Chapter 18 - Early Effects_1

As the survival points in the data layout within his mind declined rapidly, an octagonal pattern centered around a circle became increasingly clear on the back of his hand. However, when the subtraction of survival points ended, the pattern on the back of his hand disappeared in an instant.

With the disappearance of the pattern on his hand, Dong Tianyu began to understand this ability.

First of all, the Shadow Copying ability belongs to the Cave mansion ability, not only can be endowed to Dong Tianyu, but also to others. However, the person granted must leave a soul imprint on the Cave mansion token.

Now that Dong Tianyu has control over the Cave mansion token, once a soul imprint is left, it is equivalent to him controlling life and death. Moreover, to the mystical aspect, the death of the body is not a true death.

After acquiring Shadow Copying, one can use the Shadow Space outside the Cave mansion, but there is also a distance range, fortunately, this range is large.

It uses the location of the Cave mansion as the center with the radius based on the Cave mansion's volume formula. Simply put, the radius is the product of length, width, and height of the Cave mansion.

Although it can't span across east and west Pengcheng, from the location of the Cave mansion to the center of Pengville City is in the tens of kilometers, entirely within the usage area; a radius of 25,000 meters is more than sufficient for Dong Tianyu now.

Moreover, Dong Tianyu unexpectedly discovered another use for Shadow Copying, which is that he could employ the Primary Absorption ability outside the Cave mansion.

Normally, if Dong Tianyu wanted to absorb something stored in the Shadow Space, he would first have to take out the item, place it inside the Cave mansion, and then use the absorption ability.

Although the Shadow Space is an auxiliary space to the Cave mansion, abilities other than the storage one, can't be exerted inside of it.

Yet, after Dong Tianyu acquired Shadow Copying, through numerous attempts, he found that outside the Cave mansion, not only can he directly store things into the Shadow Space, but he can also freely transfer things from the Shadow Space to inside the Cave mansion.

Upon gaining the Cave mansion's radiation range, Dong Tianyu, within this range, can directly control the Cave mansion even if he is not inside it.

So, even though he cannot directly absorb items stored in the Shadow Space, he can regard the Shadow Space as a transfer station, transferring things acquired from the outside into the Cave mansion before absorbing them.

Having found this absorption method, Dong Tianyu finally breathed a sigh of relief. After all, the Refuge Center's location was not too remote, but without a vehicle, it was rather cumbersome to transport materials there.

"If I can use the Shadow Space within the Cave mansion's radiation range, can I also instantly return to the Cave mansion while within its radiation range?"

Dong Tianyu realized that the System he had acquired was very rigid; it would only respond if he asked something and wouldn't proactively offer tips.

'Teleportation is possible once structures like Teleportation Arrays, Movement Arrays, Doors of Truth, Ascension Altars, Demon Altars... are built in the Cave mansion.'

Looking at the prompt from the System, Dong Tianyu knew that this idea would not be achievable in the short term.

While Dong Tianyu was researching the purposes of survival points halfway up the mountain, due to electronic device malfunctions, the situation in Pengcheng started to change.

Since everyone was accustomed to electronic payments, ordinary households did not have much cash. Many people even had less than a hundred yuan in cash.

Although communication with the court was severed, the Pengcheng Government responded promptly. Firstly, they asked each street to confirm the personal information within their jurisdiction, then the distribution was conducted according to the registered residence on the identity cards.

Local residents got 300 yuan in cash per week.

Non-local residents got 200 yuan in cash per week.

Perhaps some would argue about why there was differential treatment in the cash distribution even though everyone had identity cards.

But at this point, one shouldn't mention anything about equality or inequality. The street management simply wouldn't tolerate troublemakers. They either take the money or miss out, and those who led the troubles were immediately cut off from the supply.

Perhaps some smart minds would try to go to a few streets to see if they can collect the cash multiple times.

What they didn't know was that the officials had long anticipated this situation, so the entire city distributed the cash at the same time and stipulated that one cannot leave their room during the cash distribution.

The Six Doors patrolled the streets, and anyone daring to be in the street during this time, except for special circumstances, were to be detained.

Of course, the cash was not freely distributed by the officials. After the electronic devices were restored, it needed to be repaid by the collector.

Initially there was some chaos on the streets, which was mainly due to food issues.

Fire, which has been part of human civilization, was not highly disruptive in rural areas as they usually cook with firewood and the electronic device malfunction did not significantly affect their ability to cook.

But in the city, most families were using natural gas. Gas stoves, apart from an electronic igniter, are made of mechanical parts, so the electromagnetic pulse didn't affect gas stoves greatly.

However, gas companies needed a lot of electronic equipment to supply natural gas, resulting in gas interruptions and making it impossible to start a cooking fire in most households in the city.

One could just scrape by for one or two meals, but not all the time. Eventually, hot meals would be required.

Luckily, the officials responded promptly and like they were well-prepared, every street set up a Grand Dining Hall. Three meals a day cost twenty yuan, ensuring that everyone could have a full meal for 140 yuan a week.

Although Mr. Thompson had the foresight to buy three gas canisters, like most people, he went to the Grand Dining Hall set up by the street management to eat. After all, getting groceries had become somewhat troublesome now.

Life like this did not last long. The streets started recruiting personnel to refurbish the underground Ren Defense Area. Since most of it was converted to a car park, the cars inside had to be cleared first.

The vehicles that could not be started had to be pushed out of the car park manually, which was no easy task, so not many people signed up at first.

But for the far-sighted officials, they had an early plan for this situation. A day later, the street management canteen repriced their meals; now, one day's meals cost a hundred yuan, a sudden increase by five times.

However, if you participate in labor on the street, the street management will give a hundred yuan a day, including three meals. This way, for an average family of three, only the father needs to work to ensure that the wife and child won't go hungry.

As in his previous life, even though there was enough to eat at home, Mr. Thompson did not stay at home. Instead, he was the first to register when the streets started recruiting. When the streets began paying, and more people participated, Mr. Thompson had already been promoted to Squad Leader.