Humans Shrunk 100 Times

Chapter 16: A Grain of Rice

Nine people silently made their way forward. Wei Dalei and a few boys took turns pushing the trolley, creaking along in the front. The girls were in the middle, while Chen Mu and Tang Jingdong followed at the back.

As they passed the place where Gu Ping had met his unfortunate end, they deliberately walked on the other side, nervously looking around.

Tang Jingdong frowned all the way, apparently losing confidence in the path to survival ahead.

Originally, they thought that reaching this storage room would at least provide some security, but they still couldn't let their guard down.

"Should we find another place?" Chen Mu understood Tang Jingdong's thoughts.

"At a time like this, is there any place that's absolutely safe? At least this storage room itself is relatively clean, and it's unlikely to have spiders and centipedes crawling around. The one that killed Gu Ping probably came from the bushes," Tang Jing analyzed.

"But we can't keep going like this forever," Tang Jingdong sighed.

Tang Jing said, "Actually, I have some ideas, but I haven't had the chance to implement them. It's also my fault that Gu Ping had an accident. I didn't think things through thoroughly enough."

As the "strategist," Tang Jing felt somewhat self-blame.

"What ideas?" Tang Jingdong asked eagerly.

Tang Jing didn't answer directly but turned to Chen Mu, asking, "Does your ability have anything to do with the weight of objects?"

Chen Mu nodded, "Yes, it's also related to density. For example, it's much easier to control plastic than metal."

"Is that all?"

"Precision and speed too," Chen Mu replied.

"Speed?" Tang Jingdong was puzzled.

"For example, like this," Chen Mu took out the weapon in his hand and instantly transformed it from a metal ring into an iron rod, but the process seemed like the iron block melted first and then slowly took the shape of a rod.

"If it were plastic or wood, the transformation speed would be much faster, but with metal and stone, it's more challenging."

"A paperclip is 99% made of iron, with a nickel coating on the surface to prevent rust."

"Iron's density is considered medium among common metals, smaller than gold and silver, but larger than aluminum and tin."

"So, the denser the object, the more precision it requires, and the slower your transformation speed becomes."

"That makes sense," Tang Jing nodded, then asked, "Can I touch this iron rod?"

Chen Mu didn't understand what she was up to, but he handed her the weapon.

For Tang Jing, this iron rod transformed from a paperclip was a bit heavy, requiring both hands to hold it properly.

It felt icy to the touch.

Just as she imagined.

Tang Jing handed the iron rod back, saying, "It's not generating any heat."

"Yeah," Chen Mu had obviously considered this too.

Tang Jing explained, "When metal is bent or shaped, it usually generates some heat, but this piece in your hand has undergone such a significant transformation, and yet it's not generating any heat. This indicates that the change isn't happening on a physical level."

"What does that mean?" Dong Junwei was puzzled.

"Just like what Chen Mu concluded earlier, these abilities follow a certain logic on one hand, but on the other hand, they don't necessarily align with the physics we know."

"Therefore, I boldly assume that all of our abilities adhere to their own self-consistent logic, independent of our existing knowledge."

"But knowing that, what good does it do?" Chen Mu asked.

"Of course, it's useful. The physical and chemical principles that industrial civilization relies on have been a series of laws that generations of people have continuously explored and summarized throughout history. Then, based on this foundation, they constantly make hypotheses and verify them. If these abilities also follow their own set of fixed logic, then sooner or later, we can fully understand them and maximize their utilization."

As Tang Jing spoke, she paused for a moment and continued, "Chen Mu, do you remember what I told you this morning? The future of humanity might very well be built upon the development of these abilities as technology."

Chen Mu asked, "Are you saying..."

Dong Junwei glanced at both of them and said, "What Tang Jing means is that we should systematically understand the existing abilities."

Tang Jing nodded, "The class monitor is right."

Dong Junwei sighed, "It's a pity there aren't many awakened individuals at the moment."

Among the nine remaining people, only four have awakened abilities.

Chen Mu can change the shape of objects;

Wei Dalei has enhanced strength;

Zhao Xiaoyan has heightened sense of smell;

Zhu Hao has the unicorn ability.

Among them, Zhu Hao still doesn't know what his ability is truly useful for. Sometimes he uses his horn to hit walls, but besides being very solid, it doesn't seem to have any particular function.

This results in Zhu Hao currently holding the title of an awakened individual, yet he can't find any practical use for it.

Tang Jing also sighed, "Yes, the data samples are too small, so we can't conduct much analysis. For now, only Chen Mu's ability has some research value."

Tang Jing has been paying special attention to Chen Mu lately, probably because she has her eyes set on studying his ability.

If she were given a laboratory, she might even dissect Chen Mu.

Chen Mu felt a bit awkward and said, "Shouldn't we focus on overcoming the immediate challenges first? Honestly, each of us could end up facing a situation like Gu Ping's."

Perhaps Chen Mu's words brought up bad memories, but Tang Jing and Dong Junwei didn't continue discussing their abilities.

The group was moving at a fast pace, clearly feeling uneasy about hiking in the wilderness and wanting to reach their destination as soon as possible.

These individual storage rooms around the cafeteria were all connected by concrete paths. However, since nobody expected outsiders to come here, the quality of these paths wasn't great. Cracks often appeared, and with the size of humans nowadays, falling into them wouldn't be disastrous, but a careless step could get a foot stuck.

Fortunately, Chen Mu and the others had walked this path before, and it was daytime now, so they didn't encounter any problems along the way.

They soon arrived at the storage room where they had fetched water before.

Yesterday's spilled water had completely dried up, leaving no traces.

Everyone didn't want to waste time and immediately got to work.

Chen Mu transformed the iron rod in his hand back into a spear and handed it to Wei Dalei, saying, "Old Wei, go puncture the rice bag, but don't make the opening too big, be careful not to bury yourself."

In truth, Chen Mu's worry was unnecessary.

Because the size of the spear was not enough to cause significant damage to the rice bag.

Despite Wei Dalei's strength, he had to pierce the bag several times before a small hole finally appeared, and two grains of rice popped out.

He pierced it a few more times, and more and more rice grains squeezed out.

"That should be enough, we have plenty now."

Nowadays, a single grain of rice looked as big as a large winter melon in everyone's eyes. Seeing more and more grains falling down, they worried if the rickety trolley could handle the load.

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