Bai Zemin approached the window of his room that overlooked the backyard of the villa and opened the curtain very slightly to look outside with only one eye. His gaze naturally lingered more on the body of the two gorgeous women who had bodies capable of putting to shame the most acclaimed supermodels in the whole world; especially Lilith's, the body of the little succubus was so, so beautiful and tempting that even angels would fall and saints would degrade for the sake of giving her an extra look.
If the body of Lilith was this beautiful and seductive in her fake human form and with her charm suppressed to the maximum possible, then Bai Zemin couldn't even imagine how beautiful she would be in her real form without holding back her beauty at all.
This was the first time he had seen Lilith showing so much skin. The only time it was barely even close to this level was when she seduced him wearing that sexy purple babydoll which Bai Zemin could still remember clearly even with his eyes open. And yet, back then Lilith showed practically not even half as much skin as she did this time.
In fact, Bai Zemin felt incredibly possessive when he looked at Lilith. He sensed something was wrong when the mere thought of imagining another man looking at her skin caused his blood to boil like a volcano threatening to erupt.
Even though Lilith was not his girlfriend, even though he and she were just testing the waters to see where they would reach in the future, Bai Zemin really didn't feel able to control himself if a man were to see her right now wearing that sexy bikini.
This scared Bai Zemin very much as that feeling was practically uncontrollable, like a torrent of fire that would simply burst out into the heavens if anyone dared to touch the switch. He feared for what would happen when the effect of the skill Stone Heart vanished as this skill kept the mind of Bai Zemin considerably cool on most occasions.
Didn't that mean that he would turn into a wild beast unable to control his emotions if Stone Heart disappeared?
Bai Zemin shook his head and turned his attention to the four little girls playing with the little pink dolphin in a half-successful half-failed attempt to direct his thoughts elsewhere as well.
A few minutes later, he sighed softly and closed the curtain once again.
Bai Zemin turned his focus to the bed and without a word leaned his back against the opposite wall.
"Soon." He murmured softly, his eyes flashing with irrepressible excitement.
Bai Zemin could feel how the breathing of the first subject that had been reconverted into a human by his Limitless Pagoda had completely stabilized and even the frown on the face of the man had disappeared without a trace.
Almost 24 hours had passed and Bai Zemin believed that the man would wake up when the full day cycle was successfully completed. As for the reason behind his train of thought, it was because when he consumed the Lightning Fruit back then he also experienced symptoms extremely similar to what the reconvert had experienced during the past 20+ hours.
Bai Zemin was not mistaken when an hour later and while he was resting his back against the wall, a small, almost inaudible but extremely clear growl in the middle of the silent room caused him to open his eyes abruptly.
Bai Zemin took advantage of the wall behind him to propel himself slightly forward and quickly approached the bed with his eyes fixed on the man's face.
"Ugh…" The man opened his eyes very slowly, but before he could fully open them, the light from outside slammed him straight in the face causing him to hurriedly close his eyes again.
This confused Bai Zemin as the curtains mitigated quite a bit of the outside light, however, after some thought he managed to draw a conclusion that may or may not be wrong.
With the man having been a zombie for a period of time within the two and a half months from the moment the apocalypse began, his eyes were open at all times and his consciousness dulled. Therefore, maybe a little more time was needed for his pupils to adjust to the light.
"How do you feel?" Bai Zemin tried with a question first.
"… I feel as if a truck ran over me once and then backed up to run over me again just in case." The man replied in a hoarse, raspy voice.
Bai Zemin walked over to the bedside table and filled a glass with water before extending it toward the man on the bed, "Here, drink this."
The man struggled to open his eyes and Bai Zemin noticed how his pupils slowly returned to normal, which despite being painful allowed him to see the world for the first time in a long time.
The man took the glass of water and drank it all in one gulp. Then, like a thirsty beast, he didn't even wait for Bai Zemin to say anything before pouring himself another glass and drinking it all once more, this time more carefully than the first.
Bai Zemin watched carefully every movement of the man, trying to see if there was any problem. So far, except for the excessive thirst, everything seemed normal.
After drinking more than half of the contents of the glass pitcher that was previously filled with water, the reconverted man finally set the glass down on the nightstand next to the bed and looked at Bai Zemin.
"I'm sorry for my disrespect…. But I really felt that I would die if I didn't drink water soon." He apologized, this time his voice was lighter than before despite not being the most beautiful melody to listen to.
"Don't worry about it." Bai Zemin extended his arm and moved a chair to sit beside the bed. He smiled slightly and introduced himself, "My name is Bai Zemin. I am the leader of this human camp. May I know what your name is?"
"Human camp…?" The man muttered as if in a daze before a wave of memories hit him. He clutched his head and squeezed his skull tightly while grunting as if a great pain overwhelmed him.
Bai Zemin narrowed his eyes but did nothing more than watch. While he didn't believe that his pagoda had failed, he was prepared to crush the man's skull with a single punch if he noticed or perceived that something was wrong; his safety had total priority at all times, more so at times like this where he could only experiment one step at a time.
"Now… Now I remember everything vividly."
The reconverted man's words caused a slight frown to inadvertently appear on Bai Zemin's face, fearing the worst. However, his worries were uncalled for and that was proven in the next instant.
"A strange window appeared in my eyes, showing strange numbers and letters…. After that, I simply found myself running for my life." The man began to talk about his life after the Soul Record arrived on Earth and the apocalypse broke out.
