Chapter 199

Chapter 199: Conversation

Lucretia kept her gratitude in her heart; there wasn’t a need to emphasize just how valuable something that could enhance the strength of the absolute life field was. Even if the poison inside Woolf’s body was from the poisons contained within the Hundred Flavor Extreme Poison Sushi, Bai Yi could have just told her about the few poisonous ingredients and kept the complete recipe a secret.

Things were much better after getting a lead toward the solution, and Lucretia immediately started conducting tests with this direction in mind. They tried out the eight types of poisons that Bai Yi had used in his cooking first, and other natural poisons after that. Before long, they managed to come up with a precise formula that could effectively kill the parasites, which they had named Iron Hookworms.

However, even though they managed to kill the parasites, the Iron Hookworms struggled vigorously in the hosts’ bodies when they were on the verge of dying, and caused all those infected unimaginable pain. Those with slightly weaker constitutions immediately foamed at the mouth and fainted; if they weren’t sure that this method was effective, nobody would have dared to use it.

Although they were terribly tortured, all of them felt joy while suffering. It was a great blessing to be able to kill those parasites, and they felt this especially so after looking at the few guys in the worst conditions. A mature Iron Hookworm was more than 20 centimeters long, yellowish-black in color, and had a hooked, forked tail at the end of its body. It was easy to imagine that some of them had dozens of these worms in their bodies; it would require a miracle for them to recover from something like this.

…

“Damn it! I’m going to even puke my intestines out at this rate! This is so damn disgusting!” Woolf grumbled with a pale face, looking at the small Iron Hookworms writhing about on the verge of death in his vomit.

“You are already considered quite lucky; the ones with the worst conditions already had the Iron Hookworms digging into other parts of their bodies, and not just in their intestines. Although they can kill the Iron Hookworms after taking the poison-type medicine, how to expel the worms from their bodies is another problem. A few of them have died themselves before they could completely kill the worms,” Bai Yi said.

“Why?”

“Their brains; the worms had dug into their brains,” Bai Yi reminded him solemnly. He had seen the ones in the worst conditions himself; the hosts had still been alive when the Iron Hookworms crawled out from their ears and noses, and some had even dug their way inside their eyeballs. Those kinds of frenzied and miserable shrieks still made him shiver inside even now. That was definitely much more terrifying than dying from a blade.

Woolf vomited noisily again, then suddenly held onto his belly and ran toward the toilet at the back. After a while, he came out again, and looked completely exhausted like all the energy had been drained from his body. “I’ll never go into the water again!” Woolf said seriously.

“Hahahaha!” Bai Yi started laughing loudly; no matter what, they had a solution now, and he could finally breathe a sigh of relief. What was a little bit of pain?

After solving the problem of the parasites here, good news came from Nancy’s side as well. Although their test subjects were coerced into undergoing metamorphosis, the potion that Nancy and the rest had created was indeed effective. The success rate of metamorphosis was as high as 80%, and the amount of Tranquil Grass consumed was less than half of what was needed normally.

However, even if the amount consumed was less than half, it was still not enough. Nobody dared to continue going into the water to collect Tranquil Grass anymore, so they had to develop an even more effective Tranquil Medicament.

…

While Nancy and the other Medicinal Makers were busy researching an even more effective Tranquil Medicament, Bai Yi was also testing his own body. Specifically, the two things he had noticed before—breathing while his body was underwater in the lake, and the few steps where he had floated on top of the lake while jumping in.

A deep and forthright voice sounded, “This won’t do. You would indeed have the ability to suck and stick to the surface by controlling the energy inside your body, but the water flow is formless; to let the water’s surface support the weight of your body you would need to control a very large volume of water. As of now, the range over which we can control energy is still only within the range of our absolute life field, which is within our bodies. Although we can manipulate energy within a certain area around our bodies, you should also know that that is just the residual light released by our absolute life field, and not that our absolute life field has managed to extend outside of our bodies.”

“En, indeed. It’s still impossible for me to stand still on the surface of the water; the most I can do is to run across the water like those martial arts experts in the old legends.” Bai Yi nodded as streams of air rolled around his body, and he gently stepped across the water to walk onto the shore.

A guy squatting on top of a rock beside the lake said, “I heard that there’s Iron Hookworms inside the lake, aren’t you scared of getting infected?”

“It’s fine, since I already know about it I just have to be careful and it won’t be a problem.” Bai Yi didn’t have to breathe underwater, and he could clearly sense the air around his body, so he was also very sensitive to any impurities in the water itself. Water dripped off Bai Yi’s body now as he walked to the shore, but he didn’t seem haggard in the slightest.

Bai Yi looked at the tall guy squatting on top of the rock. “You should be Augustine, right? The LV2 who appeared in the City of Graves back then and saved a lot of people.”

“Ahahahaha! Actually, it’s not as impressive as you put it!” Augustine started laughing loudly and shyly scratched the back of his head.

“No matter what, I should still say a word of thanks. If not for you then there would probably be a lot fewer evolved humans now.”

