Chapter 227: Spirit Research p1
Now what?
Lin Jiayao looked at the No. 2 zombie slot, which had entered cooldown, and fell into deep thought.
Anyway, might as well claim the reward… no, the compensation first.
Lin Jiayao opened the system compensation and saw her compensation.
[Please claim your compensation]
[1. Obtain Blood Crystal x1]
That’s it?
Who was she kidding?
But thinking about it, No. 2 itself was a newly hatched zombie, and its strength was only slightly stronger than an ordinary Biter.
Its only blue evolution was to make its hair hard and control its growth, and other abilities were basically related to reproduction.
It was estimated that even if it was killed, it wouldn’t drop even 100g of Blood Crystals.
For such a weak zombie, compensating one Blood Crystal was already considered generous of the system.
So what exactly happened in New Delhi?
Did she need to go and take a look?
Lin Jiayao looked away from the No. 2 slot, which had entered cooldown, and glanced at the empty No. 6 and No. 8 slots, which were still available for login.
It seemed that now, besides going to check on the situation, she had nothing else to do.
Even if she didn’t log in, she would just be recuperating here, waiting for the Research Lab to finish its evolution research.
To be safe, Lin Jiayao still woke Huayibai up and told her to pat her if anything happened. After Huayibai closed her eyes again, Lin Jiayao directly opened the login interface.
Lin Jiayao decided to investigate the situation there and eliminate her doubts.
At the same time, she also set a time limit for herself, which was two hours.
Within two hours, whether she figured it out or not, she would give up on logging in and extracting, directly letting her consciousness return to her body, and no longer pay attention to what was happening there.
Her energy was limited, and she couldn’t take care of everything. Compared to what was happening there, she should be more concerned about her own evolution.
To deal with possible dangers, Lin Jiayao directly exchanged the one Blood Crystal compensated by the system for Blood Crystal Serum and put it in the Safehouse. Then, she clicked on No. 6 and chose New Delhi as the login location again.
“Roar—”
Before Lin Jiayao could even open her eyes, she heard the roars of zombies and the sound of intense gunfire around her.
She quickly opened her eyes, and while seeing the scene in front of her clearly, she also saw the inherited evolutions from the system.
[Inherited same type evolutions: [Bone Spike Lurker Lv.3], [Bone Hardening Lv.Max], [Bone Skin Lv.1], [Feigned Death Camouflage Lv.1]…]
A series of bone-related evolutions below purple flashed before Lin Jiayao, allowing her to quickly confirm that she was currently controlling a skeletal zombie.
And in front of her was an iron gate, its chains and bars rusty, looking like an abandoned prison cell.
As for the source of the roars that Lin Jiayao heard just now, they came from the zombies in the opposite cell and the roars from outside the iron window on the other side.
After looking around, Lin Jiayao saw many digging marks, some new and some old, which should have been made by the original zombie.
This was a multi-person prison cell with more than ten beds, and many sheets were stained with old blood and scattered clothes and bras.
It seemed that the zombie she was controlling was the last one to survive after killing all the others in the same prison cell.
After briefly moving her gaze, just as Lin Jiayao was about to try using Bone Spike Lurker, she felt an unbearable weakness.
This was a feeling she hadn’t had for a long time after getting used to the enhancement of [Hunting Rhythm].
It seemed that this zombie had been trapped here for a long time, unable to escape for so many years, until its bodily functions began to decline and its blood crystals were almost completely consumed.
She had to find a way to get out first.
Lin Jiayao glanced at the Blood Crystal Serum in her Safehouse and gave up the idea of directly using it.
It was too wasteful.
The extraction time was four hours, and the Extraction Point was within a hundred meters, but Lin Jiayao’s time limit for herself was two hours.
Let’s try to see if she could get out by herself first, and if it didn’t work, then use the serum.
Although Lin Jiayao’s current Blood Crystal reserves were very abundant, it wasn’t a reason to waste them casually. Who knew if the Hideout, this “crystal-devouring beast”, would completely consume her Blood Crystals.
Lin Jiayao gave up on using her abilities and prepared to see if she could break the lock with her physical strength.
After all, the original zombie’s evolution level was not high, but this time, Lin Jiayao inherited many abilities that could strengthen bones during login, and her body strength was far beyond that of ordinary D-rank skeletal zombies.
She stood up and looked at her arms.
Perhaps because of years of attacking iron bars and digging walls, the skin and bones on her hands had been completely worn away, leaving only her wrists.
And they were very smooth, even reflecting the light from the barred window on the other side.
This didn’t look like a dedicated prison building, but more like a detention room in a police station.
Lin Jiayao dragged a bed over to the barred window, climbed onto the upper bunk, and looked outside through the window.
What was outside…
Countless zombies were running amok outside, even zombies biting zombies. Lin Jiayao even saw a few newly transformed humans whose flesh and blood were still relatively fresh.
It had been five years since the zombie outbreak, why did this place look like it had just happened?
If Lin Jiayao hadn’t been to New Delhi before, she would really think that the system had sent her to a parallel world.
There must be something wrong.
Lin Jiayao looked at the purplish zombies that were writhing on top of the other zombies and carefully looked at their wounds.
She could see that the more violent zombies had strange purplish skin, and even their flesh and blood were more viscous, and they weren’t biting the zombies, but doing something on them.
“Thump—”
“Hiss—”
Suddenly, a small zombie that looked eight or nine points similar to the “Water Monkey” zombie jumped up and clung to the bars of the window, reaching its thin hand inside, almost grabbing Lin Jiayao.
Because she didn’t activate Bone Spike Lurker, Lin Jiayao was startled by the sudden pounce of the zombie and subconsciously took two steps back, just dodging the viscous saliva spit out by the small zombie.
