Zhao Yi and Gao Yuxuan also came over.
Gao Yuxuan looked confused: “How did it get burned?”
Guo Jun spotted him like a lifeline: “Yuxuan! Yuxuan!”
He pulled him over and asked urgently: “How did you manage to start the car yesterday?”
Gao Yuxuan: “Constant voltage at 12V—actually, maintaining it for about 3 to 5 seconds is usually enough.”
Guo Jun: “?”
Gao Yuxuan: “…Huh?”
Guo Jun: “You can control voltage?”
Gao Yuxuan: “You can’t?”
Gao Yuxuan was absolutely delighted.
Though there was an order to learning—those who learned earlier and those who learned later—Guo Jun had surpassed him despite awakening later. And since those who excel can be teachers, even though Guo Jun had awakened later, he was stronger, so he was considered the senior.
Gao Yuxuan hadn’t expected to find something he actually beat him at.
“The night before last,” Gao Yuxuan said, “Zhao Yi and I practiced the entire night.”
At that time, both of their superpowers were still very weak. But they practiced repeatedly and even set up a chart to quantify their progress.
Zhao Yi’s little dirt mounds could only be roughly measured as “smashed in three punches” or “smashed in five punches.”
But Gao Yuxuan’s current could be measured.
He could get precise data.
Low voltage, weak current—so it didn’t consume much physical or mental energy.
As an engineering guy, Gao Yuxuan had a bit of an obsessive-compulsive streak when it came to precision, so he practiced over and over.
Eventually, he mastered the technique of precise discharge.
Of course, the premise was low voltage and low current.
Later, during the battle at the Mai Duoduo supermarket, the high-voltage, large-current electric python like Guo Jun’s was very difficult to control with precision.
In combat, you only cared about power and speed.
Lack of power—that was Gao Yuxuan’s shortcoming.
In short: weak.
The van’s electrical system was already fried.
There were a few cars scattered sparsely along Jixiang West Street.
Brother Dong picked a sturdy, durable one and called out a few times: “Does this car have an owner? Anyone claim it? If not, I’m taking it.”
No one answered, so it was treated as unclaimed property.
Cui Haiyang helped him pick the lock, and Gao Yuxuan helped him start the car.
Guo Jun actually wanted to try again, but Brother Dong stopped him: “Go home and practice slowly. Don’t use me as your guinea pig. I’m in a hurry to get home.”
Truth be told, no one really liked Brother Dong. But they also knew he was going home to his parents, wife, and kids.
So despite their dislike, they still lent a hand.
The car started. Brother Dong got in and rolled down the window: “Much obliged, everyone.”
Then he added: “Take care.”
He wasn’t a good person, but at least this farewell was genuine.
Everyone felt a bit somber and replied: “Take care too.”
Brother Dong thanked Zhou Wang again for putting him up last night, then waved at the onlookers.
Many people unconsciously waved back at him.
In a world overrun by zombies, who knew if they’d ever see each other again after this parting—so they might as well say goodbye.
Brother Dong turned the steering wheel to make a U-turn, occasionally glancing outside.
He saw Jiang Cheng standing at the Youth Apartment’s west gate, with the big guy—hands on his hips—bending down slightly to listen to her.
The tall, handsome guy leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, one long leg straight, the other crossed over with his toe touching the ground.
Two girls were discussing something nearby.
Many of the elderly from Jixiang Jiayuan saw this stranger leaving and actually started tearing up.
That metal-type superpower user was standing in front of the van with its fried electrical system, shaping the hood.
The front of the car had turned away, so Brother Dong didn’t see the final shape, but it looked like it was being molded into a shoulder armor form.
The car drove out of Jixiang West Street, and the main road ahead was empty.
The residential area of the New Tech District looked like a ghost town.
As soon as he left Jixiang West Street, all the warmth and bustle of just moments ago vanished.
Outside was a world with zombies.
Luckily, he had a home—his parents, wife, and kids waiting for him there.
Brother Dong pressed the gas pedal hard and sped down the empty road.
Back on Jixiang West Street, at the entrance of the Youth Apartment.
Li Jiangbing said: “I was just thinking whether I could extinguish that fireball, and then I realized there was no water around me.”
In that instant, Li Jiangbing became acutely aware of the weakness of his superpower.
Fire-types only needed a single spark as an initial ignition.
But he needed as much water as was available around him—a massive limitation.
Because water-type superpowers were clearly not meant for combat.
Jiang Cheng asked: “So you can purify wastewater now?”
Li Jiangbing said: “No problem already—just need more practice. The more I practice, the faster I get, and the more water I can produce.”
Jiang Cheng nodded, then asked: “Can you extract moisture directly from the air?”
Li Jiangbing: “Huh?”
Jiang Cheng had long known how clueless this guy was ever since the whole “a pound of iron vs. a pound of cotton” incident.
“There’s always moisture in the air,” she reminded him. “Otherwise, why would we use a hygrometer to measure indoor humidity?”
“Oh!” Li Jiangbing rubbed the back of his head. “Let me try.”
He focused, first needing to sense it.
The moment he sensed, he immediately knew Jiang Cheng was right—there had always been water around him, filling the space between heaven and earth, everywhere.
