[01:08:59] reckless. complex underground systems
[01:09:02] were death traps and there could be
[01:09:04] monsters lurking below. Suan calculated
[01:09:06] my supplies could last about 10 days if
[01:09:09] I kept my activity low. The blizzard
[01:09:11] outside would rage for at least 15 to
[01:09:13] 20, but I had my intelligence systems
[01:09:15] blue safety path glowing on my vision,
[01:09:18] so navigating the tunnels was
[01:09:20] straightforward. I held a clump of
[01:09:22] glowing blue moss for light and moved
[01:09:24] steadily downward. 30 minutes in, the
[01:09:27] smell hit its peak. I reached a massive
[01:09:29] fork in the tunnel. The left passage was
[01:09:31] like a mouth swallowing all light and
[01:09:34] the stench was pouring out of it. One
[01:09:36] look inside and my blood went cold. The
[01:09:39] ceiling, dozens of meters high, was
[01:09:41] covered, completely covered in hanging
[01:09:44] black shapes. Thousands of them, not
[01:09:46] fruit. Living creatures, each one the
[01:09:49] size of an eagle, wrapped in dark
[01:09:51] leathery wings, muscular bodies hanging
[01:09:53] upside down. Second tier dark cavern
[01:09:56] demon bats deep in hibernation. The
[01:09:59] system flashed an extreme danger
[01:10:01] warning. Second tier. That meant they
[01:10:03] were far beyond anything I could fight.
[01:10:05] Even sleeping, they radiated a vicious
[01:10:08] energy that made my skin crawl. The
[01:10:10] ground beneath them was half a meter
[01:10:12] deep in gray white sludge. Droppings
[01:10:15] mixed with pale bones from whatever
[01:10:16] they'd eaten. If my system hadn't
[01:10:18] confirmed they were hibernating, I
[01:10:20] wouldn't have come within a 100 meters
[01:10:22] of this place. I backed away quietly and
[01:10:25] took the other tunnel, the one radiating
[01:10:27] heat. The viewers were terrified. Some
[01:10:30] said they'd have nightmares. Then the
[01:10:32] screen went almost completely dark as I
[01:10:34] descended deeper, and the chat panicked,
[01:10:37] thinking the bats had woken up, or I'd
[01:10:39] gotten lost. The temperature climbed
[01:10:41] fast, 20°, 30, 40. I was drenched in
[01:10:45] sweat, gasping for air, wondering how a
[01:10:48] place called the Wind and Snow Shrine
[01:10:50] could be this hot. Then, without
[01:10:52] warning, a blast of freezing wind hit me
[01:10:55] head-on. Extreme heat and extreme cold
[01:10:57] collided in the narrow tunnel, creating
[01:11:00] a wall of white fog. The temperature
[01:11:02] swings made me want to turn back, but
[01:11:04] the purple pyramid on my map was only 30
[01:11:07] m away. I gritted my teeth and pushed
[01:11:09] through the fog. What I saw on the other
[01:11:11] side stopped me dead. a massive
[01:11:13] underground circular hall, a black river
[01:11:16] flowing silently through the middle. And
[01:11:18] on both banks, arranged in perfect rows,
[01:11:21] were countless skeletons. Not animal
[01:11:24] bones. The skulls were humanoid. Every
[01:11:26] single skeleton was frozen in a kneeling
[01:11:29] position, facing the center of the hall,
[01:11:31] as if performing a prayer that had
[01:11:33] lasted 10,000 years. Even as bare bones,
[01:11:37] they radiated devotion and terror at the
[01:11:39] same time. The chat exploded. Then
[01:11:41] someone shouted, "Look at the walls.
[01:11:44] There's light." Meanwhile, on Earth, a
[01:11:46] diplomat named Lu Dongwa was using my
[01:11:48] uploaded silver fish as a bargaining
[01:11:51] chip in trade negotiations with another
[01:11:53] country. Their representatives nearly
[01:11:55] fell over when they saw the rare cold
[01:11:57] resistance fish. Lou closed a deal 30%
[01:12:00] higher than the government's asking
[01:12:02] price. He was so happy he opened my
[01:12:04] stream and begged me to catch more fish.
[01:12:07] But I was 2 and 1/2 km underground, far
[01:12:10] past the point of fishing. I'd made it
[01:12:12] through the back cave without waking
[01:12:14] anything and descended into tunnels that
[01:12:16] kept getting hotter. The chat was
[01:12:18] confused. Why was it so hot underground?
[01:12:20] Sue wanted the intelligence bureau
[01:12:22] couldn't figure out what I was thinking
[01:12:24] either. She'd expected me to just
[01:12:26] explore near my shelter, not dive this
[01:12:28] deep. Then came the blast of freezing
[01:12:31] wind hitting the scorching air, creating
[01:12:33] a wall of fog in the tunnel. Hot and
[01:12:36] cold fighting each other. I almost
[01:12:38] turned back, but the purple marker was
[01:12:40] only 30 m away. I pushed through. The
[01:12:43] underground hall took my breath away. A
[01:12:45] dark river flowing through the center.
[01:12:47] And on both sides, rows upon rows of
[01:12:50] humanoid skeletons, all frozen in
[01:12:53] kneeling positions, all facing the
[01:12:55] center of the room. A prayer that had
[01:12:57] lasted thousands of years, preserved in
[01:12:59] bone. Back on Earth, the moment viewers
[01:13:02] saw this place, Suan lunged for a red
[01:13:04] emergency button on her desk. But before
[01:13:07] she could press it, my stream cut to
[01:13:09] black. Alarm screamed through the
[01:13:11] intelligence bureau. Giant red letters
[01:13:14] flashed across every screen. Wasteland
[01:13:16] civilization ruin detected. The whole
[01:13:19] building went into panic. I didn't know
[01:13:21] any of that. I was standing in the hall
[01:13:24] staring at the wall. A 100 meter tall
[01:13:26] mural made entirely of living moss. Blue
[01:13:29] moss drew swirling snow. Red moss
[01:13:32] painted flowing magma. And in the
[01:13:34] center, thick dark green moss formed a
[01:13:37] woman's face. No clear features, just
[01:13:39] two empty black holes where I should be,
[01:13:42] staring down at me like I was an insect.
[01:13:45] I looked into those eyes. One glance and
[01:13:47] my brain felt like it had been hit with
[01:13:49] a sledgehammer. Nausea flooded through
[01:13:52] me. My vision warped and doubled.
[01:13:54] Whispering voices filled my ears from
[01:13:56] every direction. Then my thoughts
[01:13:58] stopped completely. I started walking
[01:14:00] toward the mural. I couldn't control my
[01:14:02] body. My eyes were bloodshot, veins
[01:14:05] ready to burst. My consciousness was
[01:14:07] pulled into an empty frozen wasteland
[01:14:10] inside my own mind. An ancient cold
[01:14:13] female voice dripping with amusement
[01:14:16] thundered through my soul. You stand
[01:14:18] before a god. Why do you not kneel?
[01:14:20] Crushing pressure slammed down on every
[01:14:23] bone in my body. My knees felt like they
[01:14:25] were about to shatter. The weight was
[01:14:27] trying to force me to the ground, but
[01:14:28] the pressure also snapped my mind back
[01:14:30] online. Thoughts rushed in. Everything
[01:14:33] I'd learned about the wasteland, the
[01:14:35] theories from Earth scientists, the
[01:14:37] training exams, the footage of pioneers
[01:14:40] dying in mysterious ways, the incredible
[01:14:42] power of topranked veterans who could
[01:14:44] tear monsters apart with their hands.
[01:14:47] This place was beyond science. Something
[01:14:49] real was speaking to me. Something was
[01:14:51] watching me. Should I kneel one knee or
[01:14:54] two? Should I prostrate myself
[01:14:55] completely? Would refusing make this
[01:14:57] thing kill me? A thousand thoughts
[01:14:59] crashed together and in the end only one
[01:15:02] screamed loud enough to hear. System
[01:15:05] save me back on Earth. The whole world
[01:15:07] was losing its mind. The image of me
[01:15:10] standing among bones staring up at the
[01:15:12] moss mural went viral on every platform.
[01:15:15] Experts rushed into the intelligence
[01:15:17] bureau. Biologists, archaeologists,
[01:15:20] ancient language specialists. An old
[01:15:22] professor said the mural's living moss
[01:15:25] could preserve images for a million
[01:15:27] years. He studied the composition and
[01:15:29] delivered grim news. This was a
[01:15:31] civilization built on blood sacrifice.
[01:15:34] The god was above. Everyone else became
[01:15:36] bones. Survival odds for anyone who
[01:15:39] entered a place like this were almost
[01:15:41] zero. At a meeting across the ocean,
[01:15:44] military leaders from another country
[01:15:46] discussed my situation coldly. Over 7
[01:15:48] years, 32 top pioneers had stumbled into
[01:15:51] civilization ruins. 20 died within an
[01:15:54] hour. Eight survivors went insane and
[01:15:57] killed themselves after returning to
[01:15:58] Earth. Only a handful lived and they
[01:16:01] were all near the top of the global
[01:16:02] rankings. Now, the gambling sites gave
[01:16:05] me 15 to1 odds against survival.
[01:16:07] Underground, I was bleeding from my
[01:16:09] eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. The
[01:16:12] pressure was crushing my skeleton. My
[01:16:14] mind was breaking apart. Then my
[01:16:16] intelligence system answered my
[01:16:18] desperate call. It offered to burn 3
[01:16:20] days worth of future intel points to
[01:16:22] decode the ruins. I didn't hesitate.
[01:16:25] Golden symbols exploded across my
[01:16:28] vision, weaving into chains of light
[01:16:30] that wrapped around the ghostly image of
[01:16:32] the goddess. One second later, the
[01:16:34] answer crystallized in platinum text.
[01:16:37] The wind and frost goddess despised
[01:16:39] weakness and blind servitude. She hated
[01:16:42] those who knelt. The only way to earn
[01:16:44] her gift was to refuse. Don't kneel.
[01:16:47] Every cell in my body was screaming to
[01:16:49] collapse. The white bones around me
[01:16:51] seemed to come alive, whispering,
[01:16:54] shouting, demanding I submit. Phantom
[01:16:56] visions showed me what the ancient
[01:16:58] beings had done. Kneel, offer, pray,
[01:17:01] receive power, embrace the storm. It
[01:17:04] would be so easy to just give in. But
[01:17:06] the systems words stayed burning on my
[01:17:08] vision, anchoring my last shred of
[01:17:10] sanity. I jammed my shovel into the
[01:17:13] ground and used it as a crutch. Inch by
[01:17:15] inch, bone by bone, I forced my spine
[01:17:18] straight. The wind held harder. The cold
[01:17:21] cut through to my marrow. Without
[01:17:23] mid-level cold resistance, I would have
[01:17:25] died right there. I needed something to
[01:17:27] hold on to. So, I started singing
[01:17:29] silently in my heart, our national
[01:17:32] anthem. The words about refusing to be
[01:17:34] slaves, about building walls with flesh
[01:17:37] and blood. I screamed every line inside
[01:17:39] my skull. And at the peak of my
[01:17:41] defiance, everything stopped. The
[01:17:43] crushing pressure vanished like someone
[01:17:45] had flipped a switch. The hall went dead
[01:17:47] silent. Then warm wind swept through the
[01:17:50] cavern. The moss on the mural uncurled
[01:17:52] and shifted. Dark colors drained away,
[01:17:55] replaced by pure silver white. The
[01:17:57] goddess's face changed. She lowered her
[01:18:00] head slightly, and those terrifying
[01:18:02] empty eyes seemed to soften with
[01:18:04] approval. Her hands, once demanding,
[01:18:07] opened outward. She wasn't taking
[01:18:09] anymore. she was giving. A massive
[01:18:11] tree-shaped diagram made of ice crystals
[01:18:14] unfolded before my eyes. Most of it was
[01:18:17] hidden in black fog, but two nodes at
[01:18:19] the bottom glowed with cold light. One
[01:18:22] was called servant of winter, a power
[01:18:24] that would make me immune to wind and
[01:18:26] frost and boost my strength, speed,
[01:18:29] stamina, and recovery by 30% in extreme
[01:18:32] cold. To unlock it, I need to sacrifice
[01:18:35] three items from the frozen world. an
[01:18:38] ice silver pillar fish, an ice heart
[01:18:40] lotus, and a fresh snow demon bear
[01:18:42] liver. A bare liver from a second tier
[01:18:45] monster that could crush me like a bug.
[01:18:47] The goddess had high expectations. I
[01:18:50] looked at the massive skulls scattered
[01:18:51] around me, each one twice the size of my
[01:18:54] own head. Maybe the ancient beings who'd
[01:18:56] worshiped here were just on a completely
[01:18:58] different level. Maybe I was simply too
[01:19:00] weak. Then I heard a drip. Beneath the
[01:19:03] mural, a small stone bowl had formed.
[01:19:06] Silver white liquid was flowing down the
[01:19:08] goddess's outstretched fingertips,
[01:19:10] collecting drop by drop. Just a
[01:19:13] mouthful, but it radiated a cold
[01:19:15] fragrance that shook my soul. Extreme
[01:19:17] cold divine brew. Legendary great. The
[01:19:20] goddess's reward for passing her trial.
[01:19:23] I walked up, leaned over the stone, and
[01:19:25] drank it all in one gulp. It exploded
[01:19:28] inside me like a bomb. My blood felt
[01:19:30] like liquid mercury, every heartbeat
[01:19:32] thundering with new power. My skin
[01:19:35] tightened and for a brief moment a layer
[01:19:37] of ice crystal formed across my entire
[01:19:40] body before sinking beneath the surface.
[01:19:42] My satiety cap jumped to 400. My cold
[01:19:46] resistance rocketed to advanced level. I
[01:19:48] breathed out and watched my breath
[01:19:50] freeze into glittering ice dust that
[01:19:52] hung in the air before falling like
[01:19:54] snow. I was strong, stronger than I'd
[01:19:57] ever been. I felt like I could run
[01:19:59] across the tundra shirtless. Then a
[01:20:01] voice shook the entire world. Not just
[01:20:03] the wasteland but earth itself. Every
[01:20:06] human heard it. A global announcement.
[01:20:08] It said that I, Linen, eighth batch
[01:20:11] pioneer of our country, had triggered
[01:20:13] and completed a divine trial advancing
[01:20:16] the exploration progress. The first
[01:20:18] phase of the wasteland, survival of the
[01:20:21] fittest, was over. The second phase, the
[01:20:24] apocalypse contest, was about to begin.
[01:20:26] The announcement shook the entire world.
[01:20:29] Every human on Earth and every pioneer
[01:20:31] in the wasteland heard it. My name
[01:20:34] echoing through their minds. The first
[01:20:36] global announcement in human history
[01:20:38] from the advanced civilization. And it
[01:20:40] carried my name. My stream exploded.
[01:20:43] People couldn't process what had just
[01:20:45] happened. They'd witnessed history. My
[01:20:47] country had been slipping in the
[01:20:48] rankings for years. And now one of our
[01:20:50] pioneers had pushed the entire wasteland
[01:20:53] into a new phase. Viewers noticed a new
[01:20:56] tag next to my name on the official
[01:20:58] boards. Watched by the wind and frost
[01:21:00] goddess. Foreign viewers were stunned,
[01:21:02] too, though many were angry. Why was it
[01:21:05] someone from our country and not theirs?
[01:21:07] Why did one person get to change the
[01:21:09] course of history, but some acknowledged
[01:21:10] it? Never underestimate an ancient
[01:21:13] nation. At the intelligence bureau, Ley
[01:21:16] collapsed back in her chair, drenched in
[01:21:18] cold sweat. Suan took off her glasses
[01:21:21] and rubbed her temples. the experts
[01:21:23] who'd solemnly predicted I'd die and
[01:21:25] they were going to have some very
[01:21:26] awkward explaining to do. I'd cleared
[01:21:28] the trial in 10 minutes. They'd said it
[01:21:31] could take days if you survived at all.
[01:21:33] Then the red secure phone rang.
[01:21:35] Emergency meeting. Highest level. The
[01:21:37] old commander stood at the head of the
[01:21:39] table and delivered what the national
[01:21:41] leaders had just been told. The rules
[01:21:43] for phase 2. 20 days from now, when the
[01:21:46] eighth badge hit 30 days of survival,
[01:21:49] every country would lock in their final
[01:21:51] apocalypse bearer. If that person stayed
[01:21:53] alive, their nation would receive two
[01:21:56] game-changing abilities. First, two-way
[01:21:59] real-time communication. No more one-way
[01:22:01] live streams. The country could actually
[01:22:03] talk to their pioneer privately. That
[01:22:05] meant every expert, every scientist,
[01:22:08] every strategist could feed information
[01:22:10] directly to their chosen person. It
[01:22:12] would be like having an entire nation
[01:22:14] standing behind one soldier. Second, and
[01:22:17] this one made the generals leap out of
[01:22:19] their chairs. Any country could drop
[01:22:22] additional pioneers within 3 km of their
[01:22:24] apocalypse bearer. The room went silent
[01:22:27] as the meaning sank in. This wasn't solo
[01:22:30] survival anymore. This was about
[01:22:32] building bases, establishing outposts,
[01:22:35] potentially building cities in the
[01:22:36] wasteland. The logic of everything had
[01:22:39] fundamentally changed. Our country
[01:22:41] currently had three surviving apocalypse
[01:22:43] level pioneers from previous batches.
[01:22:46] The fourth and final choice had to be
[01:22:48] made carefully. Across the ocean, the
[01:22:50] Allied nations held their own emergency
[01:22:52] meeting. Their president swirled his
[01:22:54] wine and laid out his plan. Use their
[01:22:57] top ranked pioneer who was already the
[01:22:59] global number one and a first batch
[01:23:01] apocalypse bearer as a landing zone.
