50: Chapter 50: The Art Style of Two Worlds

Lin Ye stood at the entrance of the cave, leaning half his body out.

He was in no rush to rest.

The shelter was just an empty shell; it still needed to be furnished.

He fired his Wind-Chasing Claw, the hook latching onto a protruding rock on the side wall.

Grabbing the cable, he swung out through the water curtain and landed in the jungle on the edge of the waterfall.

By the Water Pool, the three strange beasts he had seen earlier were gone, leaving behind several sets of hoofprints in the mud.

He scanned the area with his left eye.

"Safe. Time to work."

For the next two-plus hours, Lin Ye became an emotionless transport machine.

He shuttled back and forth through the jungle near the waterfall.

Using an axe, he sorted branches into long and short piles, binding them tightly with vines.

Then, at the edge of the stream, he wrapped over a dozen bundles of wet mud in broad leaves.

There was too much stuff; he definitely couldn't carry it all at once.

Shouldering and carrying the items, Lin Ye used his Wind-Chasing Claw to return to the cave behind the waterfall again and again.

He scrambled up and down five or six times.

Only when the corner deep inside the cave was piled full of supplies did he stop.

Brushing off the mud and water from his hands, Lin Ye leaned against the cold stone wall, panting heavily.

"The art of playing it safe is truly a physical workout."

After resting for a moment, he continued working.

Lin Ye checked the stone crevices deep in the cave one by one, finding the widest one.

This crevice extended upward, and he could feel a distinct airflow.

A natural exhaust vent!

He brought over stones from the cave and built a semicircular fire pit directly beneath the crevice.

He stuffed in dry leaf debris, struck the flint, and flames sprang up.

He placed thin twigs, then thicker branches, and the campfire was soon blazing.

But this wasn't enough.

The cave was a closed space; if the smoke ventilation wasn't solved, he would surely suffocate.

Lin Ye grabbed stones and began building from the bottom up against the stone wall behind the fire pit.

With every stone he placed, he grabbed a handful of the wet mud he had dug up, plastered it into the gaps, smoothed it out, and packed it tight.

In less than an hour, a narrow-top, wide-bottom, airtight mud-and-stone chimney had taken shape.

The acrid smoke produced by the campfire was completely carried by the hot airflow, sucked into the natural crevice above, and drawn out of the cave.

This way, there was no choking smoke inside the cave.

Great Xia Live Stream.

[The bloodline of the infrastructure maniac has awakened!]

[Is this a chimney? Which Archaeology Department teaches civil engineering?]

[Classy! Even at the end of the world, you have to install a range hood first!]

[Several foreigners next door started fires in their caves and almost suffocated themselves. Brother Eye is totally crushing them!]

[Brother Eye: I'm a professional at renovation; next time, I'll install underfloor heating for you all.]

As the firelight flickered, Lin Ye took the opportunity to stack the damp thick wood around the fire pit to dry.

He pulled out his fire axe to play the carpenter.

"Clack! Clack! Clack!"

The axe blade flew, splitting the thick branches into uniformly sized wooden sticks.

He picked out the two straightest long sticks to serve as longitudinal load-bearing beams.

He laid short sticks across them and finally bound them tightly with vines in a cross pattern.

He placed stones under the four corners to raise it up.

A stable, moisture-proof bed frame, elevated twenty centimeters off the ground, was complete.

Lin Ye spread out his sleeping bag on top and pressed it with his hand.

Flat, dry, and ventilated.

He brushed the debris off his hands and stepped back to admire his masterpiece.

"Yeah, five-star quality!"

After finishing these two tasks, night fell.

Lin Ye walked to the cave entrance and crouched by the water curtain to wash his hands.

Returning to sit in front of the campfire, he opened the leaf bundle and took out a piece of Mountain Beast tenderloin.

He used his dagger to trim off the fascia and cut it into meat chunks three fingers thick.

He skewered the meat chunks with a sharpened branch and placed them over the fire pit.

He scraped coarse salt grains from the salt jar, rubbed them between his fingers, and sprinkled the salt evenly over the meat.

"Sizzle!"

Plump grease dripped into the charcoal fire, sending up a puff of white smoke.

The aroma of meat wafted throughout the cave.

Lin Ye flipped the meat over.

The surface was licked into a charred brown by the fire, and oil bubbled at the knife cuts.

