Apocalyptic Family Reunion

11. Mountains

Triii came the alarm clock .

Emilia immediately sat up, wide awake as if she had just been closing her eyes and not asleep a minute ago.
Checking the time and seeing that it was exactly five in the morning Emilia got up and went to prepare .

Once she was dressed in gym wear she went downstairs to the gym to train. Ever since she had been reborn Emilia has made it a habit to get up early to train. She had even pulled Qin Lu to join her in training every morning. She had no choice, the apocalypse was in half a year and with the condition of their bodies it wasn't hard to see why they had struggled to adapt during the first two years of the apocalypse.

With the crazy change in weather during the apocalypse as well as lack of food and always having to be on the run from zombies, being fit is an advantage. She had also realized that those people with the healthy bodies we're also at an advantage compared to others when it came to awakening powerful abilities. This specific reason was the one thing that caused the army to still be in power when the world collapsed.

Of course there were powerful civilians as well seeing as how there were many people who took to keeping themselves healthy before the end began. She could just imagine the joy those gym enthusiasts felt when they realized that them keeping fit is what saved them and also the despair the other side felt when they came to know that their reluctance in going to the gym is what killed them.

Of course this did not mean that if your body was not up to shape you would not get an ability. It was still possible to get one actually, it was just that the ability would be weak with no attacking power or by some lucky chance one could still get a powerful ability. For example those with strong personalities also unlocked some crazy powerful abilities at times.

As for Emilia herself in her past life she had gotten the metal ability which could also be regarded as powerful. Her unlocking this ability was probably a fluke chance. She guessed it had something to do with all those training sessions her dad had gotten them to do as kids. She guessed that her solid foundation as a child saved her. That foundation she had built up also made it easier for her to learn to fight during the apocalypse.

Once she was done with her hour long training session Emilia went back upstairs for a quick shower and to get ready to leave. Since there were no ingredients in this safe house of her yet she decided to get breakfast on the way to the hotel. This had also reminded her to get all her materials transported for the warehouse to this house since it was ready. Buying more supplies for her parents and her brothers family was also something she had to get done.

At the café Emilia order herself a sandwich, muffin and a cup of juice. Once settled down checking the time and seeing that it was around the time that Qin Lu should be done getting ready for school Emilia decided to give him a quick call to see how he was doing. The two talked until the bus had arrived to pick Qin Lu up, that was also the time that she had finished her breakfast so she got up and caught a taxi and headed towards the hotel, arriving just on time. Since they would not be returning back to the city in a week she had decided to leave her car over by the safe house.

"Morning guys" Emilia greeted the others when she got on the company bus.

"Morning" came a few voices greeting her back.

Once done with the greetings Emilia went towards a seat by the window and sat down. They waited another ten minutes before the team leader accounted for everyone and we began the journey to the farm. The drive to Mr Yang's farm would take us a total of two and a half hours. An hour to reach the mountain range and another hour and a half for the vehicle to climb the mountain and reach the farm.

We we're going there to check on our produce as well as his. After creating new products or improving them we would have them planted there and come back after a while to check on the results of the growth before it was put on the market.

Of course Mr. Yang did not allow us to plant everywhere but we had a section there. In exchange for planting there the company had given him priority in getting new plants and seeds that they develop as well as to get us to check on the fertility of his soil during every visit to the farm. The entire trip this time should take round about four days to finish

After arriving there we settled down , chose our rooms , got some food and after a little rest went to check on the farm.

The reason Emilia had decided to come along this time was to see if she could learn some farming tips from Mr. Yang since he was one of the biggest farmers in the province and the among the only ones she could get all into contact with during this short period of time

This was her first time on the farm so looking at the large amount of land was breathtaking. She hadn't seen this  much vegetables in a really long time. After years of mostly eating meat even the biggest carnivore would get tired of it and wish to eat vegetables, only to despair at the thought that there was none. There were times in the past that the very site of meat was depressing and sickening. Luckily for Emilia though she couldn't love meat as much as she loved it in the past she could still stomach it.

By looking around Emilia could just imagine how easy it is going to be for Mr. Yang to survive in the coming apocalypse with all this food. Plus getting here was a hassle and not many lived here so it was more of a safe heaven during the apocalypse. For a moment Emilia thought about coming to live here during the apocalypse before she shot it down.

Though living here was fine but Emilia couldn't stomach the thought of being isolated from the rest of the world, plus this place might also be more dangerous than the city. After a few months in the apocalypse plants began to transform as well as animals so staying in the mountains surrounded by trees and animals is more of a larger risk than in the city. Plus killing zombies is so much easier than getting rid of plants. To kill them one would need to attack the roots but the roots mainly stayed underground plus it could move so one could just imagine how dangerous that was

For the next four days Emilia spent her spare time learning from the farmers on the farm how to plant certain plants, their maturation time as well as the conditions the plants need to grow. No one would know more about farming than farmers themselves so the knowledge she got from them was beyond helpful.

.................

Early morning on the fifth day of the work trip Emilia got up early and got ready to go out . Since they had finished their work yesterday they had the day off to relax. Emilia had decided to go explore the woods around the mountain area to see what she could find. It was common knowledge that the mountains was were all the good things or natural treasures could be found. She wanted to try her luck and see if she could find anything while she walked around before all the treasures became devil's instead in a few months time.

After informing the team captain about were she was going Emilia departed.

After walking for about two hours the only things that Emilia had encountered were trees and a few rabbits. She was already feeling hungry so she sat down and ate the lunch that she had prepared before she departed. Once she was done she took out her phone and checked the map to see her current location, though she was in the forest there was a satellite tower built not too far from here, that was the only reason she dared to actually wander into this place blindly . With all this trees around it would be a miracle not to get lost.

While she was looking through her phone she saw that she had gotten a message from her mom asking if the dinner was still on the next day. While replying to her she didn't notice that the tree she was leaning back on was starting to form ripples.

The ripples started small and barely unnoticeable, by the time she had felt that something was wrong it was already too late. A great suction force came from behind her a pulled her into the tree.

"Ahh!"