Chapter 50: Perfect Breakthrough!
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Shen Chen wasn’t at all fazed. In fact, he was taking his own sweet time. He hadn’t even unsheathed the Black Blade. Holding it up horizontally seemed to suffice in stopping the zombie from moving forward, so Shen Chen gave the zombie a hard kick! Plonk, plonk, plonk! The zombie promptly rolled down the stairs.
“Ooh, there goes a zombie!”
“It’s too dark! I can’t see anything!”
Guo Yuan and Ye Xiaoyu’s hearts lurched in fear. It wasn’t that they didn’t have faith in Shen Chen’s abilities. In fact, had it been bright, they wouldn’t have had any doubt that Shen Chen could take out the zombies, no matter how many there were. But in a dark environment where visibility was low, the zombies had an especially acute sense of smell. The darkness wouldn’t deter the zombies, but the same couldn’t be said of the humans! Without light, they would have no sense of direction. What was worse was that they wouldn’t even be able to figure out how many zombies there were!
Wielding the Black Blade, Shen Chen said to them quietly, “The two of you head upstairs. Be quiet. Don’t make any noise! Find us some torch lights. Go now!”
Guo Yuan was about to respond, but Ye Xiaoyu immediately got ahold of him before he could do so and dragged him upstairs. She knew that Shen Chen had reasons for asking them to head upstairs.
Meanwhile, Shen Chen tried to acclimatize to the darkness and relied on his sense of hearing to suss out his surroundings. As a neo-human, he had a well-developed sense of hearing. Although zombies made no breathing sounds, he would definitely be able to hear them while they shuffled around or made an attack.
Besides, a neo-human assessing enemies solely with the sense of sight was a foolish thing. Eyes are easily deceived. Before attaining the status of Third Tier neo-human, many people would train mindfully, trying to circumvent the limitations of sight.
Shen Chen, of course, was no exception. He was very confident in his abilities based on his experiences in his past life. As long as he was in an absolutely quiet environment, he would be able to kill them all!
This thought calmed him down. Shen Chen didn’t make any hasty moves. Instead, he waited cautiously at the staircase and leaned against it. This would ensure that only one or two zombies would be able to come up at the same time, so that he wouldn’t be trapped.
Suddenly, Shen Chen sensed some hostility coming in his direction. He crouched down quickly and slashed forward with his Black Blade.
Plonk. A round object seemed to have fallen onto the ground and rolled for a distance. Subsequently, there was a sound of another heavy object also falling to the ground, and this was followed by a third one! Then a fourth! There were loud growls coming from his left and right.
Shen Chen was able to determine where the zombies were standing based on their growls. Balancing himself on the balls of his feet, he leapt two meters into the air, and two brilliant flashes appeared in the darkness.
The zombies’ ugly faces were visible during the flashes. Not long after, two decaying heads fell to the ground. Shen Chen only relaxed after making sure that there weren’t any more zombies coming toward him. His powers decreased as the evolution fluid in his body continued wreaking havoc. He couldn’t help coughing violently because of the pain.
Perhaps because they heard Shen Chen’s violent coughing fit, Ye Xiaoyu and Guo Yuan rushed over to his side quickly. With a quick push of the door to the basement, the entire basement was soon lit with the light from dozens of torch lights.
Ye Xiaoyu and Guo Yuan saw three dead zombies lying on the ground. As for Shen Chen, he was leaning against the railing, trying to catch his breath. There was a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.
Guo Yuan immediately ran to him. “Are you all right, Boss?”
Shen Chen smiled comfortingly as he fixed his gaze on the piles of wooden boxes stored in the basement.
Ye Xiaoyu was astounded by the sight of the boxes. “There are that many boxes? There’s gotta be a few thousand boxes here!”
Shen Chen grinned and pointed toward the countless wooden boxes before them. “Yeah, it’s ginseng. The more the merrier!”
The floor of the basement was covered with heaps of wooden boxes, and each wooden box contained at least a hundred grams of ginseng.
In the presence of the inviting aroma, hunger pangs reverberated throughout Shen Chen’s body as he felt an insatiable craving. He pounced on the boxes like a tiger that had been starved for a long time. He broke open a wooden box with his hands, revealing the delectable ginseng. A couple of chews was all it took for him to swallow the ginseng. The entire process only took two to three seconds!
“I need a lot of ginseng! C’mon, help me!”
What Ye Xiaoyu and Guo Yuan needed to do was remove the ginseng from the wooden boxes, then pass it to Shen Chen.
One box… Two boxes… Three boxes…
It had to be said that these boxes of ginseng were indeed of premium quality. After ingesting tens of boxes of ginseng, the familiar warmth spread all over Shen Chen’s body, and the pain slowly went away. Even so, Shen Chen was not yet satisfied. He was determined to absorb the d*mn evolution fluid once and for all!
“That isn’t enough! I need more!” Shen Chen urged.
Numerous boxes of ginseng were soon placed before him. Ginseng, worth tens of thousands of dollars, might as well have been cheap carrots bought from the market, given the manner in which they were swallowed by Shen Chen. He swallowed multiple boxes of ginseng without a moment’s hesitation. The heat generated by the ginseng in Shen Chen’s body eventually hit a peak. It was as if there were a fire-breathing dragon in his body as the heat engulfed his body and wrapped itself around the evolution fluid, layer by layer. Shen Chen felt the heat come in waves as it slowly intertwined with the evolution fluid, at first in small waves, then in big waves, and finally in one gigantic wave as it all culminated.
His blood circulation became better and better, smoother and smoother, just like water swirling in a basin. Finally, as if a dam had been broken, all obstructions removed, the waves overwhelmed him in a bout of euphoria. The evolution fluid swept through his meridians and bones, bathing them with a delicious warmth.
After several cycles, something began to shift in him, and his bones and muscles became better and stronger. “Phew…” After some time, Shen Chen finally opened his eyes with a gleam of satisfaction. He exhaled slowly.
To his pleasant surprise, the results were very apparent this time around. The huge quantities of ginseng he had consumed really aided in the absorption of the evolution fluid and improved his powers by leaps and bounds! He was almost at the Second Tier now! Such progress would have taken one or two years in his previous life, but he had made it happen in less than two weeks! It was incredible!
However, Shen Chen was also cognizant of the fact that not everyone was suited for such drastic changes and rapid growth. Otherwise, in his previous life there wouldn’t have been so many people becoming mutated zombies after failing in their attempts to speed up the process. In short, even though such growth and progress was remarkable, there was no way to tell how many times one’s body could withstand such extreme methods. It was all fine and dandy if the body survived the breakthrough, but if his next attempt were to end in failure, the consequences would be disastrous!
At the thought, Shen Chen’s heart constricted. He made a promise to himself not to ever take such risks again once everything was over.