Wasteland: My items are infinitely upgraded.

Chapter 339 The Foundation of the Royal City, a Trusted Confidant Severely Injured, Show Sincerity
After listening to Ding Yi's summary, Lin Feng nodded:
"Alright, I'll go there myself now and see what conditions Bai Ye is willing to offer."

For the Salvation Army at present, although the technicians in the rockhorse breeding industry and the rockhorse population are very important for future development...

However, unlike Lin Feng, who was just starting out, Bai Ye, the leader of the Salvation Army, was not only well-known for a long time, but was also a peak second-tier evolver, not far from the third tier.

What she needs to do right now is to quickly establish a medium-to-large-scale power, recruit and gather tens of thousands of subjects, and then use herself as a template to extract the alien energy properties within her body, develop a space alien energy evolution drug, and activate the relevant genes of the injector.

In this way, a group of evolvers will be cultivated to embark on the path of spatial evolution. Finally, their genes will be used as samples to collect all the derivative characteristics of spatial abilities, complete the establishment of the gene bank, and elevate the single source substance into the original power of space.

Therefore, establishing large settlements is not only the path to the birth of third-tier kings, but also the foundation for them to maintain their existence and continue to break through after becoming kings.

For Bai Ye, the most important people to recruit are the large number of enhanced humans who have not yet begun to evolve.

Oasis Town has tens of thousands of wasteland dwellers, most of whom are in the early to mid-stage of strengthening.

Originally, among these fifty to sixty thousand people, there were a large number of the elderly, weak, sick, and disabled. However, after the attack by the Wilderness Wolf Clan, a group of them have been eliminated by the wolf pack. Those who survived are in relatively good physical condition and health.

Given enough resources, they can level up and break through to become Evolvers in a very short time, with a very high potential for development.

This also perfectly aligns with Baiye's needs.

Therefore, she had to take a large number of deserters from Oasis Town to form the foundation of the royal city.

But these people living in the wilderness are not unclaimed property.

It is Oasis Town, or more precisely, the Oasis Church, that has sustained them for the past few centuries.

These barbarians will then become the church's assets, and after the Holy City Diocese takes over Oasis Town, they will become its initial followers.

The Salvation Army's attempt to take away a portion of the wasteland people is clearly an encroachment on church resources and an offense against the authority of the Vatican.

For the Salvation Army, who had just been pardoned and regained their freedom, it was clearly not worth being wanted by the Church again because of this incident.

The problem is that Bai Ye's original plan was to plunder the rockhorse industry of Farm Village and also kidnap a group of young villagers.

Alternatively, after leaving Oasis Town, head to the vicinity of Holy City, wipe out several small convoys, or follow other town-level settlements, waiting for an opportunity to abduct people from the outskirts.

They're all wanderers anyway.

It's nothing, too much debt is no burden.

But now, by a twist of fate, they have regained their common status and will be able to move and trade freely within the church's jurisdiction in the future. The latter, in particular, will bring great convenience to the Salvation Army in the future.

By engaging in legal transactions with various settlements, you no longer need to worry about being taken advantage of by larger businesses or exploiting your status as a wanderer, unlike in the past. You can also collect various resources at the fastest speed.

The benefits and gains from this change in identity are far more important than those from being a group of desolate people.

Even if the Salvation Army were to rise to the level of a first-rate power, if it still retained the nature of a wanderer, it would have no choice but to leave the territory of the Holy Spring Church as soon as possible and head to the crevice in the north or the more barren King's Alliance in the south.

However, if the Salvation Army does not seize the current opportunity, it will be extremely difficult to acquire a large number of lower-level enhanced humans in the future. There is also the possibility that other forces may take the opportunity to plant spies and agents within their ranks.

This allows us to glimpse the emerging third-order evolutionary path.

If the search is for undiscovered and unsealed underground shelters, this is one of the main sources of the large number of deserters in Oasis Town.

This approach relies on luck, since no one knows where the underground shelters are or when they will open. Only a large power like the Holy City, with an area spanning hundreds of kilometers and an exploration range covering thousands of kilometers nearby, can discover newly opened shelters in time.

Therefore, the only legitimate option left for the Salvation Army is to attack other wanderer factions, destroy them, and then absorb dozens or hundreds of ordinary people from among them.

After all, the roaming forces have no status and are not protected by the rules; destroying them can actually earn you the rewards listed on the bounty.

But doing this is only slightly better than finding a refuge. The time spent accumulating population will only drag down White Night and cause her to miss the best window of opportunity for advancement in her early childhood.

After all, she is actually eighty years old now. Before she turned one hundred, her body and cells were still developing and had not yet fully matured. She could integrate more similar spatial ability genes, greatly increasing the chances of condensing her origin.

