Doomsday Cognition Guide

Life went on steadily, like a millstone turning. The search and rescue operation in the county town had only a few remote townships left. Li Xuan's routine remained unchanged—practicing martial arts, assisting the search and rescue team, hunting zombies to collect crystal cores, only without encountering a second mutated beast. In addition, he made a steadfast trip to the county town every Monday without fail.

The empty warehouse next to the stadium has become a regular training ground. Every time he comes, the armed police and regular police are already lined up, with cameras and recording equipment set up nearby.

He still taught the basics—standing meditation, power generation, and the transmission of integrated power. Some people were eager to learn the "Fangcun Kill" technique, so he repeated his words: "If your foundation isn't solid, rushing to learn advanced boxing techniques will only result in muscle strains at best, and fascia tears at worst." Now no one argued with him anymore; they had witnessed firsthand how he killed that mutated bull. Every lesson was recorded in its entirety, compiled, and sent to the highest levels of government.

A commotion arose outside the warehouse. Deputy Secretary Zhang approached with several people, carrying a list. Over the past few days, the county had identified twenty to thirty individuals exhibiting signs of special abilities, mostly enhancements—increased strength, speed, stamina, and heightened senses. These individuals were prioritized for combat teams, with immediate results. Those with increased strength could carry heavier shields, those with increased speed could no longer outrun zombies, those with increased stamina could carry more equipment, and those with enhanced senses could detect anomalies ten seconds earlier than ordinary people when on alert.

There were quite a few elementalists, but their roles varied. Metal elementalists were the most sought after; the county later found two more, a fitter and a steelworker, who were immediately snapped up by the construction team. Earth elementalists were also rare talents in the construction team, as they directly controlled the cement mortar, mixing it themselves and removing air, saving a lot of time and manpower. Water elementalists were responsible for purifying the water; several water elementalists took turns standing beside the reservoir every day, putting their hands into the water and using their minds to separate impurities.

Lightning is the rarest, but also the most practical. In the county town, there's an old repairman surnamed Qian who's repaired appliances for decades. After the Blood Moon, he awakened his lightning powers. Now, he doesn't even need to disassemble equipment; he can tell which wire is broken or which component is burnt just by touching the machine with his finger. He single-handedly repaired most of the communication equipment and medical instrument power modules destroyed by the solar storm. His father and he have spoken a few times via walkie-talkie, and Li Xuan could tell from his father's tone that he hadn't had such a congenial conversation with anyone in a long time.

As for fire and wind types, the situation is somewhat awkward.

The fire-elemental awakeners were all young people. They were incredibly excited when their abilities first awakened, but after a few days they discovered that they were useless for cooking—the main kitchen used firewood and coal, and the cooks had much more precise control over the heat than they did; they were also insufficient for combat, as the initial fireballs were not even as hot as a pot of boiling water. Every day after training, the group would sit in a corner, watching other ability users being selected by various departments, while no one wanted them.

However, a few weeks later, when the temperature began to drop significantly, the situation changed. A layer of frost covered the windows of the training ground warehouse. During a training session, Li Xuan had a fire-type user step forward to test it out—after that person activated their ability, the temperature in the entire warehouse rose by more than ten degrees within minutes, the mercury column in the thermometer on the wall climbed rapidly, and the people around who were wrapped in coats loosened their collars.

"Alright," Li Xuan said.

The fire-type user withdrew his power and was startled by the noticeably warmer air around him. Li Xuan explained to them that the essence of fire-type abilities is the resonant thermal motion of air molecules—raising the temperature by several hundred degrees instantly is indeed difficult, but raising the temperature of an entire room by a dozen degrees is effortless, requiring no combustion medium and no heat conduction time. With a thought, all the air molecules in the entire space simultaneously begin to vibrate at an accelerated pace.

Once winter truly arrives and gets cold, a fire-type ability user can easily heat the entire building. Winters in this county town aren't too cold; we can manage without heating. But in some parts of the north, without heating, people can truly freeze to death. At that time, several fire-type ability users will probably be temporarily reassigned.

The young fire-elemental students exchanged glances, then looked at the thermometer on the wall, and no one complained anymore. The young man who had once tried to vent his frustration over cold noodles went home that night and ate a whole bowl of hot noodles, leaving not a drop of soup.

As for Deputy Secretary Zhang, Li Xuan didn't say much—this old-fashioned man didn't need anyone to remind him. He had taken the initiative to report the video of the martial arts demonstration last time, and when he heard that the fire system could provide centralized heating, he naturally knew how to write a report.