[01:23:04] Drop elite special forces around him.
[01:23:06] Build the first freedom city in the
[01:23:08] wasteland. He pressured the Allied
[01:23:10] nations to funnel their best people and
[01:23:13] resources through his country's pioneer.
[01:23:15] When one of the allies suggested maybe
[01:23:17] they should try to approach the wind and
[01:23:19] frost goddess, too, the president
[01:23:21] laughed it off. An ice goddess and a
[01:23:23] frozen wasteland. No minerals, no
[01:23:26] timber, no food. Useless for base
[01:23:28] building. Their war god was the only
[01:23:30] path worth following. His top pioneer
[01:23:33] already produced more resources than
[01:23:35] they could use. The allies signed the
[01:23:37] agreement. Meanwhile, every surviving
[01:23:40] pioneer across the wasteland opened
[01:23:42] their rankings and saw something new.
[01:23:44] All the rewards for the eighth batch had
[01:23:46] been completely refreshed. Everything
[01:23:48] was about to change. I stared at the
[01:23:50] rankings and couldn't believe what I was
[01:23:52] seeing. All the old rewards were gone.
[01:23:54] In their place were items glowing dark
[01:23:57] gold, weapons, armor, vehicles. The top
[01:24:00] prize was a legendary overlord bow, plus
[01:24:03] a 40% improvement to the winner's entire
[01:24:06] country's natural environment. Second
[01:24:08] place got Titan battle armor. Third got
[01:24:10] an advanced vehicle. Even the hundth
[01:24:13] place reward had been multiplied 10fold.
[01:24:16] Everything had changed because of what
[01:24:17] I'd done. That bow caught my eye. In the
[01:24:20] wasteland, you could make basic ranged
[01:24:22] weapons easily enough, but nothing
[01:24:24] homemade could pierce through a
[01:24:26] monster's hide. A legendary weapon would
[01:24:28] be different. With those demon bats
[01:24:30] roosting above my shelter, real
[01:24:32] firepower could mean the difference
[01:24:34] between being prey and being a hunter.
[01:24:36] But before I could plan anything, hunger
[01:24:39] slammed into me like a wall. Every cell
[01:24:41] in my body was screaming for food. My
[01:24:44] system had just upgraded to advanced
[01:24:46] cold resistance, and the evolution was
[01:24:48] demanding massive energy. I sat down on
[01:24:51] the bones in that ancient hall and
[01:24:53] started eating my dried rat meat. Strip
[01:24:55] after strip disappeared, but my satiety
[01:24:58] bar wouldn't budge like pouring water
[01:25:00] into a drain. Then exhaustion crashed
[01:25:03] over me. I slumped against the rock wall
[01:25:05] and passed out right there among the
[01:25:07] skeletons beneath the goddess mural
[01:25:09] across the wasteland. Every pioneer
[01:25:12] reacted to the announcement in their own
[01:25:14] way. Ziao Taihu, our special forces
[01:25:17] veteran, had just cured his poisoning by
[01:25:19] finding the right berries. He wiped mud
[01:25:21] off his face and swore to fight harder.
[01:25:24] Lee Chingqing, the elite from a powerful
[01:25:26] family, solved her water problem and
[01:25:29] prepared to execute her family strategy.
[01:25:31] She'd never heard of me and wondered
[01:25:33] where I'd come from. Mushua, currently
[01:25:36] ranked first in our country and second
[01:25:38] in the world, remembered me from the
[01:25:40] selection trials. The skinny guy who'd
[01:25:42] scored just below her. She hadn't paid
[01:25:44] attention then. Now she grabbed her
[01:25:46] heavy mining pick and marched toward a
[01:25:48] monster's den, determined to prove she
[01:25:51] was still number one. The global top
[01:25:53] pioneer, Big John from another country,
[01:25:55] lounged on a wild boar skin and laughed.
[01:25:58] He called me a gambler and thanked me
[01:26:00] for triggering better rewards. He
[01:26:02] figured I was no threat. I wasn't even
[01:26:04] in the top 100 for uploads. In his eyes,
[01:26:07] I'd done all the hard work just to make
[01:26:09] his prizes bigger. But the real tremors
[01:26:12] went through the veteran survivors from
[01:26:14] earlier batches. A bored high school kid
[01:26:16] from another country surrounded by
[01:26:18] mountains of sea beast corpses finally
[01:26:21] got excited. A version update at last. A
[01:26:24] mysterious woman from our country living
[01:26:26] in another S-rank death zone heard my
[01:26:29] name and crushed a third tier monster
[01:26:31] skull in her bare hand like a cookie,
[01:26:33] then vanished into the wilderness faster
[01:26:35] than any animal. And Big J's older
[01:26:38] brother, the original Jon, sat on the
[01:26:40] back of a flying dragon 10,000 meters in
[01:26:43] the air, laughing at the idea of serving
[01:26:46] gods. He wanted to become one himself.
[01:26:48] The gears of the wasteland had started
[01:26:50] spinning wildly, and me, the one who'd
[01:26:53] started it all. I slept for 3 days
[01:26:55] straight. When I finally woke up, I
[01:26:58] stretched and heard my joints popping.
[01:27:00] Then I reached for my food pack. Empty.
[01:27:02] 5 lb of dried meat gone. I must have
[01:27:05] eaten it all in my sleep while my body
[01:27:07] was evolving. For a moment, I wondered
[01:27:09] if something had stolen my food. But
[01:27:12] then I realized if any creature had
[01:27:14] visited while I was unconscious, I would
[01:27:16] have been the meal, not the meat. I was
[01:27:19] alone in a deep underground chamber with
[01:27:21] zero food. Then the familiar chime rang
[01:27:24] in my head. The daily intelligence
[01:27:26] system had refreshed. Day 14. I sat
[01:27:29] cross-legged on the stone platform
[01:27:31] trying to figure out where I stood. The
[01:27:33] goddess mural behind me had faded back
[01:27:36] to gray like the whole divine trial had
[01:27:38] been a dream. I opened my stats and
[01:27:41] almost didn't recognize myself. Satiety
[01:27:43] cap at 500. Advanced cold resistance. My
[01:27:47] muscles were denser. My skin hummed with
[01:27:49] warmth underneath. If I went back to day
[01:27:51] one right now, I could survive a
[01:27:53] blizzard without even wearing a jacket.
[01:27:56] I could probably last an hour in an
[01:27:58] Aclass white disaster barechested. But
[01:28:00] there was a strange black tag on my
[01:28:02] panel. Wind and frost goddess's gaze.
[01:28:05] Every other tag I'd seen in the system
[01:28:07] was golden and positive. Black ones.
[01:28:10] Never seen that before. It said the
[01:28:12] goddess is watching you. Don't
[01:28:14] disappoint her. Great. No pressure. The
[01:28:17] real problem was my ranking. 3 days
[01:28:19] unconscious meant 3 days of zero
[01:28:22] uploads. I'd fallen from the top 100 to
[01:28:24] 3,729th.
[01:28:27] When I checked the leaderboard, my jaw
[01:28:29] dropped. The top pioneers had gone
[01:28:31] absolutely insane. Uploading monster
[01:28:33] kills, rare minerals, hundreds of
[01:28:36] kilograms of ore. The new rewards had
[01:28:38] turned everyone into maniacs. Meanwhile,
[01:28:41] my pockets were basically empty. Two
[01:28:43] fish for berries, some oil, and rat
[01:28:46] bones. My satiety was draining 10 points
[01:28:49] per hour because my evolved body burned
[01:28:51] energy faster. Stronger body, bigger
[01:28:54] appetite. The crulest trade-off. I
[01:28:57] begged the intelligence system for help
[01:28:58] and chose the supply option. The golden
[01:29:01] text appeared. A rare level survival
[01:29:03] blind box was buried 1.3 m deep inside
[01:29:07] my own cave system. I didn't even need
[01:29:09] to go outside. I jumped up thrilled.
[01:29:12] Someone in the past must have earned a
[01:29:14] blind box, chosen the blue tier, and
[01:29:16] never found it. Their loss, my gain.
[01:29:19] Then I saw exactly where it was on the
[01:29:21] map. Right underneath the demon bat
[01:29:23] roost buried beneath half a meter of
[01:29:25] their droppings in the heart of
[01:29:27] thousands of sleeping second tier
[01:29:29] monsters. I turned slowly and stared at
[01:29:32] the goddess mural behind me. Wind and
[01:29:34] frost sis, I groaned. What am I supposed
[01:29:36] to do? Back on Earth, my stream had been
[01:29:39] black for 3 days. But instead of losing
[01:29:41] viewers, my audience had exploded to
[01:29:44] over 3 million, the fastest growth in
[01:29:46] Wasteland broadcast history. People
[01:29:49] camped out around the clock waiting for
[01:29:51] me to wake up. A retired pioneer named
[01:29:53] Wu Jing calmed the crowd, explaining
[01:29:56] that blackouts usually meant deep sleep
[01:29:58] after extreme strain, not death. Foreign
[01:30:01] trolls mocked me. Highest popularity,
[01:30:04] lowest ranking. All flash, no substance.
[01:30:07] They had a point. I had 3 million
[01:30:09] viewers and a rank of 3,729.
[01:30:13] At the intelligence bureau, things were
[01:30:15] tense. In 3 days, the global death rate
[01:30:18] among eighth batch pioneers had spiked
[01:30:20] to 31%. The upgraded rewards had driven
[01:30:23] cautious survivors to take insane risks.
[01:30:26] People who'd been hiding and playing
[01:30:28] safe were now charging into monster dens
[01:30:30] for a shot at legendary weapons. Suan
[01:30:33] asked Ley about my apocalypse bearer
[01:30:35] candidacy. The answer wasn't good. Three
[01:30:38] days ago, I'd been the top choice. But
[01:30:40] my vanishing act, crashing rank, and
[01:30:43] harsh environment had made the
[01:30:44] conservative leaders nervous. Meanwhile,
[01:30:47] Mushu, Xiao, Taihu, and the other seed
[01:30:50] level pioneers had all broken through
[01:30:52] their early struggles and were climbing
[01:30:54] steadily. The decision was put on hold
[01:30:56] again. On the international stage, our
[01:30:59] country was actually doing better than
[01:31:01] ever. My triggering of phase 2 had
[01:31:03] caused rare resource prices to skyrocket
[01:31:06] 300%. Our other pioneers were leveraging
[01:31:09] their mineral and herb outputs to trade
[01:31:11] for massive amounts of basic supplies.
[01:31:14] The national crisis was easing. Our
[01:31:16] country's ranking had climbed from
[01:31:17] eighth back to fifth, reentering the top
[01:31:20] tier. The world was moving on. The
[01:31:22] person who'd kicked open the door to a
[01:31:24] new era was being forgotten or written
[01:31:26] off. Then, after 3 days of black screen,
[01:31:30] the stream flickered to life. I was
[01:31:32] awake. When my stream came back on,
[01:31:35] millions of people went crazy. 3 days of
[01:31:37] black screen had built up so much
[01:31:39] tension that the chat exploded the
[01:31:41] moment they saw my face. But then they
[01:31:43] noticed something different about me. My
[01:31:45] skin had turned pale like jade, smooth,
[01:31:48] and almost glowing. My body was leaner,
[01:31:51] but every muscle was sharply defined. My
[01:31:53] eyes looked colder, deeper. The
[01:31:55] goddess's trial had changed me on the
[01:31:57] outside, too. At the intelligence
[01:31:59] bureau, Suan concluded that the divine
[01:32:02] trial had boosted my physical abilities
[01:32:04] beyond even seed-level pioneers.
[01:32:06] "Morning everyone," I said calmly. "I'm
[01:32:10] going back into the bat cave today.
[01:32:11] Misery loves company. If I had to deal
[01:32:14] with this, at least millions of people
[01:32:16] could suffer with me." I climbed back up
[01:32:18] through the tunnels. The ammonia stink
[01:32:20] grew thicker with every step. Red danger
[01:32:23] trails covered the ceiling above me.
[01:32:25] After a few hours, I was standing at the
[01:32:27] entrance to the demon bat roost. The
[01:32:29] green dot on my map pulsed right in the
[01:32:31] middle of it, buried under a meter of
[01:32:33] filth on the right side of the cave.
[01:32:36] Some unlucky pioneer must have earned
[01:32:38] this blind box and had it air dropped
[01:32:40] somewhere on the tundra. A hunting bat
[01:32:42] probably snatched it and carried it home
[01:32:44] like a toy. I studied the terrain from
[01:32:46] behind a rock. Left wall was too steep.
[01:32:49] I'd slip and make noise. The center was
[01:32:51] the thickest pile of droppings. I'd sink
[01:32:54] in. The only path was along the right
[01:32:56] wall, picking my way across a ridge of
[01:32:58] bones. I moved like a ghost. Above me,
[01:33:02] thousands of eagle-sized monsters hung
[01:33:04] upside down, grinding their teeth in
[01:33:07] their sleep. Below me was a swamp of
[01:33:09] bones and waste. One wrong step and I
[01:33:11] was dead. The viewers barely breathed.
[01:33:14] Most of them thought I was just looking
[01:33:16] for a way through the cave. They had no
[01:33:18] idea I was heading straight for the
[01:33:20] worst spot. I reached the white mound
[01:33:22] where the box was buried. I didn't swing
[01:33:24] the shovel. That would have been way too
[01:33:26] loud. Instead, I crouched down and
[01:33:29] slowly, carefully pushed the blade into
[01:33:31] that warm, sticky, gray mess, peeling it
[01:33:34] away layer by layer. I kept telling
[01:33:36] myself these were valuable resources.
[01:33:39] Fertilizer, strategic materials.
[01:33:41] Definitely not the most disgusting thing
[01:33:43] I'd ever touched. Definitely not. Inch
[01:33:46] by inch. Then my shovel tapped something
[01:33:48] solid. I brushed away the last layer of
[01:33:51] filth and blue light bloomed in the
[01:33:53] darkness. A rare level survival blind
[01:33:55] box. I grabbed the heavy metal case,
[01:33:58] hugged it to my chest, and moved out
[01:34:00] without looking back. Silent the whole
[01:34:02] way, in and out like a phantom. The chat
[01:34:05] lost their minds. Someone joked that the
[01:34:07] bats must have felt a breeze and
[01:34:09] wondered what just zoomed past. Others
[01:34:12] called it the smoothest heist in
[01:34:13] Wasteland history. 90% of the new
[01:34:16] viewers were completely confused. They
[01:34:18] hadn't even seen the box until I was
[01:34:20] already running with it. A few hours
[01:34:22] later, I was back in my warm main hall.
[01:34:25] First thing I did was run to the stream,
[01:34:27] strip off my wreaking clothes, and scrub
[01:34:30] myself in the cold water until I smelled
[01:34:32] like nothing but clean air. I sat on a
[01:34:34] warm stone slab, shirtless, hair still
[01:34:37] dripping. In front of me sat the washed
[01:34:39] blue metal box, dented and chewed up
[01:34:42] from the bats, trying to open it, but
[01:34:44] still sealed tight. About the size of a
[01:34:46] small suitcase. Rare level boxes
[01:34:48] contained advanced survival gear, warm
[01:34:51] clothing, superior tools, medicine, and
[01:34:54] everything the advanced civilization
[01:34:56] made was top quality. I grinned, water
[01:34:59] still running down my face. Let's open
[01:35:01] it. I popped open the blue metal case.
