Chapter 97
The few of them agreed to speed up the process of collecting firewood.
Zucchini has followed Fu Erdie all the way, using all its time to absorb nutrients and decompose corpses, and now it has reached the fifth level.
It can produce a lot of zucchini fruits every day, and the size of the fruits is determined by the food intake of several people and their current appetite.
Before Tan Haoge came over, Fu Erdie had already prepared a midnight snack with zucchini in hand. Seeing that a fire-type supernatural being came to her door to "atone for his sins", Fu Erdie naturally accepted it with a smile, and then hurried to eat some hot pot or something.
The hot pot seasoning was bought from a random supermarket on the way, and the ingredients were non-expired canned food collected on the way, as well as zucchini fruits placed nearby.
Sang Wenhao took out two clean steel plates, changed their shapes, used one as a cutting board and the other as a kitchen knife, and cut the gourd fruits into slices for preparation.
When Tan Haoge came in with firewood, he saw that several big guys inside had already prepared pots, pans, and even drinks, waiting for Tan Haoge to start a fire.
For some reason, although Tan Haoge was clearly the one being ordered around, he felt greatly relieved.
The more down-to-earth the boss is, the more he looks like an ordinary person before the end of the world.
This is the confidence of the strong, and it also represents the precious human nature.
The fire illuminated the center of the factory. Part of it was used for heating after the firewood was ignited, and part of it was controlled by Tan Haoge himself, who directly helped Fu Erdie and others cook hot pot.
He observed their expressions and knew that the leader of the group might be Fu Erdie, so he took the initiative to say to her, "We have a purification expert in our team who can purify water and food. She is sorry for the misunderstanding just now, and my other two teammates also want to apologize in person. How about I ask them to come over as well?"
Fu Erdie nodded.
The more people there are, the more information they can obtain. They can also observe the expressions of these people when they say something to judge the truthfulness of their words.
So, Xin Nuo and others came in somewhat cautiously.
Fu Erdie asked them to find a place to sit down and listened to them talk about their respective situations.
It turns out that the Qingshi base has had its own "base culture" since a long time ago.
They don't care about humanity, they only care about upgrading. When they found that eating crystal cores can improve their ability level, and eating crystal cores with the same attributes can increase the upgrade speed tenfold, they began to hunt their own kind.
The psychics are organized into groups of varying sizes, and each group consists of people with different attributes. They work together to hunt down people with the same attributes as themselves and their teammates, and then absorb their crystal cores.
At the beginning, not everyone was so unreasonable, but over time, those who took the initiative and were stronger in the Qing City base were all those who followed the law of the jungle.
And Yingda, the boss of Qing City, is one of the best among them.
Gradually, the strong became stronger and stronger, and the weak were either swallowed up, or had to survive, or find ways to escape.
However, only a few people with special abilities could escape successfully, because the people in the base were jackals that devoured each other, and outside the base, there were countless zombies and even zombie kings.
Unless you have a car and can find an opportunity to break out of the encirclement, there is no way to get through so many zombies to a safer place.
——Of course, the safest places here, through word of mouth among the superpowers, became C City and D City. However, C City and D City are really too far away from Qing City.
The Qingshi base has a firm grasp on all resources. All the collectible petroleum and diesel have been plundered by them, and most of the drivable cars have been moved to the parking lot inside the base which is guarded by special personnel.
Even if they found a usable car among the stranded cars outside, they would be stranded because they could not refuel in time.
In short, the people with special abilities in Qing City are living in dire straits. Only by joining the group headed by Yingda and not having the same attributes as Yingda and his core members can they survive in the Qing City base.
But this way of living is very frustrating and dark.
Some people are already fourth-level psychics, but in front of a sixth-level psychic like Yingda, they are always slaves who can be beaten and scolded at any time.
Fu Erdie's ears twitched and she swallowed the luncheon meat in her mouth: "Is Yingda, the leader of Qing City, a sixth-level mutant?"
"Yes."
"What department?"
After asking this question, Fu Erdie vaguely guessed whether Yingda was also an attributeless mutant.
After all, if there are attributes, it takes 10,000 to 20,000 crystal cores to reach the sixth level, which is not a small amount. Especially here, the competition is fierce, everyone is fighting various zombies and their own kind. Even if the population base is large, there are not so many crystal core resources to be fully stacked for him.
Tan Haoge's answer surprised her.
"Yingda is a lightning-type mutant. In fact, we suspect that he is more than level six. He should be almost level seven now."
Fu Erdie lowered her eyes and continued to put food into her bowl.
Level seven?
According to existing experience, it takes more than 10,000 first-order crystal cores to upgrade a superpower to level 6, and more than 100,000 first-order crystal cores to upgrade to level 7.
