Apocalypse: Transmigrated with an Overlord System
Chapter 172: Old Man Zhou’s Reward

Chapter 172: Chapter 172: Old Man Zhou’s Reward

The air was quiet for three seconds. Only the residual flames after Yang Ming’s last fire bombardment were still burning gently in the distance, and someone was unconsciously moving his feet on the ants’ corpses, making a "crackling" sound.

"You ran away from the powerful base just like that? No one pursued you?" Lin Ci looked incredulous, and her voice was filled with disbelief.

"That’s right!" The old man responded neatly, and at the end he deliberately raised his voice, "I gave them a high dosage of hallucination. By the time they realized what happened, I was miles away from them!"

"You’re crazy..." Yang Ming murmured, looking at him as if he was looking at an endangered exotic species.

"Hey, I’m not crazy, I’m a practical person!" The old man didn’t care at all and patted his heavy medicine bag proudly. The bottles and jars jingled.

"Compared to mixing medicine for the powerful, I prefer to find the herbs myself and see the wonders of the world and create something extraordinary and not just stay in the lab working for others. This is called life!"

Liora exhaled, with a rare complex expression on her face, mixed with headache, admiration, and... a little bit of indescribable helplessness.

"You are... too casual. You carry powerful potions in your bag like candy."

"Don’t worry! I set a 100-digit encryption password before I went out!" The old man patted his chest, his eyes shining. "No one can crack it without my formula. Unless they know what my cat likes to eat, my blood type, and how many times I failed high school chemistry!"

Everyone: ’-’

Even Liora was stunned for a moment and blinked, as if evaluating whether the old man in front of her was a genius, a madman, or both.

"You... still have a cat now?" She asked in a low voice.

The old man’s expression suddenly dimmed: "No. She mutated into a three-tailed tiger and ran away... I hope she is doing well now."

The air was quiet again.

Then—

"Hahahaha!"

A loud laugh broke the frozen atmosphere, and someone couldn’t help laughing. Even Eli’s eyes curved into crescent moons, and he suddenly wanted to find this grandpa’s cat.

The tense nerves finally relaxed at this moment. Even the breathing became a little lighter.

The fear and exhaustion after the battle became somewhat... warm because of the crazy talk of an old man.

Liora looked at him, staring for a few seconds.

This old guy might really be a lunatic.

But he saved them.

"What’s your name?" She finally spoke.

"Oh, yes, yes, I forgot to introduce myself!" The old man slapped his forehead. "Zhan Yifan, I used to be a senior alchemist at the Fifth Research Institute! You can call me Old Man Zhou or Crazy Old Man, whatever you want!"

"Old Man Zhou." Liora nodded. "Welcome to join the Dawn Base."

"Got it!" He puffed out his chest like a proud little rooster. "Don’t worry! I still have twelve kinds of untried potions in this bag. Who wants to be the first guinea pig?"

Yang Ming sighed beside him.

"We picked up a time bomb."

"A useful bomb." Xu Kai smiled and patted his shoulder. "I like this old man very much."

"Then you try my bottle of ’neural flash bomb’?" Old Man Zhou smiled and took out a bottle of bubbling purple liquid from his bag.

"Excuse me." Yang Ming immediately took three steps back.

Zhan Yifan smiled even more happily.

Laughter still lingered in the air after the tension of battle had eased. But as the voices quieted, Liora turned her gaze to the side.

What lay before her was a field filled with the corpses of mutant ants. Their broken bodies covered the ground like a black sea. And not far away, the giant mammoth still lay asleep, like a mountain frozen in time. Its body showed no signs of stirring, no breath, no movement, not even the slightest fluctuation.

Liora let out a sigh of relief.

At least... he wouldn’t wake up anytime soon.

"Everyone," she said, raising her voice slightly, "go collect the crystal cores from the mutant ants. Also, take anything else that looks useful. We don’t want to waste this chance."

The group instantly perked up, excitement flashing in their eyes. One after another, they hurried off toward the battlefield, their tired legs moving as if they had suddenly regained energy.

Most of the ants they had killed were between level three and level five. So the crystal cores scattered among the bodies were mostly low-grade, with a few intermediate ones shining faintly under the dim light.

They had actually killed more than two hundred mutant ants.

There was plenty to harvest.

Liora didn’t move. She didn’t go with the others to collect anything. Her shadows had already gathered enough crystal cores during the fight. Silent and efficient, they had slipped through the battlefield as she fought, collecting what she needed in the chaos.

But what surprised her was what happened next.

After everyone finished gathering the crystal cores, they didn’t keep them for themselves.

One by one, they walked back to her and gently placed the crystal cores in front of her.

Liora blinked in surprise.

Someone scratched his head and said honestly, "We didn’t kill much. If it weren’t for Miss Liora... and your friends." He glanced at Xu Kai and Yang Ming with admiration. "We would all be dead. It’s because of you that so many ants died. This is all yours."

Others nodded.

"We’re already grateful just being protected," someone added, his voice sincere. "We don’t need anything else."

Liora was silent.

She looked at the pile of crystal cores in front of her and then at the people standing there, their eyes tired but steady.

Her heart softened.

They weren’t greedy. They still knew how to be grateful. They still had a conscience. That alone made her feel like these people... were worth trusting a little more.

"You all fought too," she said softly, her voice calm but warm. "Not every ant had a core, but we collected quite a lot. In total, there are 120 low-grade cores and 34 intermediate ones."

She paused, then smiled faintly.

"So let’s divide it."

Before anyone could protest, she began handing them out.

"Each of you gets ten low-grade cores," she said, placing them carefully in the hands of those closest. "And two of you get three intermediate ones. The rest will get two."

"What about you?" someone asked.

"I don’t need any," Liora said without hesitation.

They wanted to argue, but when they saw her expression, firm and unshakable, they stayed quiet.

Their hands closed around the crystal cores, and some of them even smiled.

In the end, no one said anything else.

But inside their hearts, they all realized—

Following Liora wasn’t a mistake after all.

Just as everyone was leaving with their share, a hesitant voice sounded from the side.

"Then... will I get some too?" Old Man Zhou raised his hand awkwardly. "But I didn’t kill any ants. I just stood in the back and threw a few potions."

His voice wasn’t loud, and his eyes looked around nervously as if afraid someone might scold him.

Liora turned to look at him.

Then, without saying anything right away, she smiled.

"You’ve already helped us, Old Man Zhou," she said gently. "Without your potions, we might not have survived this at all."

She walked up to him, took out ten low-grade crystal cores and four intermediate ones, and placed them carefully in his hands.

"No one here doubts your contribution," she added.

No one spoke up to object. No one questioned her decision.

Instead, everyone nodded in agreement, and the atmosphere only became warmer.

Old Man Zhou blinked, looking down at the crystals in his palm. Then he grinned wide, like a child receiving a long-awaited gift.

"Ah... I like you all more and more!" he laughed, hugging the crystals tightly. "Tonight, I’ll brew a new potion to celebrate! Maybe something that explodes with fireworks!"

"Please don’t," Yang Ming said quickly, backing away.

But even he was smiling.

Everyone was happy. And even Old Man Zhou, with his messy hair and strange bottles, stood among them with a genuine joy on his face. He was actually not short of crystal cores, but he was very happy that he also received

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