This night, Chen Yuan slept with a profound sense of peace. Dressed in the thermostatic suit and lying on the sofa, it was the most comfortable sleep he had experienced in the ten days since his arrival in this world.
At eight in the morning, the radio crackled to life right on schedule.
"Attention all citizens. The city's shelters have reached maximum capacity. Those who have not yet entered a shelter, please proceed quickly to the shelters in adjacent urban districts..."
The radio continued to broadcast a list of shelters in other cities that still had space, but Chen Yuan had little interest in listening.
He got up, brushed his teeth, washed his face, and ate a compressed biscuit before walking over to the Apocalypse Store. Since he wasn't going to a shelter, he needed to start stockpiling supplies.
The warehouse room was filled with materials. He began feeding them into the insertion port, piece by piece.
He slapped the red button in the middle, and scrolling text appeared on the screen.
「Ding-a-ling~ Material insertion successful. Exchanging product automatically. Please wait...」
「This insertion: various wooden planks, wood blocks, glass shards, iron wires...Output: ten high-polymer compressed biscuits, one Flame Dagger, one combustion-powered lantern, one flashlight, three bottles of Mineral Life Water, one bag of combustion pellets.」
Watching the supplies materialize on the platform, a sense of security finally began to settle in Chen Yuan's heart. He moved everything to the living room and stacked it all neatly.
First, he picked up the Flame Dagger. It had a silvery-gray luster, with a small insertion port at the hilt and a button on the handle. He ran a finger along the blade; it was incredibly sharp. He then took a combustion pellet and inserted it.
He pressed the button. With a hiss, a thin, magma-like film coated the dagger's blade. He swung it through the air a few times. The cool factor was off the charts. The fusion of a razor's edge and extreme heat gave this unassuming dagger immense killing power. In a world plunged into apocalypse, this kind of gear was a guarantee of his own safety.
Next, he examined the lantern and the flashlight. Their overall design was similar, each with an insertion port and a switch.
At this point, Chen Yuan understood. All the equipment he now possessed relied on that one bag of eco-friendly combustion pellets. In other words, this was his energy source.
He rubbed one of the square pellets between his fingers, marveling at it. It had some weight, no smell, and was remarkably hard.
Chen Yuan rubbed his chin and began to recall the items he had thrown in versus what had been produced, trying to deduce the connection. Metal and glass, so I got a lamp and a dagger? Fabric, metal, and wood, so I got the thermostatic suit? What about the water? How is water formed? And the combustion pellets, do they primarily rely on wood?
He scratched his head, cursing his poor chemistry grades.
He got up, walked back to the Apocalypse Store, and began to insert materials with specific goals in mind. After a series of experiments, he finally grasped a faint pattern.
Inserting only wood would produce combustion pellets and compressed biscuits. This meant that his most crucial primary resource was wood.
As for water... the world outside was ice and snow. Could he just melt it? What would happen if he threw the snow from outside into the machine? At this thought, a sense of anticipation grew within him.
He immediately opened the door, grabbed a bucket, collected half a bucket of snow from the stairwell, and dumped it into the insertion port.
「Ding-a-ling~ Material insertion successful. Exchanging product automatically. Please wait...」
「This insertion: SnowOutput: One bottle of Mineral Life Water」
Seeing the item appear on the platform, a look of ecstatic joy spread across Chen Yuan's face. Simple snowmelt contained plenty of bacteria, but after being converted by the store, it became mineral water with antibacterial properties. This was an incredibly good deal.
Looking at the remaining materials in the warehouse, he immediately got to work. He first sorted everything by category and then began to plan. Wood was the most important and most plentiful resource; he piled it in a corner. The remaining broken glass, tiles, and iron wires and nails were set aside more casually.
"This lantern is pretty good. I'll make another one." He selected some wood blocks, glass, tiles, and iron wire and tossed them into the port.
Sure enough, the store exchanged them for another lantern. Perhaps because he threw in more iron wire, it also produced an axe. It was a plain, unremarkable axe with no insertion port or button, but to Chen Yuan, it was the perfect tool for chopping down trees.
He decided to properly remodel the two-bedroom apartment. The warehouse room with the Apocalypse Store would be used to store raw materials. His own former bedroom would be used to store the converted supplies. The living room would be transformed into his living area; sleeping on the sofa was fine, which meant he could dismantle the wooden bed and wardrobe in the bedroom for more materials.
While he was busy working away, the world outside had descended into chaos.
Countless people gathered outside the various shelters, pounding on the heavy gates with bricks and wooden sticks. But it was useless. Apart from a broadcasted announcement demanding they cease their actions, the gates showed no sign of opening.
The outdoor temperature had now dropped to negative twenty degrees Celsius. Even in thick winter clothing, people couldn't stop shivering. As they expended their energy, their spirits began to wane. It was clear that those who hadn't made it into the shelters would have to find another way.
However, some quick-witted individuals stood out, leading people towards the major shopping malls. In an apocalypse, it was difficult for a lone person to survive, especially as the temperature outside showed a trend of continuing to drop.
Large shopping malls had several underground parking levels, and the cars inside had unspent gasoline that could be burned for warmth. There were also some supplies within the malls themselves; food aside, the cardboard and product packaging that could be burned were innumerable. These things, which had been ignored during the initial panic-buying, had now become everyone's life-saving straw.
The arrival of the Ice Age had roughly divided humanity into two groups, not counting those who had their own private bunkers or shelters. The largest group was huddled in the collective shelters. The other group had spontaneously organized, using their collective wisdom to begin the struggle against the severe cold and hunger.
Of course, there were some who simply gave up. They quietly returned to their homes, hoping for a dignified death.
Chen Yuan, however, paid little attention to the events unfolding outside. He worked for a full day before he finally finished organizing his new home. Apart from the necessary storage cabinets, his former bedroom was now neatly stacked with nearly a month's worth of living supplies.
He went to the living room and sat on the sofa. The flames from the heating stove cast a warm, yellow glow around the room. In this extremely cold weather, it created a unique kind of cozy warmth.
Thud, thud, thud...
A knock sounded at the front door.
Chen Yuan leaped from the sofa, his heart pounding in his chest, the Flame Dagger already gripped tightly in his hand.