Dong Junwei kept her eyes closed, fully focused on the piece of iron in her hand. However, this made others step back in fear, worried that she might accidentally trigger an explosion.
"Stop, stop, stop!"
"Don't heat it up any further."
"..."
Everyone quickly spoke up to stop her.
Only then did Dong Junwei open her eyes and look at the piece of iron emitting a blue smoke. Even she was startled and instinctively let go of it.
"Thud!"
The heated iron block fell to the ground.
"What's this?"
"It seems like she can really change the object's temperature," Chen Mu turned and asked Tang Jing.
"It's hard to say for now."
Tang Jing turned to Dong Junwei again and asked, "Squad leader, you can't feel your hand?"
"No," Dong Junwei shook her head.
"How did you do it?"
"I didn't do anything. Just as Chen Mu said, I focused my mind on this iron block, and it changed on its own."
"Did you have the idea of 'heating' it?"
"No."
"Then, can you make it cool down?"
"I'll try."
At this moment, Dong Junwei also realized that she had heated the iron block to this point, yet she didn't feel any burns.
She bent down, picked up the iron block again, and concentrated her mind once more. But this time, she silently asked it to cool down.
However, after about a minute or so, the iron block not only didn't cool down, but more blue smoke emerged, even giving the illusion that it might turn red soon.
"Squad leader, stop!"
Dong Junwei had just discovered her ability, and the excitement was overwhelming. Without anyone intervening, she might have ended up melting the iron block.
She quickly stopped her actions.
The temperature of the iron block seemed to stop rising.
"It's not about controlling the temperature," Tang Jing remarked.
"Can she only heat things up?" Chen Mu asked.
"Maybe, we'll study it more later."
Having one more subject for research made Tang Jing look quite happy. Dong Junwei and Chen Mu exchanged glances, and the former probably felt like she was being treated as an experiment.
But Dong Junwei herself was curious about her ability and gladly agreed to be part of the study.
"Let's quickly head back for now."
A group of nine people.
Returning with a full load.
On the way here, Wei Dalei and a few other boys took turns pushing the handcart. However, once it was loaded up, others couldn't help because there was only one handle, and no one else could lend a hand.
But for Wei Dalei, the weight was no problem at all.
The handcart was quite roughly made, with four wheels. Individually, they were smooth enough, but making each of them exactly the same in size was beyond Chen Mu's current level of control. If he had to do it, it would take a very long time.
Creak... Creak...
After filling it with rice grains and water.
The handcart's sounds became even more unpleasant.
...
Although the journey wasn't too far, the round trip, along with the time spent dealing with rice weevils and bathing, brought them back to their original storage room close to noon.
Wei Dalei, Zhu Hao, and others were busy unloading the water buckets from the handcart, while the rice grains remained on it.
They still didn't have a fixed campsite and just rested around the towels.
After a busy morning, the first thing they felt was hunger.
"Oh no, the cakes are all gone."
"We can't eat them even if there were some left."
"But we have rice."
"But we can only eat it raw."
"..."
"Eating raw rice results in poor nutrient absorption and can likely cause indigestion, stomach pain, and diarrhea in the short term. To avoid hunger for now, we may have to do it this way, but it won't work in the long run," Tang Jing explained and then chuckled, "But it seems like that's not a problem anymore."
" Squad leader?" Chen Mu said.
"Yeah, that's why I said we're really lucky. Although we're not entirely sure what the squad leader's ability is, just the fact that she can heat up iron is enough to solve our current problem."
Because the half piece of iron Chen Mu had was too hot to handle, Dong Junwei had been carrying it all the way.
But when they got back, the scorching hot iron showed no signs of cooling down.
Chen Mu naturally thought of using it to cook something.
However, Tang Jing suggested to Dong Junwei, "Squad leader, why don't you try heating up a rice grain directly?"
Dong Junwei nodded.
Wei Dalei was thrilled at the prospect of having something to eat and quickly brought a rice grain from the handcart.
"But be careful, if it works, it might turn into popcorn, and the explosion could be quite powerful."
"I know."
Dong Junwei replied and placed her palm on the rice grain, just like before, closing her eyes and concentrating.
However, to their disappointment, the rice grain showed no response throughout the process.
"Why is it like this?"
"Does it only work on metal?"
"Let's try something else."
After saying that, Tang Jing picked up a piece of stone from the ground.
The quality of the cement floor was not that great, and over time, it had some loose particles, along with some sand particles that had blown in from elsewhere. The ground was far from clean for humans.
Even the so-called "stone" was just a larger grain of sand.
Before Dong Junwei and the others encountered Chen Mu, they used these stones to repel ants.
Dong Junwei held the stone in one hand and tried the same method.
They waited for about a minute.
The stone showed no sign of change.
"Is there any heat being generated?"
Chen Mu approached the stone, quickly tapped it with his finger, and immediately pulled back.
Then he shook his head at everyone.
"Ai..."
Everyone felt deflated.
Dong Junwei also sighed slightly. She was becoming more and more puzzled about her ability. Perhaps Chen Mu's guess was right - her power could only heat up metals.
This ability wasn't bad.
Especially now, it perfectly solved their cooking problem.
But it still lacked self-defense capability.
She and Chen Mu shared the same thought: they wouldn't survive the present situation. No matter what they said, if a centipede crawled in while they were sleeping tonight, their cooking problem with the centipede would be solved too.
Dong Junwei had mixed feelings but eventually stopped overthinking it and casually threw the stone away.
Perhaps as a way to vent her frustration, Dong Junwei threw it a bit harder, and the stone drew an arc before landing heavily on the ground.
"Boom."
The sudden explosion scared everyone.
Everyone quickly looked towards the source of the sound.
It was the stone Dong Junwei had just thrown.
Over there, a dark patch had been blown on the ground.
Everyone was dumbfounded.
The explosion wasn't significant, at most like a slightly larger firecracker, but the fact that a regular stone could cause such a powerful explosion left them all perplexed.
"What just happened?"
"Did the stone turn into an explosive?"
"..."
Dong Junwei herself was stunned, not knowing what to do.
As everyone discussed it excitedly,
Tang Jing suddenly said, "I think I understand a bit now."
"What's that?"
"I guess Dong Junwei's ability is a kind of energy infusion, but its effect varies depending on the material it targets."
"Heating up metals and causing explosions in stones?" Chen Mu followed up.
"While we may need a more precise description, for now, that seems to be the case," Tang Jing nodded.