[01:35:04] Inside was a single item, a folded
[01:35:06] silver gray cloak that looked like it
[01:35:08] was woven from liquid mercury. An Arctic
[01:35:11] optical camouflage cloak, rare grade,
[01:35:14] made from second tier chameleon skin and
[01:35:16] optical fiber. I held it up. It felt
[01:35:19] cool and slippery like running water
[01:35:21] through my fingers. I threw it over my
[01:35:23] shoulders, pulled the hood over my face,
[01:35:26] and I vanished. Standing still, I was
[01:35:29] 99% invisible. As long as nothing
[01:35:32] touched me, nothing could find me. Even
[01:35:35] moving, it bent light around my body and
[01:35:37] drastically reduced my presence. On top
[01:35:40] of that, it blocked my body heat and
[01:35:42] scent from detection. In the wasteland,
[01:35:45] this was a gamecher for stealth, but it
[01:35:47] didn't solve my real problem. I was
[01:35:49] starving. My stomach was clawing at
[01:35:51] itself. I dug out the last two black
[01:35:54] fish from the cargo box and ate them on
[01:35:56] a warm rock. They barely moved the
[01:35:58] needle on my satiety. My evolved body
[01:36:00] burned through calories so fast that
[01:36:03] ordinary food could hardly keep up. I
[01:36:05] curled up in a corner and went into low
[01:36:07] power mode, conserving every bit of
[01:36:09] energy, just like my first days in the
[01:36:12] snow hole. Except now at least I wasn't
[01:36:14] freezing. At the intelligence bureau,
[01:36:16] some analysts were openly frustrated
[01:36:18] that I'd gotten the cloak instead of one
[01:36:20] of the other pioneers. They said Xiao
[01:36:22] Taihu could have used it to assassinate
[01:36:24] that poisonous spider in his jungle or
[01:36:27] Mushu could explore deep mines without
[01:36:29] danger on me stuck in an ice cave with
[01:36:32] bats overhead. They considered it
[01:36:34] wasted. Suan pushed back. She said it
[01:36:37] was too early to judge and that the
[01:36:39] black goddess tag on my profile might
[01:36:41] bring unexpected advantages, but nobody
[01:36:44] was really listening. At the highest
[01:36:45] level strategy meeting, the leaders
[01:36:47] debated who should become the apocalypse
[01:36:50] bearer. One faction pushed for Mooa,
[01:36:52] stable resource production,
[01:36:54] industrial-grade minerals, perfect for
[01:36:57] building a base. The military wanted
[01:36:59] Xiao Taihu, a special forces veteran who
[01:37:02] could fight his way through anything
[01:37:04] with the right weapon. Someone in the
[01:37:06] corner quietly asked, "What about
[01:37:08] Linen?" The military representative
[01:37:10] shook his head. He admitted I was tough
[01:37:12] and had incredible cold resistance, but
[01:37:15] said my overall combat ability was far
[01:37:17] below their trained elite. Betting the
[01:37:19] nation's future on me was too risky. The
[01:37:22] old commander side and made his
[01:37:24] decision. Lower my priority. Focus
[01:37:26] evaluation on Mushu and Xiao Taiu. The
[01:37:29] nation needed a sword that could pierce
[01:37:31] the sky. Just like that, I was being
[01:37:34] erased from the strategic map. The
[01:37:36] person who triggered the new era was
[01:37:38] being set aside. Meanwhile, my family
[01:37:40] had moved into the capital's special
[01:37:42] district for pioneer families. It was
[01:37:45] the safest, most luxurious neighborhood
[01:37:47] in the entire country. But my parents
[01:37:49] felt like outsiders. The other residents
[01:37:52] were families of legendary veterans from
[01:37:54] earlier batches or old money elites
[01:37:56] who'd produced famous pioneers of their
[01:37:58] own. Everyone carried themselves with
[01:38:01] the confidence of people who'd earned
[01:38:02] their place. My parents walked around in
[01:38:05] their brand new governmentissued
[01:38:06] clothes, feeling completely out of
[01:38:08] place. A group of wealthy women
[01:38:11] whispered about them over afternoon tea,
[01:38:13] calling me lucky, questioning whether
[01:38:15] the medical resources being used on
[01:38:17] Xiao<unk>s eyes were justified, implying
[01:38:20] our family didn't belong. My mom heard
[01:38:22] every word. She gripped my dad's hand
[01:38:25] tighter and walked faster, head down. At
[01:38:27] the children's playground, Shia Sha sat
[01:38:30] alone on a swing with bandages over her
[01:38:32] eyes from her recent surgery. Kids
[01:38:34] played all around her, but none came to
[01:38:36] talk to her. Then a bold little voice
[01:38:39] spoke up beside her. "Hey, are you new
[01:38:42] here?" She flinched and hugged her doll
[01:38:43] tighter. At the children's playground in
[01:38:46] the capital district, Shia Sha made her
[01:38:48] first friend. A chubby kid named Chunin
[01:38:51] plopped down on the swing next to her
[01:38:53] and started talking like they'd known
[01:38:54] each other forever. His dad had been a
[01:38:56] third batch pioneer, a hero who died in
[01:38:59] the wasteland. That gave Chenshin
[01:39:01] permanent residency in the special
[01:39:03] district until he grew up. The kid was a
[01:39:06] walking encyclopedia of pioneer
[01:39:08] rankings. He rattled off every top
[01:39:10] fighter. The guy from the other country
[01:39:12] who punched a bear to death. The giant
[01:39:14] who carried monster corpses on his
[01:39:16] shoulders. Mushu who was dominating the
[01:39:18] mineral game. All the names kids
[01:39:20] worshiped were monster killers with
[01:39:22] flashy rankings. When Shia Sha quietly
[01:39:25] said her brother was linen, Chunshin
[01:39:27] hesitated. In the children's world, I
[01:39:30] was the guy who hid in caves and didn't
[01:39:32] have a ranking worth mentioning. Nobody
[01:39:34] cared that I'd pushed the wasteland into
[01:39:36] a new era. Low rank meant low respect.
[01:39:39] Simple as that. Shia Sha sensed his paws
[01:39:41] and jumped to my defense. He can catch
[01:39:44] silver fish. He just can't go outside
[01:39:46] because of the weather. Shenshin looked
[01:39:48] at her earnest face and made a decision.
[01:39:50] He leaned in close and whispered, "I'll
[01:39:52] tell you a secret. Besides Mushwa, your
[01:39:55] brother is actually the coolest one. two
[01:39:58] kids that nobody else wanted to play
[01:39:59] with. Sitting on swings in the sunshine,
[01:40:02] agreeing that I was worth believing in.
[01:40:04] Back in the wasteland, day 21, my food
[01:40:07] was completely gone. But worse than the
[01:40:09] hunger was what was happening inside my
[01:40:11] head. Every time I slept, the goddess's
[01:40:14] empty eyes left echoes in my mind.
[01:40:17] Still, I could feel the effect
[01:40:18] weakening. Almost done. My intelligence
[01:40:21] points had quietly stacked up to 10
[01:40:23] during the days I'd been unable to use
[01:40:25] them. And according to my environment
[01:40:27] data, the blizzard would weaken in three
[01:40:29] more days. Once it did, my advanced cold
[01:40:32] resistance would let me go outside and
[01:40:34] hunt. Three more days of starving. I
[01:40:37] could handle that. But that night, I
[01:40:39] fell into the deepest dream I'd ever
[01:40:41] had. There was no ground, no sky, just
[01:40:44] an infinite blizzard. Cold beyond
[01:40:46] anything I'd experienced. My advanced
[01:40:49] resistance meant nothing here. My soul
[01:40:51] itself was freezing, cracking apart
[01:40:53] piece by piece. Through the storm, I saw
[01:40:56] her, not floating eyes this time, but a
[01:40:59] figure, a back turned to me. She wore a
[01:41:01] robe woven from aurora light and
[01:41:03] blizzard snow, walking barefoot through
[01:41:06] empty space. The air around her was
[01:41:08] collapsing and rebuilding from the sheer
[01:41:10] cold she radiated. I wanted power. I
[01:41:13] wanted what she could give me. So, I
[01:41:15] walked toward her. Every step felt like
[01:41:17] my soul was being torn in half. One
[01:41:19] step, two. Just before the cold
[01:41:22] swallowed me completely, before I would
[01:41:24] have become an ice statue, frozen in
[01:41:26] that void forever, her voice reached me.
[01:41:29] Cold and vast, but with something almost
[01:41:32] like a sigh underneath it. Linen, it's
[01:41:34] time for you to go. A warm force shoved
[01:41:36] me backward, and I woke up gasping. The
[01:41:39] morning system greeting played. 789
[01:41:42] dead overnight. Then a special
[01:41:44] notification pulsed in dark purple
[01:41:47] across my vision. A color I'd never seen
[01:41:49] the system use before. Congratulations,
[01:41:52] Pioneer. You have obtained a rare
[01:41:54] ability, divine gaze. I shot up from the
[01:41:57] stone slab, gasping. The black tag was
[01:42:00] gone. The constant pressure in my skull,
[01:42:02] the headaches, the mental fog that had
[01:42:05] haunted me since the goddess stared into
[01:42:07] my soul. All of it vanished in an
[01:42:09] instant. My mind felt sharper than ever,
[01:42:12] like someone had wiped a dirty lens
[01:42:13] clean. The system told me I'd endured
[01:42:16] the goddess's gaze and earned a rare
[01:42:19] ability, divine gaze. When activated,
[01:42:22] everything around me would slow down to
[01:42:24] 10% speed in my perception. And in that
[01:42:27] frozen moment, I could see the weak
[01:42:29] points and death lines on any living
[01:42:31] creature. Bullet time. That's what this
[01:42:33] was. In a world where life and death
[01:42:36] were separated by a tenth of a second,
[01:42:38] this ability was priceless. I tested it
[01:42:41] immediately. A water droplet formed on
[01:42:43] the cave ceiling and fell. I whispered
[01:42:46] the activation word and the world
[01:42:48] shifted into slow motion. The droplet
[01:42:50] drifted downward like it was sinking
[01:42:52] through honey. I could see my own
[01:42:54] reflection on its surface. Watch it
[01:42:56] deform from gravity in real time. I
[01:42:59] reached out with two fingers and pinched
[01:43:01] it from the air. But there were limits.
[01:43:03] My thinking sped up, not my body. I'd
[01:43:06] still need physical strength to act on
[01:43:08] what I saw. It lasted about two seconds,
[01:43:10] and one use had just drained nearly a
[01:43:13] 100 satiety points. Maybe 10 uses per
[01:43:15] day if I was wellfed. Good enough. This
[01:43:18] was a last resort trump card, not a
[01:43:20] spammable trick. I silently thanked the
[01:43:23] wind and frost sister. Then I checked my
[01:43:25] intel points. 13 had stacked up while I
[01:43:28] slept, and the weather report made my
[01:43:30] heart pound. The A-class blizzard had
[01:43:32] weakened to B-class. Temperature was
[01:43:35] -50, but with my advanced cold
[01:43:37] resistance, that was manageable. Wait. I
[01:43:40] looked at the clock. I'd slept for three
[01:43:42] more days. The dream with the goddess
[01:43:44] had lasted 72 hours. My satiety was at 4
[01:43:48] out of 500. I was a skeleton wrapped in
[01:43:50] skin. Zero food left. Rank had cratered
[01:43:53] to 6,729.
[01:43:56] Back on Earth, my viewer count had
[01:43:58] dropped from millions to under 50,000.
[01:44:00] People assumed I'd starve to death. The
[01:44:03] ones still watching saw me wake up and
[01:44:05] start hammering at the ice wall,
[01:44:06] blocking my cave entrance, and most of
[01:44:08] them just sighed. While I'd been
[01:44:10] sleeping, the world had moved on. The
[01:44:13] top pioneer from the other country was
[01:44:15] tearing through an entire plains
[01:44:16] ecosystem. Mushua had built a mining
[01:44:19] base. A girl named Lee Chingqing had
[01:44:21] actually started farming on the frozen
[01:44:23] plains, growing crops in the wasteland.
[01:44:26] She'd become the surprise star everyone
[01:44:28] was praising. At the intelligence
[01:44:30] bureau, Ley was buried under stacks of
[01:44:33] apocalypse bearer evaluation documents,
[01:44:35] running on coffee and no sleep. When
[01:44:38] Suan told her I was moving again, she
[01:44:40] barely looked up. She said it was better
[01:44:42] than starving in a cave, but I'd missed
[01:44:45] the golden development window. The
[01:44:47] leadership wanted me to just survive.
[01:44:49] That was all. She glanced at the screen
[01:44:51] showing Mua at rank four, Ziao Taihu at
[01:44:54] 11, Li Chingqing at 14. Then she closed
[01:44:57] her eyes and waved Suan away. Suan went
[01:45:00] back to her desk, looked at my feed one
[01:45:02] more time, and typed a message into my
[01:45:05] chat. Don't give up. Keep going. In my
[01:45:07] cave, I swung the shovel with everything
[01:45:10] I had. The halfmeter ice wall cracked
[01:45:12] like a spiderweb, and a chunk crashed
[01:45:14] down. Cold wind and snow blasted through
[01:45:17] the gap. I stood in the opening and felt
[01:45:20] almost nothing. A light chill like
[01:45:22] autumn in a t-shirt. The weakened
[01:45:24] blizzard that would have killed me two
[01:45:25] weeks ago was barely an inconvenience
[01:45:28] now. I activated the danger intel. 13
[01:45:31] points worth of data flooded my vision.
[01:45:33] The white wasteland exploded into a web
[01:45:36] of glowing trails. Red for predators,
[01:45:39] green for prey. Every track and scent
[01:45:41] mark from the past days highlighted and
[01:45:43] mapped across the snow. I climbed onto
[01:45:46] my sled, slammed the pedals, and shot
[01:45:48] out of the cave like an arrow. Behind
[01:45:50] me, the hole I'd broken was already
[01:45:53] starting to freeze over again. I didn't
[01:45:55] look back. The men of the Lynn family
[01:45:57] never come home empty-handed. 5 minutes
[01:45:59] out of the cave, I found my first
[01:46:01] target, a fresh yellow trail sitting
[01:46:04] right on the snow surface, a tundra
[01:46:06] giant snow rabbit actively foraging
[01:46:08] nearby. These rabbits were nothing like
[01:46:10] the hibernating rats. They had
[01:46:12] incredible hearing, explosive speed, and
[01:46:15] earned the nickname Snow Street Runners.
[01:46:18] Before my upgrades, I couldn't have
[01:46:20] caught one, even if I chased it until my
[01:46:22] legs fell off. But things were different
[01:46:24] now. I pulled out two bone daggers I'd
[01:46:26] carved from the rat's leg bones during
[01:46:28] the long days trapped inside. Then I
[01:46:30] drew the camouflage cloak tight and
[01:46:32] crawled into the snow. I disappeared
[01:46:35] completely. On screen, there was just a
[01:46:37] slightly raised patch of snow, perfectly
[01:46:40] blending with everything around it. I
[01:46:42] inched forward, slow and silent. Two
[01:46:45] minutes later, two long white ears
[01:46:47] popped up from a snow hollow half a
[01:46:49] meter in front of me. The rabbit poked
[01:46:51] its head out, red eyes scanning, nose
[01:46:53] twitching. It was checking if the coast
[01:46:55] was clear. I exploded from the snow like
[01:46:58] a striking snake. The cloak flickered
[01:47:00] for an instant as I moved. My bone
[01:47:02] dagger punched straight through the
[01:47:04] rabbit's neck and pinned it to the
[01:47:06] ground before it could even finish its
[01:47:08] first kick. 2 minutes invisible approach
[01:47:10] to instant kill. The rabbit never had a
[01:47:13] chance. The chat went crazy. Someone
[01:47:15] joked the rabbit's last thought must
[01:47:17] have been wondering why the snowbank
[01:47:19] just stabbed it. I rode back to my cave
[01:47:21] in 5 minutes. The ice at the entrance
[01:47:24] hadn't even had time to fully reform. I
[01:47:26] smashed through the thin layer and got
[01:47:28] inside. 10 minutes later, rabbit meat
[01:47:31] was sizzling golden over the fire. I was
[01:47:33] so hungry I scared myself. 20 lbs of
[01:47:36] giant rabbit minus bones and organs left
[01:47:39] about 10 lb of meat. I ate the entire
[01:47:42] thing in 20 minutes. Every last piece.
[01:47:45] The chat watched in stunned silence as I
[01:47:47] devoured it like a starving wolf.
[01:47:49] Satiety 500 out of 500. Full. That was
[01:47:53] my appetite now. Greater power meant
[01:47:56] greater hunger. But I wasn't done. One
[01:47:58] rabbit wasn't nearly enough for what I
[01:48:00] had planned. While I'd been scanning
[01:48:02] with my danger intel earlier, I'd
[01:48:04] spotted a faint red trail nearby,
[01:48:06] something more dangerous than a rabbit.
[01:48:08] 10 minutes later, I was crouched beside
[01:48:11] a rock pile covered in snow. Inside a
[01:48:13] crack in the ground, an ice feather
[01:48:15] thunder chicken was dozing,
[01:48:17] peacocksized, covered in steel hard, ice
[01:48:20] blue feathers, a red comb on its head.
[01:48:22] Its beak was like an iron spike, and it
[01:48:25] ate meat as happily as plants. People
[01:48:28] called them snow dinosaurs. I crept
[01:48:30] closer in my cloak. Same approach as
[01:48:32] before. But the moment I drew my dagger,
[01:48:35] it attacked first. The thing erupted
[01:48:37] from the crack like blue lightning. Its
[01:48:40] steel beak driving straight at my arm
[01:48:42] with sparks of electricity dancing on
[01:48:44] the tip. If it connected, it would punch
[01:48:47] clean through the bone. This was no
[01:48:49] panicked prey. This was a hardwired kill
[01:48:52] reflex. Millions of years of evolution
[01:48:54] compressed into one explosive strike.
[01:48:57] Impossibly fast. The viewers only saw a
[01:49:00] blur. I didn't flinch. Divine gaze. The
[01:49:03] world slowed to a crawl. The charging
[01:49:05] bird hung in the air like it was
[01:49:07] swimming through syrup. I could count
[01:49:09] every feather, see the electric glow on
[01:49:12] its beak tip, and most importantly, the
[01:49:14] glowing weak point on its neck. I calmly
[01:49:17] reached out my free hand. Just before
[01:49:19] the beak reached my arm, my fingers
[01:49:21] closed around its throat. Snap! Time
[01:49:24] snapped back to normal, I stood there
[01:49:26] holding the dead bird by the neck with
[01:49:28] one hand, its body still twitching, eyes
[01:49:31] cold. "You want to race me? Try again in
[01:49:33] your next life." The chat went
[01:49:35] absolutely nuclear. People couldn't even
[01:49:37] process what they' just seen. One
[01:49:40] second, the bird was attacking at
[01:49:41] impossible speed. The next, I was
[01:49:43] holding its corpse like picking up a
[01:49:45] toy. Someone said they blinked and
[01:49:47] missed the whole thing. That was divine
[01:49:49] gaze. Two seconds of god mode
[01:49:51] perception, just long enough to turn a
[01:49:54] death sentence into a casual grab. I
[01:49:56] tossed the dead thunder chicken into the
[01:49:58] cargo box and kept moving with danger
[01:50:01] intel showing me every trail and the
[01:50:03] camouflage cloak making me invisible.
[01:50:05] The eternal winter tundra had become my
[01:50:08] personal buffet. The routine was
[01:50:10] beautifully simple. Spot a yellow trail
[01:50:12] on my vision. Drive over. Park. Throw on
[01:50:16] the cloak. Disappear into the snow.
