Era of Disaster Chapter 100: Getting Along In Peace

Chapter 100: Getting Along In Peace

“We’re staying here again?” Woolf said in surprise.

“En, we already wanted to stay here at the start. The only reason we moved was because we were worried that the people inside the helicopter and hence other countries would notice us. However, since Brod’s helicopter was destroyed, there is no need to leave anymore,” Bai Yi explained.

“Oh right!”

“But Bai Yi why do the things you decide not turn out well nowadays? Whatever decision you make just gets overturned in a short while. After you change it, you have to change it back again. You’re not going to say that we need to leave later, right?” Woolf teased. Bai Yi always did things methodically, it was hard to see Bai Yi groping around at a loss like this.

“Ha, I don’t have a choice too, things won’t happen for the sake of my convenience. After consolidating all the information, the choices I made just happened to make us come and go like this.” Bai Yi laughed at this too.

The group stayed here simply, recuperating and taking the chance to learn Tai Ji Fist. The Tai Ji Fist was easy to learn but hard to master. After practicing for a few days, even Bai Yi’s mastery was at a very shallow level. He could only go through a few of the movements accurately, but only a genius would know if it was useful at all.

Because he still couldn’t sense the existence of the soul!

Even if it was useful, he couldn’t sense it himself. This was why humans got stuck on the problem of the soul for a long time, and they couldn’t reach a conclusion up until recently.

Bai Yi stopped his practice and the Rat King ‘Wuzhi’ (TN: I think ‘wuzhi’ is probably the sound that the Rat King makes, so the MC just named it Wuzhi) cried out at Bai Yi cheerfully from the side. Bai Yi’s group and the rat monsters could be considered to be getting along peacefully. From time to time, Rat King Wuzhi would send some prey over, exchanging it for some cooked food from Bai Yi. Bai Yi’s group realized that these rats had already learned how to use fire. However, they had just started to learn how to use it. As such, it couldn’t be said that these monsters who were originally rats had learned how to cook. Their intelligence still hadn’t reached such a ridiculous level.

“Hey, Wuzhi!” Bai Yi waved at Wuzhi.

“Wuzhi, zhi zhi!” Although they were smarter now, they still couldn’t speak the human language, so when they opened their mouths it was still a rat’s squeak.

Honestly speaking, if somebody were to tell Bai Yi that he could interact with a rat like this one day, he would definitely scoff at them. But now, it had really happened. There are already four abilities that the activated cells manifested: 1. Activated capabilities, production of special energy; 2. Gene fusion, fusing genes from other lifeforms resulting in great changes in the body; 3. Chain infection; 4. Human-like intelligence. Looking at these rat monsters and how Sharpei and Pupu behaved, Bai Yi could more or less guess why these evolved lifeforms would be so smart.

The Progenitor!

The Progenitor was human, and the activated cells in evolved lifeforms all came from the Progenitor. These evolved lifeforms seemed to be changing to become more human-like, becoming a human-like lifeform.

Bai Yi did not know how much more their intelligence could grow. At least for now, they were still at the boundary between instinctual and rational, and couldn’t be called an intelligent lifeform yet. Only very few of them could probably have an intelligence similar to a 7 or 8 year old kid. For example, among all these rats, probably only the Rat King Wuzhi and about 10 other rat monsters were this smart, the rest were all still wild beasts.

The Rat King’s subordinates were carrying a leather bag that stunk tremendously, but the fact that these rat monsters could make something like this was already very amazing.

Bai Yi opened the leather bag and saw some plants inside. They were all things that Wuzhi’s subordinates found normally.

Wuzhi immediately tried to explain simply, and his subordinates tried to help by acting out whatever he was explaining. After a while, the few of them finally understood what the rough usage of these plants were. Theres were some that tasted strange, there were some that would make a person swell after eating it, there were some that would kill upon consumption, and there were some that would cause the lifeform to enter a state of confusion. These rat monsters were transformed from rats, so they inherited the habits of rats as well. During the Binging Phase, they ate everything and ended up testing the effects of these plants.

Mavis grabbed a light purple vine and looked at Wuzhi with a questioning face.

Wuzhi squeaked, and immediately a rat monster about the size of a cat ran out. It ate that light purple vine in a few mouthfuls. The moment it consumed the vine, the little rat monster started to sway around like it was practicing the Drunken Fist. Not even a minute later, it fell onto the floor, sound asleep. So this plant had the ability to make a lifeform fall asleep, and it seemed to be very powerful too. A look of delight appeared on Mavis’ face, and she let Wuzhi make his subordinates try various other types of plants.

The rat monsters that discovered these plants immediately ran out, trying these plants one by one. As long as it didn’t kill them, these rat monsters wouldn’t be afraid of eating these things.

After a short while, there were 6 rat monsters that displayed various weird conditions.

Mavis looked at the symptoms of these rats and a.n.a.lyzed them. She then studied the effects of these plants and consolidated the results. Only Mavis was experienced in this area, the rest of them were all unfamiliar with natural herbs and ingredients. Luckily, Mavis was a doctor, so she knew a bit more than the rest.

This was the reason why Bai Yi didn’t mind the rat monsters being around. With the rat monsters helping them to find out the effects of these things, it could save them a lot of trouble and effort.

“Let’s go, you guys can eat here today.” Bai Yi gestured for Wuzhi to head inside the tidied-up house.