Estimating that it was done, he picked up the branch and took a big bite.

The skin was crispy, and the juices burst from the inside.

Enhanced by the saltiness of the coarse salt, all his fatigue was washed away by this one bite of meat.

Lin Ye let out a long sigh of relief, a look of contentment on his face.

"Comforting."

The Great Xia Live Stream audience was crying from hunger.

[Cruel! Doing a wilderness mukbang at a time like this! Who can resist this?!]

[The supplies I just got today suddenly don't taste good anymore.]

[What kind of divine grilled meat is this?! I can practically smell it!]

[You guys watch, I'm going to check out Scott's livestream to compare the satisfaction levels!]

[Going too, +1!]

The exclusive livestream for the USA.

There was no aroma of grilled meat here, only the stench of blood rushing at you.

In a dead-end ruin in the Medium Lost Lands.

The former ace, Scott, was locked in a bitter battle.

His opponent was a Medium Pale-Type, nearly three meters long, resembling an adult Siberian tiger.

The bone spurs on its back were fully protruding, and the sharp claws on its forelimbs had become even sharper.

The camouflage uniform on Scott's body had become nothing but rags.

His chest, thighs, and arms were covered in over a dozen bloody gashes.

Human blood mixed with the black blood of the Pale Species, covering him completely.

But what truly made one's scalp numb was his expression.

A normal person suffering such severe injuries would have either fainted or been screaming in agony.

But Scott did not.

His eyes were bloodshot and bulging, revealing an extremely manic, hideous grin.

"Come on!"

The Pale Species lunged.

Scott did not dodge or evade.

He stepped forward, letting the sharp bone blade slice across his left shoulder.

Utilizing this trade of injury for life.

He swung the steel bar in his right hand with all his might, smashing it toward the monster's head.

"Bang!"

The Pale Species' hard skull collapsed instantly, and brain matter splattered all over his face.

Standing in a pool of blood, Scott stuck out his tongue and licked the corner of his mouth.

All around, dense hissing sounds approached.

A flash of mania crossed his eyes, but he had not completely lost his reason.

He turned and dived into the underground garage of an office building, vanishing into the darkness.

The USA livestream chat went wild.

[God bless America! This is a true berserker!]

[To be able to counter-kill after suffering such heavy injuries, Scott is a super soldier!]

[This is the power of the beacon of the world! He doesn't need to eat; he only needs to kill!]

[He has evolved! He is ten thousand times stronger than that sissy from Great Xia!]

Countless people were fanatically worshipping this overwhelming power.

No one cared how much blood Scott had lost.

Nor did anyone care why he didn't scream in pain.

...

Disaster Prevention Administration, Third Research Group.

The screen was split in two.

On the left, Lin Ye sat in front of the campfire, gnawing on grilled meat.

On the right, Scott, covered in blood, crouched in the shadows of the office building.

Lu Chen crossed his arms, his face grim.

"Look at his pupils; they contract normally when not in combat, but instantly dilate once combat begins."

"Just now, when his left shoulder was torn open, he didn't even frown. It's not that he endured it—it's that he can no longer feel pain!"

Director Wei Tiejun's facial muscles tightened, and he turned to look at Zhou Jianping.

"What about our people? What is their status?"

Zhou Jianping opened the report.

"Currently, among the 13 survivors from Great Xia, 8 are showing mild similar tendencies."

"Especially those veterans who have survived since the beginning. Fortunately, their symptoms aren't as outrageous as Scott's."

"Only during high-pressure danger do they exhibit brief, slight irritability and dullness to pain."

Director Wei Tiejun's brow furrowed deeply.

"Keep an eye on the livestreams of all countries to see if anyone finds a method to purify the pollution."

"We have already arranged for personnel to monitor it 24 hours a day," Zhou Jianping nodded.

Director Wei Tiejun glanced at Lin Ye, who was quietly eating meat in the left frame.

"This kid saw through this trick a long time ago."

"It's not that he doesn't want power; it's that he knows how to be content and doesn't dare to be greedy!"

...

Inside the cave.

Lin Ye finished the last meat skewer and licked the grease off his fingers.

He did not lie down.

Instead, he turned to grab the remaining wood, pulled out his dagger, and began whittling it, stroke by stroke.

Wood shavings flew in the firelight; under his movements, the tips of the wood gradually became sharp.