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Bai Zemin together with Shangguan Bing Xue and Wu Yijun quickly set to work. Without straying too far from each other, because while it was true that all the Wolf Spiders had been slaughtered, they did not know at what point more enemies might appear, so they began to search through the thick forage now tinged with red that covered the forest like a carpet.

"Here is a Soul Stone!"

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"Here's one too."

Not even ten seconds had passed when the two women called out from a distance.

Bai Zemin bent down just in time and picked up another Soul Stone before placing it in his palm and looking at both stones. His eyes flashed and just as he was about to ask a question under his breath, Lilith's beautiful and unmistakable voice sounded in his ears.

"As I told you before, all monsters have chances to generate a Soul Stone. Even the weakest and lowest level monsters are no exception to this rule. In fact, even zombies will start generating Mana Stones with relative regularity when their levels reach ten or so."

Bai Zemin nodded to himself and she continued, "You should hurry up and get that obsolete weaponry built by you humans. That way you can bring people to search for and gather as many Soul Stones as possible."

"... Is something wrong?" Bai Zemin whispered in a voice that only he could hear.

"Not much," Lilith replied calmly. "As you may have noticed, mankind's firearms don't affect the First Order too much so you'd better start manufacturing weapons from the material of the evolved monsters."

Bai Zemin frowned tightly and after a quick thought realized that indeed, Lilith's words were true. Fortunately, he had already made preparations, and currently, the survivors were working on dismantling the bodies of the mutated and evolved animals.

I will get to work on that as soon as possible. Bai Zemin secretly made a mental note.

"Besides," Lilith interjected again. "You don't need to worry too much about the matter of the New Age Monsters. While it's true that strange creatures will gradually appear, they won't be able to reproduce with each other until this world enters the second stage of evolution."

"What? Second stage of evolution?" Bai Zemin's eyes widened and he could barely contain his voice low to avoid being overheard and potentially being considered a lunatic.

Lilith's voice was not heard again for a few seconds until he finally heard it again.

"The mana of the world was sleeping for countless years, probably even from the first moment this planet was born. Now it's like a newborn that learned to crawl thanks to the Soul Record... But it still needs to learn to walk, then to run and so on and so forth. In short, the sooner you form your own power and faction, the better it will be for you and your future."

Bai Zemin took a deep breath and nodded without saying a word back to her. After all, second stage of evolution or tenth stage of evolution, such things were not something for him to worry about currently.

His main focus had not changed and what he needed to do had not changed either. He just needed to become stronger, just as he had been doing since the first day the Soul Record arrived on Earth and awakened the sleeping mana.

The sound of footsteps behind him made him turn around slowly only to see Shangguan Bing Xue walking in his direction with Wu Yijun beside her. Both women were carrying a pile of Soul Stones in their arms.

"What do we do with this?" Shangguan Bing Xue looked at him before looking at the Soul Stones she was holding with a puzzled expression.

She had already checked it out for herself in the past and indeed, Soul Stones can empower magic spells depending on the type of stone. As long as the Soul Stone was not focused on a particular element it could be used as an energy catalyst and increase the magical damage inflicted on the enemy to a great extent.

Of course, this also depended a lot on whether the Soul Stone was a normal or First Order and so on. Furthermore, if she used a normal First Order Soul Stone to cast an ice spell and used an ice-type First Order Soul Stone, it was natural to assume that the effect would be a lot more efficient.

It was precisely due to all this that Shangguan Bing Xue knew that Soul Stones were an incredibly valuable treasure at the moment. Therefore, she was worried about what to do with such a treasure.

After thinking for a moment, Bai Zemin decided: "Let's just leave them here temporarily. After securing the military armament we can bring a large number of survivors to gather and move them."

Wu Yijun nodded and remarked, "I agree with you. Otherwise it will take us years to find all the Soul Stones among all this thick grass."