Wuzhi’s subordinates immediately jumped around in excitement. This included the few that had tested the plants and were tormented immensely. While their intelligence had increased, at the same time, their habits became more and more human-like. When they were simply rats before, would these guys know what it meant to eat delicious food?

“Bai Yi, is this really ok?” Heloise said when Wuzhi and the bunch of rats left.

“What?”

“They were rats before!” Heloise said seriously.

“I know this of course, but why does it matter? At least for now, we aren’t that different from each other. Don’t we all look like monsters too?” Bai Yi naturally knew that Wuzhi and his subordinates had definitely killed many people before but so what? Bai Yi wasn’t that kind of racist person, or rather ‘speciest’ in this case. No matter what species Wuzhi was from, at least now they got along well with Bai Yi’s group and had helped them a lot as well. Bai Yi naturally would not repay kindness with evil.

“Anyway, if they really can maintain their rational state like they now, there’s nothing bad about getting along with them peacefully. As for the future, who can know so much?” Bai Yi said and headed inside.

Everyone understood what Bai Yi meant, these evolved lifeforms had become smarter during this period, but it probably wouldn’t last for long. After a few more months, they would probably enter the Brutal Phase. None of them dared to imagine just how chaotic New Zealand would become when it came to that.

No matter what, it still felt quite strange dining together with rats.

However, just like Bai Yi said, Rat King Wuzhi had already expressed his good-will. Were they still supposed to hack at them with their blades? n.o.body in Bai Yi’s team seemed to be able to do this kind of thing.

After entering the room, Bai Yi found that Mavis was tidying up the records of those plants. The rest of them were looking at her; this information could prove to be useful in the future.

“Let Wuzhi’s subordinates bring us to the place where this vine grows tomorrow,” Mavis said, pointing to the light purple vine.

This vine was the plant that cause the little rat to fall into a deep sleep.

Over these few days, everyone discovered that entering a deep level of sleep was indeed useful for stabilizing their brutal state. However, they realized that the longer they slept, the harder it became to even fall asleep, not to mention deep-level sleep. If not for Bai Yi’s hypnosis, they wouldn’t even have this kind of sleeping state now. However, Bai Yi wasn’t omnipotent, his eyes couldn’t be overused either. Every night, he would hypnotise two of them, letting them enter a deep level of sleep to balance the incongruence between the body and the soul.

“That shouldn’t be a problem.” Bai Yi nodded.

On the second day, Wuzhi brought a bunch of his lackeys and Bai Yi’s group to where they found the vine. Wuzhi’s intelligence was quite good now, and the more he interacted with Bai Yi’s group, the smarter he became. From how much Bai Yi’s group valued this thing, he knew that this thing was quite important. While helping them to find this plant, he remembered this plant in his heart.

Even the Tai Ji Fist, Wuzhi went back and tried to imitate them to practice it. However, without anybody to teach him, n.o.body knew what his Tai Ji Fist would become like.

Very quickly, under the guidance of the rats that found the light purple vine, they came upon this plant again.

It was a giant purple vine, growing inside a concave depression in the ground. It was about 40-50 meters tall, wrapping itself around a giant tree. Before they even got close, all of them could smell a faint rotting odor, though none of them knew what it was. After confirming that there was no danger, they finally approached it to observe it up close. This vine didn’t seem to be dangerous, at least, it wasn’t like the carnivorous beanstalk that Bai Yi’s group had encountered before.

“Are there still any plants like this nearby?” Mavis asked, and after gesturing for a long time, Wuzhi’s subordinates finally understood and shook their heads.

“There are no other such plants nearby, so this is apparently an example of a mutant.” Mavis concluded.

“Normally speaking, the one who discovered something for the first time has the right to name it,” Mavis said. However, this time, none of the rats understood what she had said. Do you think a bunch of rats would understand what naming is? It was still more realistic to ask them to find something to eat.

“Let’s call it the Black Wisteria then,” Bai Yi said.

“Sure!” Mavis nodded, and recorded the name down in her notebook. This name was simple, and the Black Wisteria was quite similar to Wuzhi’s name as well. This way, it wasn’t considered to be stealing Wuzhi’s credit. Wuzhi didn’t seem to understand what was going on, but it seemed like a good thing? (TN: So the ‘wu’ in wuzhi’s name can be a sound effect but it can also mean ‘black’, so they used part of wuzhi’s name to name the plant.)

At this time, the ground below Woolf’s feet suddenly gave way and he sunk into the ground. Everyone saw Woolf trying to climb back up in a panic, and suddenly realized that this little depression in the ground was actually a mini swamp.

“d.a.m.n it, why I am so unlucky. What is this even, it pierced the skin on my hand,” Woolf muttered, throwing away the random thing that he had tried to grab onto while climbing up.

Bai Yi walked over and picked up the long rod-shaped object covered in mud. The object was more than a meter in length and he wiped off all the mud on it. Under the mud, there was a tooth with a slight metallic sheen.

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TN: Wew 100 chapters! *looks at remaining number of chapters* *1248 chapters more to go* ._. lll

Anyway, the point of this TN was to say that since Sharpei, Pupu, and Wuzhi are becoming more and more intelligent, it doesn’t feel right to refer to them as ‘it’ anymore. So from this chapter onwards any intelligent enough monsters will be referred to as ‘he’ or ‘she’, while the dumber ones will still be a ‘it’.