Chapter 2 – Florida Man Digs Catholes in Archaeological Sites
Aurora Light followed Leo's footsteps. As he journeyed toward the small stream to the east, the green grasses that he had stepped on blackened. Then, the black grasses spread, changing half of the grasses to black while the rest turned blue.
Leo finally reached the stream. The water was so clear that he could see small fishes and rocks underneath. As he hadn't drunk any natural water for 50,000 years, Leo reached out to scoop the water.
Before Leo touched the surface of the water, he pulled his hand back. Then, he smacked his forehead.
"No, I can't touch it directly, or everything downstream will die."
Leo opened the online shopping menu. He purchased a hazmat suit, gloves, and boots, spending three precious years of his lifespan. He wore the protection gear and bought a gallon-sized plastic bottle from the shop, costing him additional two years of his life. Then, he started collecting the freshwater. While he was at it, he checked the cost of mineral water in the shop.
[1-Litre Water] – One Year of Lifespan
It was not worth it. It was too expensive. Unlike the previous world, where mineral water no longer existed, this world had plenty of water resources. Therefore, Leo didn't need to waste his lifespan on consumable items anymore.
After scooping water with the gloves and drinking until his belly was round, Leo let out a long sigh of satisfaction. 50,000 years of struggling made freshwater so delicious, more delicious than refined beers!
With a full stomach, Leo recollected his thoughts.
"What's next? Right, survival! What are the basic necessities? Food, water, meds, shelter, and clothes, of course. Food, water, and clothes are no longer an issue. Meds aren't needed since my entire body is immune to cancer and sickness. Okay, I need shelter and modern tools."
Instead of going to the wild to make tools from wood or stone, Leo browsed the shopping menu, looking for survival tools.
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An hour later, Leo finished shopping. He looked at a green modern cabin tent, a gas stove, a gas tank, a set of stainless steel pots, cooking utensils, and a camping chair. He gazed at his new home and his lifespan menu.
<Your current lifespan: 4 years, 11 months, 23 days, 19 hours, and 15 minutes.>
45 years of his life were gone just like that, but it was worth it.
"I'm tired of farming lifespan. I hate eating polluted sand and mud."
Leo took off his gloves and pulled some green grasses near his campsite. As soon as his skin touched the grasses, they turned black. Without hesitation, Leo put the grasses in his mouth and chewed it.
It tasted like spicy cardboard, but he endured with it. Although Leo felt like he devolved into a cow or an herbivore, he enthusiastically chewed the food and continued to uproot the nearby weeds.
DING
<Your lifespan has increased by one year.>
<Your lifespan has increased by one year.>
The reward was worth the effort. Every strand of grasses gave Leo one year of lifespan.
While Leo was stocking black grasses, he uprooted a strange weed. Its root looked like humanoid ginseng, but it wiggled.
The infant-like root opened its eyes and stared at Leo. It opened its mouth and screamed.
RRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Leo's ears were numb. In anger, he spat at the infant-like root.
"Taste the radiation spit, punk!"
As soon as the spit hit the mandrake, it stopped crying. Its brown roots and skin turned black, and its belly swelled.
POP
The mandrake's belly erupted. Then, a thousand long thin roots gushed out as if they were newborn earthworms bursting out of someone's stomach. They lengthened by a meter before they stopped growing.
Just like that, Leo secured a strange mutated mandrake that grew roots from its stomach.
Leo inspected the new food. He flipped it around and waited for it to come to life. However, it didn't self-resurrect like the other zombies and mutated animals on Earth.
"Oh, well. Food is food."
CHOMP
Indiscriminately, Leo plucked a long root and put it in his mouth. As soon as he chewed it, juicy black liquid splattered in his mouth.
It tasted like a margarita cocktail!
Leo widened his eyes. For the first time after a long while, he discovered a new delicacy. He sat there, eating the whole mandrake.
.
<Your lifespan has increased by one year.>
<Your lifespan has increased by one year.>
<Your lifespan has increased by one year.>
<Your lifespan has increased by...>
.
30 minutes later, Leo was full and drunk. For the first time in his life, he enjoyed a beverage meal.
Leo looked at the mandrake in his hands. A round orb-like seed was left after the meal.
"You damn pearl. My teeth are sore because of you!"
As Leo couldn't eat or chew that thing, he tossed it to a basket next to his tent like he was shooting a basketball to a hoop.
CLANK
SCORED!
Leo giggled, enjoying a little thing in life. He walked toward the basket, wondering if he should use it as a trash bin or a stockpile for random seeds.
GROWL
As Leo ate too much, his stomach rumbled. At that moment, Leo remembered that he hadn't set up an outhouse yet.
In the apocalyptic world, Leo never had an issue since there were plenty of toilets in abandoned houses and buildings. But here, there was no such thing.
Leo smacked his forehead and opened the shopping menu. He purchased a shovel, costing him two years of lifespan. Then, he searched for a barren and secluded place for a toilet.
After walking 100 meters away from his campsite, he found a 5-meter-tall boulder.
"Ah, landmark! I can use this place."
Leo started scouting the surrounding area, making sure that no animal was using this rock as its home. After walking around the boulder, he spotted no creature.
Although there was no living being around the area, Leo noticed something strange on the rock – One side was flat.
On the flat part of the boulder, there were strange Chinese characters that Leo couldn't read.
"Wut da hail are dees moon runes?" Leo muttered in Uncle Roger's accent.
Leo admired the unknown writing for several minutes. Although the boulder gave off a mysterious vibe, he disregarded it as it was irrelevant to his life.
