19: Chapter 19 Departure

In the evening, Chen Mo sat on a large rock in the quarry, his notebook spread across his knees.

Entering the mountains tomorrow.

He had made the decision in the morning, but he still wanted to spend half a day going over all the preparations needed before departure.

He knew clearly that the thoroughness of the preparation directly determined his safety.

If the preparations were sufficient, danger would no longer be danger, but a variable within the plan.

He opened to a blank page and wrote down an equipment list.

One hiking backpack, load weight approximately forty kilograms.

Two barrels of peanut oil, five liters per barrel, total calories ninety thousand kcal.

Three bags of glucose powder, two kilograms per bag, total calories twenty-four thousand kcal.

Forty compressed biscuits, total calories twenty thousand kcal.

A total of one hundred thirty-four thousand kcal of portable calorie reserves.

He drew a horizontal line under the numbers and wrote beside it: Calculated at a daily consumption of thirty thousand kcal, it can support four to five days.

The main ridge of the Shennong Mountain Range stretches for hundreds of kilometers, and the core area is at least a hundred kilometers deep.

With his current abilities, traversing mountains and crossing valleys in the primeval forest, he could easily cover over a hundred kilometers.

If he stayed too long and food ran low, he thought, if he encountered something blind, like a Black Bear, he could perform some "emergency risk avoidance" and taste bear paw.

He could also easily hunt a couple of small prey like wild rabbits and pheasants.

After finishing the equipment list, he turned to the next page and began organizing a biological threat list.

Rather than calling it a threat list, it was more like a menu.

He had long since figured out the species in the back mountains.

Squirrels, rabbits, pheasants, a few non-venomous snakes, and the largest being wild boars.

But in the core area of the Shennong Mountain Range, the richness of species was far beyond what the back mountains could compare to.

He had checked online before; the known large predators there included Leopards, Black Bears, packs of dholes, herds of wild boars, and scattered wolf packs.

The Leopard is a national first-class protected animal and is rare in number, but precisely because they are rare, their territory range is huge, and once encountered, it is a direct confrontation.

For an ordinary person, the danger of encountering one is immense.

But for Chen Mo, that was an extra meal.

A Leopard weighs between thirty and sixty kilograms, has a sprint speed approaching eighty kilometers per hour, a bite force of about three hundred kilograms, and a forepaw strike force of around two hundred kilograms.

A Black Bear weighs between one hundred and two hundred kilograms, stands nearly two meters tall, has a bite force of five hundred kilograms, and a forepaw strike force of about seven hundred kilograms.

Wild boars are even larger, with some weighing between two hundred and four hundred kilograms; the force of their charge increases sharply with weight and speed. A four-hundred-kilogram boar charging at full speed can exceed two tons of impact force.

And what about him?

Punch force: one thousand four hundred sixty-seven kilograms.

Speed: eighty kilometers per hour.

Jumping: over five meters.

Defense: He looked down at his arm; beneath the skin were dense muscles and connective tissue that had become extremely tough after countless micro-repairs.

Ordinary blades require effort to cut through the epidermis, and his bone density is far greater than that of a normal person.

After completing the comparison, he wrote a conclusion at the very bottom of the table: In a one-on-one direct confrontation, self-assessed win rate is one hundred percent.

He didn't need to worry about venomous snakes or insects either; with his current defense, these ordinary creatures could not bite through it.

He put down the pen, leaned back against the rock, and closed his eyes for a moment.

However, he still had to be careful of accidents.

He opened his eyes, stood up, and walked toward the edge of the quarry.

After walking about twenty meters, in front of him was an intact rock wall.

This rock wall had been split open during the quarrying years ago; the surface was flat but rough.

He stood in front of the rock wall and adjusted his breathing.

He threw a punch.

Unlike the last time he hit the load-bearing pillar, this time his punch speed was faster.

Before his fist hit the rock wall, it had already compressed the air in front of it, emitting a very short, sharp explosive sound.

Then the fist landed.

The rock wall shattered at the sound.

This type of rock was harder but also more brittle, and the reaction force on his arm was much greater than that of concrete.

The range of the flying debris was wider, and there were more fragments.

The fist punched about ten centimeters into the rock face, and around the fist mark was a circle of radial cracks.

Unlike concrete, the cross-section of the rock was sharper, but his hand was still not scratched.

Under the continuous strengthening of his ability, his skin and bones had become increasingly tough; it wasn't just a simple increase in hardness, but a "tough-plus-hard" composite structure, similar to a high-strength alloy.

He withdrew his fist and looked down.

There were slight white traces of stone powder on his knuckles; other than that, he was completely unharmed.

This result did not surprise him.

Since he could smash a reinforced concrete load-bearing pillar, the power against the rock wall was naturally greater.

This wasn't surprise, just confirmation—a calm confirmation, as calm as opening his system panel every morning to check the numbers.

He put on his pack and walked toward the old house.

The setting sun shone from behind him, casting a long shadow.

On the gravel ground of the quarry, his footprints stretched into the distance step by step.