However, excluding the fact that one crystal nucleus with the same attributes is equal to ten crystal nuclei with different attributes, and the energy of second-order, third-order, and higher-order crystal nuclei is equal to crystal nuclei of different orders of magnitude, the specific number of crystal nuclei required for upgrading is somewhat vague.
For example, for some people, a third-order crystal core is equal to the energy of 70 to 80 first-order crystal cores. But for the same person, she got another third-order crystal core with a different attribute, which by mistake was equal to 120 to 30 first-order crystal cores.
Therefore, each crystal core has different value to the same person.
Fu Erdie could only use first-order crystal cores to estimate the approximate amount and came to a rough conclusion that a seventh-order mutant would need about 100,000 first-order crystal cores.
But now the problem comes. According to the initial ratio of superpowers/superpower zombies to ordinary people/ordinary zombies is 1/10000, 100,000 crystal cores... are equivalent to being selected from 1 billion human heads!
Now the ratio of 1/10000 has increased, gradually becoming 2/10000, 3/10000, and even 5/10000. Even so, the population base is also very large, and it is definitely not something that a small Qing City can bear!
Fu Erdie was upgraded to the seventh level because she had no attributes and upgraded tenfold.
Yingda, a lightning-type mutant, how could he...
Seeing Fu Erdie frowning in deep thought, Tan Haoge was secretly shocked.
If Tan Haoge had not been following Yingda around all day and acting as a lackey in front of Yingda, he would not have realized the most fundamental problem in upgrading to the seventh level.
Only if you know what's going on in your mind can you realize the key to the problem at the first time, otherwise you will be shocked and confused.
He had a bolder guess about Erdie's ability to deal with her, and he didn't dare to keep her in suspense. He spoke more respectfully: "Yingda used some special methods."
Human upgrading depends entirely on crystal cores.
This is not entirely true of zombies.
The ones we know about so far include those that upgrade by eating zombie companions, zombie kings without attributes, and those that upgrade tenfold by eating crystal cores.
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Sang Wenhao narrowed his eyes slightly: "Yingda raises the zombie king?"
It is a question sentence, but it has an affirmative tone.
The wind was howling outside.
In the tightly closed workshop, it was so quiet that the only sound was the crackling sound of burning matches.
The doubts that had been buried in my heart for a long time were finally revealed, allowing me to peek into the mystery and see the truth.
So, that's how it is.
Surprisingly, it is like this!
Tan Haoge added respectfully, in a tight and gentle tone: "That's right. Yingda discovered this pattern one day at the beginning of last year and issued an order to capture all the ordinary people who were still alive and let the zombies scratch them."
"Most people turned into zombies, and these zombies were dragged away and fed to the zombie king who could eat his own kind to level up."
"Another part of the people became superpowers and were sent to superpowers in Qing City with the same attributes."
"Some people have turned into zombies with special abilities. Yingda will check if they have the potential to become zombie kings. If they do, he will feed them. If not, he will kill them, take their crystal cores, and then distribute them to his own people with the same attributes."
At the beginning of last year… that is, just half a year after the end of the world.
At that time, she learned about her special abilities, took her family back, and then spent that winter growing all kinds of melons and vegetables, expanding her team of plant cubs, and enjoying the brief happiness of being together with relatives and friends.
At that time, the Qingshi base was already engaged in this inhumane zombie king breeding? ? ? Not only Fu Erdie, but everyone took a deep breath.
Especially people like Cen Xiyang and Han Zhi, who had never suffered any devastating torture, their pupils were shaking.
They thought that snatching supplies from each other and then slowly developing into fighting each other for crystal cores was already the limit, and it would take a very long time.
As a result, I tell him now that as early as the beginning of last year, some beasts here have started to... raise zombie kings? ? !
Cen Xiyang's originally narrow eyes widened: "Don't you people from Qingshi Base have any humanity?"
Tan Haoge was silent.
He couldn't say anything like he was just watching and was powerless to do anything.
Because in order to survive and be Yingda's lackey, he actually became an executioner.
Although it was only once... He captured a small zombie that was easier to control for the base, and put it into the room of an ordinary person who was tied up and unable to resist.
Even if he just attacked an ordinary person this time, he was still an executioner.
Later, he reluctantly became Yingda's assistant and even his "confidant", and ate many crystal cores of fire-type mutants and fire zombies.
These are things he gained as a vested interest.
Not only him, but also Xinnuo and others.
Conscience? Inner torment? Yes, a lot.
But they are evil people.
Their hands were already covered in blood.
Even if he escaped now, it was not because he had changed his ways, but because he could not stand Yingda's torture day after day and made up his mind to leave...
Tan Haoge knelt on the ground, and a hoarse voice came from his ashamed face: "I'm sorry."
(End of this chapter)