“Don’t say that, you’re making me sound like an outsider!”

Bai Yi went along with Augustine’s words. “Haha, sorry! Actually, to speak of it, we really aren’t too different. You guys could be considered to be our elders.”The two of them observed each other seriously; one of them was a LV2 that had escaped from a research facility early on, and the other was a leader that had emerged after the sudden change in New Zealand. Their auras collided together uncontrollably; it was completely the natural reaction that somebody would have upon seeing an opponent.

A soft ‘pa!’ sounded in the air, and both of their auras relaxed at the same time.

Augustine was slightly taken aback. He had entered LV2 way back in that research facility, but he couldn’t gain an inch in the clash of their auras just now. Just how did this guy raise his strength?!

“It’s very unexpected that you would appear in a place like this. You should be looking for me for something, right?”

“Actually, it’s nothing much. I just heard that it was pretty lively here, so I came over and took a look,” Augustine said.

“Oh, really?” Bai Yi casually sat on a rock as well, and lost the serious look that he normally had.

“Oh, right. I heard that you guys are planning to return to the human world?”

“En, we are planning to do this. Do you have some suggestions?” Bai Yi looked at Augustine. As a being that had already been LV2 from the start, he must have had a very different experience over these five years.

“I don’t have suggestions, but I think I should tell you about some things,” Augustine said.

“I’m all ears,” Bai Yi said seriously.

“Do you know how many experimental subjects there were in the whole of New Zealand?”

“Around two hundred to three hundred thousand, I guess?” Bai Yi recalled the information he had gotten from Martin and Yeye a while back.

“Then do you know how many experimental subjects managed to escape?”

Bai Yi shook his head. “That I don’t know.”

“Probably around twenty to thirty thousand. Oh, I’m talking about those that successfully escaped the research facilities and entered New Zealand’s environment. Of course, I’m also one of them. Oh, by the way, I escaped from Tongariro National Park Research Facility, to speak of it. I still really have to thank you. If not for you guys, I probably would have already starved to death by now. Hahahaha!” Augustine laughed loudly.

Bai Yi was slightly surprised hearing his words; he didn’t expect that they were the ones who let Augustine out.

“But do you know how many experimental subjects are still alive now?” Augustine’s tone suddenly became very low.

“I don’t know.”

“Less than 20.” Augustine looked at Bai Yi. Bai Yi didn’t interrupt him either, but waited silently for Augustine to explain.

“There were more than twenty thousand experimental subjects that escaped from the research facilities at first, but the humans that still retained their rationality only numbered three to four thousand. In addition, at that time, they were all at the LV1-2 or LV1-3 stages. It’s really regretful; although you guys released some ways to control the berserk state, for them it was too late. Most of them basically failed in metamorphosis,” Augustine said.

“2.31%!”

“What?”

“I’m talking about the success rate of entering LV2 inside the research facilities, which also held for your batch of experimental subjects. It’s probably not too different for those people; even if it was higher it wouldn’t be by much,” Bai Yi explained.

“En, that’s indeed the case. The success rate of them entering LV2 was slightly higher, but it wasn’t much higher either. Most of them became LV2.1 defective products, and me and a few friends killed them afterwards.” Augustine looked at Bai Yi, his eyes incomparably cold and detached.

Bai Yi shook in his heart; killed!

“Why?”

“Really, what kind of look is that? Not only did you not thank us, but you even have a look of hostility. Think about it seriously: what kind of standard were you guys at back then, and what kind of standard were those LV2.1 defective products at? If we didn’t kill them, then most of you would have definitely died after meeting them. I don’t like to do this at all, but I have to admit that your bunch of evolved humans are the main group in New Zealand now. If there could be any changes, they would definitely happen to you guys, like now,” Augustine said seriously.

Only now did Bai Yi suddenly recall things. They really hadn’t meet many experimental subjects along the way. He had initially thought that it was because New Zealand was too big and had a low population; but unexpectedly, it was because Augustine and his group had been killing off all those overly savage creatures.

“Thank you!” Bai Yi nodded seriously.

“No need, no need. Actually, I don’t know if what I did was correct either; I just thought of it that way back then and followed through with it. The reason I came here today is actually to collect some Tranquil Grass and transplant it somewhere else. This stuff is extremely useful to all evolved lifeforms, but other places haven’t discovered something like it yet,” Augustine said.

Bai Yi smiled. “Is that so? I have this intention too.”

“Oh, right, there’s still one more thing. You guys intend to return to the human world, right? Actually, over these five years, many people returned to the human world, including a batch of experimental subjects that returned at first. Some wanted to live a quiet and peaceful life, some wanted to take revenge, but their endings weren’t good at all. There isn’t much goodwill in the outside world toward evolved humans and lifeforms now,” Augustine reminded Bai Yi at the end, carrying a big bunch of Tranquil Grass in his hands.

“Thanks a lot!”

“Remember to contact me if you guys manage to find a safe place. I’ll just stay in the Devil Isles for now then.” Augustine carried the bunch of Tranquil Grass away and very quickly disappeared from this place.