Chapter 128 The Idea of Growing Vegetables
"Mr. Wright, Mr. Wright, it hurts a bit," Donovan said as he broke into a sweat instantly, almost having his arm crushed by William's grip.
William let go and apologized to Donovan.
Donovan started to recall, "Everyone at the base knows there are three roulette wheels here. Before they were protected, many people had seen them."
Donovan rubbed his arm and explained to William,"All three roulette wheels are in the East District. One is in the underground parking lot, another is inside a building, and the third is on the rooftop of another building."
William felt his heart skip a beat and asked the most pressing question on his mind, "What level are they?"
"What level?" Donovan scratched his head. "I think they're Level 1 and Level 2? Anyway, the crystals on them are the same as the ones on the zombies' foreheads outside. There are grayish-white ones and white ones. The one on the rooftop is white, so it should be Level 2, I guess."
William thought excitedly, 'There really is a Level 2!'
In his previous life, he left the city shortly after becoming a Level 1 Evolving person, so he wasn't familiar with the locations of the Level 2 roulette wheels in the city. After obtaining the Level 2 Magic Crystal, he planned to start looking for Level 2 roulette wheels.
Entering the base was not only to exchange for some necessary items like bullets and firearms but also to see if there were any certificates or scrolls. Besides that, he wanted to gather information about the Level 2 roulette wheels.
Unexpectedly, he not only got information about the Level 2 roulette wheels here, but they were also inside Hope Base!
It was so easy and coincidental that it was almost unbelievable.
Donovan knew the locations of the roulette wheels, and William remembered them just by asking. He wasn't worried about not finding them because the roulette wheels emitted a faint glow, making them easy to spot at night.
After buying some food, they returned to their place. Due to the previous incident with the prostitute, the women were in low spirits, and the market no longer held any interest for them.
Back at their residence, Anthony hadn't returned yet from gathering information. Everyone started to arrange their beds, while William went up to the rooftop alone.
This building had twenty floors, and Anthony and Donovan's families lived on the eighteenth floor, the highest occupied floor in the building. The nineteenth and twentieth floors were empty.
On the rooftop, William looked out as far as he could see. The entirety of Hope Base was laid out before him. Only then did he realize how large the base was, covering two blocks. Although the coverage wasn't complete, there were still hundreds of buildings.
On the walls made of buildings and concrete bricks around the base, he could clearly see many guards patrolling. However, their attention was focused outside, and they didn't notice that William was on the rooftop.
From his high vantage point, William also saw the situation outside the base. Although he had seen many such scenes in his previous life, it still deeply shocked him in this life.
He saw the entire base surrounded by zombies and mutated animals, with no gaps at all. A rough estimate suggested that there were at least fifty thousand zombies gathered here!
Hope Base was indeed sparsely populated compared to the city center but it still has a population of tens of thousands of people living and working here. Although it couldn't compare to other districts with hundreds of thousands of people, the number of zombies after the apocalypse was still considerable.
Seeing this, William understood why the base was always on high alert. He saw many powerful mutated zombies, most of which were at the second mutation level. Fortunately, none had evolved to the third level yet. If they had, no matter how sturdy the walls were, they couldn't withstand an attack from zombies three levels higher than humans.
The 'human scent' inside the base was too strong, making the zombies reluctant to leave. Although they couldn't do much to the high walls and thick buildings for now, the danger was ever-present. Any small problem could put the base in immediate danger.
William frowned, feeling a sense of unease.
In his previous life, if a survivor base encountered such a situation, it usually meant a zombie or beast horde outbreak. The base would fight desperately, but whether they could hold out was uncertain.
Normally, there wouldn't be so many zombies surrounding the base because they were a potential threat that could erupt at any time. Survivor bases would go to great lengths to eliminate the zombies and mutated creatures around the base to ensure the highest level of safety at all times.
The most common method for survivors in the base was to personally clear them out, which not only provided a large number of Magic Crystals but also trained the team and ensured the base's safety.
Some bases used special methods, such as setting up beast farms, arranging artillery arrays, diverting the threat to other places, or even hiring warbands to clear them out.
William didn't know when Hope Base would take action to clear them, but he was sure they would. Otherwise, the base was too dangerous.
He looked around but didn't see the Level 2 roulette wheel on the rooftop, probably because it was too far away or blocked by other buildings.
Going downstairs, he saw Natalie, Lucy, and Candice cooking. They had set up a pot in the hallway, using some broken furniture they found to make a fire and cook. On top of the rice, they had placed several strips of sliced pork. Nearby, Jack was chopping wood, and David and his assistant were opening a can of fruit.
Donovan squatted nearby, grinning, his obvious swallowing movements betraying his greedy thoughts.
William looked at the food, which seemed lavish to others, but he was somewhat dissatisfied.
He realized he had overlooked something: although Evolving persons were strong, they still needed various nutrients to stay healthy. Their current food lacked vegetables, and if this continued for a long time, even Evolving persons would face health issues.
Evolving persons were just enhanced versions of ordinary humans and still needed various vitamins.
William knew this very well.
After thinking for a moment, William greeted everyone and took Jack and Donovan downstairs.
"Find something to hold soil, and try to pick fertile soil," William ordered. Jack and Donovan got to work. They didn’t know exactly what William had in mind, but they were eager to get the job done.
William also found a bag and dug up a lot of soil from a lawn, filling the bag.
After carrying loads back and forth twice, Donovan was exhausted. He wasn't an Evolving person and had already walked up and down eighteen floors several times today, carrying soil, which left him unable to straighten his back. If he hadn't eaten wild boar meat earlier, which had slightly strengthened his physique, he might have collapsed by now.
William told Donovan to rest and join them for dinner later, which made Donovan's face light up with joy.Then William instructed Jack to spread the soil evenly on the rooftop, maintaining a thickness of 4 inches.
Next, he returned to the market and bought a large amount of purified water, quickly gathering all the water available. This action drew a lot of attention, but after William casually punched a hole in the concrete ground, all the ill-intentioned people backed off.
Carrying the water, William went back to their place.
The reason for all this was that he wanted to try out the gardener profession's skills and see if he could grow some fresh produce.
