Entering the Supermarket

Once the delightful feeling ended, Marco felt his body lighten up. He was still fat but moving around wasn't as hard anymore.

If he could run continuously for a minute before getting exhausted, it would take two minutes now. Isn't that a great improvement?! An improvement of a hundred percent!

-[Congratulations! You have become a Rank 1 Cultivator. You gained an additional bonus in attack and defense. Muscle and skin had turned slightly sturdier, while force collection and impact has increased.

"I'm a bit stronger now!" Marco was elated at the news, but the satisfaction didn't last for long when a follow-up notification appeared.

-[Spirit Exhaustion is in effect. The user's body is undergoing adjustments and is recovering from the spirit strain it received from the spirit overload. Automatic spirit gathering on hold to resume after a day. For every 10 seconds that the spirit overload lasted, an additional hour would be added to the automatic gathering reactivation period. Time: 26 hours and 58 minutes.

Marco's mouth hangs in disappointment after reading the description. For a moment, he wished that he could turn back time and stop using the ability since it didn't give much of a benefit besides hastening the killing process and heating up his stomach.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Marco returned to himself once he heard Jessica's voice from the side. "I'm fine. We'll head out now, I'll just have to do something," he explained then started looting the dead zombies on the other side of the fence.

Once everything was set, the two exited from the other gate. Most of the zombies that he killed came from this direction, which should make this path clear.

Just like he expected, there were no zombies in sight and they arrived at the next street without trouble. The supermarket was situated in a much-populated intersection on the outskirts of the town. Directly opposite of the supermarket was a gas station filled with abandoned cars.

At the moment, Marco doesn't see any threats in the area, but that doesn't mean there will be none. Still, they have to do what they came here for and had to enter the supermarket.

"Stick close to me and no matter what happens, don't raise your voice," said Marco.

Jessica gulped before nodding her head. She knew that they were now in an open space and could easily get overwhelmed.

Seeing that she understood his instructions, Marco started walking forward tightly gripping his iron spear. The repeated confrontations with the zombies have taught him a thing or two when using the spear as a weapon.

When dealing with lone zombies, he can take his time and conserve stamina. In contrast, fighting groups of zombies require him to cripple them one by one before dealing the killing blow. Zombies down on the ground have reduced damage and can't kill you.

This knowledge came from observation and his own experience.

The sun shone almost directly above them, causing beads of sweat to form on their backs. Though the weather is currently hot, the two of them are currently feeling cold due to nervousness. They don't know if the supermarket was filled with zombies and they will die after trying to escape.

The moment of truth came and they arrived next to the supermarket's entrance.

Marco took a peek and glimpsed at the overall state inside the supermarket.

"What do you see?" Jessica couldn't stop her curiously and whispered from the back.

"I can't see much, but the place seems to be empty, really empty. I have a bad feeling about this."

Marco had a hunch and entered the double doors. The glass doors swung open inside and the supermarket openly presented its current state to its visitors.

The supermarket was already looted. The floor was littered with spilled products and the food section was almost empty.

"What happened here?" Jessica mumbled unconsciously.

"A party happened here, and I'm afraid we were late to the party." Marco explained, then sighed, "The place doesn't seem to have any zombies. Let's take a look around. Maybe we can still find things that we can use."

"Alright, I'll head over to the food and hygiene section. Make some noise if you got spooked by something," said Jessica, then waved goodbye.

"Haha," replied Marco in a monotone, not appreciating her joke, then proceeded to search around for useful things.

Most of the essentials were already gone and only items without practical use remained. The art section remained intact filled with assorted colorful papers, together with decoration tools and materials. After that was the book section, he stopped by and grabbed a book about survival and another book about growing your own garden.

Next, he passed by the tool section and found out that handyman tools were still available and barely been touched. The tools that could be used as a weapon were obviously gone, but the small ones remained.

Before grabbing anything, Marco searched around for a toolbox and found them on the next rack. He chose a red steel toolbox with a metal latch. It's 19" big and is enough to store everything he will need.

Back to the tool section, he grabs a tape measure, a set of screwdrivers, a wood saw, pliers, wire cutters, spanners, sticky glues, and electrical tapes. When everything was inside the toolbox, he placed the toolbox in his inventory and became overjoyed seeing that his experiment worked.

He was hesitant at first whether the inventory would fail his little experiment of putting items inside a container, then storing them. Now that he learned that he could do this, he would use it to its fullest. Unfortunately, the system was not advanced enough for inventory layering. If he wants to access the items hidden inside the container, he had to take them all out one by one.

"Can you hear my thoughts system? I want inventory layering, alright?"

-[Feedback received. Undergoing consideration...

-[Feedback archived. It will be implemented the next day due to how it affects gameplay.

"Alright," Marco shrugged his shoulders, "I'm fine with it as long as you implement it."

In addition to the toolbox, he found a plastic jerrycan near a small generator on the section corner.

"Well, this is great but how do I know if it can be powered by gas? I should ask a clerk." Marco laughed at his own joke, then continued looting the place.

While he looted, he began imagining what happened to this supermarket. The place wasn't torn down by looters nor ravaged by the zombies. Although a riot seemed to occur here, it appears more like panic buying than looting.

Marco thought it was the most probable reason and stopped thinking about the matter. The populace must have adhered strictly to the government's warning and holed up inside their homes, stocked up on supplies.

Yes, that's probably it.

As he busy himself on his corner, the front doors suddenly opened and footsteps were heard.