The darkness loomed ahead, yet Lucien stepped out of his house after making up his mind.

The solar panels barely managed to power up one single fan and a light bulb in each of the houses, so it made sense that it was dark in the hallway.

But despite the reasoning, he still felt a little hesitant to go downstairs.

Because people would be no less than zombies when they were starved to the point of no return, and a lot of people should be already running low on food.

So being cautious was necessary.

Thankfully, he didn’t find anyone till he reached near the stairs, and gripping the nail gun tightly in his hand, he started descending the staircase step by step.

Not having any source of light, all he could rely on was himself to keep a count of the floors while maintaining a slow, constant pace.

Shriek.

Lucien’s breath hitched at the sound, and only after making sure that it was a normal rat did he sigh in relief.

He had almost gotten a flashback of how he had died, but not wanting to relive those memories, he forced his mind to focus ahead.

Though risky, he had decided to step out at night because wasting a single second could cost him the fishing gear.

And he wasn’t sure if touching a crude, makeshift fishing gear would be counted in the system, and even if it did, he would need to pull the better gear from the gacha, and he didn’t have that much time on his hands.

That thing can easily lift a half-mutated fish, and as the room is on the sixth floor, I can leave it hanging in the air for long enough to let it die or finish the job with my nail gun.

Luckily, he encountered no one except for some strange sounds on the fifteenth floor.

Curiosity kills the cat.

Muttering the phrase in his head, he ignored the sound and continued to descend.

Reaching the sixth floor, he turned left and found the room he needed to enter.

Fuck, it’s locked.

Couldn’t the person have at least opened the door before dying?

But it wasn’t the time to complain.

Taking a step back, he lifted his right leg and kicked with full force near the lock area.

A small thud echoed in the hallway, yet the door didn’t break.

Only after multiple attempts did he manage to enter the apartment and the first thing he saw made him stop.

Exactly as the messages in the community group chat had described, the man lay near the sofa with the cooking pot still clutched in his hands.

Ignoring him, Lucien made sure to block the door with a heavy cupboard, and only then did he feel somewhat safe.

Then he searched every room before he eventually found what he was looking for.

---

[Fishing Gear Detected! Utility equipment is already added into the roulette.]

---

More than half of the things in his own house had entered either the utility equipment or furnishing category.

Still, he was grateful that the items were detected and added only when he wanted them to, or else the huge number of notifications might have already made his head hurt.

A fishing gear was something he had used back in the day and despite this one being a little more advanced, he quickly got the gist of how it worked.

He darted around the house and made a setup with a chair and a bucket near the balcony window, and started to fish.

Ten minutes passed by...

Thirty minutes passed by...

Is it this hard to catch a fish? I even added bait to the hook, but why can’t I catch a single one?

Irritated, just as he was complaining in his head, a sudden jolt ran up his arms and the fishing rod had almost gone into the Black Water below if not for him instantly tightening his grip on it.

Pulling it up, he found it to be lighter than he had expected. And sure enough, what he found was a small fish that kept bouncing back and forth on the floor.

Lucien was cautious enough to keep his distance.

He took out his nail gun and fired five shots in succession, though only three of them managed to land.

This creature, even if half-mutated, lost its life after not being in the water for long enough coupled with Lucien’s barrage of shots.

Only after making sure it was dead did he retrieved out a knife that he had managed to find in the kitchen behind and start to butcher the fish.

This fish is so small, and the signs of mutation aren’t even visible on its body, due to which it looks just like a normal fish, so it probably doesn’t even have an awakening crystal.

But contrary to his expectations, he found a spherical crystal that was as small as the eye of the fish beneath him.

With widened eyes and slight nervousness, Lucien held the crystal up close, making sure that it wasn’t something else. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

And he wasn’t disappointed.

Seeing the multiple colors of lights flowing inside it like waves of the sea, he was now completely sure that it was the awakening crystal that he hadn’t managed to obtain in his past life.

He simply couldn’t believe it. How lucky would one need to be to find a fish that contained an awakening crystal on their first try?

Well, he couldn’t care less about that right now and just as he was about to consume it, he remembered the system and instantly stopped himself.

With a thought, Lucien let the system scan the orb.

---

[Immature-spiritual orb detected! Spiritual items are added into the roulette.]

---

Immature? Spiritual?

Lucien didn’t know what to say as he felt his world turning upside down.

Didn’t the people call it only the awakening crystal? Why was the system telling him it was spiritual?

He just couldn’t digest the fact that something called spiritual was obtained from the Black Water that had mutated other species and killed the humans.

Wait? Weren’t terms like spiritual related to cultivation novels?

Feeling even more confused, he kept racking his brain only to reach a dead end due to the lack of information.

Deciding to think about it later, he pocketed the crystal in his shirt for now.

If it’s immature, it would be a waste to consume it now, and there is even a chance I can get a mature spiritual awakening orb from the system directly from now on.

As much as he wanted to awaken, he couldn’t settle with a lower talent or an ability that he would have no use.

That’s when he checked his phone and realised it was already 12:47am.

Midnight had passed.

Another pull was awaiting.

And this time, a whole new variety of things were within his reach.