My Apocalypse System Arrives 10 Years Early

Construction on the second phase of the Shelter was in full swing. Donning a hard hat and safety shoes, Li Xiang inspected the project’s progress, led by one of the on-site construction managers.

The plan was to build a base inside the mountain capable of housing four hundred people, comprising over a hundred spaces of varying sizes. So far, about twenty of them had been excavated.

There were fewer tourists now, and with the rainy season setting in, it was a convenient time to excavate the caves.

However, Li Xiang also urged them to guarantee both the quality of the construction and the safety of the workers. He said it was better to be slow than to allow any shoddy work, which he would absolutely not tolerate.

The interior had to be reinforced to prevent collapses, and some areas were even designed with arched domes.

One of the halls, for instance, was designed as a recreational area. At fifty meters long and twenty meters wide, its construction was particularly challenging.

After leaving the construction site, Li Xiang grabbed an Iron Pickaxe and found another, more distant mountain to start digging. This served a dual purpose: it was a form of Cultivation, and he also wanted to try his luck and see if he could find any more ore.

He started livestreaming again.

Luo Feifei, under her "Top Aunt" alias, also found time to log on and send gifts. She had followed Li Xiang’s account, so she received a notification whenever he went live, and she always dominated the top two spots in the gift rankings.

Luo Feifei couldn’t help but laugh every time she used her "Top Aunt" account.

But in the end, despite trying many different locations, he found nothing at all. He could only conclude that finding the Chicken Blood Stone before had been a stroke of pure luck.

The jadeite bracelet Xu Xuan had given him was quite nice. This got Li Xiang thinking. ’Maybe I should go to Myanmar and dig for jadeite myself. Sichuan Province isn’t far from Myanmar, just past Yunnan Province.’

It was only a little over 800 kilometers from his home to the northernmost part of Myanmar, and just over 1,500 kilometers to Kyaukpyu Port on Lanli Island in Rakhine State. China had secured a 99-year lease on that port.

The only problem was that Myanmar was in turmoil, with its "Eighteen Dukes" constantly at war. The port project had been repeatedly obstructed, and a safe route had yet to be established.

Furthermore, Myanmar’s jadeite mines were almost entirely controlled by the government and various military factions, particularly the Kachin Army and an assortment of drug lords.

Never mind the drug lords; the Kachin Army had its own agenda, and its relationship with the Chinese Side was extremely complex.

Speaking of drug lords, one couldn’t avoid mentioning the infamous "Golden Triangle." This was a triangular area on the borders of Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos. More broadly, it encompassed Shan State and Kachin State in Northern Myanmar; Chiang Rai Province and northern Chiang Mai Province in Thailand; and Luang Namtha Province, Phongsali, Oudomxay Province, and the western part of Luang Prabang Province in Laos.

The drugs from the "Golden Triangle" weren’t even worthy of shining the Great Qing’s shoes; it was all just scraps left over from their time. After all, the Second Opium War was triggered by the Great Qing’s anti-dumping policies, which left the British Empire completely dumbfounded.

Li Xiang had no qualms about plundering these factions. In fact, the only reason he chose this region first was simply because it was the closest to Sichuan Province.

His speed still wasn’t quite fast enough, making travel to more distant places inconvenient. To increase his speed, he would need a vast number of Achievement Points to upgrade both his Giant Power and Divine Movement Technique.

Furthermore, the countries of Southeast Asia were major rice producers, yielding three harvests a year. Now that Li Xiang had some space in his system’s inventory, he could start stockpiling it.

He was afraid that waiting until the last year or two before the Apocalypse wouldn’t be enough time to gather supplies, as there would be far too many places he’d need to visit. Being frantic and disorganized wasn’t his style.

If he started early and took a little each year, the "burden" on the Southeast Asian countries would be smaller, and he would feel less pressure. Besides, the food wouldn’t spoil in his system inventory.

Li Xiang didn’t dare to act too brazenly within China’s borders, but in Southeast Asia, he could operate without restraint, practically an invincible force.

After all, with his current Extreme Speed of 1.5 Mach, he was faster than many cruise missiles. The United States’ Tomahawk cruise missile, for example, only flies at about 0.72 Mach.

Ordinary cruise missiles simply couldn’t catch him. And if they couldn’t catch him, how could they possibly hit him?

Artillery shells and rockets would be even less effective. The only exception might be a ballistic missile descending from space, but trying to hit a small target moving at 1.5 Mach with a ballistic missile would almost certainly result in a miss.

Unless it had a nuclear warhead.

Granted, Li Xiang couldn’t withstand a nuclear blast yet. But as long as he took refuge in a densely populated city, no military would dare to casually deploy a nuclear warhead.

Besides, what country in Southeast Asia even has nuclear weapons?

