Five hundred Class 3 common crystals each month, Lu Heng added a condition: if the overall level of zombies outside increased, these crystals would also need to be adjusted accordingly.
When the several high-ranking military officials present heard this condition, their first reaction wasn't that Lu Heng's crystal demand had also been adjusted, but rather that Lu Heng had stated the zombies outside might increase in overall level.
Currently, most of the zombies outside were already at Class 3. The pressure on the military and various ability user teams was not small, as many survivors were still ordinary people, and most ability users were only at Tier 2 or 3.
Ability users were evolving much slower than zombies. According to Lu Heng, the zombies outside would continue to increase in level. If this continued, with human ability users evolving slower than zombies, humanity would be unable to resist them and would eventually fall, becoming part of the zombie horde.
"You say the zombies will evolve again, does that mean the zombies' current levels will change? When will they evolve again? What is the highest level they can evolve to?" Zhao Kai asked a string of questions, his brows furrowed tightly.
The other military leaders present also wore troubled expressions. If Lu Heng's words were true, they doubted if their current resistance against zombies still held any meaning.
Lu Heng twitched his lips. He had actually added that clause purely to prevent his own interests from diminishing, not expecting these soldiers to pick up on other issues.
He cleared his throat and said, "Actually, you don't need to be too nervous. While zombies are evolving, we humans are also evolving. After all, we don't know the cause of these zombies' appearance. Perhaps it was a virus leak, or something else...
However, haven't you noticed? Although most zombies have evolved to Class 3, a considerable portion still remain at Class 1 and 2. Those zombies haven't evolved further.
Zombie evolution is unlike ours. We evolve by absorbing crystals from within zombies. But the current evolution of zombies is natural. Due to their lack of intelligence, at their current levels, they don't know how to absorb the crystals of their own kind to evolve.
Therefore, I deduce that the group evolution of zombies will not surpass that of humans. But humans definitely need to increase their evolution speed. Some people, out of fear of zombies, only hide and avoid them, thus failing to obtain crystals to improve. This will certainly be slower than the zombies' evolution speed.
But we have intelligence. Since we know we can absorb zombie crystals to improve our tiers, as long as we kill enough zombies, we can completely surpass the zombies' evolution speed.
And judging by the current state of zombie evolution, when zombies increase their level, a portion of them will remain at their original level.
So, I believe the number of high-level zombies will not be too large."
After saying a great deal, Lu Heng believed that if they thought carefully, they would surely understand the key points.
However, regarding the events of his previous life, as an ordinary ability user, he didn't know much. He only knew that most zombies didn't evolve to very high levels. It was indeed as he had analyzed, that with each zombie evolution, a portion of them remained at their original level.
Most zombies only reached Class 4 at their highest, but the time left for human evolution was running out. In less than half a year, zombies would advance to Class 4 again.
Fortunately, most zombies only evolved to Class 4 at their highest, with only a few evolving to higher levels.
After Lu Heng finished his analysis for the base's high-ranking officials, everyone remained worried. They felt that the base had previously focused on rescuing survivors, then on continuously searching for supplies, and the most they usually did was reinforce and construct the base.
They had neglected research on zombies, and on the causes of zombie formation and the zombie virus. It seemed they needed to increase investment in these areas.
Finally, Zhao Kai personally escorted Lu Heng out of the military camp. They felt that talking to Lu Heng today was the most wise decision they had made.
Zhao Kai stood outside the military camp, repeatedly expressing his gratitude to Lu Heng, which caused surprise among the passing survivors and military personnel.
Although ordinary survivors didn't recognize Zhao Kai as the base's Defense Commander, any ability user who had joined the base did. The reason was simple: Zhao Kai's photo was displayed in the ability user mission hall, with a prominent slogan next to it: "Seek the base with difficulties."
Just as Zhao Kai was still exchanging pleasantries with Lu Heng, a soldier standing beside Zhao Kai whispered something to him. Lu Heng raised an eyebrow. Although they spoke softly, as someone who could read minds, he could clearly hear what people nearby were saying.
Following that, Zhao Kai said something else to the soldier, and soon, a man with a scarred face was brought over.
Zhao Kai frowned and looked at the man, saying, "Li Hao, I heard your subordinate went to cause trouble for Mr. Lu today?"
Li Hao was taken aback. He had come over thinking the military wanted to discuss something else, but he hadn't expected the base to know about the incident at the trading market so quickly.
Huang Mao had indeed been sent by him to test Lu Heng earlier, but before Huang Mao could even say a few words to Lu Heng, he was directly frozen by Lu Heng at the market entrance.
In front of so many ability users, his face had been completely trampled into the mud.
He had originally relied on his fire ability to counter the ice ability, thinking he could overcome it. However, because his level was lower than the other person's, he couldn't even melt the ice bucket created by that person.
Previously, he had sought help from Leng Tian, the only one in the base who could contend with the ice ability. Unexpectedly, Leng Tian gave him no face at all and told him to go directly to Lu Heng to apologize.
He couldn't swallow that insult. He had planned to wait for Huang Mao and the others to freeze to death in the ice bucket, and then he would come to the base to seek the military's intervention.
However, to his surprise, he had just witnessed the base's Defense Commander personally leave the military camp with Lu Heng, and they had chatted for a long time at the entrance of the military camp. Judging by Commander Zhao's demeanor, he was much more polite to this newly arrived fifth-tier ability user than he was to Leng Tian.