Chapter 187: Heading Towards The Peaceful World
The changes in their bodies weren’t big, but still extremely obvious. Once all the LV2s woke up, they didn’t need to specially check for such changes and could sense them in their bodies.
Woolf felt the changes in his body and said excitedly, “Is this the effect of the Great Stink Bomb Fruit? So powerful!”
“Not necessarily, there are other ingredients in the sushi as well, perhaps these are the effects caused by other ingredients.” Although Bai Yi also felt that these were the effects of the Great Stink Bomb Fruit, he couldn’t treat that as true so simply.
“Are you guys really discussing this? If it’s the source fluid that's in question, I have some here,” Nancy suddenly interrupted.
That’s right, Nancy had the source fluid from the Great Stink Bomb Fruit. Although the fluid had been diluted many times over, the smell was similarly unbearable. The smell wasn’t suppressed by other ingredients in a way like what Bai Yi and Betsy had done; normal people would probably vomit upon getting a whiff of it, not to mention actually consuming it. After Nancy said this, all of them looked at each other. If nobody tried this source fluid, then they wouldn’t know what effects it had. But who should try it?
“I’ll do it!” Unexpectedly, Melvin stood out first himself.
Melvin shrugged. “My foundation is significantly worse than that of you guys, so the effect should be the largest on me if it’s really effective. Let me try it then.” All of them understood immediately: Melvin minded the gap between him and the other LV2s quite a bit. Due to his incomplete metamorphosis, his energy total was inferior to even Momo’s, and when it came to awareness his deficiency was greater still.
Bai Yi nodded. “OK then, wait for your body to adjust after a few days and consume it.”
“Why do I need to wait for a few days?”
“That’s a given. What do you think these things are? You can’t recklessly eat them. As long as they are things with medicinal properties to them, your body will be bound to develop some form of resistance after taking them once. Taking them continuously within a short period of time is bound to diminish their effects. Moreover, the various components within the Hundred Flavor Extreme Poison Sushi haven’t completely broken down yet within your body. If you really want to test the effects, it’s best to wait for a few days for your body to go back to normal,” Nancy explained.
Melvin nodded. “Is it? OK then.”
In the end, Melvin took the potion that Nancy concocted from the Great Stink Bomb Fruit after just two days. Looking at Melvin’s pained face as he pinched his nose and swallowed the potion, all of them couldn’t help but want to laugh. He still gagged for quite a while after swallowing the potion, but for the sake of testing its effects he couldn’t vomit it out.
“I swear, I would rather die than drink this thing again!” Melvin practically had only one breath of life left in him as he said this.
“We’ll see if you will consume it again in the future; maybe there won’t be enough for you even if you want it then,” Nancy teased.
The results of their experiment came out very quickly, and Melvin looked at the potion that Nancy had made with both love and hate. The effects were already clear: based on the quantity of Great Stink Bomb Fruit components, Nancy’s potion had a slightly greater effect than the sushi. That is to say, Nancy managed to use the fruit more efficiently. After all, the Great Stink Bomb Fruit could essentially be considered a rare medicinal ingredient, and Nancy was more experienced in this enterprise.
However, even after knowing the difference, all of them unanimously refused to consume Nancy’s potion and continued using Bai Yi and Betsy’s tonic cuisine.
“Hmph, you guys don’t know what’s valuable!” Nancy grumbled with a cold face.
The rest of them didn’t retort after hearing her and just smiled apologetically, fearing to offend her now. The potions that Nancy concocted had really good effects, but her only focus was effectiveness, and she wouldn’t do anything like trying to make the potion taste like fruit juice. Seeing Melvin’s face like he was on the verge of death, they could tell how ‘amazing’ the taste was.
“Hahahaha, let’s leave it at this. Since you guys like the tonic cuisine, then we’ll prepare it based on the recipe next time as well. However, now, we will head to Lake Hāwea first,” Bai Yi said.
“We aren’t going to pick the remaining Great Stink Bomb Fruits?” Woolf asked. Normally, wouldn’t people not leave anything behind if they found something good?
“No need, we’ll talk about it when the rest have reached LV2 as well. Those things don’t have much effect on those below LV2. Moreover, the Great Stink Bomb Fruit Tree has a very strong self-defense ability; you can tell from the absence of any living things around it. Normal lifeforms would probably never approach it. We can head to Lake Hāwea first,” Bai Yi explained.
Hearing Bai Yi’s words, Woolf looked at Betsy and the rest with embarrassment; he had already forgotten that the Great Stink Bomb Fruit was only useful to those LV2 and above. If they picked it all now, it would be a great waste to Betsy and the others. As for the Lake Hāwea mentioned by Bai Yi, that was a piece of information that Salva and his team recently recalled. Half a year ago, they heard some rumors that a lot of Hypersomnia Stage lifeforms had gathered near Lake Hāwea, seemingly attracted to that place by something.