Was this a newly born Water Monkey? The blue hair on its body was still sticky with pus.
To be safe, Lin Jiayao retreated further, watching as it frantically bit the iron bars and roared at her.
This was definitely not an ordinary blood crystal infection…
Being able to infect humans who had survived five years of the apocalypse, this was definitely a super-infected person, very likely evolved from a more powerful mother.
Lin Jiayao no longer paid attention to the biting at the iron window and turned to walk towards the rusty iron bars.
The previous zombie couldn’t open these iron bars, but now Lin Jiayao, who had inherited [Bone Hardening Lv.Max], was very confident that she could open them.
She extended her right hand, stuck her bones between two iron bars, and directly used her hand as a crowbar, forcefully twisting the iron bar in front of her.
The rusty iron bar began to twist under the sudden force, and the rust on it fell off piece by piece.
Although the twisting and deformation was only slight, when Lin Jiayao used the same method to pry the same bar, this iron bar, which wasn’t of good quality, finally reached its stress limit and broke.
After prying open one, the rest was easy.
After prying open another one in the same way, Lin Jiayao directly drilled out from the opened hole and came to the corridor outside.
The zombies in the other cells, after seeing Lin Jiayao wandering in the corridor, were all activated, roaring and running to the bars, forcefully reaching their hands through the bars towards Lin Jiayao.
Originally, Lin Jiayao’s best choice was to leave this place and try to find the police station’s armory.
But she didn’t have fingers now, and even if she got a firearm, she couldn’t fire it, so she could only pierce a zombie’s throat with her arm, and while waiting for the Blood Crystals to precipitate, she walked towards the other cells.
Soon, Lin Jiayao killed all the remaining zombies in the other cells, and using the blood they absorbed by the bars, she used the inherited [Bone Regeneration] to restore the fingers of the No. 6 zombie.
After having fingers and recovering some Blood Crystals, Lin Jiayao directly picked up the two iron bars she had just broken off and walked towards the end of the corridor.
The door of the detention room was tightly closed, but fortunately, Lin Jiayao found the key on the corpse of the policeman inside and opened the lock of the detention room.
She took the pistol from the policeman’s hand and checked the magazine. Only one bullet had been used.
It seemed that this corpse had locked itself in the detention room after the zombie outbreak and then committed suicide by swallowing a gun.
Lin Jiayao didn’t open the door immediately, but tucked an iron bar in her waist, held the pistol in her right hand, and held the iron bar in front of her with her left hand as a guard, slowly opening the door.
“Creak—”
The rusty door made a harsh sound as it opened, but the sound didn’t attract the attention of the zombies outside. She stepped over the corpse and slowly walked out.
Lin Jiayao wasn’t sure if she could still control this zombie’s body after being infected with that new infectious agent, and she didn’t plan to take the risk.
Now, all she could think of was going to the bridge, finding the Indian B-rank Awakened named “Sharma”, and figuring out what was going on.
Fortunately, the police station was empty, without any zombies, and of course, without any supplies. This place had already been ransacked.
But it wasn’t so peaceful outside the police station.
The continuous roars of zombies made Lin Jiayao feel like she was in the center of a horde. This zombie density shouldn’t be something that should exist five years into the apocalypse.
There were many high-pitched roars, which sounded like those made by long-haired zombies… It was very likely that the zombies were constantly reproducing.
To be honest, after seeing the Indians raising zombies for food before, Lin Jiayao had a bad feeling, but she really didn’t expect that they would mess things up so quickly.
It was definitely impossible to escape in this situation, she didn’t even have a means of transportation.
Lin Jiayao stood at the entrance of the police station, holding the gun and iron bar, in a state of Feigned Death Camouflage, thinking about a way out.
Now Lin Jiayao felt like she had nowhere to use her strength, like logging into a small account in a game without logging into the main account, and being blocked by slimes in the novice village, a feeling of indescribable frustration.
This was the disadvantage of excessive randomness. If possible, Lin Jiayao hoped that after the Hideout could be upgraded again, the login could be more targeted.
For example, choosing one out of three, instead of directly logging into a random one.
Lin Jiayao stood there, waiting for an opportunity. Suddenly, she heard the sound of a heavy machine gun firing in the distance.
The location of the heavy machine gun was a bit far, at least three kilometers away from here.
But at least it meant that there was a camp, as generally, only camps could maintain a heavy machine gun.
After confirming the route, Lin Jiayao abruptly turned and ran, releasing her Feigned Death Camouflage.
Lin Jiayao’s running quickly attracted the attention of many zombies. They all put down what they were doing, roared, and rushed towards Lin Jiayao.
Lin Jiayao stepped on the windows and climbed onto the roof in a few steps, agile as if she wasn’t someone who rarely used her legs.
She quickly shuttled through the streets, and the number of zombies following behind her increased. Because of the zombies chasing her, she gradually deviated from her original route, and the sound of the heavy machine gun became further and further away.
But it didn’t matter, because she saw a river.
It was the familiar Ganges River, floating with all kinds of garbage and wastewater. The upper layer of the river was as turbid as mud, and only the lower layer was normally flowing river water.
There were no zombies on the other side.
Lin Jiayao directly tucked the pistol and iron bar into her ribs, quickly ran towards the river, and plunged into the water.
Behind her, the zombies chasing her also jumped into the water, but except for the slightly smaller Water Monkeys, other zombies were basically struggling randomly on the water surface, and then were slowly carried away by the river.
Lin Jiayao, with her maxed-out swimming skill, quickly swam underwater, even faster than the “Water Monkey” zombies that were born on the water surface.
