“You guys, move aside. I’m going to transform!”
Du Gang waited for the group to back off some distance, loosened the belt of his pants, and transformed. He wanted to see how tall he could become now.
Boom!
A muscular four-meter-tall giant stood in Du Gang’s place. Just this height alone was enough to give a very strong sense of oppression, not to mention that he also had bronze-colored muscles that looked terrifying.
An Ya and others were frightened, subconsciously taking a few steps backward.
It wasn’t that they didn’t trust Du Gang, but he simply looked too scary, like a gigantic beast that could devour a human in one bite.
Du Gang slightly clenched his fist and felt increased strength. At the same time, he had a feeling that his reaction speed had also become quicker!
Before the system upgrade, he more or less felt sluggish after his transformation. But now, this feeling disappeared without a trace. Not only that, but he also had a kind of illusion, as if this should have been his original body!
He had a quick feel of his body and hurriedly restored his true size. It wasn’t that he was afraid of fooling around and wasting time since the transformation time had extended to three hours. It was mainly that he noticed the other five had retreated almost 10 meters away from him.
After recovering his true form, he quickly pulled up his loose pants that were about to fall to the ground and tightened the belt.
“Du Gang, you’ve grown taller again…”
Ma Li looked at Du Gang and said in a rather incredulous tone.
“Taller?”
Du Gang twisted and turned to scan his body, and sure enough, he used to be able to speak to them at eye-level before. But now, he had to lower his head to make eye contact with them.
Du Gang had a height of 1.75 meters. After owning the system, his height had grown once. However, he didn’t expect his body to grow again after activating the nervous system.
“Well, you should be around 1.9 meters now, and your muscles seem to be more developed!”
Chu Zixuan’s height could only reach Du Gang’s chest. He roughly estimated Du Gang’s height.
At that moment, the entirety of Du Gang’s body was covered in strong, burly muscles. The upper half of his body was naked, revealing robust pectoral muscles and well-defined abdominal muscles.
As he would destroy a top every time he transformed, he was now too lazy to wear one and just bared his burgeoning muscles instead.
As for the lower half of the body, he wore a pair of widened and enlarged school uniform pants which belonged to an obese student of over 300 pounds. The pant legs were very loose so even if Du Gang grew taller again, the waist of the pants would still be loose. Fortunately, he had an elastic belt for that.
Every time before he transformed, he would habitually loosen the belt…
After gaining some understanding of the situation, Du Gang finally caught up with them.
They had ended their upgrade half an hour ago, during which Cao Yongyi awakened his supernatural power after he swallowed the ninth crystal. On the other hand, Ma Li and Ji Zhiwen had swallowed all 10 crystals, but there was still no sign of awakening.
Cao Yongyi’s supernatural power was a normal fire ability, and he could manipulate flames.
Other than that, Chu Zixuan and An Ya felt that their supernatural powers strengthen, but there wasn’t any qualitative change.
This meant that their abilities had indeed been enhanced, but 10 red crystals alone weren’t enough for an upgrade!
“It seems that my guess is right—each of our talents is different. The best talents belong to people who awaken naturally, like Du Gang. Then, using the number of crystals swallowed to classify levels, An Ya and I have talents of one crystal, Cao Yongyi has a talent of nine crystals, and Ma Li and Ji Zhiwen have talents of more than 10 crystals. As for the specific number of crystals for awakening, we have to continue observing!”
Upon seeing the look of approval in the group’s faces, Chu Zixuan continued: “And due to the difference in talent and ability, I suggest to adjust the distribution ratio of crystals, where ones with stronger abilities and talents receive more…”
The moment he suggested, there was little change on Du Gang’s and An Ya’s faces. On the contrary, Ma Li, Cao Yongyi, and Ji Zhiwen looked somewhat dissatisfied.
Among the people present, the three of them were the only ones with poor talent.
“This isn’t fair, is it?”
Cao Yongyi hesitated for a moment, but still voiced his opinion. Now that he had awakened his supernatural power, he felt that he should also have some say.
After having him take the lead, Ji Zhiwen also followed suit.
