Cave Refuge

It must be understood that during the previous rounds of natural disasters, the survivors had no stable source of food. The food distributed by the Imperial Court was essentially reserves stored before the disasters.

However, the emergence of ancient creatures, it seemed, brought disasters, but in reality, they provided those who had lost their food sources with a new one.

It was precisely because of this stable food source that married survivors were able to conceive and give birth to the next generation.

Moreover, the round of natural disasters before the resurgence of the ancient creatures involved plant mutations, which were depicted as terrifying in many movies and TV series from before the disasters.

When first faced with these mutant plants, the survivors were equally caught off guard.

But as time went by and after several trials, it was discovered that seeds preserved from before the disasters could be sown in the ground.

As time passed, not only did these seeds grow without fail, but they also underwent mutations, some of which were entirely beneficial to the survivors.

And so, a second baby boom occurred.

This led to a slowdown in the decline of China's population, and although it did not stop the downward trend, there were signs of bouncing back from the bottom.

That's why, when the Imperial Court was overseeing the construction of the Water Base, although they aimed to preserve the diversity of species by keeping various animals at each base, they only kept two pairs, four animals in total. The intention was to save more space to allow more survivors to obtain boarding qualifications.

Now, with the appearance of Enhancement Scrolls, the area of the Water Base suddenly tripled. And it was because of this increase in area that Officials began planning to rejuvenate agriculture and animal husbandry.

According to the prompts on the tablet, Dong Tianyu found the auto-docking port designed for retractable Companion Spiritual Treasures. Compared to other docking points where space was occupied by ships, this place had a short queue time despite also having a line.

While queueing, Dong Tianyu observed the surroundings. Perhaps everyone already knew how to control the size of their Companion Spiritual Treasures, for at this moment, all of the queued Companions were in their original form.

Unlike when Dong Tianyu left, when most people's Companion Spiritual Treasures had at most evolved to be different from wooden ships, now, one could occasionally see on the docks various Companions that had successfully evolved along branch evolution paths.

However, the majority of Companion Spirits had chosen evolution paths focused mainly on Bearing (having special spaces) and Strengthening Base (ship sturdiness). Dong Tianyu saw only one Companion that had chosen the Wave-Breaking (ship water travel speed) direction. As for a Submersible Navigation evolution like Dong Tianyu's Companion, there were none to be seen.

It certainly couldn't be that Dong Tianyu was the only person to choose the Submersible Navigation branch during his Companion Spiritual Treasure's evolution.

Perhaps it was because Dong Tianyu had only been here for a short time, so he hadn't seen any other survivors who had chosen the Submersible Navigation branch like himself.

Just as Dong Tianyu had seen only one Companion that evolved in the Wave-Breaking direction, the absence of any seen with the Submersible Navigation path didn't mean that none had chosen it.

Besides, the fact that other survivors queueing around him didn't show any curiosity when seeing Dong Tianyu's Companion indicated that they probably had seen others select the Submersible Navigation evolution.

After boarding the dock, Dong Tianyu followed the crowd into the city gates. He had no idea why the Water Base would be surrounded by towering city walls, much like ancient cities.

Dong Tianyu certainly didn't believe what the patrolling staff had said—that these walls had been strengthened by Enhancement Scrolls while they were fortifying the base.

After all, it was clear that the walls, standing fully intact on the edge of the Water Base and leaving four perfectly orderly city gates, had definitely undergone government intervention during the expansion process.

Entering the city gate, Dong Tianyu was greeted by a bustling street, with clean, level pavements, and shops of all sorts lining both sides, giving him the feeling of walking through the shopping streets back in his hometown before the natural disaster struck.

Watching the smiles on people's faces and the lively scene of the street traffic, he couldn't help but feel a sense of return, as if swallows were heading back to their nests.

The vibrant surroundings eased the intense longing Dong Tianyu felt for home, and so he abandoned the idea of going back immediately and instead wove through the different shops.

Although the variety of goods in the base was not abundant, scarcity did not mean a lack of diversity in products.

When Dong Tianyu saw the skewered items sold in the snack shops that resembled aquatic creatures, he immediately realized that the rabbits still had a keen desire to explore when it came to food.

After all, there's an old saying that goes, in the Rabbit's Home, delicious things are ingredients, unpalatable things are medicinal, and inedible things are building materials.

Whenever rabbits encountered something unknown, their first instinct was to determine whether it was edible and if it was tasty.

Observing the streets, Dong Tianyu keenly noted that although Mysterious Cores were still used as currency, the high unit price meant that Contribution Points, distributed by the Officials, had once again become the base currency for transactions.

Through his careful observation, Dong Tianyu saw that the Mysterious Cores now were like ancient gold; while they could be circulated, they rarely appeared in everyday purchases.

Even though Mysterious Cores could be exchanged for Contribution Points at a ratio of about one to a thousand, it was primarily the Black Devil Cores that showed up—the dark green and Blood-Colored Mysterious Cores would never be seen on the streets.

After strolling through the entire street, Dong Tianyu stuffed the items he bought into his Storage space.

Compared to the past, many people had chosen the Bearing evolutionary branch for their Companion Spiritual Treasure, so even if the treasure was retracted back into the Sea of Consciousness, the special space inside the Companion Spiritual Treasure could still be used.

Because of this, survivors who had selected the Bearing evolution direction for their Companion Spirits could freely use that special space inside the Companion Spiritual Treasure after retracting it back into the Sea of Consciousness.

This was equivalent to having an extra Storage space during their daily activities. Moreover, even if they just chose the Bearing branch, the initial size of that Storage space was at least as big as a room.

An eight-square-meter floor multiplied by a height of three meters meant that, without further evolution, they would have an additional Storage space of twenty-four cubic meters.

It was probably for this reason that so many people chose the Bearing evolutionary path; otherwise, the majority would have selected the Strengthening Base direction.

After all, among the four different options, only Strengthening Base truly enhanced survivors' survival capabilities, while the other three options were fundamentally auxiliary abilities.

Because many had chosen the Bearing direction, and many Awakeners possessed objects with Storage space, people were no longer surprised to see items suddenly vanish from someone's hands on the street.

Perhaps due to some people's relocation, the base's bottom area where Dong Tianyu remembered, was also being remodeled, so many of the routes he remembered had vanished. Luckily, the Platform had a navigation function, which spared Dong Tianyu from calling someone to pick him up; he wanted to surprise his family with an unexpected homecoming.

Following the directions on the navigation, Dong Tianyu quickly arrived at the floor where he had previously bought his property, but he didn't expect that, just like the floors below, this one was also undergoing extensive renovation and transformation.