Inexhaustible. Boundless.
If he had been able to extract water directly from the air just now, could he have extinguished Cao Jiacai’s massive fireball on the spot?
But…
Li Jiangbing relaxed his shoulders and panted heavily a couple of times.
Jiang Cheng asked: “Is it very hard?”
Li Jiangbing nodded and explained: “Much harder than distilling pure water from that… that wastewater.”
Song Jingshuo was right next to them, leaning sideways against the doorframe with his arms crossed. Hearing this, the corner of his mouth twitched.
Go ahead, have the guts to tell Jiang Cheng exactly what you distilled that pure water from.
Jiang Cheng looked up at the blue sky and white clouds—crisp autumn weather.
“Indeed, the air is dry this time of year. If it were summer—raining or muggy—it’d probably be a lot easier.”
She said to Li Jiangbing: “Go back and practice slowly.”
But Li Jiangbing said: “Let me try again.”
Li Jiangbing focused and pushed again. His fists clenched tight.
Jiang Cheng watched as the veins on the back of his hands and his forehead bulged. Before long, blood started trickling from one of his nostrils.
Why so fast? Song Jingshuo frowned and warned him: “Take it easy!”
But Li Jiangbing was holding a grudge in his heart.
He could feel the discomfort building in his head, but he gritted his teeth and endured. When his ears started to ache too, he suddenly spoke: “Got it.”
Song Jingshuo: “?”
Song Jingshuo pushed off from the pillar and leaned in, finally seeing it clearly.
Half a foot in front of Li Jiangbing’s nose, suspended in the air, was a miniature water droplet the size of a marble.
It was so transparent that they hadn’t noticed it before.
But when he moved and changed angles, the droplet refracted the sunlight, and suddenly it was visible.
Song Jingshuo chose his words carefully and delivered a cutting compliment: “Cute.”
Li Jiangbing was furious.
If it weren’t for the fact that Song Jingshuo’s handsome image couldn’t afford to crumble, he’d have grabbed him by the neck and forced him to take it back.
“Do you know how exhausting that is?!” he huffed.
But Jiang Cheng pressed further: “How exhausting?”
Li Jiangbing answered seriously: “Very exhausting.”
He tried, with his less-than-stellar language skills, to describe it to Jiang Cheng: “Directly controlling existing water isn’t tiring—it’s like walking normally, very natural and easy.”
“Distilling pure water from wastewater is a bit tiring, but not that much. Like a 15kg dumbbell. It’s got some weight, but it’s no big deal for me. I’ll get used to it with practice.”
“But this—extracting water from the air—it feels like pulling a 120kg barbell. It’s that heavy from the start, with no warm-up.”
Li Jiangbing was still recalling that feeling and wanted to describe it more clearly: “It’s like—the water really is there in the air, but there’s other stuff in the air too, ah right—it’s air.”
“Anyway, this water and this air, they have some kind of, kind of, um…”
Song Jingshuo: “Attraction?”
“Right!” Li Jiangbing continued. “To extract the water, I have to separate it from the air. But this attraction between the water and the air—it fights me back, I pull and it tugs.”
He even used both hands to mime a tugging motion.
Jiang Cheng: “Reaction force?”
“!!” Li Jiangbing slapped his fist into his palm. “Great word!”
In the microscopic world, there are interacting forces between particles. Water molecules in the air and other gas molecules have attractive forces between them—electromagnetic forces, including dispersion forces and induction forces.
These microscopic forces are naturally tiny and imperceptible to humans in the macroscopic world.
But to particles in the microscopic world, they are powerful—even enormous.
When Li Jiangbing attempted to separate water molecules from gas molecules, he was actually using his superpower as an interface to intervene in the microscopic world.
By intervening, he was no longer purely macroscopic.
When he tried to separate the water molecules, what was projected and transmitted back to him at the interface between the microscopic and macroscopic worlds was by no means an imperceptible electromagnetic force on a human scale.
It was a straight-up 120kg barbell.
That heavy from the very start.
That’s why Li Jiangbing had gotten a nosebleed in such a short time.
“He’s leveled up in intensity.” Li Jiangbing’s eyes sparkled with excitement.
Song Jingshuo: “How so?”
Li Jiangbing used the most fitting example he could think of: “Forget muscle issues for a moment—just talk about increasing weight. Which is more useful, a 15kg dumbbell or a 120kg barbell?”
“And! And this barbell works way faster than the dumbbell!”
In just two days, even during the battle at Mai Duoduo, everyone had been fumbling for ways to improve and advance their superpowers.
Now it had been confirmed that a person’s superpower had a quantifiable capacity—just like physical strength—and could be exhausted.
When you start getting a nosebleed, it meant you were nearing depletion. The more blood flowed from your orifices, the closer you were to your limit—and to death.
But as long as you didn’t die, if you stopped to rest and recovered, your superpower would grow.
Song Jingshuo and Jiang Cheng understood instantly.
Distilling ten batches of pee in a room might not even compare to extracting a few drops of water from the air in terms of exertion.
And it took less time—much less.
Li Jiangbing had just found a shortcut to advancing his water-type ability.
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