Chapter 252 - 167: Land

On their journey, Paige Summers and her team passed by a few small bases.

Most of these places had few people left; a population of several hundred was considered large-scale, and among them were only a dozen or so Superpower Users. Under these conditions, they were barely managing to keep from starving to death.

In truth, after so many years, their homes had been built like fortresses, largely protecting them from Mutant Animal and Zombie attacks. The real reason they couldn’t live properly was the contaminated land.

Food is the first necessity of the people, and land that could no longer grow crops left them at their wits’ end.

Seeing those sallow and emaciated people, Paige Summers felt a knot of unease in her stomach.

Although eating non-toxic mutant plants and Mutant Beasts wasn’t a problem for now, these food sources lacked the nutrients necessary to maintain a person’s health. She knew—and perhaps they did, too—that in the long run, death was inevitable.

They were waiting for The Government to find a solution, a way to purify the contaminated land.

But it was such a remote hope.

Currently, most of the food supply in Central City came from soilless cultivation. The yield wasn’t high, barely enough to supply Superpower Users from District Four and above. As for food grown in actual clean soil, that was a luxury reserved for the truly privileged. The common people of District Five subsisted on things like Nutrition Cakes.

If things were like this in Central City, one could only imagine the situation in other places.

There was no good news from The Research Institute on this front.

Paige Summers thought of Levi Young and Nadia. ’I just hope they can make a difference.’

’It’s truly tragic.’

’It’s like we’ve returned to the primitive age.’

She felt a sense of pity, but her team’s supplies were limited. She couldn’t afford to play the saint, so all she could do was sigh at the state of things.

Until the space in her left earring activated!

It was embarrassing to admit, but back when she was working hard to accumulate enough energy to open the space in her right earring, she had been incredibly proactive. She’d gone out of her way to do good deeds, hoping to earn people’s heartfelt gratitude. But when it came to her left earring, most of that enthusiasm had already worn away.

Aside from helping out when the opportunity conveniently arose, she hadn’t really made a deliberate effort to do more. That was why it had been delayed for so long.

It was purely that, without her realizing it, the gratitude from the team members she’d rewarded and the people she’d casually saved along the way had converted into energy. This allowed the left earring, which was already nearly full, to finally and quietly activate that night...

Paige Summers, who had been just about to rest, was quite surprised herself.

Then, she remembered the "memories" from the jade, and her blood instantly began to boil with excitement!

’The Evo-Space!’

’One day on the outside is ten years on the inside!’

’How incredible!’

’Of course, I’ll have to investigate to know the specifics.’

She carefully extended her spiritual power into it.

She could see the entire space at a glance. It was a little over five hundred square meters. Below was a perfectly square, flat plot of ordinary land. Overhead, there seemed to be a large mass of white light, but she couldn’t make out any details; it just felt as if it were very high up and far away.

Paige Summers scanned the entire area and found nothing else.

’But this land... it’s real, solid earth. The kind you can plant things in.’

She was suddenly energized.

’If I plant this whole area with wheat or rice, I could harvest it ten times in a single day. How much food would that be! If I put a normal piglet in here, it would be ready for slaughter in just over two hours. And if I had a boar and a sow, wouldn’t they just multiply endlessly?!’

...

’It was a wonderful fantasy, but whether crops could be planted, whether animals could be raised, whether anything could even survive in here at all—none of it was certain.’

’I really want to try it out right now!’

There was no way Paige Summers could sleep now; she was itching with curiosity. But no matter how anxious she was, it was useless. She didn’t have a single thing on her that could be called a seed. There were mutant plants outside the camp, of course, but she didn’t dare test them. ’What if they grow into something aggressive inside the space? Wouldn’t I just be asking for trouble?’

After tossing and turning, she still couldn’t calm down. Finally, she just ran over to the tent opposite hers and called out Ryan Archer, a team member with a Wood Element Superpower, to ask him for seeds.

"You brought a lot of plant seeds with you, right?"

The team member, roused from a deep sleep, was still groggy. But her words made him jolt awake. "Vice-Captain, what’s the situation?!"

His shout startled everyone.

People came rushing out of their tents.

"What’s going on?"

"Is it a night raid?"

"Brothers, it’s a night raid!"

Paige Summers was speechless. ’I clearly just asked him about seeds. How did that lead to the conclusion that we’re under a night raid?!’

After a moment of commotion, everyone realized it was a false alarm. Ryan Archer’s face flushed with embarrassment. "I-I-I... I thought there was a mutant plant ambush..." Who would have thought the vice-captain simply wanted some seeds.