The Game World, East Suburb Fortress.
Zheng Lin arrived at the front of the fortress with a group of people. Lin Jiao was already waiting at the gate with her own group to welcome them.
A middle-aged man followed beside Zheng Lin.
The moment he appeared, this middle-aged man began scrutinizing the entire East Suburb Fortress.
Zheng Lin immediately led the man forward and introduced him to Lin Jiao. "Conductor Lin, this is the envoy from the Li Family, Li Kai. From now on, he will be providing guidance on some of the fortress’s affairs."
At the same time, he introduced Lin Jiao to Li Kai. "Mr. Li, this is the commander-in-chief of Qingfeng Base, Ms. Lin Jiao!"
Only then did Li Kai turn his gaze to Lin Jiao. He smiled and said, "Conductor Lin, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Zheng Lin told me all about you on the way here. You’re every bit as impressive as he said. By the way, where is Mr. Lu?"
Lin Jiao immediately explained, "Mr. Li, our boss was occupied and couldn’t personally greet you. However, he’s already made arrangements and prepared a gift for you!"
As she spoke, Lin Jiao took out an energy storage device and discreetly handed it to Li Kai.
Li Kai’s expression remained unchanged as he accepted the device. Its screen clearly displayed a balance of 400 crystal source points.
This was no small fortune.
It was roughly the equivalent of killing forty Slaying Dogs.
It seemed the people of Qingfeng Base knew how things worked.
Atop a rampart of the fortress, Lu Feng watched the scene unfold, a file in his hand.
The file, sent over by Zheng Lin, contained information on this Li Kai.
The Li Family had lost their last detachment to One-Eyed Tiger. Even though it was confirmed that One-Eyed Tiger’s bandits were responsible, the family still hadn’t made another move.
Perhaps they couldn’t spare the manpower due to other matters, or perhaps they still had doubts about the incident.
So, they had merely sent Li Kai. Nominally, he was here to provide "guidance," but in reality, he was a supervisor, likely tasked with a secret investigation.
However, according to the file from Zheng Lin, Li Kai’s greed was a major weakness.
’So, the Li Family wants Li Kai to keep us in check, and we can use wealth to keep him in check,’ Lu Feng thought.
’Besides, as long as he doesn’t leave the East Suburb, anything I give him isn’t truly his.’
’If he doesn’t know what’s good for him and really gets in my way, then I don’t mind staging another little show and getting rid of him.’
"Let’s go. We’ll head to Red Leaf Base first," Lu Feng said to Wang Cheng before leaving the fortress.
He needed to acquire some truly powerful weapons for the real world—and not just heavy machine guns or mortars.
Their destructive power wasn’t what he was looking for.
He wanted something with even greater might.
He figured that kind of weaponry was beyond the production capabilities of most small nations, like those around Dalat Town. They had to purchase such arms from major powers.
That was why he planned to go to Red Leaf Base and see how much energy they had stored up.
Red Leaf Base conveniently had incineration-powered facilities. With the endless zombie hordes in the area, the incinerated zombies would generate energy. A massive amount should have been accumulated by now.
Although the energy from incinerating zombies couldn’t compare to the value of crystal source, it could still be used as a currency. Moreover, 100 incineration energy could be exchanged for one crystal source point.
Lin Jiao welcomed Li Kai into the East Suburb Fortress and had him settled into a private courtyard.
Afterward, he dismissed the others, keeping only Zheng Lin behind. "The people of Qingfeng Base are quite sensible."
Zheng Lin smiled and explained, "Mr. Li, if they weren’t, they wouldn’t have reported the newly discovered farmland to the Li Family. Wouldn’t it have been better for them to hide it? That plot of land is immense."
Upon hearing this, Li Kai immediately said, "True. But is there a way to get the Qingfeng Base people to underreport the acreage and the crop yield when they report to the Li Family?"
As he spoke, he winked at Zheng Lin. "Bring a few key people into the fold, including yourself, and there will be no shortage of rewards for you all."
"I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Li." Zheng Lin smiled to himself.
’The Li Family must be truly short-staffed this time to send someone so greedy.’
With that, Zheng Lin took his leave.
Li Kai, however, took out the energy storage device from Lin Jiao and began to toy with it. "Interesting. It seems my reputation for greed preceded my arrival. This is perfect."
...
「Near Red Leaf Base.」
Lu Feng and Wang Cheng stepped out of a hovercar and ascended to the rooftop of a tall building.
From here, they had a clear view of the situation at Red Leaf Base, as well as the zombies outside it.
After the initial massive horde, the zombies outside the base had been thinned out considerably. Before long, the area around Red Leaf Base would be completely clear of them.
Naturally, throughout this cleanup process, he had been constantly gaining experience. Notifications for the experience gained from killing zombies continuously popped up in his mind.
Just then, the sound of singing drifted from the distance:
"Yalasuo, that is the Tibetan Plateau..."
In the post-apocalyptic world, such a resonant voice was a clear death sentence, guaranteed to draw every nearby zombie and Mutant Beast.
The song Lu Feng had brought in from the outside world was clearly having a tremendous effect.
The music was coming from a vehicle. Trailing behind it was a dense mass of zombies, a fully-formed horde.
Lu Feng took a pair of binoculars from his inventory space and peered toward the vehicle, getting a crystal-clear view of the teeming zombie horde.
The vehicle bore the emblem of Qingfeng Base.
A small team of Qingfeng Base combatants was on board, each holding a rifle. Whenever a stray zombie appeared, they would gun it down.
’These must be the squads Lin Jiao assigned to lure the zombie hordes.’