This is why all major powers are pursuing candidates for advancement to the third-tier king level, trying to limit them to children under 100 years old. This not only increases the probability of advancement and breakthrough but also minimizes resource consumption.

However, compared to Bai Ye, who had little background and started from scratch, other top-tier forces had ample resources to provide.

For example, in terms of population resources, Storm City can directly use Oasis Town as its base, without having to start from scratch to cultivate the diocese for the new candidate for the third-order bishop.

But Bai Ye isn't without any chance right now.

Because when the town-level beast calamity struck, the bishop gave Lin Feng, a key figure, an extremely important promise.

If Lin Feng can save enough oasis survivors from the wolf army's attack, he can take 30% of the survivors with him.

This will form the basis for his future development of small settlements.

Of the permanent residents of the five villages, Lin Feng has taken away 30% of the technical personnel, while the rest are basically confidants or key members of their respective families.

Recruiting them would only increase the instability of the convoy, so Lin Feng simply abandoned this group and only traded with the Li family, giving them a quota of 150 people.

As for the remaining candidates, they are naturally the fifth village and the last remaining scavengers.

However, in order to streamline the team, Lin Feng no longer plans to expand the recruitment, since he does not need to consider advancing to the third rank in the short term.

If Lin Feng were to rashly absorb thousands of deserters, that would mean thousands of mouths to feed. The daily consumption of water and food alone would bankrupt him.

Moreover, Lin Feng had already selected promising and capable members from the permanent residents of the Fifth Village and the people living in the rear a week ago to supplement the team.

The rest do not meet the requirements.

Moreover, the most important thing now is to improve the quality of the team, not the quantity.

First, we need to improve combat effectiveness and productivity to provide financial support for Lin Feng's subsequent ascent to the peak of the second tier.

Therefore, the best solution is for each party to take what they need.

Lin Feng took some of the permanent residents and deserters with him and left Oasis Town. He then traded them with the Salvation Army in exchange for supplies needed by the team.

For example, Evolutionary Jerky and Source Essence Evolution Agent.

At this moment, Lin Feng had arrived at the Salvation Army's camp and saw a group of wounded soldiers wrapped in bandages. Some of them had only bite wounds that tore flesh apart, while others were more serious, with severed hands and feet.

This was a huge blow to the Salvation Army.

After all, once a first-tier evolved being loses an arm or foot, it is very difficult for it to grow back. They can basically only do logistical work and cannot continue to participate in combat.

And those with such severe injuries accounted for more than half.

The main reason is that in the mountains, the evolved wolf army can rush up to fight at close range. Their mouths, full of fangs, can easily break through the armor's defenses and tear off hands and feet.

If Lin Feng and Xu Wanfeng had provided timely support, even with the Salvation Army restrained and protected by its leader Bai Ye, it would have been eventually worn down by the endless army of wild wolves through a war of attrition, ultimately collapsing completely and perishing in the wolves' jaws.

Therefore, the Salvation Army is currently in dire need of manpower.

Lisa, who was changing the bandages of the wounded, saw Lin Feng, put down the bandages, and immediately came over.

A month has passed, and after training in the Salvation Army, she is no longer as naive as before. Fine lines have appeared on her tired face, and having witnessed too much death, the light in her eyes has gradually been replaced by numbness.

However, upon seeing Lin Feng, she regained her smile: "You've arrived. The leader has been waiting for a long time. I'll take you there now."

Lin Feng nodded and followed her deeper into the camp.

It was parked inside a luxury RV that had been converted from a heavy-duty truck.

After Lisa knocked on the door to report, a woman opened the door and invited Lin Feng inside.

Upon entering, a chill immediately swept over Lin Feng, making his hair stand on end.

It was over 40 degrees Celsius outside, but the temperature inside the RV was below 20 degrees Celsius, only 16 or 17 degrees Celsius.

Such low temperatures, with a temperature difference of nearly thirty degrees.

The sudden and drastic change made even Lin Feng, a second-tier evolver, feel a slight sense of unease.

This refrigerator-like environment is clearly designed to put the body into a low-energy, dormant state.

This was also the first time Lin Feng had boarded Bai Ye's private car and seen the residence of this peak second-tier expert.

Led by a receptionist, Lin Feng passed through the corridor and entered the inner living room.

Finally, they saw the leader of the Salvation Army, Bai Ye himself, sitting on the edge of a bed.

The injured man lay on the bed, his body wrapped in bandages, with several bottles of different medicine hanging from each of his arms.

It contains anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and glucose-based ingredients.

Wearing a ventilator mask on her face, she was continuously injected with high concentrations of oxygen, which catalyzed cell proliferation and division to repair the wound.

Lin Feng glanced at the wounded man from the side and could tell from the half of his face that he was one of only two second-tier evolved beings in the Salvation Army. He was Bai Ye's right-hand man and the second-in-command of the Salvation Army, a muscular and burly woman named Ma Li.