Shangguan Bing Xue hesitated for a moment before gently laying the Soul Stones on the ground again. However, she took several for herself and kept them in a small leather bag she wore tied around her waist.

Wu Yijun did the same and Bai Zemin also kept some.

Just as he finished storing several Soul Stones, he remembered something important and told the girls to wait a moment while he slipped through his records.

[Evolution Requirements -

[Bronze Skin (First Order Passive Skill) Level 4 -----> Level 5:

[Stamina Stats over 300 points without external support: Complete

[Soul Stone: 9/9]

[Do you wish to evolve the Bronze Skin skill to the next level?]

Bai Zemin looked at the two women beside him before finally deciding to evolve the skill. In any case, the fact that skills could evolve wasn't a secret; it was just that probably no one had done it yet.

Nine Unclassified Soul Stones came out of his bag and floated in the air before they began to glow under the astonished eyes of Shangguan Bing Xue and Wu Yijun.

When the evolution process finished, Bai Zemin looked at the new skill and noticed that now, instead of +140 Stamina points, Bronze Skin level 5 gave him a total of +160 Stamina points permanently. A solid twenty point improvement, which was equivalent to ten levels in stat points.

"That was the evolution of a skill?" Shangguan Bing Xue asked in wonder.

"Right" Bai Zemin casually responded with no intention of hiding anything before returning to surprise the women beside him with another evolution.

[Evolution Requirements -

[Health Boost (Unclassified Passive Skill) Level 5:

[Health stat over 150 points without external support: Complete

[Soul Stone: 15/15

[First Order Soul Stone: 1/1]

[Do you wish to evolve the Health Boost skill to First Order?]

With a single thought, Soul Stones of different grades flew out of his bag and began to rotate, forming a strange diamond that abruptly entered his body. The rune representing the Health Boost skill flashed brightly and his entire soul seemed to become purer as his body felt a lot lighter than before.

Just the evolution of a skill made Bai Zemin feel as if a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. That's how incredible the Soul Record was!

[Superhuman Health (First Order Passive Skill) Level 1: Increases the effects of healing skills on you by 20%. +120 Health points permanently]

Bai Zemin confirmed the evolution requirements of the new Superhuman Health skill but seeing that he needed First Order Soul Stones in addition to Unclassified Soul Stones he decided to stop temporarily.

Although he still had approximately seven First Order Soul Stones left, Bai Zemin knew that such Soul Stones were currently precious. Unless the First Order creatures suddenly became normal like the other monsters or their numbers increased exponentially he was not willing to spend all his Soul Stones.

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After all, he still needed equipment for himself, for his subordinates, even to evolve other skills.

In fact, were it not for the current situation they were in it was improbable that he would expend one of the few First Order Soul Stones he had in his inventory.

"You two should also check to see if any of your passive skills can be improved." Bai Zemin instructed as he looked at the two women beside him. "Before we go deeper into the forest we should take the opportunity to become as strong as possible."

Shangguan Bing Xue and Wu Yijun nodded at the same time before they began to slide down their own records carefully.

While Wu Yijun did not possess any skills before, after acquiring her Plant Empowerment skill she began to fight on the front lines regularly so by killing mutated zombies, mutated animals, and engaging in fighting against more powerful creatures, she was also gradually acquiring some useful passive skills.

"In fact, with these Soul Stones I can level up some skills... Even evolving to the next Order is not impossible." Wu Yijun nodded before smiling bitterly and saying in a bittersweet tone, "Unfortunately, my natural stats don't reach the necessary requirement so I can't do anything about it."

"I see..." Bai Zemin nodded with understanding.

In fact, Lilith had already mentioned previously that evolving skills was by no means a simple thing and that he had been doing it constantly due to fighting beings more powerful than him relentlessly.

As his life was constantly in danger, it was only natural that the rewards were juicier. That was precisely why his natural stats were overwhelmingly higher than those of someone at his own level. Otherwise, he would also not be able to level up skills continuously, let alone upgrade Orders.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!...

