Disaster Strikes - Chapter 60:

The river wasn’t particularly turbulent.

Chen Mo stood on the bank, took off his clothes and placed them in the storage space. He looked at the river, which was about thirty meters wide and with a splash he plunged in.

After a while, he resurfaced, shouting in delight.

Just like this, Chen Mo played in the river, scrubbing the sand and dust off his body. The fatigue of the past two days was instantly swept away and he felt exceptionally refreshed.

“Brother Stoner?”

“Haha, it’s really Stinky Stone!”

Chen Mo heard the voices and looked over, it was Monkey and Honey. After confirming Chen Mo’s identity, they ran over and shouted.

Chen Mo had been away from here for almost four months. Monkey still looked thin and dark showing a mouthful of white teeth when he smiled, looking at Chen Mo with a proud and contented look.

“I thought you were dead.”

Honey was still as beautiful as ever, although she was wearing tattered animal skin clothes, they couldn’t hide her graceful figure and pretty face. Her single eyelids showed a hint of surprise when she looked at Chen Mo.

“Brother Stone, have you passed the starving ghost trial of the disaster academy?”

Being interrupted by the two, Chen Mo lost interest in continuing to play and bathe, he swam slowly to the shore and put on his clothes.

In the disaster world, most natural disasters have low gender concepts. Since the three had grown up together, Honey and Monkey didn’t have any avoidance in their interactions, but Chen Mo felt a bit uncomfortable.

After dressing, Chen Mo came to the two.

“Yeah, I passed by luck.”

Upon hearing Chen Mo’s answer, Monkey breathed a sigh of relief and said leisurely “If even you can pass then I can be rest assured. My mother kept reminding me before I went to the academy to be careful and to do my best in the trial, she even said she was saving energy stones for me to give to the mentor at the right time, hoping to get the mentor’s care, it made me worry for so long.”

Then Monkey turned to Honey “After arriving at the academy, I’ll protect you!”

Chen Mo didn’t say much about this.

Compared to Stone’s sincere feelings for the two or their emotional dependence on each other, Chen Mo didn’t have much emotion towards them, so he responded very indifferently.

“Honey!”

In the distance, shouts could be heard, hearing this Honey hurriedly waved and shouted “Cousin, Mother, Brother Stone is back!”

After finding that the person shouting in the distance was Honey’s mother, Chen Mo recalled Stone’s experience and couldn’t help but instinctively feel resistant. According to his memory, Stone was initially just instinctively afraid after being abandoned by his mother, not fully realising what it meant at the time.

It wasn’t until he went to find Honey to play, only to be sternly driven away by her seemingly kind mother at the gate, followed by Monkey’s mocking laughter that he truly felt despair. He then struggled through a few days in solitude, eating the last of his food and fell asleep after making the wish to the God of the Evil Eye. After that, Chen Mo crossed over.

Compared to the foolish Stone, Chen Mo was a person who clearly distinguished between grievances and favours.

As for the cousin mentioned by Honey, Chen Mo didn’t know her, so she should be a descendant of her mother’s relatives.

“Traveler?”

However, as Honey’s mother and cousin approached and saw Chen Mo, the cousin couldn’t help but look astonished.

Chen Mo didn’t expect to encounter an acquaintance in such a place.

“Han Xue?”

This person was Chen Mo’s classmate, Han Xue, who had completed the starving ghost trial together.

After the initial astonishment, Han Xue explained to Chen Mo, “This is my aunt and cousin. After the trial task, Lei Wu said to digest the insights from the task well. He was very ceremonial, he put a lot of emphasis on that stuff and asked us to gather a month later. I didn’t know anyone at the gathering place, so I came to take a look. What about you?”

He is very ceremonial? Han Xue’s description of Lei Wu was quite apt.

“My old home was here.”

“Traveler?” Honey who was beside them looked at Han Xue in confusion and said, “He is Stone.”

Noticing Han Xue’s surprise and her questioning look Chen Mo explained lightly, “That’s a name I chose for myself. Stone is just the past. From now on, I am Traveler.”

Although she didn’t understand the reason behind it, Han Xue knew there must be some reason and didn’t inquire further.

“I see. Since we’ve met here, let’s exchange contact information and keep in touch in the future.”

“Yeah.”

However, at this moment, an unpleasant scene unfolded. “Han Xue, stay away from people like him in the future. If you want to become an outstanding natural disaster you can’t just socialize with anyone.”

It was Honey’s mother who suddenly spoke, using the tone of an elder to forcefully stop Han Xue’s attempt to add Chen Mo as a friend on the contact list.

Honey’s mother, like Honey, is very beautiful. In Stone’s memory, his impression of her was originally very good, before Stone was abandoned by his mother, she was very caring towards him.

However, everything changed after Stone was abandoned by his mother. This once beautiful, gentle and kind woman became very harsh. Just like at this moment, looking down at him with her eyes filled with undisguised contempt.

In the tone of an elder, she did not hide her disdain for Stone.

“He’s just an abandoned starving ghost. Even if he luckily passed the trial, he’s just gonna be another parasite. We as natural disasters should respect the strong and stay away from trash, otherwise sooner or later, you will also become trash like him.”

“What?”

Han Xue stood dumbfounded, looking at Chen Mo and her aunt, feeling a bit at a loss.

