After sating his hunger, Bai Mo immediately drove off, intending to check out directly upon returning to the hotel and then take a car to the airport to prepare for his return home. He knew that Hawaii would soon become the eye of the storm.
After all, this Spirit Qi surge had too significant an impact, and he could easily be identified as a potential insider. To avoid trouble, it was better to quickly return to Huaxia.
On the drive back to the hotel, Bai Mo spotted the "Azure Dragon" and "White Tiger," hunting frantically due to hunger.
Presumably, the evolution brought about by the Spirit Qi had greatly enhanced their perception. They could sense a large amount of food in Bai Mo's car, so both the tiger and the snake eagerly eyed his vehicle. However, seeing Bai Mo in the car and sensing he was an opponent of similar strength, clearly not easy to deal with, they still hesitated.
Bai Mo, inside the car, also understood that these two were, at their core, still wild beasts. Although their intelligence had increased, they still followed a barbaric path. Their values were still in a primitive stage; taking what they wanted and seizing what wasn't given was their current mode of thinking. Suppressing desires was practically a joke to them, and they could pounce at any moment.
To shake off these two major nuisances, Bai Mo simply threw almost all the remaining supplies in the car to them. Then, he picked up the last bag of dried meat and demonstrated to them how to tear open the packaging and eat the dried meat inside.
The eyes of the two beasts went wide when they saw the dried meat. They each grabbed a bag of dried meat that Bai Mo had tossed over, one using its claws, the other its teeth, to tear open the packaging, and swallowed the dried meat inside in a single gulp.
Watching them tear open package after package of food, completely engrossed in eating, Bai Mo immediately floored the accelerator and sped toward the hotel.
As he sped away, the two beasts merely lifted their heads and exchanged a glance with him as he looked back.
Completely different from the terrifying silence of the forest on his way here, on the return journey, the forest Bai Mo sensed was filled with madness and slaughter. Countless hungry animals had begun to kill and devour each other to satisfy their desires for self-evolution.
A thick scent of blood permeated the forest, making it particularly terrifying.
However, Bai Mo at this point had no mind to pay attention to these things. Utterly exhausted, he only wanted to take all his gains, return to Huaxia as quickly as possible to prepare, and face the potential shocks to come.
However, according to Murphy's Law, bad things usually happen.
After Bai Mo returned to the hotel, he saw bad news: after learning of the Spirit Tide outbreak in Hawaii, the United States authorities immediately blockaded transportation to and from Hawaii Island, citing concerns that the unknown gas might contain infectious viruses, temporarily suspending all traffic entering and exiting Hawaii Island. And by this time, Spirit Qi had already permeated every corner of the island...
After learning that all transportation to Hawaii Island had been completely sealed off, Bai Mo temporarily extinguished his thought of leaving Hawaii.
Hawaii Island was over a thousand kilometers from the nearest continent. Without suitable transportation, even with his current physique, under extremely fortunate circumstances, if he encountered an ocean current flowing towards the South Huaxia Sea, it would still take him several months to drift back to Huaxia.
Moreover, he estimated that if he returned this way, he wouldn't be able to bring anything back except himself.
To avoid trouble, after Bai Mo returned to the hotel, he simply stayed in his room all day and began organizing the spoils of his volcanic adventure.
"At this stage, my Energy-Absorbing Skin can already provide energy to my body by absorbing Spirit Qi. If there are no special circumstances, it wouldn't be impossible to find a cave in Hawaii and cultivate Spirit Qi for decades, as I no longer need to consider the consumption of external resources."
However, Bai Mo instantly cast this thought to the back of his mind. "If I separate myself from civilization for decades, I'll probably turn into a monkey. I don't have any divine cultivation techniques that directly lead to the Great Dao. I still need more interaction to explore the next level of cultivation methods."
"Sticking to the current Qi Refinement method forever won't lead anywhere. I can't really become a 'Ten-Mile Slope Sword God,' forever circling in the Qi Refinement stage. I believe there must be Foundation Establishment and Golden Core stages above Qi Refinement, after all, even Spirit Qi has appeared."
Bai Mo, his conviction strengthened, opened the computer in his room and habitually opened Netfox and Souyi websites to browse the latest news.
"The Hawaiian volcano erupted without any warning, but it did not spew out lava or volcanic ash. Instead, a nearly colorless gas emerged. Authorities are dispatching experts to investigate the detailed situation."
"The United States authorities have sealed off transportation on Hawaii Island, citing the possibility of infectious viruses in the emitted gas. Have local experts discovered some major issue? Could 'Resident Evil 7 – Hawaii's Autumn' be appearing?!"
"After discovering the Hawaii problem, the United States immediately blockaded information. According to 'roadside news,' prehistoric alien civilization ruins were discovered in Hawaii, and the previous eruption was a signal of the ruins' appearance. The Huaxia side expressed high concern regarding the event's progress."
"Hawaii Island's volcano experienced a peculiar eruption. At the same time, most people reported feeling a tremor in their souls. Is this a divine revelation?"
"Huaxia appealed to Chinese tourists remaining in Hawaii to stay calm. The Chinese Embassy in America has already begun discussing solutions with the American side regarding the issue of Chinese tourists."
Bai Mo scrolled through the news articles one by one, learning that Hawaii had become a hotspot, attracting widespread attention for a time. Furthermore, because the United States government, which had blockaded the entire island, was slow to release official investigation results, various rumors were running rampant, with gossip flying everywhere.
Over the next day, Bai Mo quietly stayed in his hotel room, systematically reviewing his current situation and future development. By this time, Hawaii Island had begun to descend into some chaos. After absorbing low-concentration Spirit Qi for over a day, almost everyone began their first round of evolution under the Spirit Qi's induction, and after evolution naturally came the baptism of intense hunger.
Because there were no zombies to disturb them, and social order had not collapsed, it was merely hungry crowds rushing to major restaurants and supermarkets to snatch up food, so it was only minor chaos.
And because transportation was blockaded, with no supplies entering, in just over half a day, all the food on the entire island was consumed.
The hungry populace began to exert pressure on the United States government, but from the intelligence gathered by the latest research team that delved into the volcano, they learned that the volcanic incident was exceptionally significant, making their stance on blockading Hawaii exceptionally firm.
They merely promised that they would immediately use military aircraft to airlift large quantities of supplies to meet the public's needs, but the blockade absolutely could not be lifted.
However, once the government staff locally enforcing the blockade in Hawaii, and the accompanying soldiers also began to suffer from hunger, no matter how much the superior officials roared over the phone, ordering their subordinates to continue the blockade, this defensive line had already been tormented by hunger to exist only in name.
And just as the supplies promised by the United States government were being loaded onto planes in Alaska, something truly shocking happened to the world..