After all, he had tasked Lin Jiao with this for the sake of long-term experience gain.
Just then, Lu Feng saw a Slaying Dog dart out from a nearby building through his binoculars. It landed directly in front of the hovercar, roaring at the people inside.
On the vehicle, Chen Lin immediately activated a case containing a Mecha weapon. As the Slaying Dog charged, several laser beams shot out, killing it instantly.
Someone immediately went forward, dug the Crystal Core out of the Slaying Dog’s head, and handed it to Chen Lin.
Seeing this, Lu Feng felt reassured.
’As long as the zombie-luring squad’s safety is guaranteed, they can provide me with a steady stream of zombies.’
Of course, this wasn’t the only such squad; Lin Jiao had arranged for them to work in rotating shifts.
The brothers Chen Tao and Chen Hao, with their laser guns, naturally led one of the other teams.
’One of the two teams must always remain inside Red Leaf Base. We can’t have a situation where the luring team is out and there’s no one left in the base with the power to quickly eliminate Mutant Beasts or mutated zombies.’
That was a scenario to be avoided at all costs.
"Let’s go," Lu Feng said to Wang Cheng, and they headed downstairs toward Red Leaf Base.
"Boss!" Upon seeing Lu Feng arrive, Zhao Jia immediately led a group to greet him respectfully.
He had only become an ability user thanks to the Ability Crystal Core Lu Feng had given him, so his loyalty was absolute.
That, combined with the electronic collar around his neck, meant Lu Feng could let him manage Red Leaf Base with complete peace of mind.
Lu Feng asked, "Everything all right here?"
Zhao Jia explained, "No major problems for now. It’s just that the special steel blades for the traps have been sharpened multiple times. Some parts have worn out and been replaced, and we’ve run out of spares."
"Mm, I’ll take care of it." Lu Feng nodded. ’Those things are easy enough to deal with. I’ll just order more in the real world and have them sent in.’
He then asked, "Zhao Jia, roughly how much incineration energy have we accumulated?"
Zhao Jia immediately went inside and returned with an energy storage device, which he handed to Lu Feng. He explained, "Boss, at first, we only got 2 points of energy per incinerated zombie, then it went up to 3. We had to switch to higher-grade energy storage devices several times. This one is the highest level, with a unit measurement of ten thousand."
Lu Feng took the energy storage device.
It was silver all over, with a character indicating ’ten thousand’ as the unit.
The display read: 11.3425.
’That means there’s over 110,000 incineration energy stored here,’ Lu Feng calculated.
’At the hundred-to-one exchange rate, that’s equivalent to over 1,100 crystal source points. It’s an absolute fortune.’
’With this, even after the crystal source points I gave to Li Kai, and adding what I plundered from the Gray Wolf Mercenary Corps, what I’ve accumulated from killing Mutant Beasts, and what Chen Lin, Chen Tao, and Chen Hao have turned in from their laser kills, I should now have over 2,000 crystal source points on hand.’
He recalled that buying Cheng Sisi and her sister had only cost him 8 crystal source points back then.
In this post-apocalyptic world, as long as you had crystal source points, 2,000 of them was enough to buy over 250 people and establish a base.
With this much energy value, he had more than enough to go to the City East Alliance and purchase some high-powered weaponry.
After receiving the energy storage device, Lu Feng took Wang Cheng and headed for the City East Alliance.
...
As Celestial Sea City’s first and currently largest Survivor Base, the City East Alliance was practically a kingdom unto itself.
In truth, some small nations from ancient times, or even in the modern West, might not have a population as large as the City East Alliance.
This was Lu Feng’s second visit. As he arrived, he saw rows of military tanks driving in from outside in formation.
The survivors outside the base instinctively made way, many of them exclaiming in awe:
"That looks like the Alliance’s 3rd Tank Battalion!"
"Yes, I heard they were heading to the highway interchange. Some crisis was detected over there."
"Apparently, a swarm of Mutant Beasts gathered for some reason, so the tanks went over to the scenic area and hit them with a saturation bombardment!"
As they were talking, a fleet of hover-trucks drove up, loaded with the corpses of Mutant Beasts. There were a great many of them.
For any other base, that many Mutant Beasts would have meant certain destruction. But the City East Alliance merely dispatched a single tank battalion, bombarded the area, and solved the problem.
After all the tanks and hover-trucks had passed into the City East Alliance, Lu Feng arrived at the entrance.
A guard immediately stepped forward. "Sirs, welcome to the City East Alliance. We need to check your DNA codes." Hearing this, Lu Feng simply took something out and handed it to the guard.
It was the identification card the Li Family had sent him, proving his status as the Guard Officer of the East Suburb Fortress.
The guard took the ID card and scanned it with a device.
A moment later, the guard snapped to attention and gave Lu Feng a crisp military salute. "Sir, welcome back to the City East Alliance base. Welcome back."
Seeing this, the other guards beside him immediately did the same. They were well-trained and knew that these two were certainly not ordinary survivors.
Lu Feng was slightly surprised. Apparently, the position of Guard Officer for the East Suburb Fortress was not a low-ranking one within the City East Alliance.
’No wonder Chen Feng wanted to stir up trouble, and no wonder the Li Family went to such lengths. They wouldn’t rest easy until they had it under their complete control.’
The surrounding survivors stared in astonishment.
A scene like this could only mean one thing: these two men were nobles from within the City East Alliance. Otherwise, they would never receive such treatment.
It was a rare sight indeed. Under normal circumstances, one would never even get a chance to encounter the nobles of the City East Alliance.