Chapter 49

“But if you are talking about superior breed, isn’t the one that wounded you and Doctor Mavis stronger?” Heloise asked.

“It’s not like that. Just now both birds dodged my first strike, but I suddenly felt at that moment that this one was a greater threat, so I moved to stop it. The second one only took advantage of the situation. I have a feeling that the one that rammed into my sword was a little stronger, though… it’s just a feeling, so I have no basis behind it.” Bai Yi explained.

“S-sorry! It’s all my fault, if only I didn’t open the door!” Woolf was at quite at a loss.

“It’s not your fault, I let you open the door. It’s my miscalculation instead; I never expected that these hummingbirds would be so intelligent. They actually knew how to wait in ambush of us.” Bai Yi looked at Woolf blaming himself and patted his arm to console him.

“Bai Yi, what did you say just now?” Heloise suddenly asked when she heard Bai Yi.

“It’s not your fault, I let you open the door. It’s my miscalculation instead; I never expected that these hummingbirds would be so intelligent. They actually knew how to wait in ambush of us.” From just a look at Heloise’s expression, Bai Yi could guess that she’d thought of something and immediately repeated himself again. Woolf wanted to say something, but Bai Yi waved his hand at him, warning him not to disturb Heloise at this time. This rare moment of inspiration could result in some very important information.

“Intelligent. Yes, these evolved lifeforms are too intelligent!” Heloise finally said to everybody excitedly after thinking for a moment.

“Bai Yi, I noticed recently that Sharpei seems to be able to understand human speech. Was he always so intelligent?” Heloise asked.

“Actually, Sharpei has always been very smart, and it seems to be able to understand what Momo says. But now that you mention it, Sharpei really seems to have become more intelligent.” Bai Yi suddenly recalled how Sharpei got the other dog that they met on the way to Otorohanga Middle School to back off.

“Actually, it isn’t just Sharpei. Even Little Warner’s pet pig, don’t you think that it’s a little too intelligent?”

Everyone immediately thought of the two pets in their team. Normally they just thought that both Sharpei and Pupu were quite smart and they didn’t mess around like normal animals. However, now that Heloise mentioned it, it really seemed like they were extremely intelligent. However, wasn’t it a good thing? If the pets were smarter then it would be easier to control them, otherwise it would be troublesome if they ran amok.

“Activated cells!” Bai Yi said gravely.

“En, activated cells!” Heloise.

“Just what are you guys talking about?” Woolf asked.

“It’s the influence of the activated cells. We have concluded so far that activated cells have 3 abilities – 1. Activated Capabilities, 2. Gene Fusion, 3. Chain Infection. If my deduction is correct, then we have to add another ability to that…” Heloise looked at Woolf’s blank face and explained.

“Becoming smarter!”

“Intelligence enhancement!”

“Awakened Intelligence!”

The three of them spoke at the same time. although they didn’t say the same thing, the meanings of it were the same.

“Really, activated cells still have this capability? Why don’t I feel anything?” Woolf couldn’t help but scratch his head and said dumbly after hearing the three of them.

“You can’t be saved, really, even the power of activated cells can’t make you smarter!” Bai Yi joked.

“Hahahaha!” Everyone immediately burst out laughing after hearing Bai Yi.

“Anyway, let’s just record this down as a guess of ours. As for whether it’s true or not, we’ll find out after we encounter other evolved lifeforms in the future.” Bai Yi said.

At this time, Mavis had already finished wrapping up the wound on her thigh. From the start till end Mavis didn’t speak much, but she didn’t whine and cry like what a normal girl would do. Mavis, who had already lived to middle age, had plenty of life experience which caused her to become more mature and calm.

“Give me your left hand!” Mavis said to Bai Yi.

“En!”

“Your left hand has really been through many calamities, really, do you not want your left hand anymore?” Mavis looked at Bai Yi’s left hand and said. A single sentence left Bai Yi speechless, ever since Te Awamutu his left hand had been continuously getting injured. His left arm even fractured in the battle against Yu Han a few days ago; now that it got injured it really seemed like he didn’t want his left hand anymore.

“It couldn’t be helped, hehehe…” Bai Yi said meekly.

Very quickly, Bai Yi’s palm was bandaged. He took out the communicator and tested it; the distance wasn’t too far so they could still communicate.

After the communicator got through, Bai Yi told Hong Qi Hua about their mishap in the ecological park and reminded them to be careful. They had to be wary of not just large animals now, but the smaller animals and insects were just as dangerous.

