Lilith's words naturally fell on deaf ears since, in reality, Xia Ya was not listening to her.... Rather, it was not that Xia Ya was not listening to her but she simply could not listen to anything from Lilith let alone see or know about her existence because Lilith herself did not allow people other than Bai Zemin and occasionally Shangguan Bing Xue to see her.
But Lilith didn't want Xia Ya to hear her words at all either; she simply said what she said in a small fit of jealousy and that was it.
Even then, the words of Lilith helped bring Bai Zemin out of his stupor.
He looked at Xia Ya with surprise in his eyes and said trying to act calm, "Xia Ya? What is this?"
Xia Ya smiled beautifully and said in a low voice, "Leader, how about we talk about this later? In private, I mean."
"This brat..." Lilith could feel the corner of her mouth twitching weakly at Xia Ya's clear flirtation but she finally shook her head not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
Even Xia Ya who had been like an emotionless doll until now was starting to flirt with her man, what else could Lilith do? She could only try to keep the reins as tight as possible without hurting.
However, Xia Ya's words sounded different in Bai Zemin's ears. Looking around, he saw several people in the group crying either from injuries to their bodies or lamenting the death of people who had been fighting alongside them all this time and had probably saved their lives not a few times.
This was not an environment for casual chatting and in fact, Bai Zemin understood that perfectly well. Besides, class matters and one's skills were too private matters; there was no way for Xia Ya to casually reveal secrets that might in the future cost her life in front of so many people.
"Okay. We'll talk about this later." Bai Zemin nodded and said nothing more on the matter.
At the end of the day, it was true that those two threads he felt touching two different parts of his soul were not hurting him, and in fact, they didn't seem to be permanent either as for every second that passed Bai Zemin could feel them weakening; which was good as having another person or foreign thing touching his soul was not a particularly pleasant feeling.
"Can you heal these people?"
"... I'm afraid that will be hard." Xia Ya shook her head and sighed as she slowly explained, "My skill, Healing of the Cursed, is a powerful healing skill without a doubt. However, unlike normal healing skills out there, my skill is more focused on a single target.... That is to say that when several injured people appear in front of me, I can only choose to heal one and I will only be able to heal another one hours later."
After thinking about it for a moment, Bai Zemin nodded with a trace of regret on his face.
It was only natural for a skill like Xia Ya's to have its limits or else it would simply be insane for a Second Order existence to have such a crazy healing skill like hers that depended on the target's Health percentage aside from her own stats.
'If only I had more healers on my team...' Bai Zemin lamented in his heart.
Healers were still a rarity, in the entire faction of Bai Zemin, there were only five of them as proof of this and among them, Kang Lan was the undisputed leader. As for how many more healers would be joining him when Bai Zemin gained control over the Chinese Renaissance... That needed to be studied carefully in the future.
"Bai Zemin, what should we do?" Wu Yijun approached with a worried, pale expression on her beautiful babyface. She looked at the people groaning or grunting in pain on the ground and couldn't help but lamented, "If only Kang Lan were here.... She might be able to do something with her skill."
Bai Zemin said nothing but secretly shook his head.
Although Kang Lan might have relieved these people's pain, she wasn't able to regenerate limbs or attach lost limbs to the body unless the other side was a monster like Bai Zemin himself who aside from a cheat skill like Overlap Regeneration also had Blood Manipulation to help him regenerate, repair, and attach tissues, as well as speed up the birth of stem cells within his organism.
In the end, Bai Zemin had no choice but to take out some pills he got from the first ruin. After all, there was no way he would let these people who had been fighting for him in their own way suffer like that.
[Healing Pill (Rank 3): Stops the bleeding of any existence below level 90 and helps to speed up the regeneration speed of the body, as well as the healing of broken bones.]
Bai Zemin had only found 10 Healing Pill (Rank 3) in the first ruin and considering that there were over 30 people wounded in this place, there was no way he could give a pill to each of them even if he was willing to let them all go.
Therefore, after a moment's thought, what Bai Zemin did with the help of Wu Yijun and Meng Qi was to dilute four pills in a container with water and give them to the wounded to drink the medicinal liquid along with a Healing Pill (Rank 2), which although it had inferior effects compared to Rank 3, was still quite good.
After making sure that at least the pain of everyone had stopped and the bleeding had ceased, Bai Zemin approached Chen He who had an ashen expression on his face.
"Chen He, are you alright?"
Chen He looked at him with a complicated expression before he shook his head and said in a guilty voice, "This is my fault.... If only I would have done a better job none of this would have happened."
"Better job?" Bai Zemin shook his head and palmed his shoulder as he said in a serious voice, "Your team faced several Second Order weaver ants and still wasn't destroyed even though only Xia Ya is a Second Order existence among those present. I personally tested how powerful those ants are and even with all my Strength I can't kill them with one hit unless I use some skill. Believe me when I tell you that you did a good job in keeping most of them alive."
Bai Zemin's words were not just to make Chen He feel better but it was what he really felt and believed given the situation. However, Chen He was still not satisfied with his earlier performance.
"During the previous battle, I was distracted for a brief second.... But because of that brief distraction, Yijun was almost killed...." Chen He looked at the decapitated corpse of the former leader of the Black Turtle guild and said regretfully, "If not for Huang Tian's sacrifice, Yijun would have been killed by the red-colored weaver ant."