[01:50:18] Wait. Strike. Done. Snow wrap burrow.
[01:50:22] Two minutes. One clean shovel. Strike to
[01:50:24] the head. A hidden berry bush. Quick
[01:50:27] stop. Grab everything. Move on. Another
[01:50:29] rabbit den. Same approach. Same result.
[01:50:32] By the end of the afternoon, my cargo
[01:50:34] box was packed full. Three giant snow
[01:50:36] rabbits, two snow rats, one thunder
[01:50:39] chicken, 18 ice blueberries, and two ice
[01:50:42] hazelnuts. Any pioneer on Earth would
[01:50:44] kill for a hall like this. The viewers
[01:50:47] went from shocked to numb to jealous
[01:50:49] over the course of a day. Someone
[01:50:51] complained I was basically cheating.
[01:50:53] Another asked how I kept finding prey
[01:50:55] when the camera showed nothing but empty
[01:50:57] snow. The answer was simple. If they
[01:50:59] could see what I saw, they'd be pioneers
[01:51:02] themselves. When the upload timer hit 5
[01:51:04] minutes, I thought it over. The thunder
[01:51:06] chicken and berries were too valuable to
[01:51:08] give up. I needed those for my own body.
[01:51:11] The rats would become oil and fuel. But
[01:51:14] the three rabbits, those I could spare.
[01:51:16] I pressed my hand down on them. Upload
[01:51:19] 10,000 times multiplier. 30,000 snow
[01:51:22] rabbits delivered to my country. The
[01:51:24] chat erupted. People noticed something
[01:51:26] else, too. My single day upload had
[01:51:28] cracked the top 10 globally, and I'd
[01:51:30] done it from the deadliest zone on the
[01:51:32] map. While everyone above me was
[01:51:34] lounging in tropical forests and fertile
[01:51:37] plains. But when I checked my overall
[01:51:39] ranking, I was only at 4,18.
[01:51:42] Too many missed days. Everyone else had
[01:51:44] been grinding non-stop while I slept
[01:51:46] through a goddess trial and starved in a
[01:51:48] cave. The competition was insane.
[01:51:51] Pioneers were starving themselves to
[01:51:53] upload more food, fighting monsters they
[01:51:56] had no business fighting, some even
[01:51:58] dying from exhaustion, trying to climb
[01:52:00] the ranks before the apocalypse
[01:52:02] deadline. I wasn't discouraged. I'd
[01:52:04] started late, lost over a week to sleep
[01:52:06] and starvation. But now I had a
[01:52:09] legendary vehicle, a stealth cloak,
[01:52:11] divine gaze, advanced cold resistance,
[01:52:14] and 13 intel points saved up. If I kept
[01:52:16] this pace, the top 10 was absolutely
[01:52:19] possible. At the highest strategy
[01:52:21] meeting that night, the leaders were
[01:52:23] still arguing about who should be the
[01:52:25] apocalypse bearer. Musha for her stable
[01:52:27] mining output, Ziao Taihu for his combat
[01:52:30] ability, or Li Ching for her farming
[01:52:32] potential. Nobody could agree. The old
[01:52:35] commander cut through the noise. 5 days
[01:52:37] until the deadline. Whoever had the
[01:52:39] highest total ranking by then would
[01:52:41] become the apocalypse bearer. No
[01:52:43] politics, no favoritism, results only.
[01:52:46] Then he casually asked if the daily
[01:52:48] upload stats were in. Ley pulled up the
[01:52:51] chart with barely concealed excitement.
[01:52:53] The room went silent. The number one
[01:52:55] daily uploader for all of our country's
[01:52:58] pioneers wasn't Mushua, not Xiao Taiu,
[01:53:01] not Li Chingqing. It was me. three giant
[01:53:03] snow rabbits from the frozen death zone,
[01:53:06] outscoring everyone else. The old
[01:53:08] commander laughed harder than he had in
[01:53:10] weeks. He said, "If I could pull this
[01:53:12] off every single day, maybe I'd actually
[01:53:14] steal the apocalypse spot at the last
[01:53:16] second." Everyone laughed along,
[01:53:18] treating it as a joke. Catching up from
[01:53:21] 4,000th place in the eternal winter
[01:53:23] tundra, rabbits don't just line up to be
[01:53:25] caught. Standing off to the side, Leil
[01:53:28] Le's eye twitched. She was thinking what
[01:53:30] nobody else dared to say out loud. They
[01:53:33] had no idea what a fully equipped player
[01:53:35] could do. Early morning in my cave, I
[01:53:37] got to work on the Thunder Chicken. This
[01:53:39] thing was a treasure chest with
[01:53:41] feathers. Every single part was useful.
[01:53:43] The feathers were the hardest part.
[01:53:45] Literally, when my shovel scraped
[01:53:47] against them, they rang out like metal
[01:53:49] on metal. It took serious effort to pull
[01:53:51] the longest ones free without breaking
[01:53:54] them. 12 perfect steel hard feathers,
[01:53:56] light as air, but sharp enough to cut.
[01:53:59] According to what I'd studied, these
[01:54:01] were the best material for making
[01:54:02] armor-piercing arrows. Combined with the
[01:54:05] dense wrap bones I'd saved, I could
[01:54:07] craft deadly projectiles. I just needed
[01:54:10] a bow. The beak was even more
[01:54:12] impressive. Rated as rare material, hard
[01:54:15] as diamond with a natural armor-piercing
[01:54:17] property, perfect for sharpening into a
[01:54:20] weapon tip or an icebreaking tool. Then
[01:54:22] came the meat. 20 lbs of deep purple red
[01:54:25] flesh, dense and powerful, even raw.
[01:54:28] That was several days of fuel for my
[01:54:30] body. After cleaning up, I checked my
[01:54:32] intelligence system. 13 points saved. I
[01:54:35] chose environment. The golden map
[01:54:38] unfolded and I spotted something
[01:54:40] incredible. 3 km northwest, a cluster of
[01:54:43] bright green dots in a sunken area. An
[01:54:46] underground cavity formed by collapsed
[01:54:48] terrain filled with coldresistant bushes
[01:54:51] heavy with ripe iced blueberries. A
[01:54:54] whole berry forest, a brand new resource
[01:54:56] point. Meat was great, but my body was
[01:54:59] screaming for vitamins. The handful of
[01:55:01] berries I'd stolen from rat burrows was
[01:55:03] nothing. A whole forest. That was fruit
[01:55:06] freedom. I loaded up the sled and headed
[01:55:08] out. On the way there, my danger vision
[01:55:10] turned the trip into a shopping spree. I
[01:55:13] spotted three rabbit trails and took
[01:55:15] them all down without even slowing my
[01:55:17] pace. Drive, cloak, disappear, strike,
[01:55:21] load up, keep going. Three rabbits
[01:55:24] before I even reach my destination. The
[01:55:26] chat was losing it. People were calling
[01:55:28] for someone to report me for hacking.
[01:55:30] Yesterday, they'd said I was lucky.
[01:55:32] Today, they couldn't explain it away
[01:55:33] anymore. At the intelligence bureau,
[01:55:36] Suan had been watching my stream since
[01:55:38] morning, too fascinated to work. Her
[01:55:40] colleagues were starting to question
[01:55:42] everything they'd assumed about the
[01:55:43] tundra. Maybe it wasn't as barren as
[01:55:46] their analysis had predicted. I reached
[01:55:48] the spot. On the surface, it looked like
[01:55:50] a slightly sunken patch of snow. But
[01:55:52] through my danger vision, the area was a
[01:55:55] riot of colored trails, yellow, green,
[01:55:58] red, purple, all from creatures that had
[01:56:01] come to feed here before the blizzard. I
[01:56:03] also noticed something that tightened my
[01:56:05] gut. Freshwolf tracks. A pack of snow
[01:56:08] demon wolves had passed through just
[01:56:09] three hours ago. At least five or six of
[01:56:12] them. No time to waste. I started
[01:56:14] digging. Two meters down. My shovel
[01:56:16] broke through into open air. What I saw
[01:56:19] below made me stop breathing. A vast
[01:56:22] underground space held up by dense low
[01:56:24] bushes whose dead leaves formed a
[01:56:26] natural ceiling beneath the snow and
[01:56:29] hanging from every branch packed so
[01:56:31] tight they almost touched. Blueberries
[01:56:34] glowing crystal clear. enormous
[01:56:37] blueberries. Not the thumbnail- sized
[01:56:39] ones I'd found in rat holes. These were
[01:56:41] the size of plums. Some were as big as
[01:56:44] my fist. I reached down and plucked one.
[01:56:47] Good grade quality, better than what the
[01:56:48] rats had been hoarding. The snow had
[01:56:50] actually helped them grow bigger by
[01:56:52] insulating the bushes and letting them
[01:56:54] absorb nutrients. I squeezed it gently
[01:56:57] and the skin split open. Thick purple
[01:56:59] juice ran down my fingers, sweet and
[01:57:02] fragrant. I popped it in my mouth. The
[01:57:04] flavor exploded. rich, juicy, bursting
[01:57:08] with sweetness. My satiety climbed
[01:57:10] instantly. I looked out across that
[01:57:12] underground forest of blue fruit
[01:57:14] stretching in every direction and
[01:57:16] screamed inside my head. I'm rich. The
[01:57:19] berries filled the screen, and the chat
[01:57:21] lost their minds. These weren't the
[01:57:23] thumbnail-sized ones I'd found in rat
[01:57:25] holes. These were the size of plums,
[01:57:27] some as big as fists. When I squeezed
[01:57:29] one, thick purple juice ran through my
[01:57:32] fingers. At the intelligence bureau,
[01:57:34] Suan dropped her pen. She explained to
[01:57:36] Leil Lee that what I'd found before and
[01:57:39] what other pioneers had found were
[01:57:41] either unripe or dried out berries
[01:57:43] hoarded by animals. But here, deep
[01:57:46] underground where the snow formed a
[01:57:47] natural greenhouse and the blizzards
[01:57:49] cold actually nourished the roots. The
[01:57:52] berries had reached their perfect
[01:57:53] ripeness, full maturity. She rated the
[01:57:56] whole area as a C-class small renewable
[01:57:59] resource point, enough to compete with
[01:58:01] the wild orange groves that other
[01:58:03] countries pioneers had found in warm
[01:58:05] climates. Combined with my frozen lake,
[01:58:08] I now had two resource points in the
[01:58:10] tundra. Le's eyes lit up. She was
[01:58:12] thinking what she couldn't say out loud
[01:58:14] yet, that I was still the best candidate
[01:58:16] for apocalypse bearer. Down in the berry
[01:58:19] forest, I forced myself to think before
[01:58:21] acting. The bushes were 3 m below ground
[01:58:24] level. I couldn't just toss fruit up
[01:58:26] without smashing it. And climbing up and
[01:58:28] down would waste too much energy. So, I
[01:58:31] spent 10 minutes carving a smooth ramp
[01:58:33] out of the frozen wall, a gentle slope
[01:58:35] with footooth holds wide enough to push
[01:58:38] the sled through. Then, I went to work.
[01:58:40] My hands were a blur, snatching the
[01:58:42] biggest, darkest berries off every
[01:58:44] branch. I only picked the best ones.
[01:58:47] When I tossed aside an egg- sized berry
[01:58:49] for being too small, the chat screamed
[01:58:51] at me. They reminded me how just days
[01:58:54] ago I'd been licking berry juice out of
[01:58:56] a stone bowl. Now I was being picky. 20
[01:58:59] minutes and my cargo box was full. 120
[01:59:02] lb of glowing blue fruit. I hauled it up
[01:59:04] the ramp and drove back to the cave.
[01:59:07] Then turned around and came back for
[01:59:09] more. For trips total all day long back
[01:59:12] and forth like an ant carrying food to
[01:59:14] its nest. By the last run, I estimated
[01:59:17] the forest held thousands of pounds of
[01:59:19] berries total. I'd taken about 500. I
[01:59:22] wanted more, but it was getting dark,
[01:59:24] and those wolf tracks from this morning
[01:59:26] were still fresh in my mind. I covered
[01:59:28] the entrance, wiped my tracks, and
[01:59:30] headed home. That night, my cave looked
[01:59:33] magical. I'd carved shelf-like hollows
[01:59:36] into the ice wall at the entrance and
[01:59:38] packed them with hundreds of pounds of
[01:59:39] berries. Their soft blue glow turned the
[01:59:42] whole space into something like a
[01:59:44] crystal palace. Viewers were
[01:59:46] screenshotting the image. It became one
[01:59:48] of the most iconic harvest pictures in
[01:59:50] wasteland broadcast history. I set up my
[01:59:53] stone pot over a small piece of coal,
[01:59:56] boiled snow water, and dropped in a huge
[01:59:58] chunk of thunder chicken thigh. The meat
[02:00:00] was purple red and dense. Then I crushed
[02:00:03] a handful of the giant berries and threw
[02:00:05] them in. The juice instantly turned the
[02:00:07] broth a deep red purple. No seasonings
[02:00:10] needed. Wasteland monster meat was
[02:00:12] naturally salty and savory. The berries
[02:00:15] added sweetness and acid. Together, they
[02:00:18] created something extraordinary. Half an
[02:00:20] hour of bubbling, and the smell that
[02:00:22] filled my cave was so intense, it
[02:00:24] practically leaked through the screens.
[02:00:26] The chicken had gone tender enough to
[02:00:28] fall off the bone, soaked through with
[02:00:30] berry juice. The fruit had melted into a
[02:00:33] shiny glaze, coating every piece of
[02:00:35] meat. I scooped out a leg and bit in.
[02:00:38] The flavors hit me like fireworks. rich
[02:00:40] meat, fragrant fat, tart sweet fruit,
[02:00:43] all perfectly balanced, and the energy
[02:00:46] surged through me. My satiety cap
[02:00:48] increased by 50, and the system noted
[02:00:50] I'd absorb trace thunder elements and
[02:00:53] high energy vitamins, slightly
[02:00:55] strengthening my body. Monster meat made
[02:00:57] you stronger with every bite. Now I
[02:00:59] understood why every pioneer was
[02:01:01] obsessed with hunting. The cycle of
[02:01:03] eating and evolving was addictive, but
[02:01:06] this still wasn't Silverstar grade. For
[02:01:08] that, I need to get back to my frozen
[02:01:10] lake and catch more of those incredible
[02:01:12] silver fish. The upload timer chimed, 5
[02:01:16] minutes. I kept enough berries for
[02:01:18] myself and set aside 300 lb of the
[02:01:20] biggest, best ones. Then I pressed my
[02:01:23] hand down on that blue mountain of
[02:01:25] fruit. Upload all of it. The system
[02:01:27] scanned everything and rated them D+
[02:01:30] good quality. Then the magic words
[02:01:32] appeared. resource critical hit. 10,000
[02:01:35] times multiplier. 3 million pounds of
[02:01:38] ice blueberries delivered to my country.
[02:01:41] My name rocketed up the global rankings
[02:01:44] from over 4,000 to number eight. Eighth
[02:01:46] in the entire world among all eighth
[02:01:48] batch pioneers. Back on Earth, the
[02:01:51] storage base went into chaos. Dozens of
[02:01:54] massive conveyor belts roared to life
[02:01:56] simultaneously as an ocean of glowing
[02:01:59] blue fruit poured out of the
[02:02:00] materialization towers. Workers
[02:02:03] scrambled to call in every refrigerated
[02:02:05] truck they could find. Nobody could
[02:02:07] figure out which pioneer had done this.
[02:02:09] At the strategy meeting, Ley burst
[02:02:12] through the door to deliver the news,
[02:02:13] then stopped dead. The room was quiet.
[02:02:16] No arguing, no cigarette smoke. Every
[02:02:19] single leader was sitting perfectly
[02:02:20] still with a fist-sized blueberry in
[02:02:23] front of them, washed and ready to eat.
[02:02:25] The old commander took a bite, juice
[02:02:27] running down his chin, and smiled. Not
[02:02:30] bad. Really sweet. When Ley told them
[02:02:33] I'd found another resource point and was
[02:02:35] now ranked second among all our
[02:02:37] country's pioneers, the commander just
[02:02:39] shook his head and laughed. Nobody
[02:02:41] argued about the apocalypse bearer
[02:02:43] anymore. Nobody needed to. The berry
[02:02:46] forest on top of the frozen lake made
[02:02:48] the answer obvious. At the family
[02:02:50] compound in the capital, my parents had
[02:02:52] a feast laid out, braced snow rabbit,
[02:02:54] and a huge bowl of washed berries. Xiao
[02:02:57] Xiao<unk>s little friend Shen Shun was
[02:02:59] there stuffing his face with both hands,
[02:03:01] telling everyone that the other seed
[02:03:03] level families only got three berries
[02:03:05] each while a kid down the hall was
[02:03:07] crying because he wanted more, "My
[02:03:09] family had plenty." Shia Sha bit into a
[02:03:12] berry, juice running sweet into her
[02:03:14] mouth and said quietly, "Of course, my
[02:03:17] brother's the best." Across the country,
[02:03:19] neighborhoods were getting their share,
[02:03:20] too. Back at our old community in H
[02:03:23] City, the director handed out half a
[02:03:25] pound of rabbit meat and two small
[02:03:27] berries per household. Everyone was
[02:03:29] grateful. Everyone mentioned my name. At
[02:03:31] my uncle's apartment, his wife chewed
[02:03:34] her tiny portion of meat in bitter
[02:03:36] silence while their son screamed for
[02:03:38] more fruit. I didn't know any of this. I
[02:03:40] was checking the top 10 rewards. A
[02:03:42] good-grade tactical backpack with 200 L
[02:03:45] of storage using special folding
[02:03:47] technology, plus two bottles of advanced
[02:03:50] body enhancement fluid. One bottle alone
[02:03:52] could bring a person's body to first
[02:03:54] tier monster level. I studied the
[02:03:56] leaderboard above me. The number one
[02:03:58] spot was still held by John, uploading a
[02:04:01] large kill every single day. Second was
[02:04:04] a woman from another country living on a
[02:04:06] fishrich coastline. Third was Ivan,
[02:04:08] who'd killed a wounded second tier
[02:04:10] monster and scored hundreds of pounds of
[02:04:12] meat. Their starting positions were all
[02:04:14] so much better than mine. But I had my
[02:04:17] system. Without it, I wouldn't even be
[02:04:19] alive. My stats look like a proper
[02:04:21] player's inventory for the first time.
