The Great Merchant in the Cataclysm

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Translator: Wynne, WuWang

Editor: Wynne, Lightbubble

Chapter 62: Luoyang City's Change

The mutated wolfdog was still faster than Zhang Mu. After all, it was a mutated animal, so its endurance was far better than Zhang Mu's.

However, Zhang Mu was humane. As they travelled, he would feed the mutated wolfdog crystals and animal cores from time to time, and that led it to believe that Little Black didn't lie, and that Zhang Mu really had countless crystals and animal cores!

Unlike Little Black, the mutated wolfdog was an earth-element mutated animal, therefore, it was able to eat the mutated monkeys' cores without qualms.

Having always travelled alone, it never had the chance to hunt other mutated animals that travelled collectively in herds. After all, even if they were far weaker than it, such as mutated mice and the likes, their teaming up would still be able to overwhelm the mutated wolfdog.

Therefore, the mutated wolfdog's strength as well as speed advanced vigorously after consuming the animal cores it had never eaten before. Zhang Mu was also extremely happy to feed it. His actions had become so blatantly bias it even had Little Black complaining to him several times. In fact, Little Black was starting to regret helping Zhang Mu take down the mutated wolfdog in the first place.

Little Black's gaze at the mutated wolfdog, who ravaged its share of crystals that should have belonged to Little Black, became increasingly unfriendly. In response to that, Zhang Mu's reply to Little Black gave Little Black no grounds to object.

Zhang Mu's simple words had Little Black silent. "Aren't you reaching the bottleneck of the First Rank soon? Do you want these crystals or the Second-Ranked Evolution Potion? If you choose crystals, I will consider giving them to you and give the mutated wolfdog the Second-Ranked Evolution Potion instead. The mutated wolfdog does look pretty well-behaved doesn't it?"

Little Black was mentally dying of anger. It'd seriously brought such ruins upon itself on its own. It's only been a few days and this stinky dog's got Zhang Mu completely hell-bent on feeding it crystals. And cue all its ass-kissing on top of that, this mutated wolfdog's existence was actually threatening Little Black's chance of evolving to the second rank?

Without a Little Black bugging him, Zhang Mu laid on the mutated wolfdog's back. With his face pressed against its soft fur, he fell into a deep sleep, dreaming away delightfully. The mutated wolfdog's careful adjustment of its steps to not awake Zhang Mu with its jolts had Little Black grinding its teeth, angrily scolding how it was being so feckless.

In response to Little Black, the mutated wolfdog bared its teeth, paying Little Black's threats no mind.

During the next five days of their journey, the mutated wolfdog had consumed approximately forty Earth-type first-ranked animal cores. Save for the patch of fur on its back soft as before that was becoming increasingly gleaming, rocks had begun gradually covering the rest of its body; its Earth-type energy was being awakened.

When Zhang Mu and company returned to the highway they'd passed by before, he remembered the mutated swinery that had threatened his life previously, and wanted to pass by and collect their animal cores while he was at it. Their current expenditure was too large; he had a wolfdog that needed to be fed, a Bloodvine Demon Lotus that needed its energy replenished, even Little Black would ask him for some crystals as snacks, and if he didn't give them, Little Black had even learned to make a scene in front of Yuan Rui.

Because of all that, Zhang Mu was only left with the last twenty animal cores; his supply had completely shrunk by fifth, and that had his heart bleeding. It was too crazy expensive to keep tamed mutated animals. He finally understood why Tamer-Type Evolvers went to join the larger forces. How would they be able to afford their tamed mutated animals eating animal cores as their food!

However, this actually wasn't the case. The main reason why tamer-type evolvers in his past life didn't feed their tamed mutant animals animal cores as crazily as Zhang Mu did was because it was too difficult gathering the same type of animal cores in large amounts. They would not be able to adjust even if they had powerful financial rapports supporting the expenditure, as Evolvers themselves too required such resources as well as energy for evolution.

However, Zhang Mu's situation was an exception. Little Black could absorb energy from any type of animal core. The Bloodvine Demon Lotus was, as well, not at all picky about its food. It was only the slightly less abnormal mutated wolfdog that stuck to consuming only Earth-type animal cores.

Zhang Mu was in a dire need of replenishing his animal core supply, and in the way where it wouldn't delay his journey. The only method he could think up of was the mutated swinery here. Even though they looked a little ugly, the cores in their bodies were still through and through cores.

However, when Zhang Mu reached the familiar ring of freight vehicles, he was floored. All that was strewn where the swines had solidly colonised as their pigsty were only flesh, blood, bones and faeces. Everything was in a state of disorder.

Yuan Rui and the mutated wolfdog looked at the scene in disgust, not daring to near the place so Zhang Mu could only go on his own. Covering his mouth and nose, he carefully observed the pigsty as he neared.

How was it that not even a single swine was there? Had they all ran away? Did their intellect decrease so much after their weakening that they didn't even know how to retaliate? Zhang Mu frowned. Soon after however, he realised that something was off.

There were several inconspicuous grey feathers lying on the bloodied flesh. Picking one up, he carefully observed it under the sun.

Suddenly, his pupils contracted. Head raising, he turned to survey their surroundings.

"Are they vultures? I didn't think the locks to the zoo would be undone so soon. Did they escape on their own, or did somebody enter the zoo to free them?"

Zhang Mu agonised over the thought so intently his hand covering his nose dropped, as though mindless of the foul smell pervading the air. From his memories, he recalled that it was only past the third month did the mutated animals that had evolved once break free from the zoo before dealing severe damage to the city.

The timestamp definitely had been three months later, Zhang Mu wouldn't remember wrongly, because he'd already been out on his Era Merchant mission by then. It was only after he returned did he find out that quite a few of the major bases were attacked by mutated animals, resulting in heavy losses.

Zhang Mu was planning to deal with it after he had returned to Luoyang City as it was, after all, humanity that had suffered the loss; he couldn't bear not to. However in these few short months, vultures had already been released. Seeing how they were able to slaughter the mutated swines, these elite creatures that had survived must be stronger and more merciless than the others in the zoo. Their strength as well as intellect must also be very superior.

By the time Zhang Mu reverted back, he had a darkened expression on his face. He flipped onto the mutated wolfdog's back swiftly and said to Yuan Rui, "Luoyang City might be in trouble!"

Looking at Zhang Mu's gloomy face, Yuan Rui didn't dare reply.

Under Zhang Mu's urgings, the mutated wolfdog travelled at full speed, leaping powerfully to land on the top of the smashed vehicles and weaved through them very quickly.

Let's hope that the trouble Luoyang City's met with isn't one that's too severe, Zhang Mu silently thought.