Time passed fast, and about 10 minutes after Lu Xiaoyao started her report, Bai Zemin's expression remained unreadable as the last word left her lips.

She looked at him and noticed that he seemed to be deep in his own thoughts so she quietly withdrew to file the documents, but not before instructing the maid at the door to serve Bai Zemin with respect and care. After all, the current Lu Xiaoyao was no longer the same as she was a week ago; she had slowly begun to realize how difficult it was to survive in this world and how worthless everyone's life was.

However, the maiden did not need Lu Xiaoyao to tell her anything. This woman was well aware of who the person sitting on the couch was. Even if he was young enough to be her son, the difference in status and power was as great as trying to compare pure white clouds with dirty dark-colored mud.

Bai Zemin gently sipped his cup of tea and in his mind, he was processing everything that Lu Xiaoyao had informed him earlier.

More than fifty people suffered at the hands of the survivors who were killed or captured the night before. Among these fifty, fifteen of them died after receiving different kinds of wounds while the rest of them suffered physical injuries or losses in which their properties were damaged in some way or another.

On top of that, a total of 246 soul evolvers and 53 armed soldiers were lost in last night's battle; this in conjunction with the great loss of over 150,000 rounds of ammunition made Bai Zemin's heart about to bleed rivers.

"Over 150,000 rounds of ammunition to kill just over 2000 beasts..." He muttered with a frown.

On average, between 70 and 100 rounds were needed to take down a single creature. This was a number that was far from good.

Animals, inherently, already possessed far more powerful physiques than humans before the apocalypse. This disparity had only increased to new heights when the world's mana entered and changed the physique of these animals, transforming them into mutant beasts that even a bullet in the head could not necessarily bring them down.

While a creature like a mutated squirrel would still die if it received a bullet through the head, how many shots were really necessary to bring down creatures like mutated elephants or mutated rhinoceroses whose skins at this point were comparable to steel plates? Probably several thousand; and this was the case regarding the Unclassified beasts.

If they were First Order, Bai Zemin was very clear that it would probably take tens of thousands of bullets and even hundreds of thousands to bring down just one of these monsters.

The previous night's affair, after the losses were laid out on a sheet of paper and displayed more clearly, made Bai Zemin have to consider his next move very carefully. Because it made him realize how incredibly weak mankind was.

In the first major confrontation his faction had against the mutant beasts, in order to win they had to expend approximately 2/3 of their arsenal; which in itself was not much to begin with. While the human losses themselves were not high compared to the beasts even before Bai Zemin arrived, the reproduction rate of the beasts was in most cases tens or even hundreds of times higher than that of humans.

Moreover, beasts could fight fiercely from birth. But how many years did a human need to go through the different stages, from baby to adolescent or even adult, before possessing the power to fight?

"We can't go on like this." Bai Zemin thought quietly and stood up.

The maiden saw him walking in her direction and became nervous. However, she tried to act calm and asked respectfully, "Leader, do you need me to prepare something for you?"

Bai Zemin waved his hand and said in a deep voice, "Just tell Lu Xiaoyao that she has done a good job. Let her continue in the same way, my expectations for her are higher now."

The middle-aged maiden was surprised but hurriedly bowed and consented. 

Just as he was about to leave, Bai Zemin stopped and asked with a frown, "By the way, do you know where Lu Yan is?"

Lu Yan? The maiden blinked in surprise. Very few people dared to so casually mention Lu Yan's name after all. But remembering who the person in front of her was, she chuckled to herself at her own thoughts.

"Mr. Lu had headed to the military area a few hours ago." She replied after a few seconds' thought.

"I see. Thank you." Bai Zemin nodded and left without looking back.

A quite pretty young maiden who just happened to be passing by approached the middle-aged maiden and asked with sparkling eyes: "Big sister Mei, how is the young leader of the rumors?"

The middle-aged maiden, still surprised, said puzzled, "He is a really polite young man. He even just said thank you to me."

"Eh? Is that so?" The young maiden blinked. Suddenly her eyes lit up and she said cheerfully, "Could it be that we have a chance? If we manage to get into his bed, our lives will be much safer and we won't have to worry about going hungry anymore!"

The middle-aged maiden whom the young woman referred to as 'big sister Mei' rolled her eyes and said in a joking tone, "Bah, you little brat. See if I don't tell your mother later and then tell me how red your butt got."

"Hehehehe..."

* * *

Bai Zemin walked with firm steps towards the military area. In his head, he was still thinking about the previous matters.