[02:04:23] Satiety near max at 529. Advanced cold
[02:04:27] resistance. Divine gaze improving with
[02:04:30] practice. Over 250 lbs of berries in
[02:04:33] cold storage. 18 pounds of thunder
[02:04:35] chicken meat. Three rabbits, two rats,
[02:04:38] rare crafting materials, and a legendary
[02:04:40] vehicle ranked eighth globally. For days
[02:04:43] left until the contest ended, holding
[02:04:45] top 10 would guarantee the backpack and
[02:04:48] enhancement fluid. Pushing higher might
[02:04:50] be possible, I lay down on the warm
[02:04:52] stone. Finally satisfied with my
[02:04:54] position. This was what a properly
[02:04:56] equipped player's inventory should look
[02:04:58] like. I closed my eyes. Then cutting
[02:05:01] through the thick ice door and the
[02:05:03] silence of the cave, a sound that turned
[02:05:05] my blood cold. Wolf howls long,
[02:05:08] piercing, dripping with killing intent.
[02:05:11] Multiple voices echoing across the
[02:05:13] tundra. I was wide awake instantly. 3
[02:05:16] days before the apocalypse contest
[02:05:18] deadline. I barely slept all night. The
[02:05:20] wolf howls had circled my cave for hours
[02:05:23] before fading. Just a patrol. They
[02:05:25] hadn't tried to break in, but it was a
[02:05:27] warning. At first light, I headed out
[02:05:29] for the berry forest. Thousands of
[02:05:31] pounds of fruit were still waiting. On
[02:05:34] the way, I grabbed two more rabbits
[02:05:36] without breaking stride. When I arrived,
[02:05:38] my stomach dropped. The entrance was
[02:05:40] wrecked. My carefully carved ramp had
[02:05:43] been torn open. A dozen holes punched
[02:05:45] into the snow from every direction.
[02:05:47] Animals had smelled the berries and dug
[02:05:49] their way in overnight. Inside, the
[02:05:52] damage was devastating. More than half
[02:05:54] the fruit was gone. Bushes were trampled
[02:05:56] flat. branches snapped. Crushed berry
[02:05:59] pulp smeared everywhere. Wasteful
[02:06:02] animals, I muttered, heart bleeding at
[02:06:04] the sight. But then, deep in the ruined
[02:06:07] grove, I spotted something that made
[02:06:09] everything else disappear. On a few old
[02:06:12] thick bushes tucked into awkward
[02:06:14] corners, golden light flickered between
[02:06:16] the leaves. Fruit that glowed pure gold
[02:06:19] like they were cast from metal. Golden
[02:06:21] iceberries, rare grade. The system said
[02:06:24] they were the king of the berry forest,
[02:06:26] grown by absorbing the deepest essence
[02:06:29] of the Aclass blizzard. They'd just
[02:06:31] ripened and the animals had missed them
[02:06:33] because they grew in hard-to-reach spots
[02:06:35] high on the branches. I snatched all 14
[02:06:38] of them in under a minute. Then I heard
[02:06:40] it, a soft tap, like a claw touching
[02:06:43] metal. Something had found my snow
[02:06:45] vehicle up on the surface. I froze,
[02:06:48] dropped flat behind the roots of an old
[02:06:50] bush and let the camouflage cloak
[02:06:52] activate. My body blended into the dirt
[02:06:55] and dead leaves. Footsteps whispered
[02:06:57] down the ice ramp. Two massive white
[02:07:00] wolves glided into the underground space
[02:07:02] without making a sound. Snow demon
[02:07:04] wolves, shoulders over a meter high,
[02:07:07] pure white fur, and sickly green eyes
[02:07:09] full of cold intelligence. Their paws
[02:07:12] moved like they had suction cups,
[02:07:14] completely silent. I hadn't seen any
[02:07:16] fresh tracks when I came in. They were
[02:07:18] just that fast. One of them walked
[02:07:20] straight to my bush and stopped less
[02:07:22] than a meter from my face. I could smell
[02:07:25] its hot rotten breath. I could see
[02:07:27] saliva dripping from its jaws. My cloak
[02:07:30] blocked my scent, and the wolf sniffed a
[02:07:32] few times, found nothing interesting,
[02:07:35] then sat down right there. It tucked
[02:07:37] itself into the snow, closed its eyes,
[02:07:39] and became invisible. Just another bump
[02:07:42] in the landscape. Then more came. Three
[02:07:45] for more wolves slipped in through
[02:07:46] different holes. Each one picked a
[02:07:49] corner with good sight lines, buried
[02:07:51] itself in the snow, and went still. Only
[02:07:53] their green eyes stayed open, watching.
[02:07:56] A perfect ambush formation. They weren't
[02:07:58] hunting me. They were setting a trap for
[02:08:00] whatever came to eat the berries next.
[02:08:03] But I was right in the middle of it. The
[02:08:04] chat was terrified. People counted the
[02:08:07] wolves. The number kept climbing.
[02:08:09] Someone calculated that escape
[02:08:11] probability dropped to nearly zero with
[02:08:13] more than two wolves present. By the
[02:08:15] end, there were at least 15 hidden
[02:08:17] around me. I didn't panic. I'd already
[02:08:20] figured out what they were doing. They
[02:08:22] were patient hunters and so was I. The
[02:08:24] cloak was working. As long as I didn't
[02:08:26] move, I was invisible. 10 hours I stayed
[02:08:29] curled in that position. My thigh
[02:08:31] muscles cramped. Cold seeped through the
[02:08:34] ground into my bones. I controlled my
[02:08:36] breathing to three breaths per minute.
[02:08:38] The viewers stayed with me the entire
[02:08:40] time, watching a motionless screen,
[02:08:42] terrified that any second the wolves
[02:08:44] would find me. When the upload timer
[02:08:46] chimed in my head, I carefully pressed
[02:08:49] one of the golden berries and whispered
[02:08:51] the upload command. It wasn't because I
[02:08:53] thought I was about to die. It was
[02:08:55] because the thing was so heavy it was
[02:08:57] making my hand go numb. Still curled up
[02:08:59] among the wolves, I uploaded one golden
[02:09:02] berry. 10,000 times multiplier. 10,000
[02:09:05] rare golden berries delivered to my
[02:09:08] country. My rank jumped to sixth
[02:09:10] globally. Then the system offered me
[02:09:12] another survival blind box for uploading
[02:09:14] a new rare resource. I picked legendary
[02:09:17] without hesitation with my intel system
[02:09:20] finding it would be easy no matter where
[02:09:22] it landed. The chat thought I was making
[02:09:24] a final upload before dying. The
[02:09:26] intelligence bureau analysts were
[02:09:28] confused too. They knew my body could
[02:09:30] handle this. I wasn't dying. The berry
[02:09:32] was just really heavy and my hand was
[02:09:35] going numb. Then the real show started.
[02:09:37] Small animals began drifting in, drawn
[02:09:40] by the berry smell. A few snow rats, a
[02:09:42] dopey looking giant rabbit. They hopped
[02:09:45] down the ramp and started happily
[02:09:47] munching on the crushed fruit scattered
[02:09:49] across the ground. The sweet scent
[02:09:51] perfectly masked the wolves hiding
[02:09:53] everywhere. The wolves didn't twitch,
[02:09:55] not even when a fat rat literally jumped
[02:09:57] onto one of their heads. The wolf didn't
[02:09:59] even open its eyes. I was impressed and
[02:10:02] terrified. When about 15 small animals
[02:10:05] had gathered, the wolf closest to me
[02:10:07] barely raised its ears and let out a
[02:10:10] vibration so low I felt it more than
[02:10:12] heard it. The signal, five white blurs
[02:10:15] erupted from the snow simultaneously. No
[02:10:17] barking, no growling, just the crack of
[02:10:20] bones and short squeals cut off midcry.
[02:10:23] Two wolves blocked the exit. Two drove
[02:10:26] the panicking prey toward the center.
[02:10:28] The biggest one swept through the grove
[02:10:30] like a reaper. They didn't even stop to
[02:10:32] eat. Each wolf snapped a neck, tossed
[02:10:35] the body aside, and moved to the next
[02:10:37] target. 3 minutes. Every single animal
[02:10:40] was dead. The wolves collected the
[02:10:42] bodies and withdrew in formation. The
[02:10:45] ground barely had any blood on it. This
[02:10:47] wasn't hunting. This was a military
[02:10:49] operation. Then I remembered 15 wolves
[02:10:52] had entered. Only five had attacked. The
[02:10:54] rest, including the one sitting a meter
[02:10:57] from my face, hadn't moved at all. Hours
[02:10:59] passed. The temperature dropped even
[02:11:01] further. Without advanced cold
[02:11:03] resistance, I would have frozen solid.
[02:11:06] But the fruit smell kept drawing
[02:11:07] victims. More rabbits, more rats crept
[02:11:10] in. A group of thunder chickens
[02:11:12] strutdded down the ramp, and I watched
[02:11:14] in admiration as they pecked a few
[02:11:16] berries, sensed something wrong, and
[02:11:19] bolted back out before the wolves could
[02:11:20] react. Smart birds. I made a mental note
[02:11:23] to learn from their survival instincts.
[02:11:26] Someday over dinner, the wolves ran two
[02:11:28] more ambush cycles through the night. By
[02:11:31] the third round, fewer animals were
[02:11:33] coming. The blood smell was building up,
[02:11:35] and the cautious ones grabbed food and
[02:11:37] fled immediately. At dawn, the pack
[02:11:40] finally collected their kills, formed a
[02:11:42] single file line, and marched up the
[02:11:44] ramp to leave. But the last wolf, a
[02:11:47] smaller one, carrying a rabbit head in
[02:11:49] its jaws, stopped at the exit. It turned
[02:11:52] around. Two pale green eyes stared
[02:11:54] directly at the bush where I was hiding.
[02:11:56] My heart stopped. Had it found me? When?
[02:11:59] How? After the wolves left, I waited
[02:12:02] another 30 minutes before I dared to
[02:12:03] move. My body was so stiff, I could
[02:12:06] barely uncool my fingers. That last wolf
[02:12:08] hadn't been looking at me. It was
[02:12:10] staring at the golden berries on the old
[02:12:12] bush above my head. These wolves knew
[02:12:15] every resource in their territory. Smart
[02:12:17] enough to be terrifying. I climbed out,
[02:12:20] rided my snow vehicle, and checked the
[02:12:22] cargo box. Still sealed, the wolves
[02:12:24] hadn't gotten my two rabbits. But
[02:12:26] looking down at the ruined berry forest,
[02:12:29] I knew it was over. The big fruit was
[02:12:31] eaten. Only unripe small ones remained.
[02:12:34] And with wolves using this place as a
[02:12:36] hunting ground, coming back wasn't worth
[02:12:38] the risk. I patted the 12 golden berries
[02:12:41] tucked inside my jacket. These were the
[02:12:43] real prize. Each one was worth more than
[02:12:45] hundreds of pounds of regular berries.
[02:12:48] Rare grade resources were the key
[02:12:49] ingredient for making silver star food,
[02:12:52] the kind that actually pushed human
[02:12:54] evolution forward. One golden berry
[02:12:56] could do what a 100 pounds of
[02:12:58] blueberries couldn't. On the ride home,
[02:13:00] my mood darkened. The green wolf trails
[02:13:03] in my danger vision had spread
[02:13:05] everywhere. They weren't just patrolling
[02:13:07] anymore. Their tracks covered the entire
[02:13:09] safe zone within 10 km like a giant net.
[02:13:13] Something had changed in their behavior.
[02:13:15] I couldn't afford to be reckless. Back
[02:13:17] in my cave, the system told me 1,532
[02:13:21] pioneers had died overnight. The
[02:13:24] apocalypse contest deadline was 48 hours
[02:13:26] away. People were dying in droves trying
[02:13:29] to climb the rankings at the last
[02:13:30] minute. At the intelligence bureau, Ley
[02:13:33] was frustrated. Wolf activity meant I
[02:13:36] might produce nothing in the final two
[02:13:38] days, making it hard to break into the
[02:13:40] top five. Suan reminded her that I was
[02:13:42] already the number one provider of rare
[02:13:45] resources among all eighth batch
[02:13:47] pioneers. Then she went to sleep. She'd
[02:13:49] been watching my stream all night while
[02:13:51] researching whether the berry bushes
[02:13:53] could be transplanted. In my cave, I
[02:13:56] decided to go all out on breakfast. I
[02:13:58] filled the stone pot with thunder
[02:14:00] chicken meat and dropped in three golden
[02:14:02] berries. The juice flowed into the broth
[02:14:04] like liquid gold. No sweet smell this
[02:14:07] time. Just a deep, heavy, medicinal
[02:14:10] fragrance. As the pot simmerred,
[02:14:12] something magical happened. Instead of
[02:14:14] white steam, a silver glow formed on the
[02:14:17] surface of the soup. It swirled inside
[02:14:19] the pot like something alive. Silver
[02:14:22] star food. I'd done it. I let it cool,
[02:14:25] then drank every drop and ate every
[02:14:27] piece of meat. The energy didn't come as
[02:14:29] warmth this time. It was like swallowing
[02:14:31] magma. Power exploded outward through my
[02:14:34] entire body. Every cell was splitting
[02:14:37] and rebuilding. My cold resistance
[02:14:39] jumped to 5% at the advanced level.
[02:14:42] Muscle density increased. Bone strength
[02:14:44] increased. When I clenched my fist, my
[02:14:47] knuckles cracked like firecrackers.
[02:14:49] Steam rose off my skin. The viewers
[02:14:51] could see it. White vapor pouring off me
[02:14:54] like I was a furnace. After calming
[02:14:56] down, I checked the rankings. With 48
[02:14:59] hours left, I had options. If I uploaded
[02:15:01] everything I had stored, I could
[02:15:03] probably hit top three. If I hunted
[02:15:05] carefully with my cloak while dodging
[02:15:07] wolves, maybe even first place. Then I
[02:15:10] remembered something. The legendary
[02:15:12] blind box from yesterday's upload. I
[02:15:14] still needed to find where it had
[02:15:15] landed. If I could open another
[02:15:17] legendary item before the deadline,
[02:15:19] everything could change. I was about to
[02:15:21] check the blind box location when I
[02:15:23] noticed something new. My intel points
[02:15:25] had quietly stacked up to 15. And next
[02:15:28] to the counter, a deep red exclamation
[02:15:30] mark was flashing, something I'd never
[02:15:33] seen before. The system asked if I
[02:15:35] wanted to spend all 15 points on a major
[02:15:38] event prediction and full panoramic
[02:15:40] simulation. 15 points was everything I'd
[02:15:42] saved, but I didn't hesitate long. I
[02:15:45] could always earn more. Yes, show me. My
[02:15:48] consciousness was ripped out of my body
[02:15:50] and launched into the sky. I shot
[02:15:52] through rock, through snow, through
[02:15:54] clouds until I was floating 10,000 m
[02:15:57] above the tundra, looking down at the
[02:16:00] entire frozen world like a god. Below
[02:16:02] me, a massive gray cloud was moving
[02:16:05] across the snow. I zoomed in closer,
[02:16:07] closer. It wasn't a cloud. It was a
[02:16:10] herd. Tens of thousands of giant horn
[02:16:12] mammoth sheep, each one as big as an ox,
[02:16:16] covered in thick gray fur with enormous
[02:16:18] spiral horns. They were migrating. Then
[02:16:21] I heard the wolf howls. Three separate
[02:16:23] packs, hundreds of snow demon wolves
[02:16:25] combined, led by three wolf kings the
[02:16:28] size of small cars. They moved like
[02:16:30] three white surgical blades cutting
[02:16:32] toward the herd's midsection. The wolf
[02:16:34] kings howled and something terrifying
[02:16:37] happened. From their mouths came not
[02:16:39] just sound, but actual crescent-shaped
[02:16:41] ice blades. Hundreds of them raining
[02:16:44] down on the sheep like a storm. Magic.