The young man from the Wind faction was an armed police officer. He showed no impatience, maintaining the composure expected of a soldier. Li Xuan admired him greatly. After each training session, he would stay behind to practice for an extra half hour, not to practice moves, but to break down the stances and repeatedly find his center of gravity. Once, Li Xuan passed by and saw him standing alone in a corner of the warehouse, eyes closed, knees slightly bent, standing there for almost twenty minutes.

Li Xuan didn't disturb him. He thought of the Storm Assault Team from his previous life, a heroic unit. The true purpose of wind magic in its early stages was flight—wind magic's manipulation of air currents, combined with wingsuits, allowed one to soar freely through the air. Of course, he didn't intend to say it aloud, because that was an honor belonging to a true hero.

A solar storm, coupled with an eruption of dark energy from Earth's core, damaged all high-tech weapons, with the Air Force being the most severely affected. Aircraft were grounded, radar stations were damaged, and the entire Air Force was effectively disbanded. But one person was not satisfied—Colonel Zhou Lieyun, a top-class Air Force pilot.

After awakening his wind-based superpowers, he saw a glimmer of hope. Through hundreds of experiments, almost every one resulting in injuries, and once he even spent seven days in the hospital before regaining consciousness, he finally developed a set of techniques for using his wind-based superpowers in conjunction with wingsuit flying. Later, he applied to reorganize the air force, namely the Storm Commando. Li Xuan still clearly remembers Colonel Zhou's words recorded in the documents—

"Even without airplanes, I'm still in the air force."

This single vulgar word was officially recorded in the war history.

The Storm Commando was formed in the first year of the cataclysm, carrying out the most dangerous and urgent support missions. At that time, for the various bases, seeing the Storm Commando meant seeing hope for survival. Many people regarded the Storm Commando as an object of worship, and Li Xuan himself wished he could awaken his wind-type ability and join them.

In the seventh year after the apocalypse, king-level individuals emerged among the mutated beasts, their formidable strength rendering them virtually immune to attacks from firearms. These beast kings began to provoke humanity, losing all fear of human weapons, threatening major bases worldwide. A foreign power deployed a nuclear missile to attack a beast king, but unfortunately, it escaped the core area, sustaining only minor external injuries. This attack emboldened the beast kings even further, especially the avian beast king, whose flight speed broke the sound barrier, its agility far surpassing that of aircraft and missiles.

A flying Beast King entered Chinese airspace, heading north and directly threatening the capital base. The Storm Commando was ordered to intercept it, ultimately killing it by flying directly into the Beast King's mouth with a tactical nuclear bomb. The cost was the complete annihilation of the Storm Commando's elite members. This was the first Beast King killed by humans, making other Beast Kings hesitant to attack human bases recklessly—they feared another madman willing to feed nuclear bombs into its mouth. This bought humanity a respite until the tenth year after the apocalypse, when the Three Sovereigns rose to power, establishing a new balance.

In that timeline, Li Xuan was merely an ordinary person protected by heroes. He didn't want to claim any of the heroes' honors, so he didn't mention a word about his wind-based abilities. He believed that there was also a Colonel Zhou Lieyun in this world—the appearance of heroes was inevitable, not accidental.

As usual, questions were asked after the training session. Someone asked if supernatural abilities helped with cultivation. Li Xuan answered honestly: Enhancement-type abilities definitely help with generating power, making one stronger than an ordinary person under the same conditions; regarding the benefits of elemental abilities, he only briefly mentioned them—lightning abilities greatly help with controlling force, water abilities offer some help with sensing vibrations, and other elemental abilities generally only have a noticeable effect on cultivation in the later stages. He didn't go into detail because it was too early; most of these people hadn't even reached the first rank yet, and mentioning things too far ahead would only make them restless.

"Helpful actions always come with hidden dangers," Li Xuan concluded. "Taking shortcuts always comes at a price."

This is also why he didn't directly absorb the lightning-type crystal core. He knew better than anyone how helpful lightning abilities were for martial arts training.

The core of the integrated power stage is learning the correct sequence of muscle activation. For ordinary people, just finding the feeling of "power traveling from the soles of the feet to the fists" takes months. But those with lightning powers can directly control muscles—once the current arrives, the muscles naturally contract, and the path of force transmission can be directly perceived without repeated trial and error. Those with lightning powers can achieve integrated power almost instantly.

In the stage of internal strength, the core principle is "using intention, not force." The difficulty lies in the fact that the brain always instinctively tries to exert force. However, the electrical stimulation of lightning abilities is naturally passive—it completes the contraction for the muscles, and the mind only needs to learn to guide the rhythm, without needing to overcome the habit of "wanting to use force." Therefore, lightning ability users comprehend internal strength much faster than ordinary people.

