A productive morning. The flood plan had worked. By midday, Shen Cong had hauled his spoils back to Great Vajra and was cooking.

Steamed sleeper goby sections. Stir-fried giant shrimp. Steamed hairy crab. A genuinely excellent lunch. He could have made it even more elaborate — the water had brought down evolved fish of many varieties, plus river mussels, softshell turtles, river snails, all of them edible.

While he ate, he thought.

In terms of distance from the Huoshan Oasis, Quanjiao County should be in the outer barren zone. But the ambient Activity here is roughly comparable to the Hefei area. Could there be another Oasis nearby, radiating outward and creating a second abundant zone?

The extinction-level meteor storm had obviously brought more than one fragment down. If Oasis zones were created by meteorite impact sites, there was no reason to assume Huoshan was the only one.

What's unusual isn't just the Activity density. It's the evolved beast diversity. The Huanglishu Reservoir lake system had far more variety and density than Dongpu or Dafangyong back at New Hefei — and those two supply the camp's water. A single small lake here produced something the size of the dopey fish. That implies a significantly richer evolutionary environment.

He turned it over without reaching a conclusion.

Dessert: fresh jujubes directly off the carry pack.

Sweet, crisp, the familiar surge of physical enhancement spreading through him after the first bite.

Activity classification: normal 'vital' Activity — not the high-vitality grade. Can't be cultivated. Enhancement effect is moderate and gentle, similar to the Gentle Sand Pear. I'll call them Gentle Jujubes.

The naming satisfied him. He ate through twenty-plus and felt the enhancement working.

The decision to leave New Hefei had been correct. Staying would have been stagnation. Day one on the road and he'd already found a new Activity fruit source.

At sixteen-bull strength now. This batch of Gentle Jujubes, combined with Great Vajra's Exchange contributions, should push me to 2.2H — seventeen-bull territory.

A short rest. Then back to work.

The hillside's Activity cores needed harvesting. The stinging caterpillars needed collecting —…