[02:16:46] Real magic. The difference between a
[02:16:48] monster and a regular animal. The sheep
[02:16:51] panicked. Their formation stretched and
[02:16:53] the weak ones fell behind. The wolf
[02:16:56] kings raised walls of ice to cut off
[02:16:58] over a thousand stragglers. What
[02:17:00] followed was a slaughter. But in the
[02:17:02] chaos, about a hund sheep broke free
[02:17:04] under the lead of a few old rams. They
[02:17:07] bolted northeast in blind terror. My
[02:17:09] vision followed them as my intel points
[02:17:12] drained away. They stampeded onto a wide
[02:17:15] flat ice surface and their combined
[02:17:17] weight shattered it. A 100 massive sheep
[02:17:19] plunged into freezing lake water. They
[02:17:22] thrashed in the shallows, but the
[02:17:24] extreme cold drained them fast. One by
[02:17:27] one, they froze solid. A 100 ice statues
[02:17:30] of thousand lb beasts locked in the
[02:17:32] lake. The coordinates burned into my
[02:17:34] mind. 15 km southwest of my cave, the
[02:17:38] frozen lake, my lake. When I snapped
[02:17:41] back to normal vision, I was drenched in
[02:17:43] cold sweat. The scene had been
[02:17:45] overwhelming. The thundering herd, the
[02:17:47] screaming ice blades, the brutal
[02:17:49] efficiency of the wolf packs. Humans
[02:17:52] were nothing in this world. But my eyes
[02:17:54] were blazing. 100 sheep, each one over
[02:17:57] a,000 lb. All first tier monster meat
[02:18:00] just sitting there frozen, waiting to be
[02:18:02] collected. If I could get to them, the
[02:18:05] number one ranking and the legendary
[02:18:07] overlord Bao was mine. Two days later,
[02:18:10] deep into the night of day 28, I made my
[02:18:12] move. I stripped the cargo box off the
[02:18:15] sled for maximum speed, packed a few
[02:18:17] strips of dried meat and three golden
[02:18:20] berries, threw on the camouflage cloak,
[02:18:22] and blasted out of the cave into the
[02:18:24] darkness. The chat thought I'd lost my
[02:18:26] mind, running into a blizzard at
[02:18:28] midnight with wolves everywhere. Most
[02:18:30] viewers figured I'd given up and
[02:18:32] snapped. At the strategy meeting, the
[02:18:34] old commander made his decision. Despite
[02:18:37] my dropping rank, despite the doubts, he
[02:18:39] officially nominated me as the
[02:18:41] apocalypse bearer. He said my survival
[02:18:44] instincts and ability to create
[02:18:46] something from nothing were unmatched.
[02:18:48] Even if we didn't win first place, the
[02:18:50] fire burning in the eternal winter
[02:18:52] tundra had to be protected. Over seven
[02:18:55] previous batches, our country had sent
[02:18:57] over 10,000 pioneers into the tundra.
[02:19:00] Not a single one had survived. I was the
[02:19:02] only flame still burning. Ley, who'd
[02:19:05] been fighting for me behind the scenes
[02:19:06] for weeks, finally allowed herself a
[02:19:09] tear. Then she typed a message into my
[02:19:11] chat. Don't be reckless. Staying alive
[02:19:14] matters more than anything. I didn't see
[02:19:16] it. I was lying flat on my sled, cutting
[02:19:19] through the midnight storm like a ghost.
[02:19:21] No cargo, no weight, just pure speed.
[02:19:24] The camouflage cloak made me invisible.
[02:19:27] The silver sled blended with the snow.
[02:19:29] My danger vision mapped every wolf trail
[02:19:32] in the dark. I was a phantom in a death
[02:19:34] zone. By dawn, I'd reached the frozen
[02:19:37] lake, and those hundred sheep would make
[02:19:39] me number one. I pushed the pedals
[02:19:41] harder and grinned into the wind. Full
[02:19:43] speed ahead. While I was racing through
[02:19:45] the blizzard, the whole world was in
[02:19:47] chaos. The advanced civilization changed
[02:19:50] the rules. Instead of a 5-minute upload
[02:19:52] window, we now had until midnight, a
[02:19:55] full day to upload anything, anywhere.
[02:19:58] The announcement sent every pioneer into
[02:20:01] overdrive. Across the wasteland,
[02:20:03] everyone was making their final moves.
[02:20:05] Ziao Taihu, our special forces veteran,
[02:20:08] ranked 13th, crawled through mud toward
[02:20:10] a giant iron jawed beehive for another
[02:20:13] dangerous honey raid. He'd seen my rank
[02:20:15] slipping and decided the old soldiers
[02:20:17] had to step up. His viewers cried
[02:20:20] watching him inch toward almost certain
[02:20:22] death. Li Chingqing, ranked 15th, knelt
[02:20:25] in her frozen field holding an unripe
[02:20:28] purple potato. If she harvested
[02:20:30] everything now, she could crack the top
[02:20:32] 10. But her crops weren't ready. She
[02:20:34] chose the long game, put the potato
[02:20:36] back, and whispered my name. Linen, it's
[02:20:39] up to you. Mushua, ranked sixth and
[02:20:42] still our country's top seed, stood at
[02:20:44] the edge of a pit trap she dug. At the
[02:20:47] bottom, a peak level first tier armored
[02:20:49] scorpion was thrashing and roaring. 300
[02:20:52] lb of pure monster meat. She had nothing
[02:20:54] but a mining pick. She brushed the hair
[02:20:57] from her face, smiled with cold
[02:20:59] determination, and jumped in. Her chat
[02:21:02] screamed in terror and admiration. Ivan
[02:21:04] from another country ranked fifth,
[02:21:06] walked into a bare cave, and found two
[02:21:09] cubs. He stood there for a moment,
[02:21:11] looking at their confused little faces.
[02:21:14] Then he apologized and brought down his
[02:21:16] ax. Second tier monster meat, even from
[02:21:19] babies, was too valuable to pass up with
[02:21:21] his rank at stake. Mel from another
[02:21:23] country, ranked second, had been
[02:21:26] grinding day after day, collecting
[02:21:27] shellfish on her frozen island. But
[02:21:30] shellfish scored low. She needed
[02:21:32] something big. She took a deep breath
[02:21:34] and dove into the freezing ocean,
[02:21:36] targeting a massive ice sea demon crab
[02:21:38] lurking on the bottom. And little John,
[02:21:41] ranked first, sat shirtless on a pile of
[02:21:43] tin monster corpses in his warm cave,
[02:21:46] eating raw meat and laughing. He'd
[02:21:48] already hunted everything nearby. He was
[02:21:51] just going to sit there and watch
[02:21:53] everyone else struggle. He'd forgotten
[02:21:54] my name entirely. A few hundred lb of
[02:21:57] fruit, nothing compared to his thousands
[02:21:59] of pounds of monster kills. He was
[02:22:01] untouchable. Or so he believed. At the
[02:22:04] international level, the Allied nations
[02:22:06] had been arguing about resource sharing.
[02:22:08] One country's leader demanded more
[02:22:10] because their pioneer had finally
[02:22:12] recovered from eating hallucinogenic
[02:22:14] fruit and found a plant resource point.
[02:22:17] The lead country's general blew cigar
[02:22:19] smoke and calmly pointed out that I
[02:22:21] still had unsterred reserves. If their
[02:22:23] pioneer pushed too hard, I'd upload
[02:22:25] everything to protect my ranking. The
[02:22:28] argument died when the rule change
[02:22:29] announcement interrupted the meeting.
[02:22:31] Suddenly, everyone's calculations were
[02:22:33] different. A full day of uploads meant
[02:22:36] resource point pioneers could harvest
[02:22:38] and upload continuously. The meeting
[02:22:40] ended in a rush as every nation
[02:22:43] scrambled to contact their teams. None
[02:22:45] of them were thinking about me. I was
[02:22:47] ranked ninth and falling. Two quiet days
[02:22:49] in my cave had made everyone write me
[02:22:52] off. But at our highest strategy
[02:22:54] meeting, the old commander made his
[02:22:56] final decision. Despite my dropping
[02:22:58] rank, despite every argument for Mushu
[02:23:01] or Xiao Taiu, he chose me as the
[02:23:03] apocalypse bearer. He said my survival
[02:23:06] intelligence and ability to create
[02:23:08] miracles from nothing were unmatched.
[02:23:10] Even if we didn't win first place, the
[02:23:12] fire in the eternal winter tundra, a
[02:23:15] zone that had killed over 10,000 of our
[02:23:17] pioneers across seven batches without a
[02:23:19] single survivor, had to be protected.
[02:23:22] Every general in the room stood and
[02:23:24] saluted. Ley typed one last message into
[02:23:27] my chat. Don't be reckless. Staying
[02:23:29] alive matters more than anything. I
[02:23:32] didn't see any of it. After a full night
[02:23:34] of riding through the storm, dodging
[02:23:36] wolf trails and my danger vision,
[02:23:38] invisible under my cloak, I finally
[02:23:41] arrived the frozen lake. I reached the
[02:23:43] frozen lake area after a brutal night
[02:23:46] ride. The wind was at its worst. Without
[02:23:48] advanced cold resistance, I'd have
[02:23:50] frozen solid in 2 hours. I stopped at a
[02:23:53] sheltered slope near the shore. I
[02:23:55] activated the panoramic replay from my
[02:23:57] earlier vision. The ghostly images of a
[02:24:00] hundred stampeding mammoth sheep
[02:24:02] materialized across the snow in front of
[02:24:04] me, showing exactly where they'd run,
[02:24:07] exactly where the ice would break,
[02:24:09] exactly where they'd freeze into
[02:24:10] statues. Even as faded projections, the
[02:24:13] thundering herd was terrifying. Their
[02:24:16] spiral horns glowed with frost energy.
[02:24:18] One graze and I'd shatter like glass. I
[02:24:21] was still so weak compared to native
[02:24:23] wasteland creatures. My mind drifted to
[02:24:26] the goddess shrine below my cave.
[02:24:28] Becoming a frost servant would give me
[02:24:30] incredible power in cold environments.
[02:24:33] To get there, I needed the overlord bow
[02:24:35] from first place. With that weapon, I
[02:24:37] could hunt a snow demon bear for its
[02:24:39] liver. Every piece was connected. I
[02:24:42] started digging a snow shelter near the
[02:24:43] lake. Not on the ice, on the bank, at a
[02:24:46] safe distance with good sidelines. At
[02:24:49] the intelligence bureau, Suan and Ley
[02:24:52] both assumed I was going back to ice
[02:24:54] fishing. It made sense. My best resource
[02:24:57] point, my proven skill, a safe and
[02:24:59] steady approach for the final 24 hours.
[02:25:02] Ley was pumping her fist, excited that
[02:25:04] I'd returned to the lake. Suan agreed it
[02:25:07] was the smartest, safest plan. They were
[02:25:09] both a little disappointed I'd left
[02:25:11] before the rule change announcement. If
[02:25:13] id known I could upload all day instead
[02:25:15] of just during the 5-minute window, I
[02:25:18] could have dumped my stored reserves and
[02:25:20] pushed for second place. Meanwhile, on
[02:25:22] Earth, a global broadcast center was
[02:25:24] covering the final day. The host
[02:25:26] reported shocking news. The fourth
[02:25:28] ranked pioneer had just died, falling
[02:25:31] off a cliff while trying to steal
[02:25:32] monster eggs. Rank four, gone in an
[02:25:35] instant. The brutality of last day
[02:25:37] desperation laid bare for billions to
[02:25:40] see. The host covered every major
[02:25:42] pioneer's moves. Mushu had jumped into
[02:25:44] her own pit trap to fight a peak first
[02:25:47] tier armored scorpion with nothing but a
[02:25:49] mining pick. Ziao Taiu was crawling
[02:25:52] through mud toward giant killer bees for
[02:25:54] a second honey raid. Lie Chingqing chose
[02:25:56] to protect her unripe crops instead of
[02:25:59] harvesting early for ranking points. She
[02:26:01] whispered my name and said it was up to
[02:26:03] me now. In other countries, Mel dove
[02:26:06] into freezing ocean water to fight a
[02:26:08] giant crab. Ivan killed bear cubs
[02:26:11] because he couldn't afford to leave any
[02:26:13] meat behind. And little Jon, still
[02:26:15] number one, sat on his pile of monster
[02:26:18] corpses, eating raw meat and laughing at
[02:26:20] everyone struggling below him. When the
[02:26:22] broadcast turned to me, a balding expert
[02:26:25] analyzed my strategy, returning to the
[02:26:28] frozen lake for ice fishing. Smart,
[02:26:30] safe, steady. A classic move from the
[02:26:33] man who'd invented shovel fishing. The
[02:26:35] international audience nodded along.
[02:26:37] Some called me cunning, others praised
[02:26:39] my consistency. Everyone, the
[02:26:41] intelligence bureau, the global
[02:26:43] analysts, millions of viewers, was
[02:26:46] absolutely certain I was going to fish.
[02:26:48] They were all wrong. I wasn't here to
[02:26:50] fish. I was here to collect a 100 frozen
[02:26:53] mammoth sheep worth thousands of pounds
[02:26:55] of first tier monster meat, sitting
[02:26:57] right there in the ice, waiting for me.
[02:27:00] Fishing in this weather, please.
[02:27:02] Scavenging was always my true specialty.
[02:27:05] The intelligence system chimed. Daily
[02:27:07] info refreshed. I saved my daily intel
[02:27:10] point instead of using it. Then I
[02:27:12] crawled into my snow shelter, ate some
[02:27:14] dried meat, and went to sleep. Everyone
[02:27:17] on Earth thought I was going ice
[02:27:18] fishing. The international experts
[02:27:20] analyzed my brilliant strategy of
[02:27:23] returning to the frozen lake for a final
[02:27:25] fishing push. My country's viewers
[02:27:28] calmed down, convinced I was playing it
[02:27:30] smart and safe. Even the intelligence
[02:27:32] bureau assumed I was going to fish.
[02:27:34] Meanwhile, at the family compound,
[02:27:37] Shiaos Sha and Chin Chun had gathered a
[02:27:39] bunch of kids to watch my stream. The
[02:27:41] other children got bored watching me
[02:27:43] sleep and wanted to switch to a more
[02:27:44] exciting pioneer's feed. Shun Chun
[02:27:47] defended me loudly, insisting I was
[02:27:49] conserving energy and would catch 10
[02:27:52] fish with one swing when I woke up.
[02:27:54] Shiao Sha hugged her doll and quietly
[02:27:56] wondered if I'd really win. I slept for
[02:27:58] hours. deep, heavy sleep. The kind that
[02:28:01] drove everyone watching absolutely
[02:28:03] crazy. At the intelligence bureau,
[02:28:06] someone shouted that I'd moved, but it
[02:28:08] was just me stretching, eating some snow
[02:28:10] and jerky, then crawling right back into
[02:28:13] the shelter. Suan stared at my
[02:28:15] motionless feed, unable to figure out
[02:28:17] what I was waiting for. She worried I
[02:28:19] might be planning something suicidal,
[02:28:21] like fighting a snow demon bear.
[02:28:23] Meanwhile, terrible news kept pouring in
[02:28:26] about our other pioneers. Ziao Taiu got
[02:28:28] stung by a giant bee during his second
[02:28:30] honey raid and went into shock. Mushu
[02:28:33] was still trapped in her pit fighting
[02:28:35] the armored scorpion, her leg injured,
[02:28:38] running out of strength. The hours
[02:28:40] ticked away. 12 hours left, then five.
[02:28:43] The global rankings turned into a blood
[02:28:45] bath. A small island nation's pioneer
[02:28:47] discovered an underwater shellfish
[02:28:49] treasure and rocketed to third place.
[02:28:52] And the pioneer from another country
[02:28:54] who'd been eating hallucinogenic fruit
[02:28:56] for days had finally stripped his new
[02:28:58] resource point bearer and passed me. I
[02:29:00] dropped to 11th out of the top 10. On
[02:29:03] the international broadcast, the expert
[02:29:05] who' praised my fishing strategy that
[02:29:07] morning was sweating through his shirt.
[02:29:09] When the host asked him to explain why
[02:29:11] I'd done nothing all day, he completely
[02:29:14] lost it. He started shouting that I'd
[02:29:16] been screwed by the rule change, that I
[02:29:18] was top three in his heart and that the
[02:29:20] advanced civilization's rules were
[02:29:22] unfair. His microphone was cut and
[02:29:24] security dragged him off stage. Foreign
[02:29:27] trolls had a field day. They called me a
[02:29:29] coward, a turtle, a hasb been. One
[02:29:32] country's fans declared themselves the
[02:29:34] light of Asia now that I'd fallen.
[02:29:36] Gambling sites were paying out to
[02:29:38] everyone who'd bet against me. Three
[02:29:40] hours left on the clock. My stream went
[02:29:42] dark as night fell over the tundra. In
[02:29:45] the final second before the screen went
[02:29:47] black, the camera shook violently. A
[02:29:49] deep rumble rolled across the frozen
[02:29:51] earth. The ground shook like something
[02:29:54] massive was rolling over beneath the
[02:29:55] earth. I pressed my face against the
[02:29:58] observation hole of my snow shelter and
[02:30:00] watched the horizon shatter. A gray
[02:30:02] tidal wave smashed through the darkness.
[02:30:05] Tens of thousands of giant horn mammoth
[02:30:07] sheep stampeding in blind terror behind
[02:30:10] them. Wolf howls and the shriek of
[02:30:13] iceblade storms cutting through the
[02:30:15] night. 10 minutes later, exactly as the
[02:30:17] vision had shown me. About a hundred
[02:30:19] sheep broke away from the herd and came
[02:30:22] thundering toward the shallow end of my
[02:30:24] frozen lake. Each one was the size of an
[02:30:26] ox, their massive spiral horns glowing
[02:30:29] white with frost energy. They were like
[02:30:31] runaway tanks, unstoppable. The ice
[02:30:34] never stood a chance. The combined
[02:30:36] pounding of hundreds of hooves set up a
[02:30:38] vibration that cracked the surface wide
[02:30:41] open. The sheep at the front tried to
[02:30:43] stop, but the ones behind slammed into
[02:30:45] them, crushing them forward into the
[02:30:47] freezing water. Then came the part the
[02:30:49] vision hadn't shown me in detail. The
[02:30:51] drowning sheep panicked and activated
[02:30:54] their horn power, blasting frost shock
[02:30:56] waves, trying to break free. But
[02:30:58] underwater, those shock waves did the
[02:31:00] opposite. They accelerated the freezing.
