Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 1186: Section 726: Cooperation (Part 2)

Chapter 1186: Section 726: Cooperation (Part 2)

The second batch of children performed better, especially the child of the grand lady of Dimis. As the daughter of the matron, she was obviously not within the range of those who couldn’t get enough to eat. Moreover, with her innate spiritual energy talent, this child awakened her powers on the fourth day.

This is both good news and bad news.

The good news is that Malin can speak with more confidence when reporting to others about this child, and the bad news is that from the appearance of spiritual energy talent even among zombie pups, it shows that the subspace is becoming more and more closely linked with this world.

Because of this, Malin took a special trip back to Westland to instruct the Church of the Goddess of Harvest and intelligence agencies of various countries to start collecting data on the talents of children born in the last five years from villages. If there’s no mistake, the closer to the present, the more children per hundred have spiritual energy talent, and the higher their intensity.

"Actually, you don’t need to return to Westland; I already have the data here. In the past ten years, just in the New Hangzhou area, the number of children with spiritual energy talent per hundred has been increasing every year. Last year alone, it was 23.9 per hundred, already close to a quarter. Ten years ago, this number was 6.85, and fifty years ago, it was 0.79."

Sage Yu recited all the figures in one breath, then sighed: "Ordinary families are delighted to have the first transcendent seed in their family, attributing all this to good luck. However, the great families shudder because they understand there is a problem with these numbers, but none of them want to reveal this to the mortals."

Malin, of course, understood what this sage was thinking: "Yes, telling the mortals that the apocalypse is near... That’s too risky. We don’t know who among them might not withstand the pressure and turn to our enemies... But if we don’t tell them, when the time comes, the pain from facing despair will be enough to overwhelm most unprepared people."

Just like Sage Yu, Malin knew that whether to tell or not was a helpless choice, and neither option solved the problem.

"We don’t have much time left," Sage Yu said with deep helplessness.

Malin nodded and looked at the grand lady and Atai walking out of the woods: "The guests are here, smile, Sage Yu."

"I know," Sage Yu replied.

And Malin turned around and waved at the children sitting under the canopy in the distance, roasting meat with their peers.

The one in charge of watching over these kids, Jason, patted the head of a girl, who then noticed the direction Jason was pointing and saw her mother.

So the children cheered and ran over.

"Just like the children of New Hangzhou, sometimes, if you disregard their appearance, you can’t even tell what race these children are."

"Judging by appearance is foolish, but ignoring it is also unwise. Besides these children, other zombies are still our enemies unless they can also demonstrate such rationality and willingness to cooperate," Malin said, nodding to the approaching grand lady: "Good morning, Mrs. Dimis."

"Good morning, sir, you’ve done it again. I remember Atai once said that once is a coincidence, but twice is inevitable. Since you’ve demonstrated that you indeed have a way to change our fate, I am also willing to trust you once. This time, I will give you all the children who can live on their own, as well as a quarter of the young people. If you can still manage, then my people and I will enter that city."

The lady once again set conditions.

This made Malin frown: "Once again you are setting conditions with me, Mrs. Dimis."

"This is my other husband; he has a different viewpoint from Atai. Although in my opinion, your sincerity is evident, he believes another test of your commitment is necessary," Mrs. Dimis said, introducing her other husband.

It was a very strong zombie, able to stand like Atai. Noticing Malin’s gaze, the hefty creature grunted.

"Madam, if you allow us to enter the factory to verify the situation, my friends and I can accept your condition," Sage Yu stepped forward at this moment, and his request was immediately accepted. The grand lady stopped the big guy from speaking, then looked at Sage Yu: "No problem, I will personally accompany you inside. I will order a relocation within the factory. As long as this time we can fulfill our agreement, then I will lead my tribe members to join you."

With this assurance, Sage Yu nodded to Malin.

Thus, once again, Malin accepted a large group of children—because of the road built previously, these children came over without much suffering. Although there were tens of thousands of them, feeding them for ten days to half a month wasn’t an issue.

However, after Malin extended this period, the big guy wasn’t pleased. He asked Smitty to stay and watch the children attend classes.

One more mouth to feed was nothing; Malin and Sage Yu also agreed, and looking at it this way, it seemed they weren’t up to any tricks—according to Malin’s view, if they meant to buy time, whether these children lived or died wouldn’t matter, but with the big guy wanting to stay, the delay tactic seemed unlikely.