Ma Li was at a loss for words. On one hand, he didn’t really like this proposal. On the other hand, he knew that this would benefit Du Gang more. He did not know what to do.
“This isn’t an era of peace anymore, much less for us to be compensated without regard to performance. At all times, we should follow the principle of ‘more work, more pay’…”
Chu Zixuan’s face became somewhat stern as he continued. “Crystals aren’t money. It’s something that can enhance our power…
“What is the main issue we are facing now? Security. What we need most is the ability to kill the insects…
“I’ll give a simple example. 30 crystals and Du Gang has upgraded twice and become stronger. Meanwhile, people with poor talent may only just awaken with 30 crystals. Isn’t that a waste? In this apocalyptic era that is full of crises and human-eating insects, we don’t know if any other creatures that aren’t afraid of the sun will crawl out of the spatial channels…
“At times like this, shouldn’t the priority of crystals go to those with high talent and contribute a lot?”
This time, even Cao Yongyi couldn’t refute.
Because the crystals that they swallowed had been obtained by Du Gang and Chu Zixuan only.
Even though An Ya awakened her supernatural power at about the same time as Chu Zixuan, she didn’t hunt for a single crystal due to her ability and personality.
Cao Yongyi didn’t say a word, while Ji Zhiwen also didn’t dare say much. The latter knitted his brows to express his dissatisfaction.
Du Gang observed the reaction of the people and didn’t rush to make a decision. Instead, he asked: “How are you going to distribute them then?”
In fact, Du Gang didn’t want to give them any crystals. If it weren’t for Ma Li, he wouldn’t have given away a single one. But now, since the team was already formed, it wasn’t ethical to go back on his words. Chu Zixuan’s words were indeed very much to his liking.
After hearing Du Gang’s question, no one noticed the corners of Chu Zixuan’s mouth lift slightly. Chu Zixuan quickly returned to his usual self and said, “I suggest to distribute the crystals according to several criteria: strength, talent, combat power, and contribution to the team…
“Specifically, this is what I think—because Du Gang contributes the most and has the strongest talent and strength, he gets 40 percent.
“My psychokinesis can detect possible hidden dangers, as well as retrieve crystals from insect carcasses, so I get 30 percent.
“Although An Ya’s talent is strong, she doesn’t contribute to the team, and we don’t know whether her supernatural power has any effect on the bugs. With that, she takes 10 percent!
“We have experimented with Cao Yongyi’s fire ability. His fire is ordinary, but other than angering insects, it also can’t effectively kill them. His talent isn’t as strong as An Ya’s… But considering that fire can boil water for us in the future to prevent bacterial infection and so on, he also gets 10 percent.”
“As for Ma Li and Ji Zhiwen who haven’t awakened their supernatural powers for now and belong to the category of ‘only consuming without contributing’, the two of them can share 10 percent together!”
An Ya didn’t have much opinion. She knew that she didn’t contribute much, so she agreed immediately after Du Gang shifted his gaze over to her.
Immediately after, Ma Li expressed his approval without waiting for Du Gang to look at him.
In an instant, four of them had agreed.
Cao Yongyi had other ideas, but what Chu Zixuan said was reasonable and justified. The former couldn’t refute for now and since Du Gang also seemed to be in favor, he could only agree.
When it was Ji Zhiwen’s turn, he had even less right to speak. Du Gang faintly swept him a glance and he instantly agreed.
He wasn’t stupid. He could see that he was dispensable to Du Gang and could be left behind at any time.
If he objected, he reckoned that Chu Zixuan would propose to kick him out of the team on the spot.
He could be said to understand the situation clearly now—Chu Zixuan was a lackey raised by Du Gang to specially play the role of the villain. Who knew? Maybe it was Du Gang who taught Chu Zixuan to speak like that.
After Du Gang saw that everyone agreed, he said with no pretense: “Chu Zixuan also has a point. Since everyone agrees, we’ll temporarily distribute the crystals this way and later if there are any changes, we’ll make adjustments!”
As soon as Du Gang announced this, Ji Zhiwen showed an expression as if proving that he was right, at the same time sneakily giving a wink to Cao Yongyi.