Am I going to be sacrificed too?

Chapter 12 Labor Contracts

He yawned boredly, gazing at the gradually darkening sky. He could already see the silhouette of the White Stone Gathering in the distance, which he guessed was the last place he would visit today.

"I wonder what the environment is like in this settlement, and whether I can get a good night's sleep."

Harkley recalled the settlement he had visited that morning, which was now littered with corpses. A settlement that once housed a hundred people was now reduced to just a few. When he arrived, there wasn't a single person who dared to speak.

Harkley scoffed. He still remembered how those people wept bitterly when they saw him. Why didn't they just surrender to Strange Stone City earlier? Instead, they had to be obsessed with freedom. They deserved to be eaten by the strange creatures.

However, compared to the more loosely organized survivor towns, the forces in the settlement-based system are much more united, so today's mission should be completed soon.

With the roar of the motorcycle, we arrived at the main gate of the White Stone Gathering.

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

The sentries on the watchtower had already spotted his arrival. Although the leader had told them to try not to let strangers in these few days, this person in front of them didn't look like a good person at all, especially the motorcycle he was riding, which was obviously not something an ordinary wasteland survivor could own. They were unsure whether to drive him away.

Harkley scoffed, "Messenger of Strange Stone City, tell your leader to come see me."

Strange Stone City? The Chosen Ones!

Upon hearing these two words, the sentry dared not delay any longer and immediately went to consult his leader.

At this moment, Chen Quan, the leader of the settlement, was frowning in a tent, calculating the losses of the previous night.

"Reporting to the leader! A chosen one has arrived at our gathering place!"

"The Chosen One?"

Chen Quan frowned slightly: "People from Qishi City?"

The sentry nodded repeatedly.

Before long, Harkley was able to enter the settlement and see what it was like inside.

There were bandaged wounded people everywhere, but the atmosphere was not as deathly as in the previous gathering places. People were in a hurry, as if they were packing something up.

Harkley nodded. "Nice scale. Looks like I can get a good night's sleep tonight."

"My Lord, Divine Messenger!"

Chen Quan had already seen Harkley, the motorcycle he was riding, and the Strange Stone City emblem on the motorcycle—a star-shaped badge inlaid with eight colors: gold, silver, white, black, red, blue, green, and purple.

Harkley's gaze lingered on Chen Quan for two seconds before he pulled a resume from the car and tossed it out: "Recently, Blood Moon believers have been spreading anomalies. In order to protect the settlement of the Strange Stone Province, Strange Stone City is preparing to gather you around the city for planned protection."

Fill out the resumes with information about your gathering place: how many people are there, how much labor force is available, and whether there are any people with special skills. Once you arrive, you'll be assigned to different groups.

To put it nicely, they were laborers; to put it bluntly, they were slaves!

Not long ago, Strange Stone City was unfortunately attacked, and it was the time when a large amount of labor was needed to rebuild the city. So they came up with a plan, which was to recruit people from settlements and survivor towns. After all, survivors are something that can never be eliminated. After each disaster, they would emerge from every nook and cranny.

Harkley didn't bother with any nonsense, especially since this wasn't a negotiation, but just a one-sided notification.

If you're unwilling, well, then the next time we meet, I'll just have to treat you as an accomplice of the Blood Moon Cult.

Taking advantage of the emergence of the Blood Moon Church, the higher-ups of Strangestone City also plan to unite the survivors and truly confirm Strangestone City's leadership position.

"Oh, right, there's one more thing."

Harkley then remembered another troublesome matter: "Gather all your people together, I'm going to test your divine power compatibility."

……

Chen Quan ultimately chose to sign the "labor contract," even though he had no real choice.

In the wasteland today, only the "Sanctuary" and the "United Church" have fair "laws".

Other independent regions, including those ruled by non-human races, were essentially autonomous regions, governed by their own capital cities, unaffected by sanctuaries or churches, and only engaged in basic trade.

Having a main city in a region is both a good thing and a bad thing.

The main city can integrate regional resources and utilize them to the greatest extent, but it also holds the highest power, easily deciding the life and death of everyone.

Strange Stone City is clearly the latter. It was able to maintain its restraint before, but under the impact of the Blood Moon Cultists, it no longer hides its fangs.

The White Stone settlement is currently facing a shortage of resources. If Qishi City wants to punish him, all it needs to do is cut off their supplies. With Qishi Province being such a barren land, it simply cannot support so many people.

In earlier years, they could trade goods with merchants from outside the city, but now that Qishi City has established stable trading channels and holds all the trading rights in its own hands, and there are more convenient places to trade, no merchant would risk wandering around the settlements in the wilderness anymore.

Chen Quan heard that the southern plains region next door, under the leadership of Silver City, was a peaceful place and one of the few places with fair order. The currency they were using, "silver coins," was issued by Silver City.

He once thought of a plan to lead the people of the settlement to migrate there, but in fact, with so many people in the settlement, it was impossible to cross the wilderness, because the loss of supplies during the journey was simply too much to bear!

But before he could come up with a solution, the sudden "labor contract" disrupted his plans.

Seeing that the leader of the White Stone settlement was quite sensible, Harkley waved his hand and tossed out a transparent stone about the size of a thumb.

Chen Quan naturally recognized what it was. It was clearly a white stone, one of the specialties of the Strange Stone Province, also known as a diamond. He had seen it many times before because there was a white stone mine near the white stone gathering place, which was also the origin of the name of their gathering place.

The diamond is roughly prismatic in shape, with intricate patterns engraved on each facet, making it dazzling and obviously very valuable.

Harkley explained, "This is a man-made divine relic that can roughly detect a person's divine power compatibility within a mainstream pantheon. You can test it on those people, and record those with a compatibility of 10% or higher."

Everyone's soul is different. Theoretically speaking, anyone can become a first-order chosen one. After all, the minimum standard for first-order is only 0.1%. No matter how many impurities are in an ordinary person's soul, there will always be a certain degree of divine power compatibility that meets the standard. As long as there are enough resources, one can forcibly pile up awakening. However, Qishi City obviously will not do such a losing business. The divine power compatibility must be above 10%, and at least second-order is worth investing in.

Depending on the soul rank, the diamond will display five colors of light: white, green, blue, purple, and orange, corresponding to a compatibility of 0.1% to 49.9%. Above that is the legendary rank, which cannot be detected by this man-made low-level divine relic.

Upon hearing that Harkley wanted to test talent, everyone present was stunned for a moment, followed by a burst of excited whispers.

Those are the chosen ones! Who wouldn't want to be a high and mighty extraordinary being?

They eagerly lined up, each taking turns holding the white stone in their hands.