Now, the excitement of the two men was no longer limited to their breathing. Xiao Ziran practically wanted to grab Chu Tian and shake him vigorously, but in the end, he managed to restrain himself.
“Fifty bottles,” Xiao Ziran’s voice trembled slightly. “That’s equivalent to five hundred thousand crystal cores?”
Five hundred thousand crystal cores! Just how much would that increase the base’s strength?
As an ambitious builder, Xiao Ziran had already expanded his thoughts from these small details to the bigger picture. He deeply understood the impact these changes would have on the overall situation and on the future. Dawning Base truly had a dawn of hope!
Ouyang Jing, however, hadn’t thought as far ahead as Xiao Ziran. He had only considered how an increase in strength would improve their chances of survival. Naturally, he was happy too, but he wasn’t nearly as overwhelmed as Xiao Ziran.
“Calm down.” Chu Tian calmly extended his index finger and pointed at the doctor. “If you’re going to lose your composure like this, how am I supposed to tell you what comes next?”
Xiao Ziran took a deep breath. There was more? He stared intently at Chu Tian, looking as though he would devour him if he kept playing games.
Chu Tian returned his gaze with a disdainful look, but still continued speaking. “Every month, Xiaoyu and I can go out and bring back another fifty bottles of this stuff.”
Sure enough, after hearing this, neither man knew what expression to make.
The two remained silent for a long time, probably still trying to digest the news. So Chu Tian continued, “However, each time, we’ll need to take ten thousand ordinary crystal cores with us. The quantity can be reduced proportionally according to the crystal cores’ grades.”
Chu Tian had three reasons for saying this. First, it would serve as a smokescreen, creating the impression that they had obtained the concentrate through an exchange. Second, he couldn’t let everyone stop working hard to kill zombies and collect crystal cores just because they now had a substitute. Crystal cores would still be very important in the future. Third, Chu Tian wanted to uncover the connection between crystal cores and his spatial ability, which would require a large number of test subjects. Of course, there was also the principle that if he could get something for his efforts, he might as well take it. Wanting some compensation in return for what they contributed was only natural. It would also conveniently stimulate Xiao Ziran’s demand for crystal cores. It was a win-win situation.
Nobody in their right mind would object to exchanging ten thousand crystal cores for five hundred thousand.
On this point, Xiao Ziran agreed without a second thought.
The information Lu Jie and the others had brought back from J City last time had allowed them to obtain a huge quantity of crystal cores almost immediately. Those cores were now being kept secretly in Bai Mingxi’s spatial storage, and only the core members knew about them.
Furthermore, during this period, the core members—the original team members—had all upgraded smoothly, with almost everyone advancing by one level.
At present, Xiao Ziran and his group still held the core secrets of crystal cores. However, their extensive collection of crystal cores in J City last time had nevertheless attracted other people’s attention.
Many people had already discovered the existence of crystal cores and were now collecting them tirelessly. They were still conducting ongoing research into their specific uses, however.
It was only a matter of time before the secrets of crystal cores became public knowledge. Xiao Ziran was prepared for this as well. Before the secret was about to be revealed, he planned to disclose it at Dawning Base first and formally put the proposal of using crystal cores as circulating currency on the agenda.
After all, if they wanted to grow stronger, it wasn’t enough to improve only the strength of their core members. Crystal cores could also serve as a reward system, strengthening team cohesion and loyalty. Under such a system, the loyalty of the people would increase considerably.
After the secret of crystal cores became public, the green concentrate Chu Tian had brought back would become another major trump card for Dawning Base.
In just a few moments, Xiao Ziran had already thought everything through.
“Also,” Chu Tian continued at an unhurried pace, “one bottle, or even half a bottle, of undiluted concentrate should be enough to awaken abilities in an ordinary person.”
This time, the two men practically stopped breathing. For a long while, neither made a sound.
Chu Tian paid no attention to their reactions and continued on his own. “My understanding is that after the apocalypse began, every person on Earth was actually infected with the virus. I suspect that abilities themselves originate from the virus, too. We can more or less infer this from the effects crystal cores have on abilities and from the fact that zombies have evolved the same types of abilities. If we look at abilities alone, there’s no difference between ours and those of zombies.”
“So, let’s assume that everyone is infected with the virus, and that the concentrate works by purifying the parts harmful to the human body while catalyzing the beneficial parts—in other words, abilities. As a result, latent abilities are awakened. Although this is only a hypothesis, I’m eighty percent confident that it’s correct.”
This conclusion came from what Chu Tian had experienced during the few days when he was undergoing mutation.
His rapidly advancing mental ability had given him a certain perception of the mysteries behind these things while he was in a daze.
Only after taking several deep breaths did Xiao Ziran finally manage to calm himself down. Of course, he believed what Chu Tian said, so he skipped the process of questioning the conclusion and instead made a promise. “From now on, this secret will be known only to the four of us!”
The fourth person was, naturally, Quan Xiaoyu, who hadn’t participated in the meeting.
Ouyang Jing pressed his lips tightly together and nodded firmly as well.
Unexpectedly, the person who shook his head was Chu Tian. “Not four people. Six. We won’t keep it from Xiaobai and Xiaonan.”
Xiao Ziran and Ouyang Jing naturally understood. The four of them had always been together in the first place. How could Chu Tian possibly leave those two out when it came to something this important?