The latter was in charge of mechanical repair and logistics in the Salvation Army and was a skilled mechanical engineer.

It was only then that Lin Feng suddenly realized that he hadn't actually seen the Salvation Army's second Tier 2 Evolver during the support mission.

Long before the wolf army launched its attack, when Lin Feng met Bai Ye, he did not see Bai Ye present.

In other words, at that time, Mary was likely held hostage along with most of the Salvation Army in a valley surrounded by wolves.

As for what happened next, it's easy to guess: Bai Ye switched sides at the last minute and joined the Oasis Church in its attempt to kill Wolf Ao, the leader of the Wolf Clan.

Although the key was to severely injure Lang Ao in the end, it also allowed him to escape back into the mountains.

After being harmed by Bai Ye, Lang Ao's first instinct was undoubtedly to send his second-tier wild wolf beast offspring to slaughter the Salvation Army in revenge.

Ma Li's serious injury was naturally due to protecting the convoy, which unfortunately led to her being attacked by two giant beasts.

Ultimately, he ended up in a coma.

Lin Feng could sense that at this moment, Ma Li, who had just evolved to the early stage of the second tier, had an aura even weaker than many late-stage first-tier beings. Her life value had dropped to less than half, and she was at risk of worsening and dying at any moment.

He's only clinging to life now, thanks to a ventilator and the constant infusion of medication and nutrition.

Moreover, Lin Feng also saw that Bai Ye's hand flashed with spatial energy traces, clearly indicating that he was also trying to save his subordinates.

Therefore, it seems that Ma Li must be a very important confidante to Bai Ye.

After all, with such severe injuries, even maintaining the status quo would consume a lot of precious resources, and trying to pull him back from the brink of death would only require even more effort.

It takes even more than training a second-tier evolver.

Moreover, even if he could be saved, after such a severe injury, his life potential has been greatly depleted, and it would be difficult for him to make any further progress in the future.

However, Lin Feng would spare no effort to save such a loyal subordinate.

Seeing Lin Feng approach, Bai Ye slowly released Ma Li's hand and said:

"We fought our way out of the encirclement, but we didn't have time to collect many evolved wolf corpses. We only have about two hundred at the moment, and we need them to make up for our losses and train a new batch of evolved humans as soon as possible..."

"Therefore, please forgive me, Chief Lin, but this batch of evolved wild wolf carcasses cannot be traded at the moment."

"In exchange, I can provide you with a batch of pure source material and hundreds of first-stage pure evolution agents."

"These evolution agents are five times the price of the same level Rockhorse evolution agent. Even if you sell them to the Wilderness Hunter Guild for four times the price, it will be enough to make up for the loss of the Wild Wolf corpses."

Lin Feng frowned slightly. For him, the evolutionary resources of the first stage were no longer of much value, even pure life essence.

After all, he can continuously obtain pure source material using the upgraded nano-level filter.

Currently, I have the corpses of over 1,800 evolved wild wolves in my possession, and I can extract source essence from their evolved meat so much that my hands get tired from filtering it.

What he really needs are the resources for the second stage of evolution.

After all, all they had at the moment were the corpses of two second-tier wild wolf behemoths, one level 22 and the other level 23.

That translates to seven portions of level 20 life essence and seven initial evolution agents.

However, these need to be left for Ding Yi to conduct experimental research and to promote the second-order advancement plan of the divine dog.

Using it for filtering and then giving it to Lin Feng himself is a bit too extravagant and a waste of resources.

After all, the source material resources of a second-tier wild wolf behemoth are much more valuable than those of a rock horse behemoth.

The former can be sold for almost two or three times the price of the latter, second only to pure source material.

However, the market for pure source materials is limited. Selling too much would not only attract attention but also expose the risks of selling the product itself.

But the giant wolf beast doesn't have this problem.

The Vatican is also pleased to see the emergence of something that can suppress the evolutionary pathway of the Rockhorn.

After all, with millions of Rockhorn Horse Evolvers at present, once a Tier 3 Horse King appears, his influence will be no less than that of a large-scale first-class power.

This is also a potential threat to the Holy Spring Cult, a top-tier sect.

Therefore, Lin Feng spoke up:

"The pure source material's immaculate evolution was just for experimental research; I never intended to cultivate immaculate evolvers in large numbers."

"Even top-tier royal cities don't have the financial resources to support this, let alone me."

"Right now, I need second-stage evolution resources more than first-stage pure evolution agents."

"If you can provide a Tier 2 early-stage evolution agent, or even a mid-stage one, I'm willing to offer my utmost sincerity..."

“In addition to industrial technicians, there are also permanent residents and a large number of deserters who can be traded.”

(End of this chapter)