37: Chapter 37 Training and Changes in the World

After settling the camp, Chen Mo took off his shirt and stood barefoot on the rock by the Deep Pool.

Beneath his feet was the familiar ground, the blue-black rock worn smooth and shiny by the water current.

He looked down at the water surface; the ink-blue water of the Deep Pool was bottomless, with white waves churning where the waterfall struck, and underwater undercurrents drawing patterns on the surface.

Chen Mo took a deep breath.

Starting today, a one-month closed-door training.

He leaped into the Deep Pool.

The icy water instantly submerged his head.

The training had begun.

Half an hour later, Chen Mo surfaced to rest.

His skin had turned slightly pale from the prolonged soaking, but the soreness in his muscles was already beginning to subside.

He could feel the surrounding Spiritual Qi rapidly surging into his body with him as the core.

The dispersed Spiritual Qi permeated between his cells, repairing the micro-damage caused by the training.

However, the speed of passive repair was too slow, so Chen Mo actively operated the Human Breathing Method to draw the surrounding Spiritual Qi directly into his body.

At the same time, Chen Mo also sought out spirit energy particles, absorbing them with his ability to accelerate recovery.

With every repair, his muscle fibers became a bit tighter.

After recovering, Chen Mo sank back down.

The water surface returned to calm, with only the roar of the waterfall echoing through the valley.

In the blink of an eye, ten days passed.

June 30th, afternoon.

Chen Mo surfaced from the Deep Pool and sat on a protruding rock.

The water droplets on his body were dried by the mountain wind.

He casually unscrewed a barrel of oil and took several large gulps.

The viscous oil slid down his throat, carrying a faint aroma of soybeans.

He looked up at the surrounding forest.

Something was wrong.

Chen Mo narrowed his eyes.

He originally didn't have a deep understanding of plants, but after staying here for ten days, he had committed every fir tree and every cluster of shrubs in the vicinity to memory.

But now, those shrubs were clearly different.

Ten days ago, the weeds by the Deep Pool were about the height of his calves.

Now, the tallest clusters were approaching knee height.

The new shoots of vine plants had climbed two or three meters up the rock wall, and the leaves were nearly a circle larger than before.

Chen Mo stood up and walked along the rock wall to the entrance of the valley.

On an old pine tree that had been dead for many years, several tender green new branches had sprouted from the trunk at some point.

The dead tree was budding.

Chen Mo glanced at it, then turned and returned to the side of his tent.

He picked up his phone and walked out of the valley, finding a spot with a signal.

On the screen, the discussions on various platforms remained bland.

Some said there were particularly many mosquitoes this year, and others said the flowers they planted were blooming exceptionally well.

Occasionally, a few people mentioned that they felt their body recovery was faster than before, but the replies either attributed it to psychological effects or natural adaptation to increased exercise after the start of spring.

No one connected the rampant growth of weeds, the budding of dead trees, and the improvement in sleep together.

But Chen Mo knew that those people at the botanical research institutes should have already noticed the anomalies.

Data would not lie.

The daily measurement data was right there—plant height, leaf area, growth cycle—once these numbers deviated from the normal range, the researchers' first reaction would be equipment failure, the second would be abnormal weather, and the third would be to start a serious investigation.

This process, at the fastest, would take a few days, and at the slowest, a week.

Chen Mo put away his phone and walked back into the valley.

From June 20th to July 20th, exactly thirty days.

In the primeval forest of the Shennongjia core area, a silent change was accelerating.

The thirteenth day. While training, Chen Mo discovered that the size of several fish underwater had clearly grown by a circle.

The sixteenth day. The moss on the rock wall began to expand at a speed visible to the naked eye, the blue-green color overflowing from the rock crevices like a layer of paint constantly spreading.

The nineteenth day. The fir tree canopies around the valley overlapped more densely.

Sunlight could only shine directly down at noon; the rest of the time, the entire forest was covered in shadows.

The twenty-third day.

Chen Mo stood on a boulder at the top of the rock wall, looking down at the entire primeval forest.

The changes were already very obvious.

The originally sparse canopies had become dense, and the gaps between the trees were filled with new branches and leaves.

