C16 Good Stuff

The gender ratio among the four thousand zombies was skewed.

Jiang Loong had in his possession two mutated male zombies and one mutated female zombie, along with a Level 10 male and female zombie each.

However, Jiang Loong wasn't rushing to merge them. On the contrary, he intended to deal with another horde of zombies first. His plan was to eliminate that group before considering his next move.

His mutated male zombie had led this other horde back to the deserted village. It took Jiang Loong over two hours to exterminate them all.

Notably, this batch contained a higher number of female zombies.

As a result, Jiang Loong acquired another mutated female zombie and a Level 10 male zombie. Additionally, he secured a Level 8 male and female zombie, as well as a Level 9 male and female zombie.

Having dispatched two waves of zombies, Jiang Loong took a brief respite before commencing with the zombie synthesis.

He started by merging the Level 9 male zombie he had previously with the newly acquired one, creating a Level 10 male zombie. Consequently, Jiang Loong now boasted four Level 10 male zombies, paving the way for him to create two new mutated male zombies.

Next, he combined the Level 8 female zombies from before with those he had just collected. Then, by synthesizing the Level 9 female zombies, he gained a Level 10 female zombie. Now, with three Level 10 female zombies at his disposal, he merged two of them to produce another mutated female zombie. This brought his total to three mutated female zombies.

Thus, Jiang Loong had amassed a total of five mutated female zombies and five mutated male zombies, all at Level 11.

Among the higher-tier zombies, he was left with a single Level 10 female zombie, with no same-level counterpart for fusion.

Within his domain, the male-to-female zombie ratio had become more balanced.

Ke'er, having been an Evolver prior to her transformation, became a mutated zombie immediately upon her corpse transformation. Consequently, Jiang Loong found himself utilizing a greater number of male zombies.

In the space now, aside from Tongtong and Ke'er, Jiang Loong had three additional mutated female zombies.

Faced with two options, Jiang Loong had to make a decision.

Jiang Loong faced a dilemma with two options before him. The first was to use the three mutated female zombies to facilitate the leveling up of Tongtong and Ke'er. The second option involved merging one mutated female zombie with either Tongtong or Ke'er, elevating one of them to Level 12. He would then combine the remaining two mutated female zombies to create a Level 12 mutated female zombie. The final step was to merge this Level 12 mutated female zombie with the one who had already reached Level 12, propelling Tongtong or Ke'er to Level 13.

The question Jiang Loong grappled with was whether to bring both mutated female zombies to Level 12 or to prioritize advancing either Tongtong or Ke'er to Level 13 first. Unable to decide, he shelved the issue for the time being.

"I'll tackle the male zombie problem first," he resolved.

Without overthinking, Jiang Loong merged all the male zombies in the space, as they were all destined for labor. After synthesizing two male zombies, he realized he could continue the process.

However, Jiang Loong abruptly halted when he noticed something unexpected. The grid's upper right corner indicated the male zombie had ascended to Level 21, not the anticipated Level 12.

What was happening? How had the male zombie jumped from Level 11 to Level 21? Level 11 was Rank 1, but Level 21 was clearly Rank 2. Typically, it took two lower-level zombies to synthesize one of a higher level, yet this male zombie had seemingly bypassed the norm, leaping from Rank 1 straight to Rank 2.

Could two Rank 1 zombies directly create a Rank 2 zombie? Puzzled, Jiang Loong intended to consult the novice guide for clarity. But upon searching, he discovered that his novice phase had ended, and the guide had vanished.

With no guidance to rely on, Jiang Loong stroked his chin and decided to experiment based on his own intuition. He reached out and merged the two Level 21 zombies. To his astonishment, the fusion resulted in a new zombie, and the grid's icon now displayed the number 31!

Could he have actually guessed correctly?

This time, Jiang Loong's theory was proven right.

Although he didn't fully grasp the reasons behind it, it was undoubtedly beneficial for him!

In the future, if he wanted a mutated zombie, he wouldn't need to go through the process of creating synthetic zombies. Instead, he could simply upgrade a regular zombie to its mutated form.

Jiang Loong pondered the situation.

There was a certain logic to this setup.

For instance, to create a Level 2 zombie, it would take two Level 1 zombies. To synthesize a Level 3 zombie, four Level 1 zombies would be needed, and eight zombies for a Level 4.

With each upgrade, the required number of Level 1 zombies would double. By the time a zombie reached Rank 2, around Level 28, it would likely need a staggering hundred million Level 1 zombies to advance. Yet, Level 28 was merely Rank 2.

The crux of the matter was that Jiang Loong simply didn't have that many zombies!

And the absurdity didn't stop there. Even if Jiang Loong had a hundred million zombies, and he managed to synthesize one zombie per second, it would still take him three years to finish the task.

If the mix included a substantial number of higher-level zombies, the time might be reduced by half, but in any case, it would take him well over a year. And this didn't even account for the time it would take to gather the zombies.

During that year, he would have to work non-stop.

To create a Level 100 Corpse King, he would need trillions of Level 1 zombies—more than the entire universe could possibly contain.

This reminded him of the tale of the King's Chessboard and the grains of wheat he had once heard.

Allegedly an Indian legend, the King was ready to bestow a reward upon the inventor of chess, but the minister's request was deceptively simple: he wanted rice. He asked for one grain of rice on the first square of the chessboard, two on the second, four on the third, doubling the amount on each subsequent square.

When the king heard how straightforward the request was, he agreed without hesitation.