Book 4 Chapter 11.3 - Déjà vu
"Leader, you alright?" When Li Gaolei saw Su's face instantly turn pale, Li Gaolei asked rather worriedly.
Su shook his head, and with a smile, said, "It's not important. I'm fine." However, his face was still as white as paper. Su gave the old mutant that had already collapsed onto the ground a look, and then he released a sigh.
Li's attack was extremely deadly, immediately taking the elder's life. She had quite the talents in combat, her skills improving by the day. After just understanding the mutants' body composition, she was able to end their lives with a single blade. However, this blade of hers severed an important trail of clues.
Seeing Li's restless appearance, Su smiled and said, "Don't worry, everything was done quite well. However, remember to coordinate better with everyone else next time instead of always moving alone. It's too dangerous like this."
Li nodded her head firmly, and then she calmed down slightly. She already discovered Su's abnormality and wanted to ask about it, but her female intuition told her to remain silent. That metal ring should be an extremely important object for Su, but it was actually being worshiped by the mutants. When she thought of the mutants who had humanoid forms and outstanding intelligence that allowed them to speak human speech, Li wanted to believe in their differences from humans, just like how white and black were separated in the past. In reality, they were just two different communities of the same species. However, she couldn't do it, nor did she want to associate Su and those mutants together.
Su, though, did not want to associate reality and that green colored dream together.
He knew that he would often have strange dreams. Those dreams were extremely vivid, and while inside those dreams, it would sometimes be hard for him to even distinguish what part was 'dream' and what part was 'reality'. However, whenever he awoke, all of the dreams' contents would be completely forgotten, with only the feelings of the dream remaining at the bottom of his heart, these emotions so clear they felt like they were etched into his genes. Now, Su knew that he actually didn't forget the contents of those dreams, but was instead extremely unwilling to face them, choosing to bury them in the corners of his memory, trying to forever ignore them. However, whenever night arrived, these memories would surface from the depths of his consciousness from time to time, tenaciously reminding him about those scenes he was unwilling to face.
Su caressed the metal ring. When his fingers moved past the inner surface, that serial number moved across the bottom of his heart like running water. The serial number itself was meaningless, but the calligraphic style of the number stirred up the secrets hiding away in the depths of his consciousness.
That dreamland was like a slumbering vicious beast that, once completely awoken, Su knew would completely change his own biological trajectory. The recent events already partly proved that powerful abilities were a road straight to this dreamland. Su raised his head, perfectly meeting Madeline's azure and peaceful eyes. Within her pupil's residual light, he could also see Li's clear concern, as well as Li Gaolei's seemingly calm expression. Meanwhile, in a place his eyes couldn't reach was a Persephone who always seemed both happy and angry.
Abilities…
The abnormal paleness of Su's face quickly retreated. He properly put away the metal ring, and then with a smile, said, "Alright, there are no mutants left in this base, so let's separately look around to see the state of the facilities inside the base. Let's reconvene in half an hour."
From the already abandoned facilities, Su found the number of numbering of this base: N69. The base's main power room was still more or less intact, just that it used up its energy reserves. The auxiliary power room was still operating with two olden style diesel generators to supply energy. Next to the power room, Su unexpectedly found a storehouse full of gasoline and diesel fuel. These fuel barrels didn't have similar serial numbers, and they all came from different sources; it seemed like they were stolen back by these mutants. These mutants unexpectedly carried out a bit of remodeling of the reserve power room, turning one of the generators into a mixed power generator. This allowed them to use the different types of fuel they stole and brought back.
Inside the equipment factory, Su saw another surprising scene. This place was extremely tidy, and all of the installations were cleaned up in a clear and orderly manner. Everything was preserved well too. There were all types of weapons and equipment parts placed on the wall shelves, and everything had a clear-cut and systematic classification. The entire equipment factory's environment was so clean that it didn't seem like a place mutants would reside in, and from the component variety, it seemed like this factory could not only create various olden era ammunition, but also produce the wear and tear components of weapons like the multi-barreled machine guns.
The most shocking thing was that the mutants actually established a biological laboratory, and piled inside were all types of instruments. It was actually quite large in size as well. Su wasn't unfamiliar with biochemical laboratories, and from these instruments' applications, most of them were related to ability altaration and production. Could it be that the reason these mutants established a biological laboratory was to research ability formulations that were suitable for themselves? Even though Su was extremely shocked, he also knew that in this blasted era, anything could happen.
There were over two hundred individual rooms, with half of them abandoned and the other half being the bedrooms used by mutants. Their interiors couldn't be considered too dirty, but the strong stench was not something normal people could endure. Fortunately, under the support of the backup energy system, the base's ventilation system was still useable. However, if they wanted to completely clean up this base, it would still take a considerable amount of time.
The greatest news was that the base's water purifying system's computer chip was more or less in good condition. As long as the energy supply was restored, it would be usable again with a bit of repair. The abundant mountain groundwater reservoir didn't receive too much contamination. If the computer chip was completely restored, it would be able to produce a large amount of contamination free pure water.
This was an extremely precious and great wealth!