He had walked this path countless times; he could walk back even with his eyes closed.

But the road he had to take tomorrow, he had never walked.

This gave rise to a long-lost emotion.

Anticipation.

Since obtaining the system panel, he had spent an extremely pure period of time in the training ground: eating, training, sleeping, recording.

Every day was the same rhythm, every week was the same Dao.

He had refined his days down to the minute, every muscle down to the fiber, and every kilogram of strength down to the number.

He had always stayed within a safe circle.

There was, of course, nothing wrong with safety.

He never believed that risk-taking was a virtue.

Recklessness is stupid, and throwing one's life away is the most worthless way to die.

Returning to the old house, Chen Mo put down his bag and began the first task of the night: organizing the daily Spiritual Qi observation data.

He spread out his notebook, arranged the observation records from the past few days by date, and used different colored pens to mark the location of every spirit energy particle on the map.

After marking them, he stepped back and looked at the map on the table.

Dense little dots were evenly distributed throughout the entire back mountain area.

No single area was significantly denser than others.

If one had to find a pattern, the distance between these points was roughly equal, as if they were scattered across the ground at a certain constant interval.

This discovery confirmed his previous judgment: spirit energy particles are evenly distributed on a large scale; they actively maintain distance between each other to maintain the concentration balance of the entire area.

But why did they have this behavior of "actively maintaining distance"?

What mechanism did the particles use to achieve this?

He did not have an answer yet.

He carefully folded the map and tucked it into the back cover of the notebook.

This would be an important control sample for comparing Spiritual Qi distribution in other areas in the future.

Then he began the second task of the night: Standing Post.

This was a new training method he had developed over the past few days.

By simultaneously forcing the agonist and antagonist muscles of the whole body to counteract each other at extreme intensity, his body remained motionless, yet the muscles inside were undergoing super-limit load training.

No equipment was needed, no venue was needed; the only thing required was his precise control ability, which could already reach the level of a single muscle fiber.

He stood in the Main Hall, feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, spine neutral.

He closed his eyes, and Inner Vision activated.

Starting from the soles of his feet.

The small muscle groups in the soles tightened simultaneously—not just a simple contraction, but forcing every single muscle fiber into extreme contraction.

The stabilizing muscles around the ankles followed, then the triceps surae and the tibialis anterior pulled against each other; the former contracted to extend the ankle, the latter contracted to flex the ankle, and the two forces precisely canceled each other out at the ankle joint.

His heels remained motionless, but the muscle fibers inside his calves were already experiencing micro-tears.

Continuing upward.

The hamstrings and quadriceps pulled against each other.

The muscles on the front and back of his thighs simultaneously erupted with extreme power; one wanted to bend the knee, the other wanted to extend it.

The forces collided at the knee joint; the knees did not move, but the inside of his thighs felt as if molten lava had been poured into them—burning, tight, and tingling.

Glutes, waist and abdomen, chest and back, shoulders and arms—activating layer by layer.

Every layer was precise to the single fiber, and every layer pushed the opposing forces to the limit.

The entire process lasted for nearly an hour.

By the time he had finally finished working through all the muscle groups in his body, his T-shirt was soaked.

Sweat dripped from his forehead onto the floor.

But he could feel his whole body heating up.

The tingling sensation of repair spread across every fiber of his body; it was denser, more uniform, and higher intensity than the all-around stimulation of mountain running with weights or deep squats with boulders.

He picked up his pen, turned to the training log page, and added a line under "Standing Post training": Single full-body antagonism can last about one hour, covering all muscle groups, with training effects approximately three to four times that of weighted training in the same amount of time.

Continue to optimize; goal: all-day uninterrupted full-body antagonism training.

His body was still slightly heating up.

In his Inner Vision, countless muscle fibers were rapidly repairing and rebuilding, more densely than in previous repair processes.

Hundreds and thousands of micro-damage points were repairing simultaneously; the feedback signals of the repair were dense and busy, like a city that never sleeps.

This was his current state.

A city that never sleeps.

Chen Mo stood up and walked to the window.

Outside the window, the night was already deep.

He would depart tomorrow.

As an uninvited guest carrying nearly one and a half tons of punch force, a speed of eighty kilometers per hour, and the ability to shatter reinforced concrete in seconds.

He pulled the curtains, turned off the lights, and lay flat on the bed.

Waiting to wake up tomorrow, put on his pack, head north along the ridge line of the back mountains, cross the mountain beams, cross the valleys, and walk into that primeval forest he had been watching for half a month but had never stepped into.

He woke up at four-thirty.

Chen Mo opened his eyes, got up, washed, ate, and checked his equipment.

Everything went according to the procedure arranged last night; no need to think too much, just follow through.

Five o'clock sharp.

He put on his hiking backpack, locked the door of the old house, and turned to walk toward the back mountains.

The dirt road under his feet shone with a faint white in the morning light; the mountain ridge lines ahead were layered one after another, pushing off into the distance.

The furthest layer was the main ridge of the Shennong Mountain Range.

It had been waiting there for a long time.