Chapter 2 The World's Situation
As he took the pills, he felt a warm current began flowing through his body. Soon, he began to feel aching all over his body. As the pain's intensity increased, Ceid almost shouted at the top of his lungs.
He tried to remain conscious and direct the warm currents flowing all over his body. It would be a bad idea if the flow became chaotic. It would hinder the healing process. If he were to pass out without guiding the pills' efficacy, the effect would be minimal.
To avoid biting his tongue due to pain, Ceid quickly reached out towards a nearby dead branch and bit on it.
The process took a long time.
He was unable to recall how long he had been in pain. What he did know, though, was that as soon as the healing process was over, he immediately spat up a large amount of old blood. Afterward, he fell to the ground and fainted right away.
It was unknown how long he had remained unconscious.
When the shade inside the jungle became darker, Ceid soon awakened from his slumber. At first, his mind was confused before he recalled what he had been doing before passing out.
Once more, he tried to sit up.
Wyd, are you there?
He tried calling his personal WiBodath System, Wyd. But as expected, he didn't get any response from Wyd.
He could only sigh.
Although having Wyd provides various conveniences, it does come with a slight disadvantage.
That is, it heavily relies on mental strength.
As a system integrated into one's consciousness, it uses the user's mental strength to operate and run the system.
Because of this, users were freed from the trouble of traditional computers that existed on Earth. As long as the user promotes their mental strength, the WiBodath System's computing power will increase accordingly.
But, precisely because of this, the entry requirement to integrate the WiBodath System was for the user's mental strength to reach a certain threshold. If the user's mental strength deteriorates or their consciousness is injured, the system will be influenced accordingly.
For now, I'll search for a nearby settlement.
He no longer felt pain as he moved his body this time. He attempted to channel his own Aura Qi. Naturally, he was able to breathe in the surrounding Aura Qi again.
It appeared that his physical body and his meridians had recovered as expected.
Even the headache was much lesser.
Though he knew the headache would not disappear until the injury to his mental consciousness was healed.
After checking his body and condition, he immediately felt the need to take a bath.
His body was bloody from the injury he suffered previously. The peeled skin and scars after his body healed his injury started to fall off as he moved. Even the smells of blood and puke were irritating.
However, he was too weak to go inside his storage space. With his current mental strength, he could hardly take out the items he had stored inside.
Plus, given the time, he needed to get a move soon.
So he took out several bottles of water from his storage space and began to wash himself up. As he scraped off all the peeled skin and blood clots from his body, his newly grown skin was smooth without scars.
Later, he took out a white cotton shirt and black jeans and wore them. He also wore a long black hooded coat over them. He immediately felt refreshed and energetic after tidying himself up.
After confirming he had not forgotten anything else, he walked outside. He had been curious about the origin of the never-ending stream of footsteps he had heard since arriving in this world.
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On the outskirts of the forest, a continuous crowd of people was seen walking in an orderly manner towards a single direction.
Far away, various cars and vehicles were seen entering an underground facility while many people emerged from the underground.
Everyone was carrying a simple traveling bag and trolleys. Some even carried adjustable retractable rods, poles, and camping gear. Others were pushing hand trolleys full of various boxes and toolboxes.
Only the military trucks and specialized vehicles were seen driving in the middle of the road towards the city's entrance.
Once in a while, a large container truck was seen hurrying along the dedicated road leading to a separate region of the city.
The evacuation process was proceeding according to the plan in an orderly manner.
Everybody was quiet and solemn. Occasionally, all that could be heard were whispers or murmurs. Even the kids had sensed the adults' emotions and had remained silent.
It would never be a pleasant experience, regardless of how frequently the people encountered the beast tides.
The early warning given by the Beast Kinematics Monitoring Department was not absolute. There's always a small probability that the situation will escalate to a catastrophic one.
Even if things have improved recently, news reports of some cities being breached or the death toll being beyond estimation still occasionally surfaced.
More sadly, the people were no longer alarmed if news broke out about a city falling prey to the beast tide. It was as if the people had grown accustomed to such tragic results.
But if outsiders were to see this sea of people, they would observe a peculiar phenomenon among them.
That was the absence of babies or young children among the evacuee population. The smallest age group among the children was only four years old.
This was due to the legislation that the government had implemented since the catastrophe started.
Said law requires children three years old and below to be raised inside the city wall with their mothers. This was done to ensure the survival of the species.
Thus, each family that planned on having a child needed to plan their stay within the city.
To ease the people's burden, mothers and their infants could reside in nurturing facilities set up by the local government in each city fully subsidized. From the time the pregnancy entered its seventh month until the kid was born safely and reached three years old, they could stay there.
As such, only grown kids were seen outside the city walls.
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At this moment, a man in his early thirties was walking towards the opening outside the jungle. He, who had come from the deeper part of the jungle, was wearing a black outfit with his face hidden inside the hoodie.
He moved stealthily between the trees. As soon as he neared the clearing outside, he chose a tall tree that offered the ideal viewing position. He climbed up the large tree and settled down on a broad branch. Perched high in the tree, he cast his eyes outward.
Taking advantage of the shadows cast by the large tree and his black outfit, he secretly watched the crowd.
As an outsider, Ceid didn't know about the evacuation order or the approaching disaster. But he could deduce a few things by judging how the crowd's actions.
The first point was that these crowds were civilians from this world.
The second point was that it was clear from the large numbers that they were either evacuees or refugees. But from their mannerisms and clothes, Ceid was leaning more toward the latter.
Third, this crowd's destination appeared to be the entrance further ahead.
Fourth, the citizens of this world seemed to be facing a great peril that necessitated the construction of tall fortifications.
Fifth, this world's technological tree and level appeared comparable to Earth's.
Sixth, the cultivation level of the average people was nonexistent. Meaning the people of this world had not entered an intergalactic era.
Lastly, the most noteworthy observation that excited Ceid was that humans of various species lived and survived here. So far, besides the Annasi people, he had seen Elven people, Dwarf people, Feline people, and Phoenix people.
Unlike here, the Earth only had the Annasi people who survived to the modern era.
At the same time, based on these observations, there are several scenarios Cied could think of to describe his current situation.
It could either be that the world had just begun to recover Aura Qi, the world's animals and beasts suffered mutation due to heavy pollution, or a rogue group of invaders from an advanced civilization had begun to target this world's resources.
These three scenarios were the most common ones that met his situation, though these bits of knowledge were what he was taught during his training back in the previous world.
However, there weren't many resources in an underdeveloped world that could attract people from advanced civilizations.
He thought to himself as he excluded the invasion possibility.
As for the other two, Ceid could not determine the exact situation of this world temporarily.
After he had gained some knowledge and estimation about this world, Ceid decided to follow the crowd and sneak into the city.
Yes, he needed to sneak into the city.
Because currently, he doesn't have an identification document for this world.
This would be the biggest challenge in his plan to blend in with this world. Before deciding on his next move, he had to find a solution to this problem first.
Fortunately, things were a little chaotic at the moment. It is unlikely that the guards would rigorously screen each person entering the city.
After determining his outfit would not be out of place to blend in with the crowd, he decided to take advantage of them and enter the city.
Well, if Wyd is here, it would be much easier for me to resolve this issue.
He murmured in his heart as he walked out of the forest.