Chapter 920: Berserker Serum l
Chapter 920: Berserker Serum l
Bai Zemin continued chatting about trivial matters with Angelo, completely ignoring Eleanora to the point where the girl looked like she was about to spit flames out of her mouth so eventually she ignored him too and started chatting with Chen He and Dylan.
After about 30-40 minutes, Bai Zemin decided it was about time so he stood up and calmly said, "I'm sorry to be impolite but I'm afraid we'll have to take our leave for now. An important meeting is coming up and I need to be there to lead the faction. Angelo, it is a pleasure to have met you and I feel fortunate that I did not run into a racist or supremacist in America. I will escort you to the airstrip."
His words subtly indicated that the group of three had to leave the base.
Although it was a bit impolite, the truth was that Bai Zemin had made it clear yesterday upon arrival that they could not stay long for obvious reasons. Besides, Angelo had also agreed to leave before noon and the time was approaching the agreed time.
Eleanora and Dylan looked at Angelo silently, but their eyes seemed to suggest something. Finally, Angelo looked at Bai Zemin and instead of standing up he said in a serious voice, "Bai Zemin, I would like to establish an official alliance with you."
"Oh?" Bai Zemin raised an eyebrow pretending surprise. He hesitated as if he knew nothing of what Angelo was saying before slowly sitting down and asking in a serious voice, "You just said that you would like to form an official alliance but with me?"
"Let me explain." Angelo nodded, and after settling his thoughts, he continued, "Everyone in this room is a responsible adult person, so I won't beat around the bush and will be blunt, is that okay with you?"
Bai Zemin subconsciously looked at Eleanora and said slowly, ".... Let's assume that everyone here is a responsible adult then. Go on."
"You!" Eleanora looked at Bai Zemin with wide eyes and gritted her teeth when she was ignored. She gasped in indignation and asked Chen He, "Hey, is this guy always this annoying? I swear to god, in my country he would have been beaten up by now!"
Chen He smiled wryly and pointed out in a low voice, "I'm afraid that in our faction not a few people want to beat him up, and I include myself among them, but wanting to and being able to are two different things."
"Oh? You want to beat him up too?" Eleanora's eyes sparkled, and after looking at Chen He for a few seconds she nodded, "I like you. Tell me more."
On the other hand, Angelo and Bai Zemin continued to chat with each other.
"Bai Zemin, you are powerful and you proved it when you battled that strange monster. To reach a power level equal to yours I would first have to activate my strongest skill and the cost would not be small at all." Angeló pointed out in a deep voice. "However, being strong is not enough for me to propose an alliance with you. It wasn't until after seeing the situation of this establishment that I came to the conclusion that you and I can make a good front for our human race."
Bai Zemin did not reveal that he already knew the real reason why Angelo was proposing an alliance to him and instead pretended that he believed his words.
"I see." He nodded and said in a serious voice, "Our human race is on the verge of extinction, so if possible I hope not to have to fight against my kind... and I agree that we need to stand together given the circumstances. However, Angelo, forming an alliance between you and me? I don't think it would be of much help, don't you think?"
"Well, it is true that due to the long distance that separates us an alliance is not of much use except for certain key circumstances. However, there are other ways to support each other without being physically present. There is a method in which no one loses anything, only gains for you and me that will not only help us fight against the other races but also help us reaffirm our dominance over our respective territories and citizens."
Bai Zemin's eyes narrowed and he said quietly, "Continue."
Honestly, Bai Zemin and Chen He already knew what Angelo was about to propose thanks to Evangeline. However, the reason why the two of them pretended that they didn't know anything about it was because they didn't want the American team to know that they had already learned about Eleanora's mind-reading skill.
Besides, while it was true that Bai Zemin and Chen He were feigning ignorance, the truth was that Angelo's proposal was of great interest to the entire faction.
"Exchange of information and technology," Angelo said in a deep voice. "Bai Zemin, I'm sure your faction has found ruins left behind from ancient times too, haven't you? That's why you've managed to expand so fast just like me and my faction, right?"
Bai Zemin did not bother to clarify Angelo's misunderstanding regarding the speed of his faction's expansion.
He didn't need to explain that the main reason for their fast expansion was because 80% of his faction's soul evolvers were existences whose Soul Power was purer than average so they could step on a few levels when fighting.
He did not need to explain that the main reason for their fast expansion was that thanks to his fussy soul his faction had thousands of treasures and skill scrolls to nurture powerful fighters.
Instead, Bai Zemin continued to play to the tune of the leader of the United States of America.
"Angelo, you just said 'too', so that means you have found that kind of ruins, am I right?"
Angelo nodded without hiding anything and said slowly, "About 5 months ago, a team of explorers encountered a weird group of sea beasts near the shores of Chicago for which I was immediately notified of this fact. Upon arriving to the scene, the first thing my team and I noticed was that these sea beasts were being led by intelligent beings therefore we decided to continue observing in an attempt to discover what might attract the attention of these beasts to land even at the cost of losing some of their power after leaving the waters."