The wind suddenly swooshed as several Soul Stones flew out of the leather bag on Shangguan Bing Xue's slender waist.

Flash!

"This is..." Bai Zemin muttered to himself as he looked at the light flashing and enveloping the Soul Stones. The same wonderful effect of the movement of mana together with a strange feeling of closeness every time an evolution happened flooded him.

Not only Bai Zemin felt this way, Wu Yijun, and even Lilith herself was no different.

The feeling they felt just by the mere fact of being close to the evolution process was so warm that it could not be described in mere words.

Bang!

With a burst of bright lights, particles of light filled with power surrounded Shangguan Bing Xue and as she kept her eyes closed, savoring the feeling of warmth within her soul, her skill finished evolving successfully.

She opened her eyes and sighed softly before looking at Bai Zemin and Wu Yijun with a rare smile, "It's done."

Wu Yijun smiled back and congratulated her while Bai Zemin simply nodded towards her and urged, "Let's get going... I'd like to at least get to see the camp before nightfall."

His last words were spoken in a joking tone, but the three of them knew that if a situation like the Wolf Spiders happened again it was likely that they would not really reach the place even after hours of walking.

* * *

The group of three advanced through the forest for more than two hours. In fact, the amount of time they had to advance to leave the area covered with Wolf Spider blood totaled an astonishing 30 minutes in all.

In those thirty minutes, they had advanced a total of almost 5 kilometers... That meant that all the low-level enemies within five kilometers had been slaughtered by Bai Zemin's Blood Manipulation skill!

It was only after seeing such a thing with his own eyes that he finally realized why such a powerful and mysterious being like Lilith said that his skill was more powerful than he believed.

Until now, Bai Zemin had only scratched the surface of the full potential of the Blood Manipulation skill. Just imagining how powerful this skill would be when it evolved and reached higher Orders made his heart pound.

Along the path, they encountered several enemies. All of them were naturally wild animals that had mutated due to mana and were constantly evolving due to the endless absorption of Soul Power.

After all, unlike intelligent beings who could argue with words other than killing each other, unintelligent animals spent most of their time fighting each other, devouring each other, and constantly getting stronger.

This meant that their numbers were steadily decreasing, but as a consequence, the few that remained were becoming more powerful. This would continue until one of them rose into power, becoming a terrifying existence not only with overwhelming might but also with a capacity for reasoning and judgment of its own.

Lilith had told him earlier that Second Order creatures could judge and have simple thoughts. Although they were not especially intelligent, neither were they incredibly dumb like those Unclassified or as suicidal as those of the First Order.

Fortunately, no powerful beings crossed their paths.

Nor were there any instances where large herds of insects or wild animals suddenly appeared and launched an attack against the group of three.

"It's only a short distance from here." Wu Yijun paused for a moment and surveyed the surroundings before pointing to a strange rock in front of them, "I remember back then I told my grandfather that this rock was shaped like an alien and less than forty minutes later we arrived at the military zone."

Bai Zemin and Shangguan Bing Xue looked at her with peculiar eyes and then looked at each other silently before looking at the strange rock.

"Indeed... It looks like a cartoon-like alien." Bai Zemin didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the sight of the rock that seemed to have a puffy head with bulging eyes and a small body.

Shangguan Bing Xue shook her head and did not comment on it before she started walking forward. However, just then, several roars echoed from all sides and her movements stagnated to a halt.

Rumble!

The ground began to shake fiercely as if a high magnitude earthquake suddenly happened, destabilizing the three of them.

"Ah!" Wu Yijun cried out taken by surprise as she almost fell and quickly clung to her best friend as she created several ice stakes from which they both leaned on.

Bai Zemin's face changed slightly and narrowed his eyes while looking ahead.

Even for himself it was a bit challenging to keep his balance if he stood in the same place without moving. Therefore, he had no choice but to take small steps sideways to adjust to the terrifying shaking of the earth.