Published: February 9, 2025
The wish of the treant was naturally not fulfilled.
Ye Zhongming truly wanted to experiment on the treant, to see what kind of monster his gardener profession could create.
After all, upon seeing that wooden spike, he accurately assessed its power to be at the silver level.
By activating it, he could create a silver-level weapon, and it only cost him mental energy, which was a deal anyone could recognize as highly profitable.
Usually, to create silver weapons and equipment, one needs excellent blueprints and a large amount of materials, as well as the risk of failure, albeit minimal.
In comparison, it was clear which option offered better cost-effectiveness.
However, the mental energy required was somewhat high, and this activation had to be performed on the treant, which involved too many uncertainties.
Moreover, once activated, the wooden weapon could not be used by others.
These combined factors led Ye Zhongming to temporarily abandon the idea.
He believed that his mental energy was likely the highest among human evolvers, but transforming the treant was still beyond his capabilities.
If he wanted to see the treant perform under full activation, there were only two methods: one was to wait until Ye Zhongming's total mental energy increased again, to the point where activating a small branch would consume one-third of his total mental energy. The other was to wait for his gardener profession to advance, thus lowering the usage restrictions on his abilities.
But either option would require a considerable amount of time.
So even when the treant expressed a strong desire for a new powerful ability, Ye Zhongming chose to remain indifferent.
Of course, he didn't state his specific reasons, as this could at least provide an additional incentive for the treant to serve him.
Ye Zhongming and the treant stayed together for research, while the progress outside moved swiftly.
After all, this didn't require much; as long as the structure didn't collapse, aesthetics could be disregarded.
Three days into the project, they connected the laboratory with the camp of Surge Power.
On the fourth day, Ye Zhongming and the treant personally oversaw the operation, beginning the migration of equipment from the laboratory.
With the treant's expertise, they identified which machines were essential, which could be taken only partially, and which were unnecessary, reducing the project workload by more than a quarter and saving a substantial amount of time.
With the passage established, moving these machines was a minor task for the survivors.
In just half a day, the equipment was relocated to Surge Power's camp and was thoroughly protected.
The process went smoothly, but the atmosphere in the camp was unusually tense.
It was too smooth.
Logically, the news of the Black Cloud Group and Stinger Squad's demise should have spread long ago.
The widening passage had passed through several powerful factions' camps, and the actions led by Surge Power were almost known to half of the underground city.
However, other than several factions inquiring with caution, none led by Lin Xing had shown up.
This was very abnormal.
It couldn't simply be explained by Lin Xing's fear of Ye Zhongming's strength.
As the only six-star evolver in Linhai, Lin Xing had long held the position of the underground city's uncrowned king, and his strength was substantial.
This was confirmed by Yang Yixi, Mina, Garan, and even by the treant, who had fought Ye Zhongming directly and stated that he was unsure who was stronger.
Thus, Lin Xing's strength was evident.
Yet, such a person, despite having many followers, had not caused any trouble for Ye Zhongming and Surge Power for so many days, which was very unusual.
For this reason, Ye Zhongming, the treant, Yang Yixi, Mina, Garan, and several faction leaders allied with the treant gathered to specifically study this issue.
The conclusion they reached was that Lin Xing had already guessed what they intended to do.
He was waiting, waiting for Ye Zhongming and the others to take action, and then... to fish in troubled waters, using them to escape Linhai!