Lu Heng heard everything these people had just said, not missing a single word.
It wasn't just the mother and her two children; many others were struggling and hesitating, but ultimately, these people still stepped forward. Although they were afraid of zombies, after half a year of adaptation, everyone knew that constant retreat would bring them nothing but death.
"Brother, I'm a fire element ability user." The young boy could already discern his ability attribute when he reached the first tier.
The ball of flame in his palm was his guiding direction.
"That's great, Xiao Qiang. Fire abilities are very powerful." This way, their chances of survival in the apocalypse would be even greater.
"Yes, thank you, sir. What should I call you?" The young boy retracted the flame from his hand and bowed deeply to Lu Heng.
"Lu Heng, from the nameless city in the south."
"Is Nameless City far?" The young boy's face was filled with longing.
"Thousands of kilometers. You definitely can't go there with your current strength, but I look forward to you becoming powerful and bringing your family to meet me in Nameless City." Lu Heng smiled and handed the remaining crystals to the young boy.
"I will. My brother and I will go to Nameless City to find you. I've remembered your name, Lu Heng, a good name," the young boy said earnestly, holding the bag of crystals.
"Alright, this is for you. Besides being ineffective against the zombie virus, this can heal ordinary internal and external injuries." Lu Heng took out a mineral water bottle from his spatial storage, but the water inside had been replaced with ancient well water.
If this child wanted to travel to Nameless City as he said, not only would he need to continuously upgrade, but his mother would also become an obstacle for him in the future. Lu Heng hoped this bottle of ancient well water could help him.
The young boy was a little surprised but believed Lu Heng's words implicitly. He quickly placed the bottle, which looked like mineral water, into his embrace and bowed deeply to Lu Heng again.
"Next."
After the young boy upgraded to the third tier, Lu Heng called out loudly, and the next person immediately stepped forward to wait for Lu Heng to distribute the crystals.
Soon, the group of people waiting to upgrade all reached the third tier. After their upgrades, they had already begun to leave the city in succession.
This town had no outer walls for protection, just like many towns before the apocalypse. There was no clear distinction between the inside and outside of the city, only simple regional divisions.
As for the ability users who were already at the third tier before Lu Heng arrived, they were now somewhat unwilling. They had risked their lives to obtain crystals to upgrade to this point.
After Lu Heng arrived, he had only helped a group of people far inferior to them to upgrade to the third tier, thus eliminating the gap between them. A sense of crisis followed.
"You only helped those people upgrade to the third tier, so shouldn't we get some compensation?" a scar-faced man boldly asked, walking up to Lu Heng.
"On what grounds?" Lu Heng raised an eyebrow and retorted.
"Then why did you only help that bunch of weaklings?"
Although the scar-faced man dared not confront Lu Heng directly, being one of the influential figures among this group, his courage was greater than that of ordinary people.
"What are you worried about? With this group upgraded, your burden will be lighter, and you'll obtain more resources from the outside. Are you unwilling?"
"No, I mean, if you helped us a few of us upgrade too, wouldn't our team be even stronger?"
"There's no need. The zombies I killed inside the city earlier weren't of high level. Didn't you see I wiped them out in one go?"
"I..."
"Third brother, shut up." The middle-aged man, whom Lu Heng had first seen, finally spoke, ordering the man to stop arguing.
He could tell that if Lu Heng lost patience with them, this person would even dare to kill.
"There are still sensible people. What's your name?" Lu Heng smiled and looked at the middle-aged man, sensing his thoughts.
"Sun Tao."
"Hmm, come here."
Sun Tao did not hesitate and walked to Lu Heng's front, his eyes looking at Lu Heng without a trace of fear.
"What did you do before the apocalypse?"
"None of that matters anymore. Everything before the apocalypse has no relation to the present." This was the truth. No matter what you were before, even if you were immensely wealthy, the moment the zombies descended, only fists could speak in this world.
"Not entirely. Tell me your previous job." However, for Lu Heng, this wasn't entirely true. He favored people who had held legitimate professions before, such as police officers or soldiers, who had discipline and a sense of responsibility.
"Police officer, Second Class Inspector."
"See, I've always cared about people's professions before the apocalypse. If you were someone who committed crimes, you'd probably be lying dead by now."
"What? Were you also in the police system before?"
"No."
"Oh, not really? I thought you, like our Brother Sun, were also someone remarkable."
"Shut up." Sun Tao quickly turned to stop the man.
"Heh, the last person who yelled at me seemed to be a blond guy, and he's probably been useless for a long time..."
"..."
"This is for you. I'll upgrade you to the sixth tier. You can lead these people to develop here and appropriately take in people from nearby."
"Why are you helping me?"
"You are upright and trustworthy."
"However, the city here is not suitable for development. I will help you build a shelter with city walls, and I hope you can defend this place and expand the ranks of human survivors."
"City... city walls?" Sun Tao knew what city walls were, but he wasn't sure if what Lu Heng said was the same as what he was thinking.
"Yes, city walls."
Under everyone's gaze, Lu Heng summoned another female vulture-beast. Carried by the vulture-beast, he flew into the air. He observed the basic layout of the area and then used his earth element ability to enclose a small city for them.
However, the scale of the city was not very large. The main consideration was that the number of people capable of defending the city was too small, and if it were built too large, they wouldn't be able to defend it.
The city walls were both thick and tall, with a width of seven to eight meters on top, making it perfectly fine for people to stand guard.
The outer walls of the city also had a layer of metal as a protective barrier, but it wasn't a special metal, as that would be too troublesome to manufacture. Lu Heng couldn't create such a large area of metal products all at once.
The city had only one entrance and exit, but a barbican was also built for them to prevent zombies from entering when the city gate was opened.
Looking at the city walls rising from the ground in the distance, Sun Tao and the others who remained in place could hardly believe their eyes.
Was this the level of an eighteenth-tier ability user?
"Brother Sun, did I offend that great god just now?"
"Pretty much."
"...Brother Sun."