[Please choose the target you wish to be granted with a sub shelter core.]

[Person/Items]

I saw Alicia froze for a moment as she darted her eyes around before choosing to attach the sub shelter core on a person.

Although I already knew she wished to give it to the student council president, I still followed the formal procedures.

[Please choose the person you wish to be granted with a basic sub system.]

I opened an illusory screen containing a camera complete with a button that read [OK] in the bottom and asked Alicia to place the person she wishes to target within the camera.

After I saw her press the OK button with the student council president located in the middle of the camera, I asked her once more while adding a glowing effect around the student council president through the illusory screen.

[Are you sure you want to grant the target with a basic sub shelter core? Yes/No.]

Alicia pressed the Yes button with furrowed brows while mumbling, "Stop asking this kind of question and just start."

On the side, upon hearing Alicia's whisper, the student council president asked in concern. "Miss Alicia, does something go wrong?"

Alicia answered. "Nothing, the process to grant others with a sub shelter core is quite complicated. Furthermore, the system asked too many repetitive questions which made me impatient."

When I heard her complain, I rolled my eyes.

Yeah, I am sorry for dilly-dallying like that. But if I didn't do so, I am afraid I might've granted the wrong person with the sub shelter core.

I am not afraid of you wasting your money. But, I am afraid you'll complain to me about that loss and asks for a remuneration~

While complaining, I activated [Anchor] and attached my usual set of skills consisting of [Devour], [Create], [Scan], and [Transfer]. After I was done, I sent a notification to Alicia.

[Ding! You've successfully granted a Basic Sub Shelter Core to a target. As the target is an intelligent life, they're automatically set as the shelter lord.]

[You may check other shelter lord's status through your panel. You can also contact other shelter lords through the panel.]

At the same time, I also sent a notification and guide books to the student council president.

[Congratulations, you've been granted a Basic Sub Shelter Core. As the core has been bound to you, you've been set as the shelter lord by default.]

[Please open the guide for further information.]

The student council president froze upon seeing the message I sent.

Everyone silently watched as both Alicia and the student council president stood silently while observing the empty air in front of them and occasionally moving their fingers as if scrolling through an invisible screen.

Looking at that situation, I felt some second hand embarrassment for both of them.

Actually I could turn the illusory screen into one that can be seen by others, but creating light is much more expensive than creating illusions. Furthermore the illusory screen is much more private, so there is also that reason. It's not entirely because I am a miser.

～⁠(⁠´⁠ε⁠｀⁠ ⁠)

As the amount of information I sent to Alicia is much less than the student council president. She became the first one to raise her head and stopped scrolling.

Looking at the people surrounding her, she gently rubs her face with both of her palms while asking. "Why is everyone staring at me like that?"

Edward smiled awkwardly and said, "We're just waiting for one of you to tell us whether or not it will succeed."

Alicia pointed at the student council president. "Well, as you can see yourself. The student council president is still busy reading through the system screen."

Renald asked, "What kind of ability does the student council get?"

I felt the student council president stopped scrolling the screen and raised his head. "From what I've read, although most of the abilities I received are greatly weakened. Except for lacking the ability to store items, the function I got from the system is pretty much similar to Miss Alicia's."

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

After answering, he continued to scroll through the guide I sent.

Watching the student council president scrolling through my illusory screen, the surrounding people fell silent for a moment.

Renald decided to break the silence and asked, "What should we do now? Although we have cleansed the surrounding areas from zombies, we have also found out most of the food has either been ransacked or went bad after having their packaging damaged."

One of them suggested. "Maybe we can hunt zombies and let Alicia exchange it for food?"

Berth shook her head, "That's feasible for the short term. But, in the long term, we still need to have our own sources of food. Especially because my gut feeling said this apocalypse will last for a long time."

She then looked at Alicia, " Alicia, does your system sell wheat, rice, or other seeds that can be planted? If it does, then we can plant some plants while using the remaining foods to survive until the first batch of plants mature."

Alicia quickly opened the store and tried to look for some seeds. She scrolled for a long time before finding the section selling seeds. But the seeds she found are the ones with magical names that I found from the Cultivation World. For example there is the Millennium Peach Seeds, Lightning Wheat, or even Phoenix's Ashes Fruit seeds.