Due to it being too dangerous, Salva and his team had only remembered this piece of information in their hearts and didn’t intend to go to that place.
However, after hearing this information, Bai Yi and his team had completely different thoughts from them. After the Hypersomnia Stage, they would start to undergo metamorphosis if they didn’t have the ability to control their changes. Why would those Hypersomnia Stage lifeforms gather near Lake Hāwea? Bai Yi had never looked down on other lifeforms; especially after assimilating with activated cells, all evolved lifeforms had become very intelligent. Perhaps those evolved lifeforms had found something that was beneficial to their metamorphosis and decided to gather at that place.
Since they didn’t have any goals now, then they might as well head to Lake Hāwea.
Along the way, when they started talking about their goals, all of them more or less felt that if they could successfully achieve LV2, they would want to leave the Devil Isles and return to the human world. This was the wish of all humans, and also their greatest wish. After struggling for close to five years in the Devil Isles, everyone understood that there was already no more hope for humans here. The City of Graves did not just bury an entire city, but also the hope of all evolved humans.
Returning to the human world, huh?
When Bai Yi heard their discussions, he couldn’t help but look toward the direction of Australia. It wasn’t that evolved humans hadn't wanted to leave the Devil Isles before, it was just that there was never any good news on the other end. On the side of the normal humans, they were worrying about how to capture some evolved lifeforms from the Devil Isles in order to conduct experiments on them. Weren’t these evolved humans just walking right into a trap?
Bai Yi wanted to go back as well, but he hadn’t seriously thought about this problem before. No matter whether they were in LV1-1 or LV1-3, it was only their physical bodies that were strong. There would obviously be no problems if they were facing normal humans, but if they were facing large concentrations of modern armed forces then they would be no match for powerful hot weapons. However, now that they had really entered into LV2, they could perhaps negotiate with the people in the human world. Even if things didn’t turn out well, they would already have a certain level of ability to protect themselves.
Bai Yi turned to look at Momo. This girl was already nine years old now, and stood at 1.4 meters tall. Even in comparison to Bai Yi, she wasn’t that much shorter anymore. A child this age should still be whining and crying to their parents, but the Momo of the present was independent and strong, having a maturity and composure that didn’t belong to a small kid. Should he be happy about this? But precisely because of this, Momo had lost a lot of the joy that she should have had in her childhood. If they had the chance, it really was time to return to the human world.
“Daddy?” Momo looked at Bai Yi in puzzlement.
“Momo, do you want to return to the human world?”
“Aren’t we humans?” Momo asked in confusion.
Bai Yi couldn’t help but cover his face, almost laughing out loud. Their experiences over these few years had really changed them a lot. Subconsciously, they had already split themselves away from normal human beings. “I’m talking about the normal human world, just like your life before. Do you still remember? In the past, living in the house, the gluttonous fat little girl,” Bai Yi said while gesturing.
A kid’s memory wasn’t too clear, but with only a few short years behind her, Momo could still remember the days where she played and created trouble all day with Sharpei.
“Niniya!” Momo softly said a word, her face showing some grief.
Bai Yi gently hugged Momo and didn’t say anything anymore. Momo was only nine years old, after all, and got sad very easily. Niniya was the child of their neighbour back then; she was one year older than Momo and the two of them had been close playmates. However, they had never seen each other again ever since the activated cells broke out. If nothing unexpected happened, Niniya had probably died long ago.
“That kind of peaceful and quiet life, does Momo want to go back to it?” Bai Yi asked.
“Yes!” Momo nodded seriously.
“However, would they accept us?” Although Momo was still young, she already understood a lot. Over the past four years, from her own experiences as well as learning from Vala and Alodia, Momo had grown rapidly. Furthermore, with the deaths of Sara and Vala right before her eyes, the growth of Momo’s heart had accelerated even more.
“No problem, leave it to your daddy! They would definitely accept us, we are humans too, after all. At the very least, I will find a peaceful and quiet world for us.” Bai Yi raised his thumb to Momo. Momo looked at her daddy’s serious expression and couldn’t help but raise her thumb as well; hers was smaller than his by a size, but she put it together with his, and the two of them started laughing loudly.
The rest of the team behind them heard Bai Yi’s guarantee to Momo and all smiled as well.
In peaceful times, perhaps many people would hope that their dull days would change and be different. But after experiencing so much, experiencing the deaths of countless family and friends, all of them finally understood how precious the normal and peaceful days were. The changes in the Devil Isles were definitely not as beautiful as those depicted in stories; this wasn’t a world that the small number of lucky people could represent. Every person was a living human being, and they all had their own thoughts, experiences, and sorrows.
A peaceful and quiet world, huh!