"It turned out that these beasts started digging in the earth near the shore for a full week before entering a large tunnel that appeared underground. My team and I followed them from afar while using a treasure to hide our presence." Angelo paused and said in a deep voice, "Bai Zemin, those sea creatures were really powerful. They fought against all kinds of strange beasts that were underground, among these beasts that lived subway, there were even more than 20 Third Order beasts. It may not seem like a very big deal now, but I think you can also understand what 20 Third Order soul evolvers represented half a year ago."
Bai Zemin nodded silently, his expression was serious and thoughtful.
"To be honest, if it wasn't for the fact that these sea creatures were seriously wounded after fighting the last obstacle my team and I would have had to stand back." Angelo said with a sigh as if he was reminiscing about the past.
Eleanora and Dylan nodded with serious expressions on their faces.
"Do you remember the space lock that obstructed your teleportation skills?" Angelo asked suddenly, to which Bai Zemin nodded.
"That's one of the technologies we found there, but I'm afraid I can't share this with you. However, I do have something that will surely be of interest to you and will definitely serve to boost the strength of your soldiers to the point of decreasing future deaths to a historic low for your faction."
Saying that, Angelo opened the laptop computer on the small glass table and inserted a flash drive he brought on a necklace around his neck.
Bai Zemin and Chen He watched as Angelo typed a few things into the computer before turning the screen towards them. When he pressed the 'enter' button, a video started playing.
The scene was being recorded at what looked like the entrance to a village.
In front of a thin, weak-looking man was a horde of approximately 2000 zombies running towards him grunting terrifyingly as pieces of rotting flesh and skin fell to the ground while stepping over each other to get to the food.
The person recording seemed to say something as the thin man turned slightly to face the camera and nodded with some panic in his eyes.
As Bai Zemin and Chen He narrowed their eyes at the sight of the man pulling a syringe from his pants pocket, Angelo explained what was happening.
"The person you are seeing was a rapist who was going to be executed that very day, but in the end it was decided to use him as a guinea pig to test the 'Berserker Serum l'."
Under Bai Zemin and Chen He's surprised eyes, a thick layer of golden-colored fur suddenly began to cover the man's body after he injected the liquid from inside the syringe. The man's body grew to 2 meters and his previously slender body became far more robust and upon seeing the zombies less than 50 meters ahead he rushed forward at a speed comparable to that of a First Order soul evolver.
Flesh and blood flew everywhere as the beastman began to rip off the heads of the zombies and hit them with punches that shredded their bodies. There were many zombies that scratched the beastman's body but the claws of the creatures failed to pierce the golden fur as there was not even a drop of blood coming from where there should have been wounds caused by the scratches.
Angelo put the video on fast forward and while for them only 5 minutes had passed, the video showed that it had been about 20 to 30 minutes when the last of the zombies fell lifeless under the big hands of the beast man.
Bai Zemin's expression was serious as he took his eyes off the screen and looked at Angelo.
What he had just watched was an ordinary person with no Soul Power suddenly becoming powerful enough to crush a small army of two thousand zombies... This was not something that could be ignored.
If Bai Zemin could get his hands on that serum the number of human casualties during the conversion process between human and soul evolver would be significantly lower not to mention that the Soul Power quality of future soul evolvers would be higher since they would start hunting higher level enemies without the help of another existence.
Angelo noticed the interest in Bai Zemin's eyes, and after putting the flash drive inside his clothes, he smiled slightly: "This 'Berserker Serum l' was developed following a formula we found in the ancient ruins. The ingredients are a bit troublesome to obtain but for a large faction like yours it shouldn't be a problem. However, there are two drawbacks with this serum."
"... What might these drawbacks be?"
"The first drawback is that it only lasts for 1 hour, and before it can be used again by the same person it is necessary to wait 24 hours or else there is a risk of mutation with no way back."
Bai Zemin nodded calmly. This first inconvenience was nothing for him who had the Unlimited Pagoda that allowed him to return the modified base records to their birth cradle.
"The second drawback is the most painful since for as long as the effect of the 'Berserker Serum l' is latent it will cause the consumer to be in a state where it will seek battle, and if it does not find enemies it could get out of control and attack allies." Angelo said in a serious voice.
Bai Zemin frowned slightly as this was indeed a bigger problem. However, it was also not big enough to give headaches as long as the serum was used when the number of enemies was sufficient to avoid potential problems.
Although Bai Zemin was sure that Angelo had already found or had a way to avoid this second drawback, he did not say anything about it since it would be pointless to do so. After all, it was natural for Angelo to hold back a little.
Besides... It wasn't as if Bai Zemin wasn't thinking of doing the same thing anyway.
"What do you want in exchange for that serum?" Bai Zemin asked after a moment of silence.
"Technology or something whose value is comparable to that of the Berserker Serum l." Angelo said in a deep voice and continued, "Bai Zemin, I'm sure you too understand the value of this serum. For us who have millions of people under our command to possess this serum is no different than having the ability to mobilize millions of soldiers thirsty for enemy blood if we are ever pushed into a corner."
Millions of soldiers? Bai Zemin scoffed in his heart.
As if such a thing were so easy.
However, he said nothing about it, and after a moment's thought, Bai Zemin decided what he would use to exchange for this Berserker Serum l.
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