Zhao Yin cracked open the first Star Crystal. The familiar white light bloomed before his eyes, stark against the pitch-black night.

He didn't care.

Within a thousand meters, aside from The Granary walking away in the distance, there wasn't a soul in sight.

When the light faded, a scarlet pill materialized before him. He couldn't identify its effects.

In his previous life, Star Crystals could yield tens of millions of different items. No one knew the true count. All Zhao Yin knew was that aside from abilities, pills and potions were the rarest and most precious drops.

Not a bad start!

Once he had True Sight Eye, nothing would escape his identification. With that thought, he stopped dwelling on the mystery pill and smashed open the second Star Crystal.

This time, the white light held for three seconds-and didn't dissipate!

Zhao Yin's breath caught.

From his past life's experience, the longer the light persisted after cracking a Star Crystal, the more valuable the contents.

The SSS-rank ability Soul Contract had blazed for a full minute, its light golden.

This white light lasted five full seconds!

Could it be another E-rank item?

Finally, the glow scattered, revealing an unassuming bronze ring.

The moment Zhao Yin recognized it, his eyes went wide.

"A Spatial Ring!"

He couldn't stay calm. Any Spatial Ring rivaled A-rank equipment in value!

In the apocalypse, where no one had a permanent home, a Spatial Ring was a second life!

In terms of rarity, it surpassed even A-rank gear!

In his previous life, he hadn't obtained a Spatial Ring until the fifth year of the apocalypse.

By then, he'd already built Lin Tianfeng up. Only with that backing had he been able to pay the astronomical price to acquire one.

Zhao Yin slipped the ring onto his finger. A single thought, and the Bone Cleaver vanished from his hand.

He could sense it now-the blade resting quietly inside a ten-cubic-meter pocket of space.

Another thought, and the Bone Cleaver reappeared in his grip.

No mistake. A genuine Spatial Ring.

Its capacity was smaller than the one from his previous life, but for the current Zhao Yin, it was more than enough.

It took him a long moment to settle his racing heart. Finally, he stopped toying with the ring, raised the Bone Cleaver, and smashed open the third Star Crystal.

The white light faded to reveal a bottle of blue serum-the B-rank ability, True Sight Eye!

In his previous life, True Sight Eye had kept him alive until the seventh year of the apocalypse. This ability had fused with his very soul, sharing life and death with him through countless trials.

Because of True Sight Eye, he'd evaded danger more times than he could count.

Those days and nights felt like yesterday. Zhao Yin's emotions churned.

It wasn't a combat ability. It was only B-rank.

But True Sight Eye's power lay in seeing through the information of all things.

In his previous life, countless powerful ability users had sought him out specifically to appraise treasures. It earned him massive commissions and, more importantly, connections.

Because of that, many people in the apocalypse gave Zhao Yin face. It was one of the reasons he'd been able to establish Paradise Base.

Zhao Yin pushed aside the stray thoughts, stored everything around him into the Spatial Ring, and headed toward the old zoo.

In his previous life, absorbing a B-rank awakening serum had been agonizing-three hours of pure torment. He needed somewhere safe.

For the sake of that mutated monkey, he planned to spend the night at the old zoo.

The mutation of animals and plants would begin at the same time as the zombie outbreak-both at midnight tonight. He intended to awaken True Sight Eye before then.

Arriving at the old zoo, Zhao Yin approached the collapsed office building. Using the Spatial Ring, he collected intact concrete chunks and meteorites that hadn't buried themselves thanks to the building cushioning their impact.

He was going to build a temporary shelter.

Once the ring was full, he chose a relatively flat spot and released the materials. First, he arranged several large concrete slabs into a triangular space just big enough to fit himself. Then he piled more concrete and meteorites around the exterior.

He made several trips, hauling and stacking, until a temporary shelter rose before him-a mound five or six meters tall, shaped like a grave.

Only then did Zhao Yin crouch down and crawl into the cramped interior, barely larger than a coffin.

He released all the remaining concrete from the Spatial Ring, sealing the entrance completely.

With everything in place, Zhao Yin ignored his exhaustion, pulled out the True Sight Eye awakening serum, and downed it without hesitation.

Instantly, a burning sensation ignited in his stomach and swept through his entire body. In a single heartbeat, Zhao Yin felt like he'd been thrown into a furnace. Sweat beaded on his forehead and rolled down in fat droplets.

Yet his face remained expressionless as he lay motionless inside the "grave."

A long-missed agony!

"Haha... this is the life! The zombie outbreak hasn't even started, and I already have two abilities. Who in this life can compare to me?"

No one knew that somewhere in this desolate world, a man was enduring pain beyond human tolerance-and laughing like a madman.

Time crawled. Every second stretched into an eternity.

Zhao Yin possessed willpower far beyond ordinary people, but this body was still just that of a normal human. At some point, he lost consciousness.

...

What Zhao Yin hadn't anticipated was that, unlike his previous life, the SSS-rank awakening serum had already saturated his ordinary body. Absorbing another ability had become incomparably difficult.

Even when midnight arrived, he still hadn't awakened.

ROAR!

Urgh... urgh urgh...

In that moment, the deathly silent world seemed to come alive all at once. The earth trembled. Ruins churned. Countless buried corpses began clawing their way out from beneath the ground.

Thirty kilometers away, inside a ruined shopping mall, a twelve-year-old girl jolted awake.

"What was that sound? Is big brother back?"

Bang bang!

The door Song Xiaojian had barricaded before leaving to scavenge supplies rattled violently, as if someone were pounding on it.

"Brother, stop knocking! I'm coming to open it!" Song Xiaodao called out happily. She walked over, undid the safety latch, and pulled the door open.

The next instant, half a pitch-black face filled her vision.

Half its skull was gone.

A fist-sized chunk of facial flesh, still connected to the exposed bone by a single blood vessel, dangled against its chest. Swaying. Back and forth.

Xiaodao froze. The sheer terror wiped her mind blank. Instinct took over-she screamed and bolted.

Too slow.

The zombie snatched her collar and yanked her close. Its rotting mouth gaped wide, descending toward her-

"HELP!"

BANG!

The zombie's body went rigid. It collapsed, taking Xiaodao down with it.

Song Xiaojian, covered in wounds, lowered his iron rod. He kicked the corpse with its head smashed open aside, scooped up his sister, and slammed the door shut.

"Xiaodao, are you okay?" His voice was low, his face tight with worry.

Xiaodao looked up and saw her brother. She burst into tears-but Xiaojian clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Don't cry. The dead are coming back to life. I saw Mom and Dad outside just now. They crawled out of the collapsed mall too."

His eyes were bloodshot. His voice shook.

"They've... they've turned into zombies. Just like in the movies."

Xiaodao stared at him blankly.

She'd seen zombie movies too. The realization drained the color from her face.

"Don't be scared. Big brother's here. I won't let them eat you. But you have to listen to me, okay?" Xiaojian kept his voice low.

Xiaodao pushed away from him and crept to a crack in the wall to peer outside.

More and more zombies filled the area outside the mall, crawling out from everywhere-dirt, rubble, wreckage.

She spotted a female zombie trapped in a mangled car. Its lower half was pinned by crushed metal, and it thrashed in a grotesque, twisted struggle.

CRACK.

Something snapped.

The female zombie wrenched itself free. Everything below the waist stayed wedged in the car. The upper half dragged itself forward at horrifying speed, intestines trailing behind in a slick of black blood.

Xiaodao dry-heaved, fighting to stay quiet.

Tears streamed down her face.

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