Leo looked at the ground in front of the boulder. No grasses or plants grew around here. Moreover, he saw traces of footsteps as if several people used to come here and had a dance party.
Curious, Leo tested the ground with a shovel, wondering if the soil was soft enough to dig.
SOEK
Leo forgot how strong he was. After one soft push, his shovel pierced through the rocky and hard ground.
"Oh, nice! Well, since this is the only place without plants and grasses, I can use this place as my designated pooping street!"
Leo started working. He kept shoveling for hours until nightfall.
.
The sky was dark when Leo finished his job. He ended up digging 50 six-foot-deep rectangular holes and 200 small holes. The big burial holes were for his feces and the junk from the online shopping system. As for the small holes, they were for number two emergencies.
Leo's glowing red pupils saw through the darkness. He admired the holes around the boulder and remembered that he had an inedible pearl in his trash bin. He walked back to the camp and picked it up. Then, he tossed it into one of the small holes.
"Lucky you. I don't know if you're a seed or a real pearl, but wait for tomorrow morning, 'kay?"
Leo laughed at the pearl. He looked forward to blessing it with his stool tomorrow.
GROWL
After working so hard, his stomach growled again. He sighed and rechecked his lifespan.
<Your current lifespan: 112 years, 11 months, 23 days, 10 hours, and 16 minutes.>
"Huh?"
He just noticed - The mandrake earlier granted him 100 years of lifespan instead of five or six years like other mutated creatures in his old world.
"Wow. Are there more of those?"
Leo was inspired. He started searching for more mandrakes or similar plants by pulling the weeds in the area.
Like a madman, Leo didn't sleep. He spent the night clearing green, blue, and black plants and grasses around his campsite and boulder area.
When the sun was up, Leo admired the piles of green weeds and two wiggling mandrakes that he had found. As he wore gloves and the hazmat suit, they hadn't been mutated yet.
He took off his helmet and spat the green grasses and the mandrakes. The weed turned black instantly while the mandrakes screamed. Their stomach burst out ten thousand long roots before they died.
"Hehehe. That's a lot of breakfast!"
Leo gathered the mutated plants and sat at his campsite. He enjoyed the chubby roots and the blue light around him. While eating, he wondered what the blue thing was.
"This world is nice. It automatically contains the radiation around me."
Leo spent the entire day at his camp. Because of the excitement, he forgot to take a dump. As a result, he failed to notice that the abandoned pearl earlier had sprouted a black leaf.
.
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Magpie City, the Capital City of Magpie Province was located at the center of the Eastern Continent. It was a territory of the Phoenix Empire, backed by the Life Sword Sect and other major martial art organizations.
At the east gate of Magpie City, a young man walked toward the checkpoint and showed the two armored guards a wooden plank token.
The guards didn't bother checking the token. They patted the 5'4-tall teenager's head, "Hey, little Gao. Are you going out to train again?"
Gao Yan was 16 years old this year. He wore the white robe uniform of the Life Sword Sect. However, the mark on his collar showed that he was still an outer disciple. His long black hair, round eyes, and high nose were common among the citizens, but the pimples on his face stood out from others. He carried a wooden sword and a short iron broadsword for protection.
"Yeah, I'll be going to the sword boulder again. Maybe if I'm lucky, I might find a few games."
"What happened yesterday, by the way? We didn't see you around."
"My seniors asked me to do their chores. I was bullied! Just because I'm stuck at the muscle tempering stage, these guys are using me as their servants!"
Gao Yan narrated how his outer disciple colleagues bullied him because of his low cultivation aptitude. Moreover, he was on the verge of being expelled from the sect as his outer sect ranking was at the bottom.
The guard pitied him, "Don't give up, junior. Bullying is bound to happen if you're at the bottom of the food chain. Once you've advanced to the Qi Condensation Stage, everything will be better."
"I know. That's why I'm training hard."
"Good luck, then. Come back before nightfall. At night, wolves and tigers usually roam in the woods. Even if you're a muscle-tempering stage cultivator, they can still kill you."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Gao Yan bid farewell to the town guards and leaped 50 meters high. He landed on a tree branch and jumped again, traveling east.
Looking at the jumping teenager, the guards sighed. One of them lamented.
"It's a pity that he has no aptitude. Otherwise, he would have been an inner disciple already."
"Yeah. He's already 16, but he's stuck as an outer disciple. If he fails to reach the Qi Condensation Realm before he's 18, he will be kicked out."
"To be honest, the Life Sword Sect is more lenient. If it were other sects, he would have been sent home long ago."
"True."
Both men felt bad for the good boy. They wished heaven would bless Gao Yan with a fortuitous encounter or something similar.
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Three hours later, Gao Yan found the mysterious boulder, aka his usual training spot. Gao Yan stood on top of a tall pine tree. He looked around if anybody was nearby.
As usual, nobody was there.
Gao Yan inwardly laughed at himself.
"I don't have enough spirit stones to buy the journal of sword saint. I can only read it from the source."
This boulder was known as the sword saint's journal. In ancient times, a legendary figure wrote how a swordsman should practice and train every day on this boulder. However, as it was over 1,000 years old, many cultivators had long discovered it and published the texts. Thus, every sect already possessed several copies of the records from various boulders, and many sword masters added annotations in the books for their disciples, making them more attractive than reading them from the source.
Nobody came here to train around the boulder anymore.
But everything changed that day.
Gao Yan looked at the ground and found several large and small holes in front of the boulder. His jaw dropped.
"Who the hell desecrate the Sword Saint?!"
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