206: Underground city, discussion

Ouyang Jie led Tian Ming towards the interior of the base, entering a cliff face with an electric door.

Tian Ming silently followed behind Ouyang Jie.

The interior of the mountain had been carved out into a huge space, with thick concrete filling the gaps, making it look no different from an ordinary base.

But Tian Ming knew that this base's defensive capabilities were definitely much stronger than an ordinary base.

There were security checkpoints at the entrance, heavily armed guards, automatic patrol robots everywhere, and automatic weapons mounted on the walls.

"Is this your base?" Tian Ming couldn't help but ask.

Ouyang Jie slowly shook his head and said, "No, below is our true base."

With that, Tian Ming and the others arrived at an elevator that led underground.

The Underground City where the true Dongshan Base was located was more than two hundred meters below the surface, and it had a total of five levels.

Even if a nuclear explosion occurred outside, this Underground City would remain safe and sound.

The elevator slowly descended into the depths of the lower levels.

When the elevator doors opened, Tian Ming was greeted by a brightly lit area, completely different from the Apocalypse outside.

It was completely isolated from the outside world, even having a complete small ecological cycle.

Tian Ming was quite shocked by such a large Underground City.

But no matter how good it was, it could only accommodate a million people at most, and in terms of living density, it was very crowded.

The entire Underground City was under militarized management, which, from a management logic perspective, was even stricter and more standardized than Tian Ming's Shelter.

Ouyang Jie, who was walking in front, said, "Mr. Lu, this is our true base, the Underground City deep within the mountain."

Tian Ming looked around and saw rows of rooms on both sides of the corridor, with various signs on the doors, including Research Laboratory, Weapon Research Laboratory, and Medical Room.

Tian Ming followed Ouyang Jie onto a rail car.

The Underground City's transportation system had fixed routes; otherwise, in such a large place, just walking would be exhausting.

Upon entering the residential area, there were shops, banks, restaurants, and even schools.

There were also numerous collective dormitories.

Various types of special four-wheeled electric vehicles traversed the passages, including cargo vehicles, garbage disposal vehicles, personnel transport vehicles, security patrol vehicles, and other related patrol vehicles.

Tian Ming couldn't help but be surprised; the scale of this Underground City was no different from a medium-sized city.

Ouyang Jie slowly said, "This base is already at full capacity.

I know there are many survivors outside, and we made arrangements in advance, but we didn't expect the virus to mutate so quickly.

We are helpless.

Even our excellent soldiers, even if they were injected with Super Serum in advance, one-tenth died from infection, and three-tenths died on the way to transport survivors."

The man's face darkened.

They hadn't done nothing; they had done their best.

In the first month of the zombie outbreak, the entire base's personnel structure was reduced by nearly half, making it impossible to rescue more survivors.

At that time, the newly arrived people in the base even caused a large-scale riot due to material issues.

After things calmed down, the entire Dongshan Base was also severely weakened.

Tian Ming understood very well and said, "Yes, this disaster cannot be overcome by human power and faith alone."

A Shelter with a few thousand people is difficult to manage, let alone an Underground City of this size.

The more people there are, the more managers are needed.

In Tian Ming's nine-thousand-person Shelter, down to the smallest details, from the highest-ranking leader to the patrolling foot soldiers, the overall number of management personnel accounted for about fifteen percent.

Tian Ming followed Ouyang Jie into a meeting room, where more than a dozen people were already seated.

They were the heads of various departments in the Dongshan Base.

It seemed Ouyang Jie had informed them in advance to come for a discussion.

After Tian Ming took his seat, Ouyang Jie began to introduce them one by one.

The dozen or so leaders in the meeting room were, without exception, Ability Users, and even Ouyang Jie himself was a Third-class ability user.

Tian Ming did not interrupt.

After Ouyang Jie finished his introductions, Tian Ming finally spoke, saying, "Let me introduce my situation.

My Shelter is located in a disused steel factory north of Donghai City.

Currently, it has a population of nearly nine thousand people.

Among them, there are about four hundred Ability Users.

But it cannot compare to here; this is completely a city."

Tian Ming recounted his encounter with Life Origins Company and the matter of subduing Zheng Haoyu.

The first part was relatively normal, but later, when Tian Ming spoke about Life Origins Company using short-term Superpower User potions to hunt zombies and Superpower Users for biological experiments, everyone present frowned.

Ouyang Jie said, "That kind of potion is forbidden.

Regarding the virus, many institutions were actually involved in the research.

We discovered long ago that the virus could make humans evolve, but the cost of such evolution was too great.

There was a basic ethical constraint during the research: the virus could not be spread before Gaia crashed."

Tian Ming frowned and asked, "I'm not very clear about the past events.

But currently, I might know more.

The consciousness that zombies regain after evolving is not that of the original person.

This consciousness is more like it comes from the virus.

From an identification standpoint, a zombie that evolves intelligence is a completely new species."

Ouyang Jie nodded and said, "We are also very clear about this.

To retain consciousness and achieve evolution, currently, there is only Super Serum, but even one dose is the limit.

Short-term Superpower User potions like those from Life Origins are extracted directly from mutated zombies.

Mass-scale use of such potions is equivalent to embarking on a path of no return, one that can never be stopped."

Tian Ming sneered slightly and said, "I don't know what stage their research has reached.

Life Origins has already sent people to negotiate with me, asking me to cooperate with their research."

Ouyang Jie was startled and quickly asked, "Did you agree to them?

That kind of company has no bottom line.

If they use that kind of Superpower User potion on a large scale, they simply can't stop.

They can only constantly capture, or even cultivate, evolving zombies themselves, or capture Ability Users as research subjects."

Tian Ming knew the seriousness of this matter.

Although Superpower User potions were not picky about people, as zombies became more powerful, Life Origins, lacking a source of experimental subjects, would inevitably target Ability Users, and even use healthy people as samples for terrifying human experiments.

Perhaps they had already started doing such things.

Tian Ming glanced at Ouyang Jie and said, "I temporarily agreed to them, saying I would cooperate with their research.

This is a delaying tactic.

The consortium behind Life Origins almost controlled the world before the zombie outbreak.

Now that world order has disappeared, they can do whatever they want, and I don't want my Shelter to become cannon fodder."