Bai Zemin lowered his head for a moment before raising it to look at Chen He again and said, "Chen He, do you know what your weak point is?"
"My weak point?" Chen He looked at him in astonishment.
"You overthink things." Bai Zemin sighed and tapped his shoulder again. He turned away, leaving behind a few words, "On the battlefield, unless we have a certain kind of superiority, our body reacts before our brain. On the battlefield, unless we have allies who give us the luxury of taking our time to think, we have to risk every move. Stopping to think will cost us our lives or the lives of those important to us."
Chen He was strong; truly powerful. However, his fatal weakness was that he overthought things not only on the battlefield but also outside the battlefield. If Chen He focused more on becoming powerful with a goal other than merely trying to impress Shangguan Bing Xue, his current self could be several times more powerful than he is.
Bai Zemin really hoped that Chen He could break out of his shell just as he did in the past when his righteous self would not allow him to end other people's lives because he believed that only the law of China had the right to decide. If Chen He managed to break this second shell, Bai Zemin had no doubt that in the future Chen He would become a truly terrifying existence; he had the talent to go really far, but he lacked the resolve.
Hearing Bai Zemin's words, Chen He looked at the ground as his eyes flashed with complicated feelings while trying to understand what was just pointed out to him.
Thousands of thoughts went through Chen He's head at the same time as he took Bai Zemin's words in all seriousness. It was not difficult for him to find out what it was that was holding him back, or rather, the reason why he himself was holding back.... It was just that some things were not so easy to let go of even though we knew they were "hurting" us.
But... Identifying the "problem" was the first big step. From then on, everything was easier; it just took a little time and determination to keep moving forward and growing.
"We have to move."
After making sure that the wounded were safe and that no more lives would be lost, Bai Zemin finally looked at the people who were still fit to fight, and with a wave of his hand a bright blood-colored wagon rose from one of the many pools of blood on the ground.
"Help me carefully load the injured. Put the bodies of the fallen that have not been eaten by the ants to be properly buried later."
It took no more than a minute to help the wounded onto the blood wagon that was large enough to accommodate them all without a problem while in another partition the corpses were placed carefully and respectfully; they deserved to be buried, and those bodies that could not be found would later be replaced by a badge of honor made of pure gold.
He looked at the people who were still standing and able to continue fighting with a strange glint in his eyes. All of them, even the weakest among those present, had grown horribly in just 30 minutes.
The person with the lowest level among those present was level 35, and apart from Feng Hong who had broken the Second Order, there were also a few others who were around level 45 and close.
Bai Zemin could not help but think that he might have been spoiling his troops too much so far. Subconsciously protecting them to suffer as few casualties as possible, which was completely natural from several points of view. However, this was also bad in itself since just as it had just happened Bai Zemin would not be able to be with them forever and every moment.
"You finally figured it out?"
Lilith's voice sounded beside him and Bai Zemin felt her hug him from behind, wrapping her hands around his waist and resting her head on his back.
"Even though it is not wrong to protect your soldiers since you have the strength to afford to act this way, in your own way you are also causing them harm. Limiting their growth and opportunities, as well as the future of each of them.... How many really deadly battles have your men experienced before? 20? 30? Sure, being in so many deadly wars and surviving so far could be considered a lot in the past world... But not in today's world."
Bai Zemin paused to think about Lilith's words as he paid attention to what she said:
"Unlike the 20 or 30 times your troops experienced battles that could have led to their death, how many have you experienced? That is the biggest difference and one of the reasons why even though you strive to nurture your troops the power gap between you and them keeps growing."
"That woman, Shangguan Bing Xue, also realized this fact and that is why she constantly risks her life to become stronger and even decided to follow you to Oblon World despite knowing that she might never return. She knows that if she hides behind your back and she lets you protect her she will definitely be able to live well and grow slowly, but as a consequence, she will fall so far behind that in less than a month she probably won't be able to catch up with you ever again."
As if she could read Bai Zemin's thoughts despite not even looking at his expression, Lilith culminated:
"The reason why I haven't said anything to you until now is because in order to grow up you needed to realize it on your own.... I'm sure that woman with the surname Shangguan also thinks the same as me and that's why she didn't say anything to you. On the way, you will lose many men, it is a fact from which even the strongest cannot be saved... But, remember that you are not a god, you are a human."
"If when you reach the end of the journey and look back you manage to see the faces of just 10% of those who followed you from the beginning, then believe me when I say that should be more than enough reason for you to feel proud for having done a wonderful job."
Bai Zemin closed his eyes slowly and couldn't help but focus on a particular record; one of the requirements to evolve Immovable Heart.
[Become a perfectly balanced leader: Incomplete.] Three months ago, Bai Zemin was nothing more than an ordinary college student; even his background was nothing worth mentioning or remembering.
Today, three months later, he was technically the leader of more than 300,000 people.
Although it had been a long and hard ride, he had improved a lot. However, he still had much to learn, and little by little, he was growing not only in strength but also in character.
Just as Chen He had his weaknesses or disadvantages, Bai Zemin also had his; areas for improvement.

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