The boss of Ning City was actually willing to give him a seventh-rank crystal core!
According to what was already known, if a lower-rank ability user ate a crystal core higher than their own rank, they could directly rise to the corresponding rank.
If he took this crystal core now, then he would become a rare seventh-rank ability user, standing on equal footing with that Butterfly Garden Principal!
His chest grew faintly hot, and his whole body trembled with surprise and excitement at the possibility.
Seventh-rank… That was currently the highest rank in all of Hua Country, perhaps even the entire world!
Once he reached seventh-rank, why would he still fear the snow and ice? Why would he still feel resentful about being picked and chosen by the butterfly garden?
The whole world would be his. He could walk sideways if he wanted!
Thinking this, his hand unconsciously, almost urgently, reached toward that seventh-rank crystal core.
But the instant before he was about to touch the surface of the crystal core, Luo Can instinctively stopped.
Yes, the Jian City Base he belonged to had no infrastructure and no technology. It could not compare at all to Jing City Base or D City Base. But he was still someone who had fought his way through the apocalypse.
Even if he was not especially farsighted, that instinct for responding to danger and sensing when something was off had already been carved deep into his bones over three years of the apocalypse.
This seventh-rank crystal core looked wrong no matter how he looked at it.
Why would Ning City give him this crystal core? Wouldn’t it be better to eat it themselves?
And why had this person in the oversized cloak not eaten the crystal core either, instead obediently delivering it here?
A seventh-rank crystal core was something countless ability users would not even dare dream of. And now it was being given away just like that?!
Even if Ning City’s boss was willing to give it away, if Luo Can had been responsible for delivering it, he definitely would not have been able to resist secretly eating it on the way. Why would he give anyone else the chance?
Thinking of this, he withdrew his hand again.
No. He could not accept this thing. There was definitely a trap inside!
Seeing him shrink back again, the messenger’s hoarse voice was like a dark snake crawling through the darkness, tempting its prey closer. “A crystal core can only achieve its greatest effect when given to someone of the same attribute. This seventh-rank psychic crystal core is a direct elevator to seventh-rank for psychic-type ability users. But for someone of a different attribute like me, it would only slightly improve me on top of my existing sixth-rank foundation.”
If Fu Erdie or a technical department member like Professor Zhao were here, they would immediately expose the cloaked man’s lie. A crystal core higher than one’s own rank was definitely not something useless after eating. Even if it could not compare to a same-attribute crystal core, it could still bring someone close to the rank corresponding to the crystal core.
But the boss of Jian City did not know that.
He and his base had long since forced all the people who did research and observations to their deaths, while he himself believed, deep down, that such detailed observations were useless. He made judgments based only on experience and common sense.
And the result was that, based on the “common sense” in the messenger’s words, he came to what seemed like an obvious conclusion: the boss of Ning City Base wanted as many allies as possible to join him. Psychic-type ability users were rare, and he could not find a partner who could maximise the effect of this seventh-rank crystal core. That was why he had set his sights on Luo Can.
The person in front of him was Ning City’s boss’s trusted confidant, so naturally he stood on his boss’s side and agreed with his view.
The more Luo Can thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed.
When a person was controlled by desire, in order to surrender to that desire with a clearer conscience, even if they distrusted something deep down, they would still find all kinds of reasons for themselves to achieve the corresponding goal.
Excitedly, he accepted the crystal core and made up his mind. “Don’t worry. Once I level up to seventh-rank, I’ll keep a close eye on that Butterfly Garden Principal for you!”
At the same time, in An City Base, which was not too far from Jian City Base, a similar situation occurred.
However, the boss of An City Base was much more meticulous.
Her rise to power relied on steadier arrangements and careful observation. Although she had also heartlessly driven ordinary people out of the base, she had at least basically had maps copied out for them, pointing out which deep mountains and old forests had fewer zombies and could be used as hiding places, and which places might still have supplies. Amid the cruelty, there was still a final bit of kindness that did not push people completely to madness. As a result, quite a few of those who fled had survived here and there.
She personally received the messenger. Looking at his thinly dressed but tightly covered body, the tip of her nose moved almost imperceptibly. After dealing with him politely for a long time, she finally said, “I need to consider it further.”
She pushed the seventh-rank psychic crystal core that had already been handed to her back, then had people respectfully escort the messenger to a guest room.
After he had gone far away, she handled work in her office for a while as usual, then went outside to patrol through the freezing wind and snow before finally returning to her bedroom.
No one noticed that during her patrol, when she reached the lookout tower and looked toward a certain place beyond the wall, she tapped her fingers in a regular rhythm. Then a few pieces of dandelion fluff, along with the fine snow falling from the sky, landed on the brim of An City’s boss’s hat and followed her home.
Apart from the two large bases, An City and Jian City, some small bases with very few people also encountered unexpected visitors.
These visitors, the so-called messengers, all wore cloaks and carried seventh-rank psychic crystal cores, giving completely unexpected gifts to bases large and small.
