Rise of the Wasteland in Cultivation

Leng San had a dream in which he returned to his childhood, when he was four or five years old. Those were the happiest times in his memory. Every night, his parents would stay by his side, the four of them crammed into a narrow shipping container room, listening to his parents tell stories about the time before the nuclear war.

Before the nuclear war, Earth was so beautiful. The sky was blue, the mountains were green, and the water was clear. You could drink the spring water directly from your hands and eat the fruit you picked from the trees. Supermarket shelves were never short of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as all kinds of meat. Children went to school happily every day, and adults devoted themselves to the "996 blessing." Everyone was very friendly, society was orderly, and there was no hunger or indiscriminate killing.

Oh! At that time, Leng San didn't feel that the container was crowded. On the contrary, he felt that it was warm and safe for his family to chat together. The world before the nuclear war described by his parents also made Leng San very fascinated.

Leng San originally had a younger sister, a year younger than him, but she died later. She accidentally pricked her finger with a rusty wire while playing at the camp, contracted tetanus and died. A small wound took her young life.

Leng San was still young at the time and had a very vague understanding of death. He only thought that his younger sister was asleep and could not be woken up no matter how he called her. Later, his father took his younger sister out of the camp and when he returned to the camp, his younger sister was gone.

Leng San asked his mother, "Where did my little sister go?" His mother wiped away her tears and told him, "My little sister has become a star in the sky."

What are stars? Leng San had never seen them, because the sky after a nuclear explosion was always a dusky yellow, and you couldn't see stars at night. Even if you could occasionally see them, they were blocked by the tin roof of the camp.

Mom said that she and Dad would become stars in the sky in the future, so Leng San wouldn't be afraid. They would be watching over him from the sky with his sister.

Leng San asked anxiously, "Mom, do people turn into stars in the sky when they die?"

Mother nodded, and Leng San said worriedly, "But I don't want you to become stars in the sky. I want you to stay with me forever."

The father laughed from the side, "Silly child, everyone gets old. No one can live forever. You will grow up slowly, and when you grow up, we will naturally grow old and die, and become stars in the sky."

"But... there are so many stars in the sky, I'm afraid I won't be able to recognize which two of you, oh, and my sister!" Leng San said nervously.

A few years later, when Leng San was only five or six years old, his parents went out to scavenge and never came back. As for whether they turned into stars in the sky, no one knows. In any case, Leng San has never slept outdoors, never seen the night sky, and doesn't know what stars look like.

Five years have passed in the blink of an eye. The voices and smiles of his parents have become very blurry in Leng San's memory, like an old and mottled paper photograph where the faces are no longer visible, leaving only the traces of the relentless erosion of time.

However, in his dream, Leng San saw his parents and sister again. They were so close, holding hands, smiling. They were so clear, so near...

"Dad, Mom, sister, you're back?" Leng San was so excited that tears welled up in his eyes. He opened his arms and tried to rush into his mother's arms.

However, at this moment, the scene suddenly changed. The father, mother, and sister disappeared, and it turned into a little girl named Chenxi. She was holding a pillow in her arms, and her hair had returned to its original state, hanging loosely behind her head in the wind, making her look much more mature. However, her expression was still indifferent, and she was looking at us with a scrutinizing gaze.

Leng San, lost in memories and deep longing, asked in astonishment, "Where are my mom, dad, and sister? Where did you hide them? Where did you hide them?"

Leng San pressed him repeatedly, his voice growing louder and louder until it finally turned into an angry roar, and he shoved Chen Xi to the ground...

At that moment, a searing pain deep within his soul pulled Leng San back to reality from his dream. He opened his eyes, gasping for breath, and found that it was still pitch black all around him. He felt sticky all over, as if his body was sealed in a layer of glue, unable to move.

After lying quietly for a while, Leng San's consciousness fully returned, followed by joy. He had actually survived, the poison in his body had disappeared, his spiritual energy could flow freely throughout his body, and his meridians seemed to have widened considerably.

Clearly, the second-stage gene enhancement drug not only neutralized the viper's venom but also strengthened its own body.

It has to be said that Leng San actually benefited from this misfortune. In such a short period of time, injecting first- and second-tier gene enhancement drugs consecutively would have caused most people to explode and die. However, Leng San was poisoned by the viper, which neutralized some of the effects of the second-tier gene enhancement drug. Therefore, he survived by chance and even achieved the most ideal enhancement effect.

It was already past midnight, but the howls of zombies and the strange roars of mutated beasts outside were still rising and falling, even more noisy than in the first half of the night.

Leng San suddenly felt an urge to open the water tank lid and climb out to find out what was going on, but he ultimately restrained himself. He wasn't in a position to act recklessly right now!

However, at that moment, faint footsteps suddenly came from outside the water tank.

Leng San's heart tightened, and he immediately held his breath. At the same time, he wondered why there were footsteps when he had clearly locked the iron door on the top floor. Moreover, the footsteps were very light, unlike the heavy and slow footsteps of zombies.

