68: Chapter 68 Dongdu

The sea surface rapidly receded beneath him, and drifting clouds turned into afterimages, trailing behind.

More than two months had passed since Typhoon Usagi swept through, and the sea had long since returned to calm, with only a trace of silt remaining near the shore.

In less than an hour, the outline of the Japanese archipelago appeared on the horizon.

Chen Mo lowered his altitude and hovered over East Capital.

The city had returned to its former prosperity, at least on the surface.

The low-lying urban areas that had been flooded by seawater during the typhoon had partially completed reconstruction, with newly built drainage Systems and flood embankments rising significantly above the ground level.

The isolation zones at the edge of the city were exactly the same as those in Xia: exposed upturned soil, with dense, impenetrable primeval forests on the outside and reinforced concrete building complexes on the inside.

Greenery was almost invisible within the city; street trees had long been cleared away, replaced by hardened concrete ground and rows of drainage ditches.

Now, the response strategies of countries around the world were all the same: isolate the plants.

Chen Mo saw the coastal area in the distance, where construction was still underway.

That was the hardest-hit area when the typhoon made landfall; the debris had been cleared, but traces of reconstruction remained, with broken breakwaters being heightened and new pile foundations stretching out into the sea in neat rows.

Japan was preparing to integrate the formerly scattered coastal towns into a more concentrated and easier-to-defend urban cluster.

Chen Mo watched from the air for a moment.

Disasters change many things.

A country's decision-making speed, engineering capabilities, and social mobilization power would all be squeezed to reveal their true levels in the face of disaster.

However, Japan's reconstruction speed was mediocre.

Chen Mo withdrew his gaze and flew toward the center of East Capital.

His target was Japan's national laboratory.

According to information he had seen online earlier, Japan's main scientific research forces after the Spiritual Energy Revival were concentrated here and at the East Capital University laboratory.

Under the invisibility of his Force Field, he approached a grey-white building.

His Mental Energy spread out, penetrating the walls.

The laboratory was filled with various analytical instruments.

Several researchers in white lab coats were gathered around a piece of equipment, staring at the data jumping on the screen.

They were analyzing plant samples.

A leaf was fixed on the microscope stage, and the magnified cell structure was projected onto the screen.

They were recording the abnormal proliferation of chloroplasts.

After the Spiritual Energy Revival, the number of chloroplasts in plant leaves had increased significantly, and the efficiency of photosynthesis had more than doubled.

In the biochemical analysis room nearby, several researchers were comparing soil samples.

Soil from different depths and regions was packed into numbered test tubes, filling the entire laboratory bench.

They were tracking changes in nutrient content, attempting to deduce the existence laws of Spiritual Qi from plant growth patterns.

Chen Mo's Mental Energy swept across all the ongoing experiments.

There were no special discoveries.

Humans had not discovered a means to perceive Spiritual Qi; all research was stuck at the same Bottleneck, able only to observe indirect effects, unable to directly detect Spiritual Qi itself.

Chen Mo discovered the Basic Antagonistic Training movements recommended by Xia in the adjacent laboratory building.

In a training room, several Japanese testers were performing Basic Antagonistic Training movements.

The movement angles and durations were highly similar to the version promoted by Xia; it was clearly pieced together through reverse engineering of public information.

Chen Mo noticed that they had only obtained the first stage of basic movements, and the subsequent content such as Mental Perception cultivation and breathing Rhythm was completely absent.

The core parts of the manual were all classified as top secret by Xia, and Japan had no channels to obtain them.

They could only spin their wheels on the most basic movements.

Chen Mo withdrew his Mental Energy from the laboratory building.

There was nothing left to see in this direction.

Japan's scientific research progress was not on the same magnitude as Xia's.

He turned around and flew toward the west.

The outline of Mount Fuji emerged from above the clouds.

The symmetrical conical mountain body of this, Japan's highest peak, cast a huge triangular shadow in the morning light.

Chen Mo ascended along the mountain body; from the foot to the mountainside, the vegetation transitioned from broad-leaved forests to coniferous forests, and then to the exposed volcanic rock above the tree line.

The snow above the mountainside never melted all year round, but it was much thinner than before the Spiritual Energy Revival, and the heat inside the volcano was increasing.

He hovered above the crater.

The inside of the crater was exposed lava rock walls, and the bottom of the crater had residual snow and sulfur deposits; yellow sulfur crystals glimmered with a dull metallic luster in the morning light.

White steam emerged from the rock crevices, condensing into fine water droplets in the cold air.

Chen Mo's Mental Energy penetrated the inner wall of the crater and extended deep inside.

The depth of the magma chamber, the temperature of the lava, and the stress distribution in the rock layers—all information appeared one by one in his perception.

This volcano was becoming increasingly active.

The pressure in the magma chamber was higher than normal levels, and micro-cracks in the rock layers were slowly expanding.

His perception captured magma slowly surging deep underground.

The Xia Seismological Bureau had previously predicted that Mount Fuji might erupt around 2035 due to an earthquake.

Now with the Spiritual Energy Revival added to the mix, the heating rate of the magma chamber had accelerated, and this timeline would likely be advanced.

But exactly when it would erupt was not something he needed to worry about.

The reason Chen Mo came here was to see if anything special had been bred inside the crater.

His Mental Energy carefully scanned every rock crevice, including those sulfur-rich steam vents and the bottom of the crater.

Nothing.

No abnormal energy accumulation, no mineral reactions different from ordinary rocks.

A Heaven And Earth Treasure cannot just grow in any random extreme environment, at least not yet.

Chen Mo stood on the edge of the crater for a moment, not leaving immediately.

Viewed from this angle, the conical body of Mount Fuji was indeed spectacular.

The Aokigahara Forest at the foot of the mountain was much denser than before under the nourishment of Spiritual Qi; the tree crowns were crowded together, looking like a dark green velvet carpet when viewed from high above.

The symmetrical volcanic cone, the plains stretching to the sea, and the skyline of East Capital in the distance were vaguely visible.

Chen Mo leaped from the edge of the crater and flew toward the foot of Mount Fuji.

While flying over the foothills, his Mental Energy scanned an unusually lively place.

A Shinto shrine was packed with people who had come to worship; there was a long line at the entrance, and the amulet stall was surrounded by several circles of people.

People bowed, clapped, and pressed their palms together in prayer before the shrine, their movements filled with awe for the unknown changes.

The Spiritual Energy Revival seemed to provide the most direct proof for these beliefs; the priests claimed it was a divine manifestation.

Believers knelt before the worship hall, thanking the divine grace for the enhancement in Physique and self-healing from illnesses.

Chen Mo paused in the air for two seconds, then continued flying forward.

Leaving Mount Fuji, he flew east.

He had several destinations for this trip.

The Colorado Grand Canyon in the United States, a stratigraphic profile cut by crustal movements over millions of years, each layer being a measure of time.

The Barringer Crater, a scar left by an asteroid impact on Earth, over a kilometer in diameter and nearly two hundred meters deep.

Yellowstone National Park, the largest active volcanic System on Earth, with a super magma chamber underground sufficient to cover the entire North American continent.

These were all places he wanted to see with his own eyes this time.

To feel the great power of nature, to feel the traces of time, to feel those forces that had existed for millions of years without the need for human participation.

Chen Mo flew at high speed toward Yellowstone National Park.