[02:31:02] The lake water hardened around them.
[02:31:04] Their movement slowed. Their eyes went
[02:31:07] dim with terror. And the terror made
[02:31:09] them blast more frost, which froze them
[02:31:11] faster. They scared themselves to death.
[02:31:14] Within minutes, it was over. A 100
[02:31:16] massive beasts locked solid in blue ice.
[02:31:20] A few survivors on the shallow edge
[02:31:22] staggered away into the dark. Everything
[02:31:24] else was frozen still. I waited. The
[02:31:27] fresh ice needed time to harden enough
[02:31:28] to walk on. While I waited across the
[02:31:31] wasteland, the final results were
[02:31:33] locking in. Ziao Taihu held eighth
[02:31:36] place, but his left arm had turned black
[02:31:38] from the beast sting. He was facing
[02:31:40] amputation. Mushua killed her armored
[02:31:42] scorpion and uploaded 300 lb of meat
[02:31:45] plus a crystal core, securing fifth
[02:31:48] place. She collapsed in her blood soaked
[02:31:50] pit. Exhausted, Ivan sat in an empty
[02:31:53] bear cave, wondering how he'd survive
[02:31:55] next month after giving everything away
[02:31:58] for sixth place. The small island
[02:32:00] pioneer named Kaka held third, wishing
[02:32:02] the sun had stayed up five more minutes.
[02:32:05] Mel barely kept second by uploading
[02:32:07] every last scrap of her food reserves.
[02:32:10] And little Jon, still first, casually
[02:32:13] tossed another complete monster corpse
[02:32:15] onto his upload pile just to widen the
[02:32:17] gap, laughing at everyone below him. An
[02:32:20] hour passed. The wind died down. Cold
[02:32:22] moonlight broke through the clouds and
[02:32:24] lit up the ice. I climbed out of my
[02:32:27] shelter and stood before the most
[02:32:29] incredible sight I'd ever seen. Over a
[02:32:31] hundred mammoth sheep frozen in place
[02:32:33] like statues, their eyes still wide with
[02:32:36] terror, locked inside blue ice. Nature's
[02:32:39] most brutal artwork. Each sheep had
[02:32:41] close to a,000 lbs of meat on it. Even
[02:32:44] if these were the old and weak ones from
[02:32:46] the herd, I was looking at hundreds of
[02:32:48] thousands of pounds of first tier
[02:32:50] monster meat. I couldn't keep it all. I
[02:32:52] didn't have the means to protect this
[02:32:54] much from predators. Uploading to my
[02:32:56] country was the only move. Then I
[02:32:58] realized something was wrong. The system
[02:33:00] hadn't given me any acquisition prompts.
[02:33:03] Either these sheep weren't dead yet or
[02:33:06] they weren't unclaimed. I froze. Every
[02:33:08] hair on my body stood up. I scanned the
[02:33:10] area. A fresh green trail in my danger
[02:33:13] vision. A snow demon wolf. Close. My
[02:33:16] eyes followed the trail to a massive
[02:33:18] ramized sculpture nearby. Behind it, two
[02:33:21] pale green eyes were locked onto me. The
[02:33:24] wolf knew I'd spotted it. It lunged. The
[02:33:27] ground shook so hard I thought the world
[02:33:29] was splitting open. From my shelter, I
[02:33:31] watched tens of thousands of mammoth
[02:33:33] sheep come crashing through the darkness
[02:33:35] like a gray avalanche. Wolves howling
[02:33:38] and ice blades screaming behind them. 10
[02:33:41] minutes later, exactly as predicted, a
[02:33:43] hundred or so sheep broke away and
[02:33:45] stampeded straight toward the shallow
[02:33:47] end of my lake. The ice shattered under
[02:33:50] their combined weight. The front ones
[02:33:52] tried to stop, but the ones behind
[02:33:54] crushed them forward into the water.
[02:33:56] Then came the part one hadn't fully
[02:33:58] understood from the vision. The drowning
[02:34:00] sheep panicked and blasted frost energy
[02:34:02] from their horns, trying to break free.
[02:34:05] But underwater, that energy just froze
[02:34:07] the lake faster around them. Fear made
[02:34:09] them blast more. More blasting froze
[02:34:12] them quicker. They literally frightened
[02:34:14] themselves to death. I waited an hour
[02:34:16] for the ice to stabilize, then climbed
[02:34:18] out under the moonlight. Over a hundred
[02:34:20] massive sheep frozen solid and blue ice,
[02:34:23] eyes still wide with terror. Each one
[02:34:26] close to 1,000 lb. A fortune in monster
[02:34:29] meat. But when I stepped closer, no
[02:34:31] system prompts appeared. Either they
[02:34:33] weren't dead yet or something else had
[02:34:35] claimed them first. My danger vision
[02:34:37] flashed. A fresh green trail behind a
[02:34:40] giant ram statue. Two green eyes locked
[02:34:43] onto me. A snow demon wolf, huge,
[02:34:46] shoulders at my chest height, 3 m long,
[02:34:49] muscles like boulders under white fur.
[02:34:52] It launched itself at me with jaws wide
[02:34:54] open, roaring loud enough to split my
[02:34:56] eardrums, but my camouflage cloak bent
[02:34:59] the light around me. The wolf's jaws
[02:35:01] snapped shut half a meter from where it
[02:35:03] thought I was standing. Divine gaze.
[02:35:06] Time slowed to a crawl. I saw every
[02:35:08] detail. The hatred in its eyes, the
[02:35:11] saliva on its fangs, the flare of its
[02:35:13] nostrils. I wound up my shovel with
[02:35:16] everything I had, twisting my whole body
[02:35:18] into the swing, and smashed the flat
[02:35:21] side right into its nose. The most
[02:35:23] sensitive spot on its face. Blood and
[02:35:25] snot exploded everywhere. The wolf's
[02:35:28] howl turned into a yelp. I didn't chase.
[02:35:31] I jumped backward. Good thing its
[02:35:33] steelhard tail whipped through exactly
[02:35:35] where I'd been standing. Two seconds
[02:35:37] later, the wolf shook its massive head.
[02:35:40] Blood spraying from its nostrils and its
[02:35:43] eyes refocused. On a normal day, that
[02:35:45] hit would have stunned any animal for
[02:35:47] minutes. This thing recovered in 2
[02:35:50] seconds. That was wasteland biology, but
[02:35:52] I was already gone. Cloak activated,
[02:35:55] breath held, body dissolved into the
[02:35:57] swirling snow. The wolf couldn't smell
[02:36:00] me. I damaged its nose. It couldn't see
[02:36:03] me. The cloak bent light around me. Its
[02:36:05] eyes swept the area and locked onto the
[02:36:08] only visible object. My shovel planted
[02:36:10] upright in the snow 5 m away. Bait. The
[02:36:14] wolf charged. Its massive jaws clamped
[02:36:17] down on the metal blade so hard it left
[02:36:19] deep tooth marks in the alloy steel.
[02:36:21] That's when the air to its right rippled
[02:36:23] like water. A white bone spike
[02:36:25] materialized from nothing, growing
[02:36:27] larger and larger in the wolf's widening
[02:36:30] eye. It tried to dodge, but I'd already
[02:36:32] seen every possible escape route through
[02:36:34] divine gaze. There was nowhere to go. I
[02:36:37] drove the bone dagger straight through
[02:36:39] its right eye and into its brain. Then I
[02:36:41] pressed my chest against the handle and
[02:36:43] twisted. The wolf let out one wet,
[02:36:46] broken sound. Its dying thrash flung me
[02:36:49] into a frozen sheep statue. Then 3 m of
[02:36:52] apex predator collapsed onto the ice and
[02:36:55] went still. I lay there gasping. The
[02:36:57] whole fight, the decoy, the
[02:37:00] invisibility, the killing strike looked
[02:37:02] simple. But I'd rehearsed encounter
[02:37:04] scenarios a thousand times in my cave.
[02:37:07] Shadow fighting against empty air.
[02:37:09] Without the cloak, without divine gaze,
[02:37:12] without my improved body, I'd be dead 10
[02:37:15] times over. The system notifications
[02:37:17] crashed through my mind like a
[02:37:19] waterfall. One rare snow demon wolf. 36
[02:37:23] good quality mammoth sheep. 78 normal
[02:37:26] quality mammoth sheep, seven good
[02:37:28] quality baby sheep, 121 creatures total.
[02:37:31] Each adult sheep was worth at least
[02:37:34] 30,000 yuan on Earth. At 10,000 times
[02:37:37] multiplier, that was 300 million per
[02:37:39] sheep. I climbed on top of a frozen ram
[02:37:42] and looked out across the moonlit field
[02:37:44] of ice statues. No other trails in my
[02:37:46] danger vision. Everything was mine. I'm
[02:37:49] actually rich this time. With one hour
[02:37:51] left on the clock, the apocalypse bearer
[02:37:53] designations appeared on every pioneer's
[02:37:56] ranking screen. Golden red badges
[02:37:58] materialized next to names around the
[02:38:00] world. Little Jon got his. Naturally,
[02:38:03] Mel got hers. Kaka got his. And on our
[02:38:06] country's board, the badge didn't appear
[02:38:08] next to Mushua at fifth place, not next
[02:38:11] to Ziao Taihu at eighth. It appeared at
[02:38:13] 13th place, next to my name. Mushua saw
[02:38:16] it and exhaled. She'd nearly died
[02:38:18] fighting that scorpion, thinking the
[02:38:20] title might be hers. But she understood
[02:38:23] the country had decided to plant roots
[02:38:25] in the eternal winter tundra. Ziao Taiu
[02:38:28] understood too, cradling his blackened
[02:38:30] arm. The tundra needed its own fire. The
[02:38:33] pioneer from another country who' faked
[02:38:35] his fruit addiction sneered at my low
[02:38:37] ranking and called our leaders idiots.
[02:38:39] And across the wasteland, everyone who
[02:38:41] saw our country's choice had the same
[02:38:43] confused reaction. Why would they pick
[02:38:45] the 13th ranked pioneer as their
[02:38:47] apocalypse bearer? They didn't know what
[02:38:49] I was standing on. Then I noticed one
[02:38:51] last thing, something I hadn't expected
[02:38:53] at all. Standing among the frozen
[02:38:55] statues, staring at me with weary eyes,
[02:38:58] very much alive. Ba, a mammoth sheep.
[02:39:01] Not frozen. Not dead. Just looking at
[02:39:04] me. How are you not dead? I muttered,
[02:39:07] staring right back. While checking the
[02:39:09] frozen statues, I found a survivor. A
[02:39:12] baby mammoth sheep only half my height,
[02:39:15] still covered in baby fur, shaking like
[02:39:17] a leaf. Its hooves were frozen into the
[02:39:19] ice, and it couldn't pull free. The cold
[02:39:22] was killing it slowly. Its mother must
[02:39:24] have shielded it at the very last
[02:39:26] moment, using her own body to block the
[02:39:28] worst of the freezing blast. That's the
[02:39:31] only explanation for why this little one
[02:39:33] was still breathing. It looked up at me
[02:39:35] with big, wet eyes full of fear. Fine,
[02:39:38] you get to live. I chopped the ice
[02:39:39] around its hose with my shovel. The
[02:39:41] little thing seemed to understand I was
[02:39:43] helping. It didn't try to headbutt me,
[02:39:45] though I kept my guard up. Once free, it
[02:39:48] jumped onto solid ice and trotted over
[02:39:50] to a frozen adult sheep nearby, bleeding
[02:39:54] softly at the statue. I gave it a few
[02:39:56] minutes to say goodbye. Then I checked
[02:39:58] the rankings and saw the golden red
[02:40:00] badge next to my name, Apocalypse
[02:40:02] Bearer. I was honestly surprised. My
[02:40:04] stream had been dark when the sheep
[02:40:06] arrived. So, the leadership hadn't seen
[02:40:08] any of this. They'd chosen me at 13th
[02:40:11] place, based purely on what I'd already
[02:40:13] proven. Say what you want about our
[02:40:15] leaders. They had vision. Since they'd
[02:40:18] put their faith in me, the least I could
[02:40:20] do was deliver. I stood up and looked
[02:40:22] out across the endless field of frozen
[02:40:24] giants stretching across the moonlight.
[02:40:27] Each one was a mountain of first tier
[02:40:29] monster meat. Upload. Back in the
[02:40:31] capital, my family was having a quiet
[02:40:33] evening. Shenshin had brought a bunch of
[02:40:35] kids over to watch my stream, but they'd
[02:40:38] all gotten bored and left when I spent
[02:40:40] the day sleeping. He was furious,
[02:40:42] calling them traitors. Shiao Sha, who
[02:40:44] could finally see again after her
[02:40:46] surgery, told him it didn't matter
[02:40:48] whether other kids liked me or not. She
[02:40:50] just wanted me alive. Then Shinshin
[02:40:53] glanced at the screen and let out a
[02:40:54] scream that nearly gave my parents a
[02:40:56] heart attack. The apocalypse bearer
[02:40:58] badge was glowing next to my name. He
[02:41:01] started babbling about how it meant I
[02:41:03] was the country's chosen one, only one
[02:41:05] per batch, maximum support level. My
[02:41:08] parents had no idea what any of it
[02:41:10] meant. They'd heard of seed level and
[02:41:12] ace level, but national favorite sun
[02:41:15] level was new to them. My stream
[02:41:17] exploded to over a 100 million viewers,
[02:41:20] but most were angry and confused. Why me
[02:41:23] instead of Mushu, who' nearly died
[02:41:25] killing a monster to reach fifth? Why
[02:41:27] not Xiao Taiu who'd almost lost his arm
[02:41:30] holding ETH? People screamed about
[02:41:32] corruption and favoritism. My loyal fans
[02:41:35] fought back telling the newcomers to
[02:41:37] shut up and trust the leadership. Nobody
[02:41:39] outside the top decision-makers could
[02:41:41] understand the full picture. Then the
[02:41:43] old commander went on national
[02:41:45] broadcast. He stood beneath the national
[02:41:47] emblem and explained everything. He
[02:41:49] praised Mushu's ferocity and Xiao
[02:41:51] Tju<unk>s sacrifice. Then he said, "The
[02:41:54] core reason for choosing me was
[02:41:55] strategic geography. The eternal winter
[02:41:58] tundra had killed every single one of
[02:42:00] our pioneers across seven previous
[02:42:02] batches. Over 10,000 people, every one
[02:42:05] of them handpicked talent. I was the
[02:42:07] only person who'd ever taken root there.
[02:42:10] As long as I lived, I could build a base
[02:42:12] that would dramatically reduce our death
[02:42:14] rate in that zone. And I'd already found
[02:42:16] two major resource points that could
[02:42:18] fuel our country's future." He was
[02:42:20] wrapping up his speech saying that
[02:42:22] although my current rank was 13th, it
[02:42:25] didn't reflect my true. Then he noticed
[02:42:27] Ley waving frantically from below the
[02:42:29] stage pointing at the screen behind him.
[02:42:32] He turned around. My rank had jumped to
[02:42:34] 10th. He smoothly adjusted. Not bad.
[02:42:37] 10th place. And our country now holds
[02:42:40] three spots in the top. Ley was waving
[02:42:42] even harder. The generals were standing
[02:42:45] up, mouths hanging open, jabbing their
[02:42:47] fingers at the top of the screen. The
[02:42:49] commander was getting annoyed. What was
[02:42:51] wrong with these people? Didn't they
[02:42:53] know how to keep composure? He smiled at
[02:42:55] the camera. It seems things are still
[02:42:57] moving. Let's end here and watch
[02:42:59] together for Lynn N's final ranking.
[02:43:01] Then he turned to look at the board
[02:43:03] himself. His mouth slowly fell open. In
[02:43:06] 5 seconds, I'd climb to fifth and my
[02:43:08] score was still rocketing upward. I
[02:43:10] walked from statue to statue, pressing
[02:43:13] my hand against each frozen sheep and
[02:43:15] whispering, "Upload." One by one, the
[02:43:18] massive ice sculptures dissolved into
[02:43:20] golden light and vanished. 10,000
[02:43:23] points. 20,000. 30,000. My score climbed
[02:43:27] like a rocket with every sheep I sent
[02:43:29] home. At the Global Broadcast Center,
[02:43:31] the host literally jumped out of her
[02:43:33] chair screaming. The expert they dragged
[02:43:36] away earlier was hauled back on stage,
[02:43:38] his clothes wrinkled and his hair a
[02:43:40] mess, shouting, "I told you so." He
[02:43:42] guessed I'd found a group of frozen
[02:43:44] sheep, but couldn't explain how. Nobody
[02:43:46] could. Little Jon noticed the change
[02:43:48] first. He'd been lounging on his throne
[02:43:51] of monster corpses, enjoying being
[02:43:53] number one. When he saw me hit second
[02:43:55] place with 34,000 points, he dragged out
[02:43:58] a fire pig and uploaded it. 6,000 more
[02:44:01] points. Problem solved. Then my score
[02:44:04] jumped to 44,000. 500 points behind him.
[02:44:07] His smile disappeared. He frantically
[02:44:10] uploaded two more monsters. 12,000 more
[02:44:13] points. My score kept climbing. Steady,
[02:44:16] relentless. He panicked. He threw
[02:44:18] everything he had onto the upload. Every
[02:44:20] single monster corpse he'd been saving
[02:44:22] for food. 83,000 points in one massive
[02:44:26] dump. His total hit 139,000. He
[02:44:29] collapsed on the ground, gasping,
[02:44:32] grinning with desperate relief. See the
[02:44:34] gap? That's depth. That's power. 1
[02:44:37] second later, the number one slot
[02:44:39] changed hands. Linen 144,000 and still
[02:44:43] climbing 10,000 points per second. His
[02:44:46] face went through every emotion a human
[02:44:48] face can make. Laughter, shock, anger,
[02:44:52] fear, disbelief, helplessness, and
[02:44:54] finally just nothing. Completely blank.