Chen Mo tried to investigate the level of Honey’s mother but received a prompt of

insufficient permission, indicating that she was a high-level natural disaster. Therefore, faced with the humiliation, he could only silently endure it.

Such contempt was commonplace for natural disasters, Chen Mo had already had a deep understanding of this during his time at the academy.

“Honey, Han Xue, Monkey, let’s go.” Honey’s mother, holding Honey’s hand, turned and left with Han Xue.

“It seems like brother stone has changed…” Honey whispered.

Monkey made a face at Chen Mo. Han Xue turned back, looking at Chen Mo with a face of an apology and the four gradually walked away.

Although Chen Mo felt angry at being humiliated, he had been following Xuan Zong for half a year and was now able to control his emotions.

He walked alone towards Stone’s skull room.

Chen Mo returned to his room and closed the door. After some time he had put the recent unpleasantness behind him and eagerly picked up the Yuan Yang Bone. After observing it for a while, with Chen Mo’s unremitting efforts he finally drilled a hole in to the Yuan Yang Bone. To his eager anticipation, a little bit of pale golden viscous liquid flowed out.

This liquid emitted a faint fragrance, and the temperature in the room suddenly increased slightly.

“Yang Marrow!”

As the liquid flowed into Chen Mo’s palm, an indescribable warmth spread along his palm entering his heart. It seemed to force out all the cold air accumulated in his body from the previous night and he couldn’t help but let out a soft hum.

As more and more Yang marrow accumulated in his palm, he didn’t delay any longer and applied it to his body. His body also began to emit a pale golden colour, enveloping him in warmth.

Until Chen Mo was sure that he had completely applied the Yang marrow from the Yuan Yang Bone, he began to absorb it according to the method in the Tong Zi.

This process had to be handled with utmost care. After the Yang marrow is exposed to the air, it will continuously evaporate. If even a tiny bit is not absorbed and wasted now, it would mean having to put in several days or even more than ten days of effort in the future. Additionally the promotion effect of the Yuan Yang Bone on the Tong ZI is only once, so even if Chen Mo finds other Yuan Yang Bones in the future, they will not promote the Tong Zi in the slightest.

“Traveler!”

At this critical moment Han Xue’s knocking came from outside the door.

This distracted him a bit and he said not wanting to be disturbed now, “I’m busy right now!”

However Han Xue outside the door thought that Chen Mo was still angry about what happened earlier so she pushed open the door, came in saying, “Regardless of how my aunt evaluates you, I… uh.”

While the disaster world had a weak concept of gender differences, the situation of an adult man and woman being alone in a room was limited to extremely intimate relationships. For a woman to forcibly enter the room of a man who was barely clothed was somewhat excessive even in the disaster world, so Han Xue tried to make herself appear less awkward and quietly closed the door again.

After a while, when Chen Mo had completely refined the Yang marrow to his body, his pale golden skin returned to normal, he then put on his clothes and opened the door looking at Han Xue who was waiting outside.

“Have you already started on your professional path?” Han Xue looked at Chen Mo with some incredulity.

After all, they’ve just completed the starving ghost trial. Their attributes and skills are still in the growth stage, compared to the time and effort spent for professionalisation, the fastest way for natural disasters to grow in the early stages is to improve their basic attributes, basic skills, equipment and combat skills through mission plunder.

“Just trying it out.”

After hearing Chen Mo’s casual explanation, Han Xue naturally wouldn’t continue to pursue the matter. She apologized instead, “I’m sorry, it’s because my aunt doesn’t understand you and that’s why she said those things. We were able to pass the trial smoothly this time thanks to you.”

Han Xue’s words made Chen Mo feel better.

“It’s just helping each other out. Lei Wu is the main force, having him as our temporary captain is our luck. Without him, we wouldn’t have been able to complete the trial so smoothly.”

Chen Mo’s reply made Han Xue smile. She couldn’t connect the person in front of her with the dull and stupid Stone her aunt had described. There must be some kind of misunderstanding, although she didn’t know everything about the Traveler, she was clear that he was definitely not a fool.

“Then let’s exchange contact information. In the future, if there’s anything we can help each other out, Lei Wu also has been praising you.”

Han Xue came for this matter, to avoid any misunderstandings that may have appeared between them in the future.

“Okay!”

Prompt: You have added Han Xue as a contact.

After adding each other as contacts, Han Xue bid farewell and left. Chen Mo’s contact list had one more friend.

He watched as Han Xue left, then returned to his room, lost in thought. His encounter with Han Xue was just an accident, his focus was still on practising Tong Zi.

He had thought that after experiencing the events in the Hive world and with the assistance of the Yang marrow, he would be close to completing the second level of the Tong Zi, but after absorbing the Yang marrow, he discovered that its effect was not as powerful as he had imagined. It seemed that it would take at least another half year to advance to the second level.

Of course, such rapid progress would be jaw-dropping compared to other practitioners. After all, this technique had low basic requirements and was often started from a young age, taking ten or twenty years to achieve any results.

“This is just a basic martial arts technique. If the second level is already this difficult then for those more profound martial arts techniques without understanding martial philosophy and without unexpected opportunities, wouldn’t it take decades or even hundreds of years to achieve results?” Chen Mo shook his head.

Life in the Disaster world not only required spending points daily to buy food but also due to the lack of sunlight, the practice speed of the Tong Zi technique was also much slower than in other worlds.

It seemed that he would have to quickly carry out a new disaster mission.

(End of chapter 60)