Vines wove a green net between the trunks; looking down from above, it was like a boiling green ocean.

He could even hear the subtle sounds of plants growing—that rustling sound of roots wriggling in the soil.

If an average person were standing here, they might only think this forest was "a bit dense."

But in Chen Mo's eyes, this was not dense.

This was an anomaly.

He took out his phone and walked out of the valley to check the internet.

This time, the situation was different.

On the largest domestic gardening forum, a user posted: "I am responsible for the landscaping maintenance of our residential complex. Previously, mowing the lawn once every two weeks was more than enough, but now it grows back five days after being trimmed, as if it's gone crazy."

In the replies, someone seconded: "The Chinese roses planted in my backyard usually wither in June, but this year they have been blooming continuously, already into the second round, and the flowers are one-third larger than last year."

Someone else said: "Check out Boston ivy. In one month, it covered my entire back wall, and the windows are almost completely blocked. Attached picture."

Chen Mo clicked on the picture; an entire red brick wall was tightly wrapped in dark green Boston ivy, impenetrable.

Below the picture, the shooting dates were marked: June 1st and July 15th.

The comparison between the two pictures was shocking.

He returned to the martial arts forum where he had previously looked for Secret Manuals.

Unlike a month ago, the trend of discussion now had changed.

In a pinned post, someone had compiled a "Summary of Recent Global Sports Record Breaks."

Chen Mo read through them one by one.

Men's 100 meters, the world record was refreshed to 9.53 seconds.

Men's 200 meters, the latest result was 18.96 seconds.

Multiple swimming world records were broken.

The weightlifting events were even more exaggerated; world records in several weight classes were refreshed all at once, with growth margins far exceeding the normal range.

The comment section was full of question marks.

"What's the situation? Did they all take drugs?"

"That's impossible, right? So many people having a Breakthrough at the same time? And across events, across countries; even drugs couldn't do that."

"I have a bold idea, but I'm afraid of being flamed if I say it."

"The person above, tell us; I also feel something is wrong."

"I feel like in recent years, it seems the limits of humanity have been rising."

"Bro, not these years, but these few months."

Chen Mo scrolled the screen and continued reading.

A user named "Beat Tigers Tonight" said:

"I practice Sanda; my coach was just saying a while ago that athletes recover too fast now. Previously, after a day of high-intensity training, the next day you would definitely be sore all over. Now, after sleeping one night, you can recover most of it."

Similar posts kept refreshing.

Chen Mo exited the domestic forums and browsed several mainstream foreign social platforms.

The situation was similar.

Someone in North America posted a set of comparison photos: the same hiking trail, comparing the vegetation from early April and early July.

In the April photo, the trail was clearly visible; in the July photo, it was almost completely covered by shrubs, and the path could hardly be found.

Someone in South America photographed weeds on the side of a city road growing calf-high from the cracks in the paving stones.

A fruit farmer in Europe said that this year, fruits ripened two to three weeks early, and the fruits were generally larger and sweeter.

There were also some "conspiracy theory" and "joker" posts:

"I'm saying this seriously, is it possible that Spiritual Energy Revival has happened? Like the kind in novels."

"Haha, the person above must have read too many web novels."

"Isn't Spiritual Energy Revival just like this? Plants get bigger, humans get stronger, Spiritual Qi concentration increases, and various animals also start to evolve"

"You first let the Earth restore some Spiritual Qi for me to see, don't just talk big."

"I bet fifty cents that this is just abnormal weather. Every year there are posts like this, don't make a fuss."

Chen Mo turned off his phone.

The situation was already clear.

Large-scale discussion had already begun.

Although most people were still using "weather" or "coincidence" to explain it, the scope of the anomalies was too broad, and the number of people affected was too large; it could no longer be suppressed.

The snowball of discussion would roll larger and larger until it reached a certain critical point.

Official institutions would intervene, or some sufficiently convincing evidence would be brought to the table.

By then, the whole world would know about Spiritual Energy Revival.

However, this critical point should still be two or three weeks away.

Chen Mo walked back to the valley.

The training must continue.