[02:44:58] He'd spent an entire month in a
[02:45:00] resourcerich paradise. Hunted monsters
[02:45:02] every day. Built up the biggest
[02:45:04] stockpile of any eighth badge pioneer.
[02:45:07] And it wasn't even close. I kept walking
[02:45:09] through my frozen gallery, touching
[02:45:11] sheep after sheep. The baby mammoth
[02:45:13] trotted behind me, tilting its head,
[02:45:16] watching its relatives dissolve into
[02:45:18] light. Stop following me, I told it.
[02:45:21] Your people have all ascended. Ba Mel,
[02:45:24] ranked third now, spat out her water
[02:45:26] when she checked my score. 300,000, then
[02:45:29] 500,000. She couldn't comprehend the
[02:45:32] numbers anymore. Cockad dove underwater
[02:45:34] to calm himself down. came up for air,
[02:45:37] saw the score, and immediately sank back
[02:45:39] under. He thought the system was broken.
[02:45:41] Ivan calculated that if he could eat all
[02:45:44] this meat himself, he'd reach third tier
[02:45:46] monster strength. Then he lost all
[02:45:48] composure when my score passed 600,000.
[02:45:52] Mushu, climbing out of her blood soaked
[02:45:54] pit with torn wounds, looked at the
[02:45:56] board and smiled. So this is what an
[02:45:58] apocalypse bearer looks like. I didn't
[02:46:01] lose unfairly. Ziao Taihu, half
[02:46:03] delirious from his poisoned arm, thought
[02:46:05] he was hallucinating. He checked three
[02:46:08] times, confirmed it was real, then spat
[02:46:10] on the ground and laughed through tears.
[02:46:13] Compared to this guy, I'm in
[02:46:14] kindergarten. The pioneer from another
[02:46:17] country who'd sneered at my low ranking
[02:46:19] stared at the screen until his mind
[02:46:20] broke. A million points in one month.
[02:46:23] That was veteran level output from
[02:46:25] pioneers who'd survived for years. Every
[02:46:28] pioneer across the wasteland, whether in
[02:46:30] jungles, deserts, or islands, had the
[02:46:33] same thought. Are we even in the same
[02:46:36] world as this guy? And I just kept
[02:46:38] walking, hand touching ice, sheep
[02:46:40] vanishing in a golden light, score
[02:46:42] ticking upward like a clock that would
[02:46:44] never stop. 800,000, 900,000. Still
[02:46:48] going, I walked through the frozen lake.
[02:46:50] Hand after hand, sheep after sheep,
[02:46:53] uploading them all. Each massive beast
[02:46:55] dissolved into golden light and
[02:46:57] vanished. My score climbed and climbed
[02:47:00] and never stopped. Back on Earth, my
[02:47:02] stream was so flooded with viewers that
[02:47:04] the chat became a solid wall of text.
[02:47:07] Just my name repeated millions of times.
[02:47:10] Every family, every neighborhood, every
[02:47:13] city in our country erupted with
[02:47:15] cheering. People were asking their
[02:47:17] relatives to pinch them to prove they
[02:47:19] weren't dreaming. At the strategy
[02:47:20] meeting, Ley jumped onto her chair and
[02:47:23] started pumping her fists in the air,
[02:47:25] screaming herself horse. The old
[02:47:27] commander's teacup was shaking in his
[02:47:29] hand. He slammed the table and kept
[02:47:32] saying, "Good, good." Generals were
[02:47:34] loosening their collars, faces red,
[02:47:37] voices cracking. Behind them, Suan
[02:47:40] quietly took off her glasses and wiped
[02:47:42] away tears she couldn't explain. At the
[02:47:44] Global Broadcast Center, the host was
[02:47:46] losing her mind on live television. The
[02:47:49] expert they dragged back on stage was
[02:47:51] vindicated and loving every second of
[02:47:53] it. Little Jon watched his untouchable
[02:47:56] lead evaporate. He uploaded everything.
[02:47:58] Every single monster corpse he'd been
[02:48:00] saving. 83,000 points dumped at once.
[02:48:04] His total hit 139,000. 1 second later, I
[02:48:08] passed him. 144,000. Still climbing. He
[02:48:12] went through every stage of grief in 2
[02:48:14] minutes. The guy who'd sat on his meat
[02:48:16] thrown laughing at the world now had
[02:48:18] nothing left to upload and nothing left
[02:48:20] to eat. His stockpile was gone. His lead
[02:48:23] was gone. My score hit 200,000, 300,000,
[02:48:27] 500,000, 800,000, a million. Every
[02:48:31] pioneer in the wasteland was watching
[02:48:33] with their jaw on the floor. Cocka dove
[02:48:36] underwater to calm his nerves. Came up,
[02:48:38] saw the number, and went right back
[02:48:40] under. Ivan lost all expression. Mushu
[02:48:44] smiled from the bottom of her bloody pit
[02:48:46] and said she hadn't lost unfairly. Ziao
[02:48:48] Taihu half poisoned and delirious.
[02:48:51] Checked three times to make sure he
[02:48:53] wasn't hallucinating, then cursed and
[02:48:55] cried at the same time. Then the western
[02:48:57] experts tried to fight back. They said I
[02:49:00] was just a lucky scavenger who'd
[02:49:02] stumbled onto dead sheep. Anyone's
[02:49:04] grandmother could have done it. Little
[02:49:06] Jon was a real warrior. I was a
[02:49:08] glorified janitor. Their arguments
[02:49:10] lasted about 30 seconds because right
[02:49:12] after uploading the last sheep, I
[02:49:14] uploaded one more thing. A complete 3 m
[02:49:17] long snow demon wolf, a rare apex
[02:49:20] predator with a bone dagger driven
[02:49:22] straight through its eye into its brain.
[02:49:25] The broadcast center went dead silent. A
[02:49:27] military analyst was brought in to
[02:49:29] examine the kill. He confirmed the wound
[02:49:32] pattern match my bone weapons perfectly.
[02:49:35] He said snow demon wolves were among the
[02:49:37] smartest, most dangerous first tier
[02:49:39] predators in existence, capable of
[02:49:41] crushing armored crocodile skulls with
[02:49:43] one bite. He announced that I'd
[02:49:45] shattered the previous record for
[02:49:47] earliest wolf kill by a massive margin.
[02:49:50] A record held by a legendary pioneer
[02:49:52] who'd taken over 3 years to achieve it.
[02:49:55] The western experts who'd called me a
[02:49:56] lucky janitor had nothing left to say.
[02:49:59] The slap echoed around the world. Then
[02:50:01] the chat exploded with one word in every
[02:50:04] language. Ling. Lynn. Lynn. No amount of
[02:50:08] luck kills a top tier predator in close
[02:50:10] combat. Every adult watching understood
[02:50:12] that. I'd made history for my country
[02:50:15] and for humanity. The baby mammoth sheep
[02:50:17] was still following me around the whole
[02:50:19] time, watching its relatives dissolve
[02:50:22] into light one by one. Stop staring. I
[02:50:24] told it. They've all gone to a better
[02:50:26] place. Ba. Then the final system
[02:50:29] announcement rang out across the entire
[02:50:31] world. The contest was over. Rankings
[02:50:34] were locked. Rewards were being
[02:50:35] distributed. Starting from 10th place,
[02:50:38] the rewards started rolling out from
[02:50:40] 10th place upward. Even the dead pioneer
[02:50:42] from another country who'd fallen off a
[02:50:44] cliff had held on to 10th place with his
[02:50:47] pre-death uploads. His country got a 1%
[02:50:50] environment boost, enough to bring a
[02:50:52] trickle of water to their desert
[02:50:54] heartland. His people mourned him as a
[02:50:56] hero. Xiao Taiu got knife. A supply
[02:50:59] crate crashed near him in the jungle. He
[02:51:01] dragged himself over with his blackened
[02:51:03] dying arm and drank the rare healing
[02:51:06] potion inside. The dead tissue peeled
[02:51:09] away and pink new flesh grew back before
[02:51:11] his eyes. No amputation needed. Back
[02:51:14] home, temperatures rose 3° and the
[02:51:17] bitter northern wind softened. People
[02:51:19] were crying with gratitude. Mushu got
[02:51:22] sixth, a legendary healing potion for
[02:51:24] her torn up body, plus a 5% environment
[02:51:27] boost. Our country was warming up fast.
[02:51:30] When they announced third place, Mel got
[02:51:32] an amphibious vehicle, legendary grade.
[02:51:35] Her entire island nation's weather
[02:51:37] cleared instantly. Rain and fog replaced
[02:51:40] by sunshine. Second place went to Little
[02:51:42] Jon, Titan Battle Armor. His country's
[02:51:45] polluted lakes cleaned up overnight. But
[02:51:48] his fans were bitter. They'd expected
[02:51:50] first place. Armor wasn't as exciting as
[02:51:52] a weapon. Some were demanding the
[02:51:54] system. Check me for cheating. Then my
[02:51:56] name appeared at the top. First place,
[02:51:58] the Overlord Bow. Legendary grade and
[02:52:01] 40% natural environment improvement for
[02:52:04] my country. A massive rainbow pillar of
[02:52:06] light slammed down from the sky into our
[02:52:09] nation. The brutal northern winters
[02:52:12] vanished. Ice melted along the northern
[02:52:14] rivers. Flowers bloomed. The southern
[02:52:16] heat cooled to perfect spring weather
[02:52:19] year round. People who'd been shivering
[02:52:20] in heavy coats suddenly realized they
[02:52:23] were sweating. Old people stopped
[02:52:24] wheezing. Water quality became the best
[02:52:27] in the world overnight. Combined with
[02:52:29] the boost from Ziao Taihu and Mushu, our
[02:52:32] country shot back up to the top tier
[02:52:34] globally. People were dancing in the
[02:52:36] streets, crying, hugging strangers. At
[02:52:39] the strategy meeting, the old commander
[02:52:41] gave a speech with tears in his eyes. He
[02:52:44] said, "The reason we'd never abandoned
[02:52:46] any of our people, even when it hurt our
[02:52:48] rankings, was exactly why heroes like us
[02:52:51] emerged. Patience and principle had
[02:52:53] finally paid off. The Overlord Bow was
[02:52:56] exactly what I needed. With a legendary
[02:52:58] ranged weapon, I could hunt the snow
[02:53:00] demon bear for its liver and complete
[02:53:02] the frost servant ritual. Everything was
[02:53:04] connecting, but the system wasn't done.
[02:53:07] A special announcement echoed across the
[02:53:09] entire world. My total score of 1.18
[02:53:12] million exceeded the combined scores of
[02:53:15] second place through 100th place. All of
[02:53:17] them put together. This triggered a
[02:53:19] hidden achievement. Mythical gap rewards
[02:53:22] beyond legendary. Mythical grade. First
[02:53:25] reward. A mythical title called resource
[02:53:28] sovereign. I could now upload any
[02:53:30] resource I collected at any time from
[02:53:33] any location once per day. No more
[02:53:35] waiting for upload windows. No more
[02:53:38] rushing back to base whenever. and
[02:53:40] wherever I wanted. Second reward, a
[02:53:42] mythical grade survival blind box. The
[02:53:45] world went completely silent. Then it
[02:53:47] exploded. Every national leader, every
[02:53:50] military commander, every analyst on
[02:53:53] Earth understood what had just happened.
[02:53:55] The daily upload restriction had been
[02:53:57] the single biggest bottleneck for every
[02:53:59] pioneer since the beginning. I just
[02:54:01] broken free of it entirely. And
[02:54:03] somewhere on a frozen lake, surrounded
[02:54:06] by empty craters where a hundred sheep
[02:54:08] used to be, with a baby mammoth trotting
[02:54:10] behind me, I stared at the golden text
[02:54:13] floating in my vision and let out a long
[02:54:15] breath. Not bad for a guy who started by
[02:54:18] eating frozen moss. A mythical grade
[02:54:20] survival blind box and a title called
[02:54:23] Resource Sovereign. The ability to
[02:54:25] upload any resource I collected anytime,
[02:54:28] anywhere, once per day. No more dragging
[02:54:31] heavy kills back to base. No more
[02:54:33] wasting thousands of pounds of berries
[02:54:35] because I couldn't carry them. This
[02:54:37] changed everything. Two streaks of light
[02:54:39] tore across the night sky. The colorful
[02:54:42] one, the mythical blind box, vanished
[02:54:44] into the distance, landing somewhere far
[02:54:47] away. The golden one, my overlord bow,
[02:54:50] came screaming straight down and slammed
[02:54:53] into the center of my frozen lake like a
[02:54:55] missile. The explosion was enormous.
[02:54:57] Meters thick. Ice shattered like glass.
[02:55:00] A tower of water and broken ice shot
[02:55:02] into the sky. When everything settled,
[02:55:05] there was a 10-meter wide hole in the
[02:55:07] lake. My legendary weapon had sunk to
[02:55:09] the bottom. I stood at the edge of the
[02:55:11] crater, frozen in disbelief. The baby
[02:55:14] mammoth sheep next to me was shaking,
[02:55:16] too, but from fear, not cold. I had to
[02:55:19] go get it. My body could handle the
[02:55:21] dive. 10 minutes underwater was no
[02:55:23] problem now, and the water below the ice
[02:55:25] was actually warmer than the surface
[02:55:27] air. I just needed to find the exact
[02:55:29] location first. I asked the intelligence
[02:55:32] system for today's survival info,
[02:55:34] expecting coordinates for the bow.
[02:55:36] Instead, the first thing it showed me
[02:55:38] was something unexpected, the baby sheep
[02:55:40] standing right next to me. It said the
[02:55:42] mammoth sheep could be tamed by feeding
[02:55:44] it two rare plant resources. Once tamed,
[02:55:48] it would produce rare grade horns, good
[02:55:50] quality wool, and good quality meat. The
[02:55:52] bow's coordinates came second, 17 m down
[02:55:56] at the bottom of the lake, right where
[02:55:58] it crashed. I looked at the sheep. The
[02:56:00] sheep looked at me. We were both
[02:56:02] standing at the edge of the giant hole.
[02:56:04] Two and a half seconds of hesitation.
[02:56:06] Then I decided the bow could wait a few
[02:56:08] minutes. I pulled out two golden
[02:56:10] berries. Rare grade resources that could
[02:56:12] make silver star food worth an
[02:56:15] incredible amount. It physically hurt to
[02:56:17] give them away, but if I could tame this
[02:56:19] animal, I'd have a beast of burden. a
[02:56:22] wool source. And eventually, well, I
[02:56:25] tried not to think about the meat part.
[02:56:27] Not yet. This was basically unlocking
[02:56:29] the animal husbandry tech tree. You want
[02:56:31] these? The sheep's eyes lit up like
[02:56:33] lanterns. It lunged forward, tongue out,
[02:56:36] and swallowed both berries in one gulp.
[02:56:39] The transformation was instant. Its
[02:56:41] dirty baby fur fell off in clumps,
[02:56:44] replaced by thick, luxurious wool. Its
[02:56:47] body swelled from half my height to the
[02:56:49] size of a small donkey. And on its head,
[02:56:52] a golden pattern traced itself across
[02:56:54] the growing horn. The same kind of
[02:56:56] marking I'd seen on the lead rams during
[02:56:58] the stampede vision. A potential herd
[02:57:01] leader. Mine. I scratched its back. The
[02:57:04] wool was incredibly soft. Then I tried
[02:57:06] climbing on. We both crashed onto the
[02:57:08] ice immediately. Too scrawny. I
[02:57:11] concluded. You're pulling the sled from
[02:57:13] now on. Your name is Little Pull. Ba.
[02:57:15] Little pull. Watch the clothes. I'm
[02:57:18] going down. I stripped naked. took a
[02:57:20] deep breath and dove into the black
[02:57:22] water. The cold never came. Below the
[02:57:25] ice, the water sat right around 0
[02:57:27] degrees. With my advanced cold
[02:57:29] resistance, it felt like jumping into a
[02:57:32] warm bath on a winter night. I'd been
[02:57:34] suffering on the surface in -60, while a
[02:57:37] pool of relative comfort existed right
[02:57:39] beneath my feet this whole time. As I
[02:57:42] dove deeper, all light vanished. Total
[02:57:44] blackness. But my danger vision
[02:57:47] activated automatically. an underwater
[02:57:49] mode I'd never seen before. A blue
[02:57:51] sonar-like radar map spread across my
[02:57:54] vision, showing everything around me in
[02:57:57] glowing dots. Yellow dots, harmless
[02:57:59] small fish, occasional dark red
[02:58:02] clusters, larger predatory species, and
[02:58:05] deep near the rocky bottom, several
[02:58:07] brilliant golden streaks moving slowly
[02:58:09] through the crevices. Ice silver pillar
[02:58:12] fish, the rare ones that boosted
[02:58:14] physical abilities. There was an entire
[02:58:16] population of them living in the deep
[02:58:18] water, invisible to anyone without my
[02:58:21] system. I'd only ever caught them
[02:58:22] through the icehole down here. They were
[02:58:25] everywhere. I forced myself to ignore
[02:58:27] them. The urge to grab one bare-handed
[02:58:29] was overwhelming, but I had a mission.
[02:58:32] Following the green coordinate on my
[02:58:33] map, I swam toward the muddy lake bottom
[02:58:36] toward my overlord bow.