After finishing their meal, everyone gathered around a table with the animals that Bai Yi’s group had found earlier in the day on it. An ant, hummingbird, centipede, spider… and a cat. The cat was something that Hong Qi Hua’s group found in the school building, and it had quite a few characteristics of a mouse on it. A mouse-cat? Anyway, it looked extremely fierce.

Although all of them agreed on the active gene fusion plan, at this moment they all remained silent. Bai Yi wanted to take the lead, but he couldn’t fuse with genes from other organisms now, so it was useless even if he tried.

“I’ll go first!” Hong Qi Hua spoke.

“I’ll fuse with the genes first and we can wait for two days. We can officially execute our plan after we’ve confirmed that it’s workable.”

“What are you talking about? Active fusion of genes is something everybody agreed to, how can we only let you take the risk? If we want to fuse with the genes, we will do it together.” Woolf said. Although Woolf was quite dense normally, he was quite forthright at this time.

“Woolf is right, how can we let you take the risk alone? Let’s do it together.” Heloise nodded as well.

“Ok let’s just do it this way then, everybody will fuse with the genes. The first gene that we recommended is the ant gene, so everybody will fuse with this. As for the other genes, you can make your own choices.” Bai Yi said as well.

“How do we do this?” Sara asked, and everyone turned to look at Martin.

“Very simple, you just need to be in contact with its fluids.” Martin said.

Fluid contact was really quite simple. In the end, Mavis used a few syringes to extract fluids from the animals. She then poked a small hole on each person’s arm and dripped a drop of the fluid from the animal they’d chosen onto it.

Everyone fused with the genes of an ant, and Hong Qi Hua chose the genes of the hummingbird and cat in addition to it. Sara and Heloise also chose the genes of a cat because they saw how Ning Xue looked like. Although they were still fusing with genes from other organisms, looking like a cat-girl was still easier for them to accept.

Martin chose the spider genes to fuse with in addition to the ant genes. This guy, was he looking for novelty?

Little Warner looked at Hong Qi Hua and also followed her decision of an ant, hummingbird and cat. Khina only wanted him to follow Hong Qi Hua on the journey, but unexpectedly he even followed her on the choices of genes to fuse with.

Bai Yi and Momo decided to try as well. Bai Yi wanted to see if he and Momo were really unable to fuse with genes from other lifeforms.

After everyone completed their procedures, they looked at each other for a while and started to laugh. It would definitely not be like this if it were only Hong Qi Hua who took the initiative to fuse with genes. This was the so-called ‘enjoying fortune and going through difficulty together’ (TN: Chinese idiom as well!). No matter what the end result was after gene fusion, everybody was in this together and developed a sense of camaraderie.

“Now, let’s summarize everything so far and record it down on the laptop and a notebook. However, I hope that everyone will still remember everything in your heart. Who’s willing to do this and copy everything down in the notebook?” Bai Yi said to everybody after they had finished laughing.

“I’ll do it, I’m already used to writing medical notes back at the hospital.” Mavis said. Bai Yi nodded. This place was a school, so they very quickly found a thick notebook and a few pens.

“Why do we still need a notebook?”

“Electronics are too fragile considering what we have to face in the future, so it’s better to have a physical notebook to record things down.” Bai Yi explained.

“No one knows what New Zealand will change into in the future, other than those researchers who specialized in this… Or rather I should say, even those researchers who developed the activated cells wouldn’t know what New Zealand will be like in the future.” Bai Yi said.

“Although the future has always been unknown, opportunities will always be left to those who are prepared. Now that all of us are in a team now, we must all work hard together. Hong Qi Hua, you use the laptop to organise the notes first before passing it to Mavis for copying.” Bai Yi said to Hong Qi Hua and Mavis. Although Mavis always had an aura of a strong and independent woman and Bai Yi would normally be quite timid around her, he didn’t show any apprehension this time.

This was the attitude of a real leader!

“I won’t repeat the things we discovered in the past. What I want to talk about is the thing we found out today. This is just a guess, so I’m not sure if it’s correct.”

“1) Due to binge eating and gene fusion, the food chain in New Zealand is completely destroyed. Various organisms are dying quickly en masse due to them preying on each other for food, and a big portion is already gone. Under the same reasoning, the organisms that are still alive would probably be the more powerful ones. 2) Plants that got infected by activated cells are also rapidly growing and mutating. This may be the cornerstone that will sustain the food chain of New Zealand. 3) Organisms that got infected by activated cells would have a great increase in its intelligence even if they are not humans. They can already begin to understand simple instructions and meanings. 4) After fusing with genes from other organisms, the host body will undergo great changes, but due to the ‘common sense’ developed throughout their lives, they would not be able to completely make use of their abilities. It would take time to familiarize with and control these abilities.” Bai Yi listed out the four things that they found today.

