"By the way, according to Eric Mok, there's still a Wind Hall spy from the Myriad Beasts Order lurking in the base!"
Thinking of this, Ian summoned Helen Guo and Jason Long, instructing them to go arrest the spy named Wind Nineteen.
The Myriad Beasts Order, among the dozens of hidden sects, is only mid-tier in overall strength, but even so, it can't be underestimated.
First off, the Myriad Beasts Order has five main halls.
They are Wind Hall, Rain Hall, Thunder Hall, Mountain Hall, and Sword Hall.
After eighty years of secret development, each hall now has at least two hundred disciples.
Besides the five halls, there's also an Elders' Council.
The Elders' Council is very mysterious. Even Eric Mok doesn't know exactly how many elders there are, but it's certain that every elder has reached the Transforming-Gang Realm.
Speaking of which, it's worth explaining the martial realm divisions in this world: Ming Strength, Dark Strength, Transforming Strength, Dan Strength, Transforming-Gang, and Heaven-Man Unity.
Ming Strength corresponds to early Postnatal in the real world; Dark Strength to mid Postnatal; Transforming Strength to late Postnatal; Dan Strength to Postnatal Great Perfection. Transforming-Gang has nine stages, matching the nine layers of Innate.
As for the Heaven-Man Unity Realm, it's just a legendary stage—roughly equivalent to the Foundation-Building period.
It's said that Elder Starseer was a martial artist who reached Heaven-Man Unity.
Ever since Elder Starseer passed away, no one has reached Heaven-Man Unity again. Still, these hidden Orders have been secretly cultivating for eighty years, so whether there's someone at that level now is anyone's guess.
Back to the Myriad Beasts Order.
The Elders’ Council of the Myriad Beasts Order usually doesn’t manage affairs; everything is handled by the sect master and the heads of the five main halls.
The sect master of the Myriad Beasts Order is named Victor Yin, and his cultivation has reached sixth-stage Transforming-Gang.
But the Myriad Beasts Order’s greatest strength isn’t martial arts—it’s beast-taming. Every disciple can command beasts to fight for them.
After the apocalypse, countless mountain beasts mutated, so now the Order controls a massive number of mutant animals. With these, their overall power is at least doubled.
Before long, Jason Long came to report that the Wind Hall spy from the Myriad Beasts Order had been captured.
However, interrogation revealed that the agent had already sent news of Eric Mok and Snow Feng’s capture back to the Order.
In terms of pure combat strength, Ian Song isn’t afraid of the Myriad Beasts Order at all.
But what frustrates him is their control over huge mutant beast hordes. His base has over 8,000 ordinary people—if just a few mutant beasts got in, there’d be massive casualties.
With that in mind, Ian decides that everyone at the base will take an Evolution Crystal to boost their strength across the board.
At his command, all the residents are gathered again, and Ian orders the cafeteria to prepare enough food for 30,000 people.
After absorbing an Evolution Crystal, humans need to eat and drink a lot.
Inside Ian’s Storage Ring, there are at least 20,000 Evolution Crystals.
Plus, Huahai City still has millions of zombies—meaning millions more crystals. Using 8,000 right now is no big deal.
Soon, over 8,000 civilians each receive an Evolution Crystal.
“Do you know what this is?”
Standing on a high platform, Ian called out to the crowd of over 8,000: “This is a mysterious crystal that can make you powerful fast. The world’s ended—zombies are everywhere outside the base. Once you swallow this crystal, you’ll quickly become strong enough to fight zombies and survive!”
Hearing this, most of the civilians grew excited.
At Ian’s order, everyone swallowed their Evolution Crystal—and this time, he handed out only tier-two crystals.
Three hours later.
Except for a few elderly folks and children, most people had fully absorbed the crystal’s power and undergone a transformation.
Steamed buns and cups of water were handed out to everyone.
After their transformation, everyone was starving, so they wolfed down the buns and gulped the water.
Once they’d eaten their fill, they realized their bodies were brimming with power. Some of the young men couldn’t help but throw back their heads and howl at the sky.
After everyone finished evolving...
Ian stepped up onto the platform again. With just a lift of his hand, the crowd instantly fell silent.
Because it was the man on the platform who had given them strength—the capital to survive in the days to come.
Changing the base’s rations to three taels for women and half a jin for men only earned Ian their approval. But handing out more than 8,000 crystals won their loyalty.
After a short motivational speech, Ian began assigning trainers to the crowd.
After taking over the Machine Plant, Ian had ordered 20,000 Mountain-Cleaver Machetes to be forged.
Previously, South China Survivor Base only had 450 fighters, so most machetes were kept in storage. Now, they could finally be put to use.
Every resident received a high-quality machete.
These people might have gained strength, but that didn’t mean they could actually kill a tier-two zombie.
So next up, they needed training in technique, power generation, and even courage.
Training would burn through a lot of stamina, so Ian gave another order: open up the grain supply and let everyone eat their fill!
The granary still held millions of jin of grain.
Enough to feed more than ten thousand people for years.
Another high-level meeting was convened.
Ian tossed a small pouch of Evolution Crystals to each of Zeke Guan, Boris Hu, Hailey Zhou, Jason Gao, and Charles Wang.
These crystals were enough to give their strength a solid boost in a short time.
As for Helen Guo and the others, their bodies had reached the limit after absorbing so many crystals. Unless they break through to the Innate realm, they can’t take any more.
Ian didn’t hide anything about the Myriad Beasts Order.
Hearing Ian’s description of the Order, everyone present looked worried, but nobody suggested backing down.
Ian was satisfied with this. He taught the Dragon-Elephant Force internal art to Zeke Guan and the other four.
After the meeting, Ian gathered 2,500 frontline fighters and passed on another internal cultivation method.
This method wasn’t as strong as Dragon-Elephant Force, but it was still an Innate-grade technique.
With that done, Ian left the base alone to find his J-Type Zombie.
Once that J-Type Zombie entered Huahai City, it was like a dragon returning to the sea. In just one day, it grew its horde to 60,000 zombies. Even more surprising, it devoured a tier-four J-Type and reached tier six.
Among its 60,000 zombies, there were over a hundred tier-five, and more than 3,000 tier-four zombies.
There were more than 10,000 tier-three zombies as well.
Ian was quite pleased and ordered it to focus on evolving higher-tier zombies.
Suddenly, inspiration struck—Ian gave it a new order: search for other survivor bases.
Meanwhile, at the Myriad Beasts Order...
In the sect master’s audience hall, Victor Yin sat at the chief seat, the five hall masters arrayed below. They were now discussing how to deal with the Yanhuang Survivor Base.