As a good system. Upon seeing Alicia's plight, I decided to lend her a helping hand.

[Ding! System store has been updated. Filter function has been added.]

When she saw that notification, I heard Alicia clicking her tongue and opened the filter function. I've separated the things in system shops into categories like weapons, armors, talismans, foods, seeds, etc. Furthermore I've also added the level filter which shows an item's power, and a price filter on it.

Alicia scrolled through the list of filters before ticking the 'seeds' and 'mortal' filter.

After scrolling through thousands of seeds, Alicia closed the screen and nodded at Berth. "The systems indeed sold many plant seeds that we commonly see. There are hundreds of seeds just for the common food sources like wheat, paddies, and other staple food."

Berth smiled at that news, "That's good. That means the plan to produce our own food is feasible."

Hearing Berth and Alicia planning to open a field, Renald chimed in. "If we wish to start planting foods, it is necessary to look for a place with open fertile soil in the city. The school's field is definitely not enough to feed hundreds of mouths. Furthermore, we're lacking farming equipment."

"That's right." Berth replied when she heard Renald's question. "I know there is an industrial district a few kilometers away from the school. But, I am not too sure if there is any farming equipment there."

Edward asked, "Can't we just use the student council president and other people who have awakened the power to control earth for such a job?"

Alicia who've been silently observing, denied Edward's suggestion. "Did you forget, using our power consumes a lot of energy to the point it is better to do things with our own hands. By the time those few earth element awakeners finished plowing the ground. We can also bury them in the soil as a nutrition because they'll be dead due to fatigue."

Edward fell silent at Alicia's answer.

Renald suggested. "Then, how about we ask the students to help plow the field using some hoes Alicia purchased with her system? This is an apocalypse, I think everyone must contribute to our survival."

On the side, Berth looks in a dilemma as her face scrunches up. She looks like someone that wishes to poo but the toilet in front of her is already full.

"I disagree with you, those students are too wea-" Right after her face relaxed and she expressed her opinions, a scream blocked the remaining words from going outside of her mouth.

"I FOUND IT!!" The student council president's sudden scream caused everyone's discussion to stop and all eyes darted towards him.

As the one located next to the student council president, Edward quickly asked. "What's wrong? What did you find?"

"I've filtered the shop and searched around the cultivation manual section. Most of the manual requires spirit qi to be used, which is something we probably don't have. Coupled with their expensive price, I don't dare to bet on it and decided to ignore them." The student council president paused for a moment.

When he saw everyone looking at him with curious eyes, he said."That is until I thought of something and searched for Spirit Qi on the system shop. Guess what, I actually found it! That means we could also start cultivating!" At the end of his speech, the student council president is shaking from excitement.

I saw Alicia quickly open her system shop and activated the search function that I added together with the filter function. She typed in the word 'Spirit Qi' and quickly found one.

[Ambient Spirit Qi: 1.000 points per strand.

Description: A strand of pure Spirit Qi that can be used to cast spells and cultivate.]

Alicia frowned and said, "Although Spirit Qi indeed exists, a single strand of Spirit Qi is actually as expensive as the sub core I granted you. Furthermore, we don't know how powerful a cultivator can be with only a strand of Spirit Qi. With our extremely limited budget, I don't think cultivation manuals can help our current situation much."

Hearing Alicia's word, the student council president calmed down from his state of excitement. "Still, that means we can cultivate and achieve immortality like in those stories."

While looking slightly dejected, the student council president brought the topic back to opening a field. "I also found something that might help our current plights while scrolling the manual section."

He raised two of his fingers and said, "There are actually two kinds of manuals sold in the shop. The first one are the cultivation manuals that used Spirit Qi as the basis. Then, there are also martial arts manuals that don't require any sort of special energy to practice."

"Just like the name implies, martial arts manuals could strengthen the body of anyone practicing them. I suggest we purchased a martial arts manual and taught it to everyone. With a strengthened body, the other students could help tend the field."

"I agree, I'll join the group to hunt for zombies so Alicia could purchase a martial arts manual." Renald quickly answered and then glanced at Berth. "Those students are high schoolers and not elementary school children. They are almost adults that need to take adult responsibility."

Berth fell silent for a moment. " Sigh, guess I am just too anxious after not finding any trace of my family and thought of those students as someone at my child's age."