The only thing that lightened his heavy mood a bit was that not everything was negative.

As in every war, while it was impossible to avoid losses, it was also impossible to get absolutely nothing as a gain. This was exactly the case even if the battle fought had been against wild beasts.

Lu Xiaoyao's words still danced around Bai Zemin's ears:

"From the 5023 mutated beasts we defeated last night, we managed to obtain more than twenty tons of meat, and this is so making a conservative estimate since we had to remove approximately the weight of skin, bones, ligaments, blood, etc. In addition, as you requested, we started the dismantling process as soon as the bodies were moved to the appropriate area. Although it is not yet known for certain, according to my team's calculations we should be able to receive enough material to train several blacksmiths who, while not experts, will undoubtedly be of great help in forging equipment on an ongoing basis."

The matter of the approximately 20,000 kilograms of pure meat was something that had made Bai Zemin very happy. One needed to know that his faction currently had a total that exceeded 5000 people so the daily consumption of rations was frighteningly high. Even if it was currently still manageable, Bai Zemin did not know how long this would be the case.

Although under Wu Yijun's careful observation in Beginning Village several groups of food gatherers and farmers had formed, it was actually not as easy to obtain harvest as it was in the past; this was because the current farmland was no longer the same farmland than it was in the past.

With the constant intervention of mana, the world was under a constant process of evolution that did not stop no matter if it was day or night. Therefore, the seeds that had been saved since before the apocalypse, seeds that naturally had not mutated, for the most part, could not withstand the abrupt and constant change of the Earth so that no matter how long they were left there they never revealed any kind of growth, much less intentions to flourish.

As for this matter, Bai Zemin was also at a loss as to what to do. In the past, he had studied biology, but his knowledge was of no use to him when everything he used to know had completely changed. Therefore, he and his group could only take one step at a time and study the situation slowly until a solution to the problem was found.

While the issue with the farming was being resolved, Bai Zemin needed a source of supplies large enough to support mankind since regardless of the survival of the race, without food humans would not work; and if this happened all of Bai Zemin's efforts to rule over China would be as futile as trying to break a rock with an egg.

Twenty tons of meat alone would be enough to feed +10,000 people for a good amount of time, even more so if this was turned into soup; which was perfectly plausible considering that the meat with which the survivors would be fed was not normal meat but mutated meat.

Although neither Bai Zemin nor anyone else was aware of the consequences that surviving on meat would have on the human body, at least it could not be worse than starving to death. Moreover, he did not believe that this would become a short-term problem during the first few years; by then, Bai Zemin and the others might be able to find any kind of solution.

If the worst came to the worst, then Bai Zemin would go to another world. After all, it was absolutely impossible for all races to live based on meat alone.

Even then, many would complain. Therefore, Bai Zemin had always been racking his brain to think of countermeasures to help him solve the food problem. Although it was not a problem today, as a leader he had an obligation to think years ahead since what was involved here was the existence of an entire race.

As for the matter of the blacksmiths.... Bai Zemin's eyes lit up at the thought of this.

With the amount of materials obtained, he would be able to recruit a large number of unemployed survivors and slowly train them into blacksmiths good enough to craft quality equipment to aid the soul evolvers in their battles on the front lines.

In fact, this job did not even require Bai Zemin himself to do it since the North Camp had two blacksmiths. It was precisely these two blacksmiths who had forged various pieces of equipment for Lu Yan and his faction in the past after he lured them by paying a large sum of supplies as a token of goodwill and good daily pay.

Bai Zemin only needed to "lock up" the two blacksmiths in a large workshop along with twenty or thirty surviving aspiring blacksmiths and periodically give them materials for them to practice constantly. Quite possibly, in a matter of days or weeks at most the faction would be able to greet a large group of blacksmiths since with the support of the Soul Record the humans could learn tasks much more quickly; otherwise, this process would take months to train even a mediocre blacksmith.

As for the materials that would be wasted in the training process, although it was a pity, Bai Zemin had already hardened his heart and prepared to lose everything. As in most things in life, it was impossible for a new project to be lossless at the beginning, and only after the first investment would the profits slowly begin to show.

In any case, these materials would be from Unclassified beasts and he would hand over the low level ones first, so it was not an unbearable loss either. The investment in the long run was definitely worth it.

With his mood slightly better after thinking about all this and realizing that the future might not be as gloomy as it seemed if things were done right, Bai Zemin arrived at the military area, and even from a distance he could feel the heavy atmosphere in the place.

* * * * * * *

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