Ballistic missiles are also incredibly expensive, with costs often running into the tens of millions of US dollars per unit. Even the cheapest ones cost several million. Smaller nations simply can’t afford to play that game, and the handful of major powers that can won’t launch them without a very good reason.

After telling his grandmother he’d be away for a few days, Li Xiang vanished at noon. He spent the day cultivating deep in the mountains, waiting until the pitch-black of midnight to make his move.

During the rainy season, the downpour was relentless. With the Black Mountain Profound Armor covering his entire body, Li Xiang became a streak of Black Light, deliberately sticking to the wilderness as he ran.

SWOOSH!

A faint sonic boom echoed as he "punched" a temporary vacuum tunnel through the curtain of rain. A large amount of water vapor instantly turned into a white mist, but the downpour was so heavy that it dissipated almost immediately.

Many people who have been to air shows have seen a J-20 fighter jet perform. When it breaks the sound barrier, it creates a deafening sonic boom, and the "shockwaves" from its subsequent supersonic flight produce a continuous rumble.

But that’s because the aircraft is massive. The J-20 is 20.30 meters long, 4.45 meters high, and has a wingspan of 12.68 meters. Stood on its tail, it’s as tall as a seven-story building. For an object that size to fly at supersonic speeds, the resulting commotion is, of course, astounding.

But Li Xiang was much smaller. He stood 1.8 meters tall, and even in his Black Mountain Profound Armor, he was two meters at most. The sonic boom he created was simply not comparable.

Most importantly, the Divine Movement Technique was incredibly profound, and the Black Mountain Profound Armor was a Tier Ten piece of Extraordinary Armor. As he sprinted at supersonic speeds, the Spiritual Power around him would oscillate at a peculiar frequency, counteracting the shockwaves. The result was an initial sonic boom of no more than 30 decibels, and subsequent shockwaves that registered below 10 decibels.

Thirty decibels is about as loud as a human whisper or a refrigerator humming. Ten decibels is comparable to the sound of a person’s breathing. Compared to the ambient noise pollution of a city, his passage was virtually silent.

Scientists in the real world were actually researching similar technology, known as "Quiet Supersonic Technology." American NASA developed a "quiet" supersonic plane, the X-59 QueSST, which was designed to produce a sound of only 75 decibels on the ground while flying at supersonic speeds.

This plane is 30.4 meters long and 9 meters wide, capable of reaching 1.4 Mach, and would be as tall as a ten-story building if stood on its tail.

If Earth’s technology could achieve this, then for an Extraordinary Being like Li Xiang, who had the dual enhancement of his Lifebound Divine Techniques and Extraordinary Armor, the effect he could produce was on a completely different level.

If Li Xiang could ever understand and replicate the principles behind his Silent Supersonic Sprint, the nation would treasure him like a priceless gem.

However, Li Xiang’s Cultivation was still too low. He knew how to use the ability, but he couldn’t yet explain its Profound Mystery.

It was like a middle school student who could use complex mathematical formulas to solve problems but couldn’t explain the principles behind the formulas or how they were derived.

Or like a child who has learned to walk; he knows how to do it, but he can’t articulate a "theory" on how he learned or how "bipedal locomotion" is achieved.

As for the "vapor cone," the conical cloud that forms behind an aircraft, it’s actually caused by the condensation of water vapor in the air. Its formation is related to humidity; if flying in a dry area, like over a desert, no vapor cone would form.

Today, because of the rain and high humidity, Li Xiang produced a small white mist. If it were a Sunny Day, the "thin trail" of water vapor from his Supersonic sprint wouldn’t form a "cloud" at all.

A "cloud" is the visual effect of a massive gathering of water vapor. Anyone who has flown on a plane knows that when an aircraft passes through a cloud, the inside is just fog, not the "cotton-like" shape seen from a distance.

Li Xiang deliberately traveled through unpopulated wilderness. On a Sunny Day, such a tiny bit of water vapor would be unnoticeable out in the wilds and would evaporate and dissipate quickly.

And in overcast, rainy weather, the mountains are naturally shrouded in clouds and mist, making it even less worthy of mention.

SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH!

Under the cover of night, the Black Light that was Li Xiang could cover over two hundred kilometers in a single sprint—a truly terrifying feat.

Although he wasn’t capable of true Flying, he could leap from one mountaintop to another with ease. More distant peaks took only a few bounds to reach. He could jump across narrow rivers in a single leap and even sprint across the surface of very wide ones. When his speed reached its peak, the Lightweight Water Floating Technique manifested naturally.

At this point, what Li Xiang could do was not much different from low-altitude Flying.

In about two hours, Li Xiang traveled from his hometown to Mandalay City. The straight-line distance was only about 1,200 kilometers, but his phone was off, so he had no navigation. He took a few detours before finally reaching his destination.

This city was home to Myanmar’s largest jadeite trading market, Mandalay Cape Bay, also known as Jiaowan Market. 95% of the world’s jadeite originated from here.