Some ability users accepted them with joy. Some were doubtful. Some politely invited the visitors to leave, then relocated overnight.
And all of this was taken in by the inconspicuous dandelions on the thick snow layer. Through the energy space, the scenes were reconstructed, and all the information was displayed inside the energy space in the form of images.
Fu Erdie: “…”
She looked at those crystal cores, deep in thought.
Ning City Base could not possibly have that many seventh-rank crystal cores, especially psychic-type crystal cores. If they did, the boss of Ning City Base would have long since reached eighth-rank, or even ninth-rank.
He would not need to think up all kinds of methods to deal with Fu Erdie. He could simply use his psychic power to cover Hua Country, locate her position, and attack directly. Why would he still need to hide in some unknown corner and carry out these sneaky little moves?
After listening to Fu Erdie’s speculation, Sang Wenhao pressed his thin lips together. After a long while, he said, “Some ability users awaken new abilities when they level up beyond fourth-rank. His ability may be related to crystal core decomposition and fusion.”
Just like when Cen Xiyang advanced to fourth-rank, she ate the crystal core of a fourth-rank space-type zombie king and gained the ability to store items in a certain amount of space.
Fu Erdie herself had also evolved during the process of levelling up and gained the ability to use her close companions’ powers.
That had directly changed her combat position from main support to main damage dealer.
That psychic-type boss in Ning City must also have some kind of special ability.
Sang Wenhao said, “The sixth-rank elephant-shaped zombie had four crystal cores. To some extent, the four individuals that made up the elephant-shaped zombie all had the ability to control the body. But judging from the result, perhaps the human-face part, the one with some intelligence, was the one in control most of the time.”
Thinking of it this way, the clues connected.
The psychic ability of Ning City’s boss might have the power to promote animals, humans, and even zombies into forming crystal cores and developing abilities. At the same time, he could control these crystal cores he had produced, fusing them into one individual or splitting them into many pieces.
And the crystal cores he had people distribute might be replicas of his own crystal core, created through his ability. If others tried to absorb them, perhaps they would end up with two crystal cores inside them, and then the crystal core belonging to Ning City’s psychic ability user would take the dominant role.
Fu Erdie was not completely sure whether the truth was exactly as she imagined, but she still wrote down the current possibilities while not giving up on other explanations.
The boss of An City Base, An Ya, had already told her about Ning City’s messenger. It was not an ability user, but an intelligent ability zombie.
As a fifth-rank five-senses ability user, An Ya was extremely sensitive to other people’s aura. In the early days of the apocalypse, she had relied on her ability to help her teammates avoid countless zombie attacks. She could basically be called a human zombie detector.
This sixth-rank ability user moved normally. Although his voice was hoarse, his speech was clear, which did not fit the usual impression of how a zombie should be.
Even so, An Ya still reported the matter to Fu Erdie. Regardless of whether Fu Erdie believed it or not, she said everything she knew. At the same time, she also asked Fu Erdie to come to An City and deal with this sixth-rank zombie that could imitate humans.
Fu Erdie was naturally willing.
After all, through the dandelions’ feedback, Fu Erdie had already seen some small ability-user bases, and some places that were not even bases but simply had psychic-type ability users who were useful enough to be targeted by people sent by Ning City Base. When they refused Ning City’s demands and fled overnight, they were chased down that same night.
Fu Erdie urgently contacted the nearest fifth-rank dandelions inside the ability space and had them go over to provide cover, saving those ability users. That was the only reason many people who refused Ning City’s demands had not suffered disaster.
Other people could flee, but An City Base had so many people and so many supplies. They could not be abandoned easily.
As it happened, there were still three or four small zombie hordes near An City that had not yet been cleared out. She could go over to deal with the messenger while also dealing with the zombie hordes.
Fu Erdie redrew her zombie-clearing route map, combining the two tasks of killing zombies and protecting ability users being hunted by Ning City. While levelling up as quickly as possible, she also dealt with the eyes Ning City had released.
The wind and snow had not yet stopped, but the preparations before war had already begun.
At this moment in Jian City, the messenger left Jian City Base feeling very satisfied, then suddenly looked toward a snowdrift.
He—or rather, it—sent out an ice blade without thinking and blasted the snowdrift apart.
Snow fragments flew everywhere, but there was nothing there.
Had it sensed wrongly?
The messenger thought with its not particularly sharp brain and eventually let it go.
Above the explosion site, a dandelion rose silently and completely intact, drifted away, then quietly landed again, pretending nothing had happened.
….
An City.
Building Seven was dealing with the surrounding zombie hordes, while Fu Erdie arrived at An City Base one step ahead. She killed the messenger and took that special seventh-rank psychic crystal core.
She looked at it for a while but could not see anything wrong, so she handed it to Han Zhi, who was also a psychic-type ability user, to examine.
The moment Han Zhi placed his hand on it, he fell into a daze.
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