The core of the Transformation Stage is vibration interference—sensing the vibration frequency of the opponent's power and using one's own vibration to couple, neutralize, and return it. Lightning power itself is a high-frequency vibration, and those who possess it naturally have a high sensitivity to vibration, which also has a certain auxiliary effect in the cultivation of Transformation.

But the problem isn't the lightning power itself—the problem is taking shortcuts.

There are no shortcuts to building fascial elasticity. Electric current can help you control muscles, but it can't lengthen or toughen fascia; willpower can guide force transmission, but it can't replace the daily stretching and adaptation of joints and ligaments. Skipped lessons must be made up for sooner or later. In his previous life, he had seen too many examples like this in the military: some awakened individuals used their abilities to quickly advance to higher levels, but when it came to precise control, their power was like a ruler without markings—it could be thrown out, but couldn't be pulled back.

He twirled the crystal core between his fingertips. The greatest value of the crystal core in accelerating cultivation lay in the initial stages of developing integrated strength and hidden strength. He had already mastered integrated strength on his own and touched the threshold of hidden strength. At this point, absorbing the crystal core would yield a significantly reduced acceleration effect. It wasn't worth incurring a debt he would eventually have to repay for a negligible acceleration.

As for giving the crystal core to the cave salamander clone—the life force field combined with lightning power is indeed an excellent combination, but the clone has not yet fully awakened its power, and giving it an external crystal core to absorb now would interfere with its own awakening process. He has a detailed plan for the clone's growth: after the clone's power is fully awakened, find an electric eel that has awakened its power and let it absorb and assimilate it, that is the right way.

But he thought about his father's matter using a different logic.

My father was born with the extraordinary power of lightning, and using electricity for power training is simply a normal application of his ability. He can directly find the conduction path for whole-body strength through electricity, and he can quickly grasp the technique of using intention without force under the stimulation of electricity—these are advantages bestowed by God, so why not take advantage of them? As for the issue of needing to catch up later on to take shortcuts, that's no big deal; he can just catch up.

His expectations for his father were simple: just enough to protect himself. He didn't expect his father to become a top expert; as long as he could handle zombies and escape unscathed from danger, that would be enough. With his father's current foundation, he should first use his special ability to quickly improve his combat power, master the transmission chain and power generation techniques, and then gradually make up for the lack of physical fitness and fascial elasticity later. Any lessons missed could be made up over time.

But the requirements for myself are completely different.

He must perfect every step he takes. Not for the present, but for the future. Transformation of Inner Strength, Elixir Strength, External Force, and Indestructible Spirit—each realm demands even higher precision in fascial elasticity and delicate control over vibration. Any shortcuts he takes now will become an insurmountable obstacle at higher levels. He doesn't want temporary strength, but sustained strength.

Moreover, he always had a heavy weight on his mind.

On the other timeline, those memories never truly faded. That despair—standing before the Lord of the Void, the other didn't even give him a second glance—not because he couldn't defeat him, but because he wasn't even worthy of being considered an opponent. He assimilated all his comrades with all his might, stepping into the tenth rank, reaching the realm of demigod, and comprehending the information field—all surrounding information would automatically enter your mind. You could see a person, without them speaking, and judge from their scent, the residue on their clothes, even their micro-expressions, where they came from, where they were going, what had happened before them, and even predict what would happen next. That level of power was extremely strong; naturally controlling everything around him was perhaps the origin of his current divinity.

But when he stood before the Lord of the Void Realm, all the information told him: he was beyond his power, impossible to analyze, and unpredictable. Like a floating ant gazing at the heavens, the Lord of the Void Realm didn't even raise his eyes to look at him, completely unconcerned about the ant that had appeared before him. He barely managed to overcome his instincts and launch an attack, but his attack passed right through the Lord, causing no damage whatsoever, like a pebble thrown into the ocean, only creating a slight ripple. The difference wasn't in strength, but in dimension.

He didn't want to experience that despair and helplessness a second time. He had to reach a higher level, not for himself, but to fulfill the last wishes of everyone—including himself.

My father's path was pragmatic—start running, and fix things as he went. His path was perfectionistic—lay a solid foundation with every step before building on top. Neither path was right or wrong. My father only needed to protect himself; he needed to strive for a higher level.

At night, Li Xuan stood between three wooden stakes and practiced the Fangcun Kill technique again. Shoulder strike, elbow strike, horizontal movement, triple strike, knee strike—the rhythm was smooth, the amplitude extremely small, the wooden stakes trembled slightly, each segment resonating at a different frequency. He finished his stance, a thin layer of sweat on his forehead.