Chapter 128: Mutant Rats
That evening, after asking Liu Rui, Antonio, and Li Zhuang, Lu Weiyi learned that all three were at the critical point of upgrading, though Liu Rui had been there the longest.
“We have few people and few crystal cores. Besides the ones handed out daily, I don’t have many left. So, I’ll provide the cores for your upgrade, but it’ll be on credit. Think about whether you want to upgrade,” Lu Weiyi gathered the three and spoke openly.
“Although it’ll look like you’re upgrading with your own cores, since they pass through me, naturally there are benefits. As for what those benefits are—you’ll understand in the future.”
“I’m in.”
“Me too.”
Both Li Zhuang and Antonio were detail-oriented. From the very first distribution of cores, they had noticed something different. So now, they didn’t hesitate.
“I… agree too,” Liu Rui said.
“Alright, since all three of you want to upgrade, let’s draw lots to determine the order,” Lu Weiyi had always believed that if you didn’t get picked, it was just bad luck. He never forced things and never considered this kind of stuff from a broader team development perspective.
He prepared three slips marked 1, 2, and 3. After drawing, Antonio got number one and excitedly waved it while shouting “YES”. Li Zhuang drew second, leaving Liu Rui last.
Lu Weiyi immediately brought out five bags of crystal cores and began counting them out for Antonio. “These are 500 non-attributed crystal cores, 100 in each bag. Count them. It’d be better if we had matching elemental cores, but we already used the only one we managed to trade for. So now we can only use non-attributed ones.”
“No need to count, just remember how long I’ll owe you in labor,” Antonio said cheerfully. He sat straight down and, excited, asked, “What do I do? Should I cross my legs? Hands up? Breathe deeply? In your Eastern dramas, that’s how they do cultivation.”
“Please don’t act like an idiot,” Lu Weiyi said with a complicated expression. “Just sit however you like. Just absorb the cores continuously, quickly.”
“Forced upgrades are definitely uncomfortable. Don’t stop until it’s over, or it’ll all be for nothing, and it’ll make the next upgrade harder. I’m not sure exactly how many you’ll need—if it’s not enough, I’ll keep supplying them.”
“OK, I’m starting now,” Antonio got up, half-laid back on the bed, grabbed the cores, and began to absorb them.
The other two stood quietly by the door, minimizing their presence. Lu Weiyi leaned against the cabinet by the bed, closely watching Antonio’s condition.
The speed of absorption depended on the person. Some took longer, but Antonio was fast—each core only took him about seven or eight seconds.
At first, his expression didn’t change at all—he looked relaxed. But after twenty minutes, he started showing discomfort. His face became more serious, and as time went on, it clearly got more intense.
Still, he didn’t show it much outwardly. Only the clenched jaw and sweat on his forehead betrayed his struggle.
When he was nearly halfway through the fifth bag, a strong wave of energy suddenly burst out from Antonio, surging around him. The three people nearby were forced to step back a few paces from the impact. Liu Rui, who was leaning on the door, even smacked against it with a loud “bang”.
“You guys okay in there? Not fighting, are you?” Xu Sa’s voice called from outside.
“We’re fine,” Li Zhuang answered, eyes still fixed on Antonio.
The burst of energy vanished as quickly as it appeared, instantly retracted. Antonio opened his eyes—clear and bright—then turned to Lu Weiyi with a big grin, “Lu, I’ve leveled up. I can feel it.”
“Good. After upgrading, you might have new abilities. Try to see if you can metallize your body, or absorb metal from the ground or surroundings, or even create a metal shield,” Lu Weiyi said while counting the remaining cores. After a moment, he added, “You used 474 cores. From now on, your ‘wages’ are ten cores per day—repay your debt quickly.”
Then he turned to the other two. “We’re out of crystal cores for now. You’ll have to wait a few days. I’ll let you know when we have enough.”
Both nodded. When Lu Weiyi opened the door, he saw Xu Sa smiling, “Having a little meeting and it sounded like a fight in there.”
Dean looked over nervously too.
“Dean, I leveled up! Look!” Antonio rushed over, scooped Dean up and spun him around excitedly. As he shouted the news, his powers flared—every piece of metal in the room started to levitate, and almost everyone found a “weapon” floating in front of them. The group instinctively froze, enduring the moment as Antonio lost control in excitement.
“So this is what a higher level feels like?” Li Zhuang remembered that the first time Antonio used his power, he barely managed to fling a few knives and forks, and it drained him. Since then, he’d gotten more flexible, but never anything close to this.
“Exactly. And that’s why post-upgrade ‘wages’ double as well,” Lu Weiyi said.
“Looks like we’ve got to work harder,” Li Zhuang said to Liu Rui.
…
While the Only Team celebrated the rise of another B-level ability user, chaos broke out in the slums inside the base and the refugee zones outside.
