Chapter 424 - 371: Arrival at Last
Chapter 424: Chapter 371: Arrival at Last
Mason Adler was reluctant, but it was undeniable that Lex Cross was truly strong. It was safer to exhaust himself keeping up than to stay behind and rest.
The whole group was so hungry their stomachs were touching their backs. The slackers and the genuinely exhausted watched Lex Cross’s party leave, and even the newly joined five-person team followed them. So, they had no choice but to swallow their pride and follow along again.
Finally, after walking for a little less than two more hours, they arrived at Morhaven.
Faced with a Morhaven that looked like a primeval forest, the group halted. Lex Cross also had his team stop.
Lex Cross picked up his communicator and tried to dial Flora Bloom’s number, but there was still no signal.
Flora Bloom had already taken Cynthia Grant and the others to welcome Lex Cross, only to find a sudden, dense fog originating from the Wutong tree where the Golden Crow resided. The fog was thick enough to shroud all of Morhaven. If not for the protection of Flora Bloom’s plant life, the Morhaven safe zone would have been engulfed as well.
The fog was formed from the falling rain. As a Water Ability User, Flora Bloom had to rely on her powerful spiritual senses to navigate her group through the forest, and it still took them a long time to find their way out.
By the time they reached the gates of Morhaven, night had fallen. A large group of people, led by Lex Cross, was standing at the entrance, not having gone inside.
"Lex!" Flora Bloom walked over, her pregnant belly prominent. "How long have you been here? Why didn’t you use the communicator to tell me?"
Needing to contact Lex Cross, Flora Bloom had gotten into the habit of keeping the satellite communicator in her pocket.
"You’ve been carrying it the whole time?" Lex Cross glanced at the communicator in Flora Bloom’s hand, took out his own, and tried dialing again. It went through.
He lifted his gaze to the vast swaths of plant life within Morhaven, and to the faint, fiery energy that was barely visible.
"You wouldn’t believe it—your communicator had no signal the whole time. If you hadn’t shown up, the boss was about to ditch us and barge in by himself." As Five spoke, he glanced toward Cynthia Grant. Just as he was about to move closer to her, Chelsea Todd grabbed his arm from the side.
"Five, honey, since Sister Flora is here, let’s hurry and get inside!"
Chelsea Todd’s words drew Cynthia Grant’s gaze toward Five. She saw Chelsea clinging to Five’s arm, refusing to let go. The two of them looked so intimate and natural together, not seeming forced in the slightest.
Flora Bloom exchanged a few words with Lex Cross, then turned her attention to the group of strangers. Naturally, she also spotted the seven familiar researchers.
"Why so many people?"
Lex Cross shrugged. "Those old guys insisted on sending them, so I brought them along. You can have them farm, do odd jobs, whatever you want."
Flora Bloom then looked at Mason Adler. "Was he forced on you too?"
Flora Bloom was completely bewildered by Mason Adler’s presence. ’He’s Titan Adler’s favorite youngest son. Why would he be sent here to me? Or could it be that Titan Adler and Selene Lynch still have designs on me?’
’That would be very strange.’
’A father encouraging his youngest son to seduce his eldest son’s wife, who is five months pregnant? Not even the most outrageous urban family drama would dare to film a plot like this.’
"And how did this little troublemaker end up here too?" Flora thought. Hearing Chelsea Todd’s saccharine "Sister Flora" instantly gave her goosebumps all over.
"She was the condition for getting the seven researchers."
Just then, Neal Wallace walked over to Nolan Jennings, helped Tilly Wallace down, and hoisted her onto his own back.
Cynthia Grant could feel Five’s earnest gaze on her and the daggers Chelsea Todd was shooting at her with her eyes. Unable to take it anymore, she said, "Flora, let’s go back to the base, shall we? We’ve been out for so long, Aunt Jade will be worried."
Flora Bloom nodded, then looked at Lex Cross, gesturing toward the seven researchers. Lex Cross caught her meaning, walked to the front of the crowd, and said...
"You seven, stay behind. I have something to discuss with you privately. Everyone else, follow Five back to the Morhaven base."
The seven researchers looked at each other, terrified. ’This conversation... it sounds like he’s going to kill us, doesn’t it? Could we have misunderstood? Did Lex Cross want the seven of us not to make use of our skills, but to kill us to vent his anger?’
Flora Bloom signaled to Five and the others to put the machines on the ground, then had them lead the people into the Morhaven forest first.
Soon, everyone was gone, leaving only Flora Bloom, Lex Cross, the seven researchers, and the mechanical equipment scattered on the ground.
Seeing the seven men standing there, their faces full of fear and trepidation, Flora Bloom ignored them and began storing the machines from the ground into her space.
The seven men’s eyes lit up when they saw that Flora Bloom could actually make objects disappear. But then they saw her approaching them with a beaming smile.
"There’s a saying: ’Don’t use those you doubt, and don’t doubt those you use.’ But I’m just naturally insecure. I’m worried you might be spies sent by those families from the Argent base!"
After exchanging glances again, the seven men’s faces went pale and they frantically shook their heads.
"No, no, no, Miss Bloom, you’ve misunderstood! We’re just a few researchers, we have nothing to do with those families! Besides, it was Captain Cross who specifically requested us for Morhaven."
Flora Bloom continued to walk toward the seven, who retreated in terror.
Lex Cross stood to the side, watching his woman try to get close enough to touch the seven men, which she needed to do to pull them into her space.
But the seven men were terrified and didn’t dare let Flora Bloom get near them. And so, justice descended from the heavens: a bolt of lightning struck each of them, paralyzing their bodies and leaving them unable to move.
"You’re the one with all the ideas!" Flora Bloom said, looking at Lex Cross in frustration. "Am I really that scary? Why do they keep their distance the moment I get close?"
As she spoke, Flora Bloom pulled the seven men into her space. ’Research is a highly confidential field, and researchers hold key technologies and knowledge. I can’t trust outsiders.’
’Only by letting the space brand them and truly make them ’one of us’ can I entrust them with research and development.’
She had thought it through. ’Rather than let that yet-unseen doctor use superpowered individuals and any means necessary to harm innocent people, I might as well get my own research team going.’
It was just as Lex Cross had told her over the communicator one night.
Not only were they going to do research, they were going to make it big.
Flora Bloom had always been sensitive to words like "research" and "experiments." But if it were done under her own control, she would feel much more at ease.
After all, under her strict supervision, there was no way that anything like harming others for personal gain would happen in her research area.
Lex Cross had analyzed the situation for her.
In the apocalypse, the evolution and development of humanity were inextricably linked to the evolution of Superpower Users. But right now, the awakening rate for humans was too low. Having even one in a thousand was a blessing.
If research and experiments could increase the probability of awakening a superpower, then Flora Bloom was naturally willing to give it a try.
After all, she possessed a research asset that no one else had: the Space Spirit Water.
Many people in her team had consumed her spiritual water before they awakened.
Take Neal Wallace, for example. Without her spiritual water, he would have turned into a zombie long ago. It seemed that drinking the spiritual water not only saved him from turning but also helped him get through his awakening period.
Furthermore, people on her team like Cynthia Grant and Mervin Warren were still suffering from the side effects of lab-made drugs. If these researchers could use the spiritual water as a base to upgrade those drugs and create antidotes, eliminating the side effects, it would be a contribution to all of humanity.