Chapter 25: Energy

Upon receiving the call from Jiang Yi, Jiang Yu was surprised that her recent activities had caused such a stir.

"I'm fine. I was just running an experiment, and it accidentally exploded."

"You call that fine? Just wait there, I’m coming over to check on you."

Before Jiang Yu could say anything else, the line went dead. She sighed, put her phone away, and went back to cleaning up the scene. By the time Jiang Yi arrived, she had already tidied everything up; apart from a damaged table, there was no sign that an explosion had occurred at all.

"I told you I was fine. You didn't have to come all the way over here."

"I was worried about you, wasn't I?" Jiang Yi felt relieved seeing that Jiang Yu was completely unharmed. "By the way, what were you doing just now? Why did an explosion happen?"

For many days, Jiang Yu had locked herself in her house, refusing to let anyone disturb her. No one knew what she was working on inside.

"I was trying to study the crystal cores."

"Why study those? Does the crystal core have some other use?"

Their people had studied these cores before, but they had never come up with anything significant.

"Yes. I’m trying to purify the energy inside. If I can do that, Awakeners won't have to worry about being contaminated by dark matter when they absorb the energy."

"Really?"

Jiang Yi was stunned. He hadn't realized purification was even possible. The reason they were afraid to use the crystal cores was the fear of being corrupted. If Jiang Yu’s method actually worked, it would solve one of their greatest dilemmas. With the levels of the mutants constantly rising, they had been agonizing over the fact that their own Awakeners couldn't increase their power.

"Of course it's real. Why would I lie to you?"

"Then, have you succeeded?"

"Not yet, but I'm getting close."

"This kind of work is dangerous. You need to keep yourself safe while researching. Tell me, do you need me to assign some people to assist you?"

"Not for now. Let me achieve success first, then we can arrange for others to follow up."

"Alright, that works."

***

In the days that followed, Jiang Yu continued her research on the crystal cores. From time to time, the sounds of explosions would echo from her direction in the base. At first, it would startle everyone, but eventually, they grew accustomed to it.

Finally, one day, the people nearby realized they hadn't heard an explosion for a long time. It felt strange to them; by this time, it usually would have already gone off.

"Has something happened?"

"Do you think we should report this?"

"Better report it to the higher-ups. It’s better to be safe than sorry." If something went wrong just because they didn't report it, that would be...

And so, they reported the anomaly to Jiang Yi.

—

When Jiang Yu received the call, she was puzzled as to why Jiang Yi would suddenly ring her.

"Oh, isn't it normal not to hear an explosion? Unless you wanted me to never figure it out."

"Wait, are you saying you succeeded?" Jiang Yi stood up from his chair in a flash, pacing back and forth in excitement.

To be honest, Jiang Yu was also quite thrilled. "I succeeded. I’ve already tested it, and the results are quite good. I didn't feel a trace of dark matter. Do you want to come and see for yourself?"

"Yes, yes, yes! I'm coming right now."

When Jiang Yi arrived, Jiang Yu handed him a portion of the purified energy, asking him to absorb it and feel the effect. Jiang Yi took the energy and followed her instructions. Instantly, he felt the energy within his body straining to be released. He couldn't help but stretch out his hands, where fine, needle-like currents of electricity hovered and crisscrossed above his palms.

Afraid of destroying the room, Jiang Yi fought to control his energy, slowly clenching his fists.

"Xiao Yu, you really are our lucky star."

Jiang Yi was too moved for words. With this, all Awakeners could increase their strength by absorbing purified energy.

"Big Brother, you can arrange for people to come now. But let's be clear: purifying energy consumes a lot of crystal cores. The little bit you just absorbed took nearly ten cores to refine—and that’s not even counting the ones that were wasted."

She could provide some cores, but she had to act within her means. She also needed the cores to improve her own abilities.

"Fine, we can afford even a large quantity of cores."

The cores their people obtained from killing mutants were almost all turned over to the base, so they were actually quite wealthy at the moment.

Subsequently, Jiang Yi sent people over, and Jiang Yu took charge of teaching them how to refine the energy. Once they took over, she stepped back from the project. She couldn't stay in the base forever; she still had to go out to kill mutants and complete the tasks assigned by her system.

***

After resting for a day, Jiang Yu bid farewell to Jiang Yi and set off.

"Big Brother, didn't you say my sister arrived at the base? Where is she?"

"She left."

"What? When did she leave?"

"Half an hour ago. Why, didn't you pass her on the road?"

Jiang Mu rolled his eyes at him. If he had passed her, he wouldn't be asking. As he turned to leave, Jiang Yi called out, "Hey, you just got back, where are you going?"

"To find my sister." With that, Jiang Mu walked away without looking back.

On the other side, after leaving the base, Jiang Yu followed the system's prompts to an abandoned city. It had been largely occupied by mutants, and this mission was to completely clear them out.

The authorities had sent people here before, but every time they cleared the mutants, another batch would appear the next day. After several failed attempts, they had abandoned the location. Strangely, the number of mutants never increased, nor did they ever wander outside the city limits. It was as if they had made this city their home.

Jiang Yu carefully observed her surroundings, cleanly and efficiently dispatching any mutants she encountered.

Here, she ran into a group of mutants every few minutes. They were low-level, but there were simply too many of them. They would appear in groups of a dozen or more, and sometimes she would be surrounded by a dense sea of them.

After three days of work, Jiang Yu had killed all the mutants in the city. However, she didn't hear the system announcement confirming the mission was complete.

"System, what's going on? Didn't I kill all the mutants here?"

Jiang Yu had searched every corner of the city and was certain nothing had been missed.

[Apologies, Host. The mission status does indeed show as incomplete. As for the reason, please investigate for yourself.]

"You're really something!"

Jiang Yu was left speechless by the system.