Could it be a person? How did they get to the top floor? Did they climb over from another building?

Leng Sanzheng secretly guessed that the footsteps were suddenly heading towards the water tank where he was hiding.

Leng San was terrified and instinctively reached for his Desert Eagle pistol, only to be horrified to find that he couldn't move his hands and feet. It turned out that the drug's effects hadn't completely worn off yet.

Finished!

Leng San's heart jumped into his throat. The footsteps had reached the water tank and stopped, and the tank lid seemed about to be opened.

Suddenly, a chilling aura enveloped me, as if I had fallen into an ice cellar, and the cold sensation spread upwards from my legs.

Leng San was terrified. A ghost? An evil spirit?

As a Golden Core cultivator from the cultivation world, he had naturally dealt with these unclean things. If he hadn't lost his cultivation, these filthy creatures would have avoided him from miles away. But now he was Leng San, not the Golden Core cultivator Leng Shan.

At this point, not only did that thing not run away, it seemed to want to possess his body. Good heavens, no wonder the scavengers dared not spend the night outside the camp. There were just too many deadly things. Even hiding in a sealed water tank was not safe.

Hehehe!

Leng San heard a strange sound, like a sneer or teeth grinding. He completely lost sensation from his neck down, and then his face went numb. A chilling aura crept into his head.

Just when Leng San thought he was about to die, the pain of his soul being burned by raging fire suddenly arose, and a domineering heat flowed through his body, instantly restoring sensation to his previously icy body.

--ah!

Leng San seemed to hear a shrill scream. A cold wind blew through the water tank, and with a bang, the lid of the water tank was smashed open, as if something had escaped. Then everything returned to calm, and the footsteps disappeared.

Leng San was filled with doubt and uncertainty when he suddenly realized that he could move his hands and feet. He sat up and instantly felt as if he had broken free from something, which then fell off his body with a clatter.

Leng San fumbled to turn on the light on his watch, only to find that his whole body was covered in scabs. With a gentle peel, the scabs and dead skin fell off, revealing tender flesh underneath.

It turned out that after Leng San was injected with the second-stage gene enhancement drug, the violent drug power reconstructed his body. Blood mixed with toxins and impurities seeped out of his body, forming a layer of blood scab that enveloped his entire body.

At this moment, as Leng San moved, the scab broke off, just like a silkworm shedding its skin, and his originally dark skin became fair and shiny.

However, what surprised Leng San even more than his skin becoming fairer was that his meridians had been widened. This would greatly increase his speed of absorbing spiritual energy during future cultivation.

Of course, this is on the premise that there is enough spiritual energy for him to absorb. At the current rate at which Chenxi purifies and releases spiritual energy, it is far from enough for Leng San to absorb.

In addition, Leng San also discovered that his physique did not seem to have changed much, and he did not become a muscular man with broad shoulders and a thick waist, but his physical strength had obviously improved, his six senses were more sensitive, and his strength, speed and endurance had definitely increased significantly.

Unexpectedly, the viper venom, when mixed with the second-tier gene enhancement drug, produced such a miraculous effect. Without becoming a muscle man, the enhancement effect on various aspects of the body was quite good.

Tsk tsk, this can be considered a blessing in disguise!

Leng San carefully stood up and poked his head out of the water tank. At this time, the sky was already showing the first light of dawn, and with the morning breeze blowing, a small patch of dark blue was surprisingly visible in the dim sky, with a few stars twinkling.

Leng San trembled slightly, and tears welled up in her eyes instantly. "Is this the star? It's so beautiful! I've finally seen the star! Dad, Mom, sister, is that you?"

Leng Shan hurriedly shook his head, brushing away the emotions that the original owner of the body, Leng San, had brought with him. It was just a star; he had seen plenty of them. In the cultivation world, stars could be seen everywhere. It was pitiful that his little brother Leng San had never even seen a star.

A morning breeze blew in my face, and the sky turned gloomy and yellowish again. The stars were no longer visible, and a ray of dawn shone from the horizon at the edge of the city.

As dawn broke, the noisy ruins gradually quieted down.

Leng San climbed out of the water tank, leaped onto the rooftop wall, and let the morning wind blow against his face. With a shake of his clothes, the remaining scabs and dead skin on his body instantly turned into ashes and scattered.

Leng San bent down and jumped directly from the eight-story building. The speed of his fall increased, but it appeared slow to the eye. The second-level gene enhancement drug greatly improved his eyesight and reaction speed, so what was originally a fast speed naturally appeared slower to the eye.

When his body fell to the fourth floor, Leng San reached out and grabbed the railing of the fourth-floor balcony to slow down his descent before continuing to fall.

bang...

With both feet on the ground, he created two shallow pits, the surrounding area cracked like spider silk, but Leng San was completely unharmed.

Leng San was overjoyed. His body, enhanced by the second-tier genes, should have reached the level of a second-level Qi Refining cultivator.