Bai Zemin was a bit surprised to hear the list of Higher factions Lilith knew. Somehow there were more of them than he expected.

However, soon his attention was directed to the seventh and eighth faction she named.

The Army of Evolution, led by the Zombie Ancestor... Devourers and Destroyers, led by a beast who calls himself Star Devourer...

"Lilith... Could it be that zombies and beasts can also become strong to such an extent?" Bai Zemin secretly felt a little worried. "I mean, from the beasts it was something I expected to a certain point, but zombies too?"

Zombies, so far, were the least dangerous creatures to mankind. If you put aside their terrifying appearances and overwhelming numbers, they were so slow that even a four year old child could run from them if they wanted to.

But apparently things were not so simple, to mankind's misfortune.

"Of course it is." Lilith didn't even think about it and answered in a matter-of-fact voice: "Zombies are a bit of a special species among all evolutionary species. As you well know, the mana inside the zombies' body is mana that they couldn't control when the Soul Record awakened the mana of the world. But if any zombie manages to acquire enough intelligence to stop being just a mindless savage beast, and manages to control that mana, then they will naturally start to become strong at astonishingly high speeds."

"So far, zombies have been leveling up very slowly as they only absorb mana from the surroundings and only occasionally gain some Soul Power when they kill an enemy. But this won't stay this way forever, and there will come a time when zombies will have intelligence in no way inferior to humans. Generally and unless some kind of anomaly impossible to explain happens, a world has ten years of time before the Second Phase of Evolution begins; many things will change when that happens." Lilith pointed out in a serious voice.

Bai Zemin felt that the more he listened, the more headache he got. He already had his hands filled with everything that was going on, he just couldn't imagine a world even more chaotic than the world he was currently living in.

Facing intelligent zombies was by no means a joke.

Zombies could be considered the weakest of the weak... But at the same time they were the most terrifying!

Their ability to infect was something that even Bai Zemin himself did not dare to face. This was because the mana inside the zombie's body was evil mana and if he was attacked by that evil mana, there was an extremely high probability that all the mana inside his body would start to spiral out of control and mutate.

The mere thought of imagining fast, intelligent zombies with such a capacity to infect was something that Bai Zemin could not tolerate.

"Forget it." Bai Zemin refused to pursue the matter further. At this point he agreed with Lilith's statement earlier, "When I am strong enough everything will come naturally. Knowing more at this point will not only not help, but will give me more worries than I already have."

"It's good that you know that." She nodded with a smile.

"Well, let's get started then."

"You're going to start hammering?"

"No, I haven't evolved Blood Manipulation yet."

"..." Lilith was speechless.

"Hurry up! My demon god, what have you even been doing all this time!"

"Just leave it..." He replied somewhat embarrassed.

"You... Did you forget it...?"

"..."

With everything that had happened, Bai Zemin didn't even remember about the evolving skill requirements. It was only one or two hours ago that he remembered that he could now fulfill all the requirements.

Bai Zemin walked over to a huge bookshelf that took up almost an entire wall which was filled with neatly stacked bottles of blood arranged in order. Small black and white signs described the type of blood each bottle contained.

This had been arranged by his housekeeper Qin Ming and a few other maids. Bai Zemin had to admit that Qin Ming was really excellent; she had carried out his orders to the letter while he was away.

Unclassified Blood was the most abundant, there were hundreds of liters, if not thousands.

First Order Blood was relatively more scarce, but even then there were at least twenty or thirty bottles filled to the brim with this precious blood. This blood had the capacity to strengthen the body of an evolved human to a great extent if consumed in the right way.

A normal human could not drink such a thing. If a normal human drank First Order blood, their body would definitely explode into thousands of pieces. Normal humans could only drink Unclassified blood and in small quantities.

As for Second Order blood, there was none of that here.

"Now..." Bai Zemin took out a bottle filled with blood from his backpack and looked at it with intense eyes.

"... Somehow I feel that you appreciate that blood more than me."

"It's just your imagination."

The reddish blood looked more like a divine potion than blood. Unlike the Unclassified blood and the First Order blood, the Second Order blood not only didn't smell bad at all, but it gave off a strange, very faint glow as if it was a precious gem.

"You're thinking of drinking it aren't you?"

"... Stop reading my mind, you naughty little succubus."

"I knew it, I swear I knew it!"

Bai Zemin said nothing more and instead opened the bottle cover slowly.

A fragrance similar to fruit juice assaulted his senses immediately and just breathing in that smell he felt his whole body relax tremendously.

"Just a single Order of difference but such is the change..." Bai Zemin marveled.

"Each Order is a world apart, I told you." Lilith rolled her eyes.

Bai Zemin nodded and brought the spout of the bottle to his mouth. Soon, he began to drink the liquid inside the bottle in large gulps.

Fortunately there was no one else present or they might be frightened. Putting aside the fact that he was drinking blood, he was drinking the blood of a Second Order beast while he was just a First Order existence! This was no different than suicide!

"With your Health stat barely comparable to a Second Order and with your Stamina comparable to a Third Order existence, probably only you could do such a crazy thing on this planet." Lilith sighed as she looked at him.

After drinking about half of the bottle, Bai Zemin stopped. He even licked his lips and nodded with a smile.

"Ugh..." Soon, his smile froze as an embracing warmth filled his veins and his head began to pulse as if it were his heart.

This was the first time Bai Zemin directly drank blood from a beast, let alone a Second Order one. In the past he had also drank First Order blood but only cooked; the problem was that he at that time did not manage to recieve basically any benefit since when he evolved to First Order and eliminated a good number of First Order beasts during the battle at the university, his Soul Power was much more powerful.

But things were different now.

*******

Thanks a lot to all those who use their Golden Tickets to vote for BW