A sudden downpour brought some relief from the sweltering heat, but the muddy aftermath made the crowded slum and refugee zones even worse—just in time for the first wave of mutant animal attacks since the big snow: mutant rats.
If it were just ordinary rats, it would be no more than a matter of a slipper—but these were mutated rats. Each one was about the size of a small piglet. A slipper wouldn’t do, and even a club might not be enough to kill one.
What’s more, rats are carnivorous even before the apocalypse, and now it’s even worse. Over a dozen starved mutated rats squeaked and squealed as they bit into a homeless man who couldn’t pay his rent, and then immediately began devouring him.
There aren’t many working lights in the post-apocalyptic world. Even if people heard the screams, it was too dark to see anything, and no one dared to stick their nose into someone else’s business, fearing they might become the next victim. As a result, the rats devoured four homeless people.
In the end, it was the military’s bi-hourly patrol that discovered the incident. They dispatched a small squad and killed six or seven of the rats, but the rest escaped.
Inside the base there were patrols, but outside was a different story. The area was overcrowded—while no one was killed, many were injured.
The members of Team Only learned about this the next day when they were preparing to head out and saw soldiers at the gate carrying rats back in. After asking about it, they got the story.
“Rats that big? They must be eating people by now,” Xu Sa, still in the thrill phase of having gained powers, remarked.
“Exactly. They even showed up inside the base and ate a few people. Nothing happened outside, but one of the bitten victims claimed a rat could spit fire…”
“Wait… does that mean it has an ability?”
“That’s what we’re wondering too.”
“But look at this thing—there’s at least fifteen pounds of meat on it. If it’s safe to eat, that’s a rare treat.”
As soon as those words left his mouth, everyone turned to Wu Yue, who had spoken. “What? I’m just stating facts. Anyone who’s been through field training has eaten this kind of stuff.”
“Our squad leader said the same thing. They’ve already sent it for testing. No idea if mutated animals are edible.”
“If it comes back as safe, let us know. We wouldn’t want to waste it if we come across one.”
“Definitely.”
The truck had driven a long way before Wu Yue was still lecturing everyone about how eating rats wasn’t weird. Then Ning Yuan’s voice came through the walkie-talkie, cutting him off: “Do you all remember when we went to the livestock farm—” he emphasized the last three words, and everyone knew he was referring to the day they ambushed Li Ji. “Remember that huge pig, taller than a person?”
“Yeah, I think it already had powers back then,” Li Zhuang replied.
“I didn’t believe it at the time, but looking at things now, animals are clearly mutating and gaining abilities,” Ning Yuan said as he stared out the window for a long while. “Who knows—maybe even mosquitoes and flies will start eating people. We’d better stay alert when we’re out there.”
His words put a damper on everyone’s mood for a moment, until Antonio suddenly chimed in, “That pig must’ve weighed four or five hundred pounds. If it’s edible, we’ve hit the jackpot. Lu, that thing’s still in your storage space, right?”
“Yeah, didn’t butcher it. You want to eat it?” Lu Weiyi had learned to go along with these topic shifts.
“We just raided a meat processing plant; we’re not short on meat. Let’s wait until we’re low. Remember that chicken giblet soup Brother Xi made? It was amazing. Think we can make something similar with pork offal?” Antonio asked seriously.
“Definitely—might even taste better,” Xiong Jie replied.
“You’re making me drool. You Easterners really know how to eat,” Antonio said admiringly.
With food as the topic, the team perked up, and the gloom quickly lifted. But Wu Yue brought the conversation back by unfolding the map.
“Should we head into the city center today? Flour Mill No. 1 is here. I heard no one’s been there yet. The base is recruiting two to three hundred wood-ability users and regular people a day. If we don’t stockpile supplies, we’ll burn through our reserves fast.”
“That many recruits…” Xu Sa started, then caught on, “Yeah, we better start gathering.”
“Mingxu has been recruiting wood-ability users to accelerate crop growth. The supplies we brought back also need sorting—it’s all detailed work, so we need more hands,” Wu Yue explained, worried others might think less of Zhuang Mingxu since he had no powers and couldn’t walk, yet still managed the team’s affairs.
“Then let’s hit all the flour mills over the next few days,” Antonio said, pointing out the locations of Mills 2 and 3 on the map. The three mills were in different districts and not close to each other.
“Mill No. 1 was secured by the military right after the quake and has already been emptied. Only Mill No. 6 hasn’t been touched—it collapsed in the quake, and they haven’t had the manpower to inspect it,” said Lin Yimu, relaying what Li Qing had privately told him.
“Oh right, forgot about that. What about shopping malls—are they secured too?” Antonio asked.
I wasn’t expecting giant rats to be the new enemy