Speed Is King

The first thing you must do is to boil them for ten hours, okay? Not a minute less.That will weaken and dissolve the Blackrot. Pour out the water into a secure place where it won't leak, and MAKE SURE not a single drop of the water is consumed. Once the water evaporates, you will get highly poisonous Blackrot. Feel free to get creative with it. I suggest turning them into poisonous bombs.

However, the most important thing for you would be the boiled mushrooms. You need to gather them together, and boil them one last time to make sure there are no Blackrot left. After that, you can consume them. They're tasty, nutritious, and in large enough quantities, they would even make you physically stronger! But most importantly… They will make you extremely fertile AND virile."

"WHAT?" Elliot had exploded in frustration when he heard the final word. "These mushrooms will make me HORNY??"

"Hey! Be more refined with your language please. Virile, yes, these mushrooms will increase your sex drive. Perfect for founding clans and for having fun with your erhm, "helpers"." Red smiled a strange smile.

In the world of birds, it was probably a lecherous smile. But who knows?

Elliot had sighed deeply and sent him away. Still, he did make sure he gave a huge pack of those mushrooms to his apostles. He even went as far as summoning Wu Kong back and giving him a huge pack of the "horny" mushrooms after teaching him how to use it.

Afterall, the more they er-hem, copulate, with their mates, the more babies there will be in the near future. And more babies meant bigger clans!

However, he made very sure that none of the human beings consumed these mushrooms. Not until he had set up a safe place with safeguards that the women would be protected from the men.

"This site is actually pretty good. The land in a three kilometer radius had been flattened by the Belcher's explosion, and would serve as the perfect killing ground for a fortress' perimeter. With the Blackrot Life Mushrooms available in abundance as a valuable resource which I could harvest and stock, it's the perfect spot for a fortress, at least for the first few months." Elliot thought to himself.

"Plus, it is probably close to the powerful substance which the Dark Brainwyrms are all looking for!"

The next step was obviously securing the mobile fortress that would be available as the reward of a specific type of Hidden Dungeon Event called the Beast Tide. If he remembered correctly, the first Beast Tide in California took place in the second month of the apocalypse near the city of San Diego.

"I need to get that mobile fortress! But before I go there, it'll be a good idea to place some bunkers around the Blackrot Life Mushrooms first. I'll have to send the group out to secure some of the Resource Boxes and bring them back."

Elliot wasn't very sure where the exact locations of the resource boxes were, so he had no choice but to send out all of his subordinates, including Camelia and Kara, in nine different directions to secure at least two resource boxes each. To keep them safe, they were all paired with Elliot's tamed and summoned beasts, and were each given a Stealth Communicator to keep in touch with Elliot.

Due to his cynical nature, he had disabled communications between the seven men's stealth communicators, and allowed them to only talk to him and him alone. He didn't want them talking to each other and planning something evil.

Even though he had his tamed and summoned beasts with them, and he could track them through the communicators, extra precautions wouldn't hurt.

"Whether or not you succeed in getting the resources, come back here in two days." Elliot had ordered them. "Make sure you don't open them. I will distribute the contents of the boxes to all of you fairly, do not worry about that. If you open them, I will kick you out of the group. If you take any of the things inside, I will kill you."

The group had remained silent at his words.

"Before I go and crush the aliens who did this to our world, I will crush the rebels within my own circle first. Remember, this is not a democracy. This is MY group, and we are in an apocalypse. I will accept nothing less than complete obedience. Do you understand?" Elliot had warned them in a low voice.

Strangely, all nine of his subordinates immediately replied with a rather enthusiastic "YES SIR!"

They didn't seem the least put off by his ominous words. They were even joking and making simple bets on who could successfully get the two resource boxes and return the fastest!

"Maybe I was too harsh on them." Elliot had thought to himself. But he didn't dwell on it for too long. Better to be firm at the beginning and reward them later, than be lax at the beginning and punish them later.

Thankfully, everything happened as planned in the two days. Camelia and Kara had secured two resource boxes each, and were on their way back, safe and sound.

At that moment, the two days were up, and the first of his nine subordinates was already closeby.

It was Camelia.

"Hey Elliot! I'm back! I got both the resource boxes you asked for!" She exclaimed excitedly and unloaded the boxes in front of Elliot.

"Hey Camelia! Thanks for that. Sorry I had to send you out this way." Elliot smiled warmly at Camelia who was eagerly tapping at the boxes.

"All good. Now please open the boxes! I almost went crazy thinking about what they contained for the past two days!" Camelia said impatiently.

"Okay, okay." Elliot chuckled and quickly opened the two boxes in quick succession.

"Let's see… Food and water. Good. Melee weapons… Ah well. Better than nothing. And finally the power-up pack… Speed pills again? Just how many of these speed pills did the aliens pack into the resource boxes?" Elliot muttered as he frowned at the sight of yet even more speed pills.

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