After they finished talking, Bai Yi’s group sat quietly inside the mini observation room, not knowing when those hummingbirds would leave.

“Woolf, you fused with the genes of a dog, so your sense of hearing should’ve increased by a lot. Can you try to listen carefully and see if you hear anything?” Bai Yi said.

“Oh really?”

Woolf was quite taken aback but still followed Bai Yi’s words and listened carefully for any sounds outside the room. After focusing his senses, Woolf realised that he really could hear the sounds outside just like Bai Yi said.

Woolf placed his dog ears to the door. After a while he slowly turned around and nodded. “I can hear them; they’re still outside. There’s a slight buzzing sound. Weird, why didn’t I notice it just now?”

“I probably can guess why!” Bai Yi said, looking at Woolf.

“After being infected by activated cells and fusing with many genes, our bodies started to change rapidly. Not just in our physical form but in some other areas: strength, speed, senses…But in reality, just 10 odd days ago we didn’t have these abilities. Although we’d already changed, the ‘common sense’ we had in our bodies for the past decades is impeding our ability to display these abilities.” Bai Yi stretched out his right hand and clenched his fist.

“Oh really? That means that we have to practice and familiarize ourselves with our abilities!” Heloise and Mavis nodded.

“En, precisely!” Bai Yi nodded too.

Woolf understood as well after the few of them explained and gave examples in detail. At this time, a long period of time had already passed and based on Woolf’s hearing, the hummingbirds were still waiting for them outside. It was Bai Yi’s group that seemed to have run out of patience first.

“We can’t continue like this. Even if the hummingbirds leave we’ll still encounter them when we go out later. We must find a way to kill all of them.” Bai Yi said.

“Bai Yi, don’t you know knife skills? Just like in the movies, a few lines of light will flash, then all the hummingbirds will fall onto the floor…” Woolf said.

“What nonsense are you talking about, my knife skills are from practicing cooking, they’re not something like that.” Bai Yi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Then what do we do?”

“Use that!” Heloise said, pointing at the curtain in the room.

“A curtain?”

“Yes, use this. Wrap this over the crack in the door and open the door, those hummingbirds will definitely rush in and get trapped inside the curtain.” Heloise nodded.

“How is that possible? The curtain will be useless, we already saw that the birds were like drills just now.” Woolf shook his head.

“No, it can work!” Bai Yi tested the curtain and discovered that the curtain was made of some unknown material; it was abnormally tough and flexible. It should be able to trap those hummingbirds.

They didn’t have many resources, so even though this method didn’t seem too reliable, they didn’t have much of a choice. They first folded the curtain onto itself and layered it, blocking the crack in the door. Bai Yi then nodded to Woolf.

Woolf opened the door again, and this time the buzzing noise came in an instant. Multiple sharp protrusions appeared on the curtain that was used to block the door before the protrusions started to twist.

The curtain was flexible yet tough; it was actually tougher for the birds to break through the curtain than through a hard surface like the glass window.

Animals originally already had the ability to judge their strengths and weaknesses. After becoming intelligent, the more they wouldn’t fight an enemy they couldn’t win.

After a few minutes, some of the birds were stuck inside the curtain but the others decided to escape. Only now did the few of them let out breaths of relief and looked at the giant curtain bundle with dozens of hummingbirds inside.

“What do we do with these guys?”

“Why don’t we grill and eat them?” Woolf asked.

“Dream on; hummingbirds are the smallest species of birds in the world. They’re normally around the same size as a bee, and the smallest of them only weigh 2 grams. Look at these hummingbirds. Although they’re a bit bigger, they probably don’t exceed 10 grams. What’re you going to eat from this thing?” Bai Yi suddenly felt like Woolf was just like a clown.

“Er… I just thought that we didn’t have enough food, and that we couldn’t release them either…” Woolf said awkwardly.

Bai Yi stretched out his hand and cautiously grabbed hold of a struggling hummingbird inside the curtain bundle. The bird very rapidly flapped its wings trying to escape from Bai Yi’s hand, but to no avail. After a while, the hummingbird completely accepted its fate and didn’t bother to struggle anymore.

Bai Yi stretched out his index finger and stroked the head of the hummingbird with it, and in the end, he totally released his grip.

The hummingbird tilted its head and looked at Bai Yi. It then flew to the window ledge and looked at the curtain. Bai Yi felt that he seemed to understand what the hummingbird meant and slowly opened the curtain bundle. The hummingbirds which were initially trapped flew out one by one. The birds looked at Bai Yi’s group for a while and slowly flew away through the crack in the doo