Li Hao was about to explain when Commander Zhao sternly reprimanded him before he could speak, "Li Hao, I'm warning you, don't cause any unnecessary trouble within the base. You know best what you've done, so don't try to argue with me here.
Also, Mr. Lu is a benefactor of our base. If you anger him, don't say I didn't warn you. If you do, you and your team will be kicked out of the base. We don't need restless people like you here.
Apologize to Mr. Lu quickly."
Li Hao was speechless.
Under Commander Zhao's warning, Li Hao obediently apologized to Lu Heng.
Lu Heng raised an eyebrow, smiling without saying anything, then turned to bid farewell to Zhao Kai.
He had already wasted a lot of time and wanted to return to his villa to rest. The base had, as a gesture of sincerity, already advanced him a month's worth of crystals, five hundred Tier 3 ordinary crystals.
He planned to absorb the crystals he had saved upon returning. Since he had found a place to temporarily settle down, he could focus on leveling up or killing the zombies outside.
"Um, Mr. Lu, I have a few more things I need to trouble you with." Just as he was about to leave, Lu Heng was called back by Li Hao from behind.
Lu Heng frowned, guessing it was about the ice buckets that had trapped Huang Mao and his companions.
Seeing Lu Heng remain silent, Li Hao continued, "Mr. Lu, my subordinates were blind today and harassed you. Could you please release them first? I'll bring them to apologize to you personally later."
"What? Don't you have fire ability users?"
"Haha, you jest, Mr. Lu. How can our ability users compare to you? Our fire abilities are simply unable to melt the ice you created."
"Oh? Is that so? I'm only a Tier 5 ability user, and you can't even melt this ice?"
"This... Please trouble yourself to come over and release them. Those few..." Li Hao twisted his already scarred face and continued.
"I'm sorry, I have other matters to attend to. That ice will probably melt by tomorrow morning, so there's no need to rush.
Also, those few people should be fine. After all, the ice buckets I created weren't placed too close to them." After speaking, Lu Heng turned and left. He wasn't a saint. If he didn't teach these people a severe lesson, it was likely that someone else would come to bother him again before long.
He hadn't directly frozen those few people. He had merely conjured a large ice wall around them. Although the ice created by a Tier 7 ability user was extremely cold, it wouldn't be enough to freeze someone to death without direct contact.
However, just because they wouldn't die didn't mean they wouldn't be crippled. It was likely that their future ability levels wouldn't improve, especially for the fire ability users, who might become ordinary people unable to cultivate their abilities.
...
In the Spatial City.
Lu Heng would visit every week to check the cameras installed at the city's entrance. It was somewhat disappointing that the images captured by those cameras hadn't changed since they were set up.
Lu Heng then went to the Spatial City plaza again. Many crystals were displayed there. Lu Heng had collected too many crystals now. He had only asked the director to help categorize them, but he no longer kept track of the exact quantities.
Lu Heng sat down on a sofa in the plaza and began to absorb crystals. He was only absorbing Tier 3 crystals now. Tier 1 and Tier 2 crystals were piled to the side. Those could be used as currency in the post-apocalyptic world, but he didn't have anything he wanted to exchange for, so these low-tier crystals accumulated.
Lu Heng had considered using these low-tier crystals to exchange for some high-tier crystals. However, the overall strength of the ability users in the base wasn't very high, and Tier 3 or higher crystals were sold very rarely. Even for teams that managed to acquire high-tier crystals, they would hoard them for their own ability improvement.
Lu Heng had spent about two days absorbing crystals in the spatial dimension. Seeing the quantity of ordinary Tier 3 crystals steadily decrease, he finally got up and left the dimension after absorbing the last one.
It was time to go out and collect more crystals. Staying in the base all the time wasn't an option.
Emerging from the villa again, Lu Heng drove his off-road vehicle out of the base for the first time.
Since he had taught Huang Mao and the others a lesson last time, no one was loitering around his villa anymore. At least, no one was openly seen lurking nearby.
However, to avoid suspicion, Lu Heng still brought two large backpacks from the villa and placed them on the rear seats of the car. In reality, they didn't contain anything heavy. Lu Heng had simply put two large plush toys inside to fill them up.
The time Lu Heng chose to leave wasn't the usual time when the base opened its gates for people to go out on missions. Therefore, at this moment, only he, his car, and his vehicle were entering or exiting the base.
The soldiers guarding the city gates now recognized Lu Heng. After all, the base's higher-ups had notified the military, and photos of Lu Heng and his vehicles had been circulated throughout the base. The easily recognizable vehicles were identified at a glance.
"Mr. Lu, you're going out." A soldier routinely checked Lu Heng's identification and returned it to him.
"Yes, nothing much. Just going for a drive."
The soldier's mouth twitched. The man spoke as casually as if he were going on a vacation. He truly was a high-tier ability user.
The soldier guarding the city gates quickly opened the city gate. Lu Heng then entered the barbican. After the soldiers in the barbican gave Lu Heng a heads-up, they quickly opened the outermost gate. At the same time, Lu Heng floored the accelerator, and the car quickly rammed into several zombies, charging out of the vicinity of the city walls.
Some areas around the base had already been thoroughly searched by the base's ability users, with almost no useful supplies left. Therefore, apart from ability users specifically tasked with killing zombies, there were almost no people searching for supplies.
Lu Heng drove past several small towns without stopping. The closer he got to the base, the more survivors there were. Many people were afraid to venture too far from the base.
Lu Heng drove to a large city that was quite a distance from the base. Before the apocalypse, this city was a small commodity production base with many factories. These factories provided food and accommodation, so the population was relatively concentrated when the apocalypse occurred.
Lu Heng drove directly to the outskirts of the city. Like many cities, the roads leading in and out of the city were blocked by various vehicles, and many zombies were lingering nearby.
When Lu Heng arrived, although it was still daytime, because many of the external zombies had upgraded to Tier 3, they were no longer afraid of sunlight and could roam in the sun during the day.
He stopped the car at some distance from the city entrance and hid himself and the vehicle in his spatial dimension.
Within the dimension, he could conceal his aura, causing the zombies that had been attracted by the sound of his car to quickly lose their target and wander around aimlessly.