He had managed to survive by sheer luck as he did not have the courage to fight against the terrifying zombies, let alone the monstrous beasts that had become tremendously faster and stronger compared to the past. However, luck could only help a person up to a certain point, and once the strike of luck ran out, we could only rely on ourselves if we had no one to rely on.
Unfortunately, the man in front of Bai Zemin only had himself after losing his wife and daughter, who were both turned into zombies the first moment the world changed. In an oversight, the man was scratched by a zombie when he was forced to look for food by the leader of the small group of survivors he was part of at the time.
"From here on… Everything is white for me." The man looked to the opposite wall with a blank stare as he muttered, "What happened? Wasn't I supposed to turn into a zombie just like everyone else?"
Bai Zemin let out a sigh of relief in his heart as one of the giant stones weighing on his chest finally lifted. As long as the memories of the life that the reconverts had led when they were still zombies had been erased or sealed away, then everything would be much easier for Bai Zemin. Otherwise, even if his Limitless Pagoda possessed the capacity to reconvert zombies into humans, most of them would probably lose their minds after learning that they ate other humans among whom their relatives could be found.
"In fact, until a day ago you were a zombie." Bai Zemin decided to be honest since lying would be pointless. After all, if he started reconverting zombies into humans the news would sooner or later get out and if he lied now everything could fall apart as a consequence.
The man looked at Bai Zemin without much surprise and said in a weak voice: "It was you? I mean the person who saved my life and gave me back my humanity."
"It was me." Bai Zemin naturally nodded.
"I see…" The man looked at his hands and murmured, "Thank you."
"Don't worry about it." Bai Zemin said casually. He decided that it was enough of answering questions since it was now his turn.
"Can you tell me your name?"
"Liao Su."
"Do you know how to call your status window?"
"I do."
"Would you mind sharing your stats with me? Oh, in case there is any abnormal status condition that wasn't there when you stopped being human I'd also like you to tell me."
"Human race, level 12. Strength 17, Agility 6, Health 10, Stamina 30, Mana 2, Magic 5. No abnormal effects in sight."
"Do you have any status points available?"
"No. I don't have any. They all seem to have been used even though I don't remember using any…. In fact, I don't even remember ever leveling up in my life…. I must have killed a lot of humans didn't I…?"
"That's not necessarily the case. Zombies also have to fight wild beasts and other creatures which you will learn about later so you don't have to think too much about it. But even if some humans lost their lives with your body being the weapon, I don't think it's wise to consider that it was you when you weren't even sentient and basically no different than a mindless robot."
…
Bai Zemin asked several questions and Liao Su answered in all honesty to show his gratitude. Thanks to this, Bai Zemin managed to learn many points.
First: the stats of the reconverted were quite normal as a whole except for the Stamina stat which was clearly above average for someone at Liao Su's level. Bai Zemin judged that this was related to the infinite Stamina of the zombies, as was the relationship between Liao Su's low Agility for someone of his level with the slowness of the zombies.
Second: the Soul Record was probably in charge of distributing the zombies' status points since they were incapable due to the loss of consciousness and intelligence. This was probably the reason why the zombies, in contrast to the beasts, did not receive any boost when passing from an Order to the other since they did receive their 2 status points for each level up.
Third and last: it seems that the reconverted were much calmer and their minds clearer than that of a normal human. Otherwise, Bai Zemin doubted that anyone could stay so calm without requiring at least a few days of rest to adapt to the truth that Liao Su was forced to face all at once.
Bai Zemin lowered his head as he processed all the information he had just obtained. Even if Liao Su finally decided to leave the base and not join his faction, the information he had just acquired was definitely worth more than two Unclassified Soul Stones as even Lilith did not know too much in these matters since she did not own a pagoda.
Just at that moment, Liao Su's voice interrupted Bai Zemin's train of thoughts:
"By the way, I also have a passive skill."
"Em?" Bai Zemin raised his head and looked at him in surprise.
Liao Su looked at him without blinking and said honestly, "This is the first time I look into my status window carefully. After all, in the past I was nothing but a level 0 human so I had no reason to open my status window to check something that would never change. That's why I didn't notice the skill when you asked me about it earlier."
However, Bai Zemin's surprise didn't come from the fact that Liao Su hadn't noticed that skill but from the skill itself.
Unclassified zombies were mostly beings no different from beasts in the mental aspect and the only exception was some oddities that Bai Zemin had fortunately never met. Therefore, it was common sense to assume that they should not be able to pick up a skill scroll from the ground and learn it.
In fact, Bai Zemin had spent hours watching groups of zombies fighting and killing mutant beasts to see if anything fell from the battle but no matter how many groups he tracked from afar nor how many battles he witnessed, no zombie or unintelligent beast managed to obtain any spoils of war.
Could it be that the Soul Record engraved this skill in Liao Su's soul?
Or maybe it was related to his Limitless Pagoda?
Bai Zemin had a strong premonition about this skill and his premonitions strangely came true on most occasions. Therefore, he quickly pursued the matter: "Tell me about this skill of yours."
"This…" Liao Su blushed faintly and said softly, "The name of my skill is Immune Blood but I don't know how to see what it does…"
Immune Blood? Bai Zemim's heart began to thump against his chest like crazy when he heard the name of the skill.
Bai Zemin stared at him in a daze for a moment before understanding the situation. He quickly explained, "Just focus on the skill and you will naturally see."
"Okay," Liao Su nodded and quickly did as Bai Zemin instructed.
A few seconds later, the records of the passive skill Immune Blood flashed in his retina.
* * * * * * *
Really thank you very much to all those who send gifts to the novel and support with valuable Golden Tickets. I hope we can all keep it up <3