“Anybody who has questions can speak.” Bai Yi looked at everyone.

“These four things…” Although everyone was shocked, they still raised the questions that they had. Bai Yi replied based on his own understanding on things, and at the same time let everyone think about them for themselves, discovering and deducing even finer details.

“What I mean by ‘common sense’ that we developed throughout our lives, ah…” Bai Yi explained to Woolf again at the end. This idiot, he just couldn’t remember.

“To put it simply, you don’t have any wings now. If the bald eagle genes that you fused with really let you grow wings, do you think you can start flying immediately? Even for a normal person it takes a period of time for them to learn how to drive a car, what more an ability that you did not have in the first place? Do you understand what I mean now?” Bai Yi looked at Woolf, but only saw a pair of wide, innocent, and watery eyes.

“Idiot, if you don’t understand then forget about it.” Bai Yi gave up.

“Heloise, can you explain to me?” Woolf suddenly said.

Heloise was surprised for a moment after hearing Woolf and then smiled while sitting beside him. Bai Yi just felt like laughing looking at him. This idiot, his acting was so obvious. He clearly understood everything in the afternoon, only he could use this kind of method to try and woo a girl. However, looking at Heloise, she didn’t seem to reject him.

“After that, everyone take out your swords!” After he finished laughing, Bai Yi suddenly said to everybody.

Everyone was quite taken aback but took out and held the swords that they chose from Old Harvey’s storeroom in their hands. Momo was only four years old, but Bai Yi did not try to help her at this moment but let her clumsily take down the half meter long blade from her back.

“I guess all of you should be curious. Why did I make everybody pick a sword?” Bai Yi said.

“Although you guys should have more or less guessed the reason already, I still want to talk about it.”

“The first reason is that bullets are limited. Unless we manage to find a military weapon store, it would be difficult to replenish our bullets in New Zealand now.”

“The second reason is that the propelling force behind guns is from machinery and gunpowder, so the power of these weapons is fixed. If it were before, these guns would definitely be lethal weapons to all lifeforms on Earth, but now as humans and evolved lifeforms grow more powerful, the threat of these weapons would only become smaller and smaller. However, cold weapons are different. How much power cold weapons can display is dependent on their users. If it were before, cold weapons would definitely be incomparable to hot weapons, but now as our basic abilities grow, cold weapons will be able to display unimaginable power.” Bai Yi said and drew his broadsword.

Everyone looked at Bai Yi, and at this moment he measured the distance between him and the table in front of him with his broadsword. Everyone could see that his broadsword was about 20 centimeters away from the table.

Gradually, they saw Bai Yi raise his sword, the muscles on his arm tensed and the blade abruptly shot out, with a hum it cut through the air and stopped.

With a soft ‘kacha!’, a 10+ centimeter long scratch instantly appeared on the surface of the table. The scratch wasn’t deep at all and it wouldn’t even be noticeable normally. However, everyone saw with their own eyes the scene of Bai Yi swinging his sword.

It didn’t touch!

The closest point on Bai Yi’s broadsword was at least 20 centimeters away from the surface of the table.

After swinging the sword, Bai Yi’s face changed colour and his body trembled. Sara immediately wanted to go over and support him.

“It’s fine, it just affected my old injuries. I’ll be more careful.” Bai Yi declined Sara’s support.

“Chinese Kung Fu!!” Woolf instantly opened his eyes wide.

“This isn’t some Chinese Kung Fu, but a way of using the body’s physical strength after it reaches a certain point. Vacuum strike. (TN: the author used 斩击, which means slash strike, but it isn’t exactly just a slash so I’m going to call it vacuum strike. Open to suggestions too if anybody has better ideas for names!) In ancient times when heavy emphasis was put on cold weapons, this wasn’t much of a secret. Using the high-speed swing of a sword to move the air in front of it, it could form a vacuum-like strike. I thought the old man was just joking in the past, but unexpectedly I really managed to grasp the border of this technique now.” Bai Yi slowly explained and waved his hand.

“Everyone saw that in my movements just now, my broadsword didn’t touch the surface of the table at all, but it still managed to create a scratch on the table. The scratch I made is quite small now. A child casually running a knife through the table could make a deeper scratch, but it proves a great possibility. Cold weapons to people like us who assimilated with activated cells will soon produce previously unimaginable power.”

“Next, what I want to tell you guys is…”

“The skill of knife!” (TN: Woolf literally just said ‘the skill of knife’ in English here)

“Ah…” Woolf kept interrupting Bai Yi in his excitement. Bai Yi couldn’t help but to be dejected and droop his head.

“Shut up, you.” Although Bai Yi sounded like he was scolding him, his face was actually quite helpless. In reality Bai Yi wasn’t really angry either.