Wasteland's Only King-Chapter 77 - 76: Torrent

Swoosh——

A flash of white light, and Light suddenly has an irregular crystal in his hand radiating an intense aura of energy.

This time, Brother Tongzi was pretty considerate and gave the option to claim rewards individually.

Light didn’t hesitate and claimed it right away.

Even though a 100% purification rate might mean fatter rewards, time was tight, and Light wasn’t even sure he could finish processing all these hundred thousand tons of waste on the final day.

Besides—

Claiming the rewards all at once meant that, however many crystals there were, Light would have to gobble them all up in a short time.

No surprise, he’d definitely fall into a deep sleep from that.

But Light’s choice was...

Crunch——!

The crisp sound echoed through the level five hundred meters underground.

Eating crystals while purifying!

After all...

Even though he hadn’t used his ability that many times, Light still understood the ’mana consumption’ mechanic of superpowers.

Buzz——!

Light used both hands.

Each hand spawned a miniature black hole.

Crack crack——!

The sound of shattering solid glass kept ringing out.

Crash——

Countless highly radioactive nuclear waste, which made people on the surface turn pale just hearing about, was sucked into the black holes and instantly annihilated.

"Hey——"

"No matter how radioactive it is, it’s still matter, still elements."

"If it’s matter, then let Brother Dongzi suck it up!"

Dim underground level.

Riddled with countless ’pits.’

Inside each pit, a solidified cylindrical block of nuclear waste was buried.

Light tirelessly ’sucked’ them up one after another.

On the semi-transparent panel in front of him—

Lines of text popped up one after another.

[With the body of an ant, you have transcended your tier to purify ’Tier Nine Pollution Source - Nuclear’!]

[Such an accomplishment is unprecedented, unmatched, echoing across the Wasteland!]

[You acquired resource: Tier Eight Energy Crystal *1]

It’s worth mentioning—

Light wasn’t sure after which round of purification, but the system’s ’repeat reward’ mechanic triggered again.

Still got crystals, but couldn’t farm any more points.

Light felt a little bummed by that.

Crunch——!

Another Tier Eight Energy Crystal down the hatch.

Light could feel himself one step closer to Tier Nine.

But...

He could also clearly feel that the amount of energy needed to go from Tier Eight to Tier Nine had reached an ’utterly absurd’ level.

If—

Breaking through from Tier Seven to Eight was like filling up a pond with energy,

then going from Tier Eight to Nine was like filling up the entire Pacific Ocean.

The gap was absolutely terrifying.

"No way..."

"Running all over like this is way too slow, way too inefficient."

"Even if I keep purifying nonstop until midnight, chances of breaking through to Tier Nine are slim."

After another round of black hole blitz, Light stopped.

He started thinking about whether there was a more efficient way to purify.

"Enlarge the black hole?"

"Nope. The bigger the black hole, the stronger the gravity. One slip and the whole underground would collapse."

"Wait..."

Suddenly, Light’s eyes lit up.

"Elements, elements, metal elements!"

"No matter how radioactive nuclear waste is, at its core, it’s still metal elements!"

Swoosh——

Light willed his personal panel to appear.

His gaze fell on the ’Ability’ category.

Specifically, the ’Metal’ attribute ability.

[Tier One Metal Attribute Ability: Metal Manipulation Lv1]

[Passive Effect: Can sense distribution of metal elements nearby, immune to metal attacks below own tier]

[Active Effect: Manipulate metal matter within range, alter its form and density]

...

[Fifth-rank Metal Attribute Ability: Metal Torrent Lv1]

[Active Effect: Decompose metallic substances in the area, forming a controllable metal storm]

...

"Solid nuclear waste is basically a solid-liquid mix of various heavy metal radioactive elements,"

"Then the outer surface is wrapped in cement and bentonite, forming the cylindrical blocks I see."

"So..."

"All I have to do is use ’Metal Manipulation’ to sense where the uranium and other elements are located."

"Then use ’Metal Torrent’ to break up those uranium and other heavy metal elements I need to purify, and turn them into miniature metal storms."

"Finally..."

"Control the storm, and send it into the Space Black Holes I conjure."

"As long as the perception and control range of ’Metal Manipulation’ and ’Metal Torrent’ is wide enough, I could just sit here and let the stuff come to me!"

"A fully automated assembly line, done!"

The more Light thought about it, the more feasible it sounded.

The next second—

He ran to the center of the massive underground level and plopped himself down.

Then...

Light closed his eyes and activated ’Metal Manipulation Lv1.’

In an instant—

The world in front of his eyes changed.

He could ’see’ all sorts of free-floating metal elements—should be called metal atoms in chemistry, right?

In any case—

Light could ’see’ them.

Even—

Though he wasn’t knowledgeable in chemistry, with this ability’s help, Light could accurately distinguish between various types of metal elements!

Uranium (U), Plutonium (Pu), Neptunium (Np), Actinium (Ac), Americium (Am), Curium (Cm), Berkelium (Bk), Californium (Cf), Einsteinium (Es)...

All of these together formed the ’Tier Nine Pollution Source - Nuclear.’

"Bring the core!"

Light opened his eyes and gave a cringe-worthy dramatic shout.

Whoosh——

Crash——

Within a kilometer radius, the buried cylinders underground started to gently tremble.

Next...

With Light at the center, countless heavy metal elements in the underground level converged and intersected, actually forming a dazzlingly colorful ’torrent!’

Actually...

It was a hundred thousand tons of waste, but the ’nuclear core’ refined from it wasn’t all that much.

"Bring the hole!"

Light gave another dramatic shout.

He thrust his hands forward.

In front of him, several small Space Black Holes floated into existence.

Light could control quite a few black holes—dozens, at least. The limit was just that he couldn’t send them too far from his body yet.

Fzzzt——

Fzzzt fzzzt——

One after another ’torrent’ flowed silently, pouring straight into the small black holes.

In front of Light’s eyes,

the stream of text flying across his panel was going crazy, almost like gibberish!

"Hell yeah!"

Light was absolutely elated.

Crunch——!

He even had a free hand to keep popping Tier Eight Energy Crystals one after another!

Time trickled by.

One hour later—

Light came up with an even better way to ramp up his efficiency.

[Tier Two Reproduction Attribute Ability: Splitting Lv1]

[Active Effect: Creates a physical avatar that lasts 1 minute (inherits 30% of main body’s attributes)]

This was the new ability granted by the ’Growth’ attribute.

And right now, it was exactly what he needed.

Even though it only lasted a minute, could only create one, and only had 30% of his stats—

But...

It’d do!

Light willed it.

His flesh and bones started to squirm in a freaky way.

A moment later—

An identical ’Light’ stood in front of him.

"Hey."

Light grinned.

"Hey."

’Light’ grinned back in sync.

The physical avatar had no mind, only mechanically obeying orders and imitating Light’s actions.

A moment later—

Five hundred meters deep in the Gobi Desert’s underground strata—

Two figures sat cross-legged, separated by hundreds of meters.

Metal torrents surged, space black holes spun.

The crisp sounds of "crunch", never stopping—