The purpose of keeping the secret was to protect Chu Tian and Quan Xiaoyu, the two people who held the source of this secret. If it leaked and others learned about it, nobody knew what kind of conflict it might trigger. When that happened, Chu Tian and Quan Xiaoyu would be the ones in the greatest danger.
“Good. Only six people will know this secret. There will never be a seventh.” Xiao Ziran spoke with utmost seriousness.
“Never a seventh!” Ouyang Jing also thumped his chest as he made his pledge.
“I can naturally trust you.” Chu Tian smiled. That settled the matter.
“Instead of being so eager for me to solve the base’s problems, you’d be better off giving me a detailed analysis of the current situation and telling me some things I don’t know. Once I understand the bigger picture, perhaps many problems won’t even be problems anymore.” Chu Tian pointed at Xiao Ziran before turning to the next topic.
Who was Xiao Ziran? He understood immediately. In an instant, he realized what had happened: he had been so busy that he’d lost sight of what mattered most! Chu Tian had never been someone who got trapped by minor problems. Rather than dumping all those difficult practical issues on him, it would be better to lay out the bigger picture. Once they identified the critical points in the overall situation, many problems could be resolved with ease!
So Xiao Ziran and Ouyang Jing began telling Chu Tian, one by one, about the major events that had occurred after his disappearance.
Aside from Dr. Jing’s arrival and his solution to the difficulties of growing food, the most important matter was Tianze Base.
Tianze Base had been established under the leadership of Cai Yuanhan, with Thunder Lion as the second-in-command. When Tianze Base was first established, it had a total of more than thirty ability users and almost no ordinary people.
It was very close to Dawning Base, only about fifty kilometers away by the most direct route. If Dawning Base’s initial establishment had relied on the supplies Bai Mingxi brought out, then Tianze Base had been built using a batch of secret supplies Cai Yuanhan had hidden in J City beforehand.
People talked about a crafty rabbit having three burrows and a dying camel still being bigger than a horse. Cai Yuanhan was precisely the kind of person those sayings described.
After establishing Tianze Base, they actively developed it. Unlike Dawning Base, they had far fewer rules. They accepted ability users from all backgrounds and welcomed any ordinary people with useful skills.
By comparison, Dawning Base’s development appeared much more conservative. As things stood, Tianze Base was growing far faster than Dawning Base.
Apart from that, several small bases and so-called safe zones had gradually been established within a thousand-kilometer radius. They were generally built around small towns, villages, or the outskirts of cities.
These groups were scattered across the region and had no particularly powerful military forces. Neither their strength nor their scale could compare with Dawning Base or Tianze Base.
In addition, the zombies were already approaching Level Four across the board, and the number of Level Three zombies had begun to decline gradually. As a result, it was becoming increasingly difficult for ordinary people to survive in the wilderness. Most now needed to rely on ability users.
Three months earlier, the three women on the team had brought back information about J City. Xiao Ziran had secretly sent people there, and together they had obtained nearly one hundred thousand cores in total, including mutated beast cores and Level Three and Level Four crystal cores. To this day, all of them were still stored in Bai Mingxi’s spatial storage, and only the original team members knew about them.
After three months of absorbing crystal cores and upgrading, almost everyone had advanced their abilities by one level. A few individuals had become stuck at bottlenecks and were still struggling to break through.
Xiao Ziran considered this the greatest fortune Dawning Base had acquired to date.
Because the operation had been so extensive, it first aroused suspicion at Tianze Base, leading to the discovery of crystal cores. Although they didn’t know what the cores were used for, the people at Tianze Base had also begun collecting them actively.
Afterward, Xiao Ziran deliberately spread the news that crystal cores would soon become the currency of the future world. This prompted the surrounding safe zones, both large and small, to begin collecting crystal cores as well.
For a time, everyone’s enthusiasm for killing zombies soared.
Xiao Ziran had also begun a trial run at the market outside the city, allowing crystal cores to circulate there first. Within the city, the authorities had established a partial exchange system as well, and it was currently operating smoothly.
Through circulation and everyone’s collection efforts, Dawning Base’s stockpile of crystal cores had increased by tens of thousands more.
And then came the biggest problem: purification!
So far, the base had only two healing-type ability users: Li Nan and Lu Zhongxia. The two of them simply couldn’t handle such enormous quantities on their own. At present, the purified crystal cores were barely enough to supply the original team members.
This was one of the problems Xiao Ziran hoped Chu Tian could help solve.
Because the team had acquired healing-type ability users early on, they had never realized how rare such people were. Only after they began building the base did they discover that this type of ability was exceedingly uncommon. Within a thousand-kilometer radius, they hadn’t found even a third healing-type ability user.
Tianze Base didn’t have any healing-type ability users either. It was only after they began establishing their base that Cai Yuanhan discovered the problem. Once he realized how important healing-type ability users were to construction and development—even without knowing about their purification ability, healers were still an essential part of logistical support—he was filled with regret.
Their team had originally had a healing-type ability user as well. Because they hadn’t taken the person’s value seriously enough and failed to protect them during their escape, that person had died on the road while fleeing J City. By the time they realized how important the ability was, it was already too late for regrets.
However, half a month ago, a group of people had arrived at Tianze Base. Since then, its leadership had begun acting mysteriously, completely abandoning its previous high-profile style. Nobody knew what they were plotting.
Xiao Ziran had already sent people to investigate, but so far, no useful information had come back.
When it came to Tianze Base, everyone had rather complicated feelings about it.