May 15, 3031 - Country C, City F

While driving, she remembered the events leading up to the important discovery from her first life.

According to history, up to 5 years prior to Day 1 (what everyone calls the first day of the zombie apocalypse) there were signs leading to it already. But one of first big memorable event was an earthquake in Country F's largest county that occurred on January 21st, 3030. The earthquake created thin cracks along the surrounding countries but was of no concern at the time but would directly result in changing the land dramatically with the help of other earthquakes.

A kid in Country A then found a weird type of moss during a random hike on August 14th. The only reason he took note of it was because while hiking he got injured and some blood dripped down to the tiny patch of moss and he noticed it's unusual reaction. He thought it was funny so he proceeded to drip more blood on the moss while filming its 'cute' reaction. Then he packed up and left but uploaded the video to his network when he got home. The video blew up on the internet a month later.

Many countries also started noticing small plants reacting the same way and uploaded them online throughout the year.

But the most memorable for the whole world was a live stream by a young man named Stephen Xing in her Country C who livestreamed a discovery one afternoon on May 15, 3031 of a large bush that flowered little balls of multi colored gems. The man was a semi-popular live streamer of over 1M subscribers and he happened to be streaming his hike on a popular public trail where he wanted to dig out some interesting plants for study.

He was at a certain sign post when he slipped and skidded down the side of the path. Towards the river below. The viewers were all scared for him as the phone flew from his grip and landed upside down but luckily still facing him.

After a minute, they saw him groaning and finally moving. After they saw that he was okay, the amount of new viewers went up due to the barrage of comments received within a live room. After he got his bearings, he looked around for his phone and picked it up. Then his sight and the phone turned towards a certain direction.

At that time, he and the rest of his viewers got an eyeful of a small beautiful bush full of crystals in the middle of each flower.

Millions of viewers came in to view what he discovered, including BN. He then investigated the bush and then proceeded to zoom into the gems. The flowers were delicate and soft but the unusual cubed shaped gem from the bush was what looked amazing in this organic and natural setting.

Without further ado, he proceeded to dig up the bush and put it into his burlap bag. He then scoured the area to see if there were any more of that eye catching bush then left a mark in the location and hurriedly left and turned off his livestream.

Everyone online divided into two camps: one thought this was all a hype to increase traffic and the other believed the plant to be real. This led to more and more publicity on this specific bush.

Stephen Xing then went home and placed the plant in a container. He was then contacted by many interested parties to authenticate his finding of a truly unique plant. Seeing the perfect opportunity to make money off of this opportunity, he secretly agreed to let a small lab test the gems for a certain price with full authentication.

He sent over the smallest clear and the results were astounding.

The clear gem was a diamond. It was clear, pure, and perfect. The size he sent over was the smallest but it was already 5 carat.

He immediately got the other colored gems tested and it was as expected, each colored corresponded with its natural counterparts: ruby, sapphire, etc but all in the most perfect conditions.

Seeing such a gold mine that literally fell on his lap, Stephen Xing immediately packed up his family, found a team of lawyers and bodyguards, and disappeared.

Then a month later, he started streaming again but the content was completely different. Making all of his previous content private, he started posting about the plant in a secured location. Specifically the gems. He hired a team of experts to authenticate the gems in his videos then proceeded to put them up in auction.

The first gem was a perfect diamond at 15 carat that sold for 20M. This took over the world by storm. Though the price was high, the gems were still naturally made plus they were all perfect and everyone can see that they had an otherworldly glow to them that other gems do not have compared to gems similar in quality and size.

All the rich and famous wanted these gems and Stephen Xing delivered. He auctioned off 7 gems per week until the end of the world. Scientists, actors, actresses, jewelers, tech companies, everyone all around the world were obsessed with these gems. They would buy then cut them up smaller for consumers to buy. Before the end of the world, for almost 2 years, owning a Xing gem was the goal of every single female in the world.

The location of where the bush was found was its own tourist attraction. Millions flocked to the river to look for a similar bush but nothing was ever found. That was the only bush of its kind. But that didn't prevent people from clearing out the spot of all it's natural plants and foliage.

Stephen Xing became a filthy rich man within 2 years and became a legend right before the ZA.

Unbeknownst to everyone at the time, owning one of the Xing gems benefited a lot of people. After the ZA occurred, some people mutated and acquired abilities. Abilities can be upgraded through constant fighting with zombies.

Then within the first 6 months of Year 1, people found out that all zombies have a small nucleus the size of a bead inside their brain. When consumed in large quantities, abilities can be leveled up. The beads were then used as the official currency.

Another discovery was found 3 months later, someone accidentally found out that the Xing gems can also be consumed and are much more pure in energy than the bead nuclei found in the zombie's heads. After all, zombies were still inherently impure so there will be some small contaminants left in the gem. A half carat diamond of a Xing gem was equivalent to 100 level 0 zombie nuclei. The bigger the gem, the larger the amount of upgrade boost.

Everyone who used to own a Xing gem panicked. This finding was almost 1 year after the ZA, how can they remember grabbing their jewelries during the chaos of Day 1? Jewelry was useless at the beginning of the ZA but this finding led people all over the world to clammer and search all the gems from abandoned houses and jewelry stores.

Then another finding was shared. If a fire ability consumed a Xing ruby, then their powers went up by 1 level! They can continue to level up after each gem consumption this way.

Another finding shared that If they consumed a different colored gem after level 4, they would get dual abilities! But the second ability is harder to upgrade. But the fact that dual abilities can be triggered by consuming a Xing gem was big news.

One royal person who has no abilities decided to consume her large diamond and gave birth to an ability at the second level right away! This news rocked the world. Even a normal person can get abilities???

What kind of news was this???!!!

Before Day 1, less than 15carat of Xing gems were circulating around the world. Finding them was not easy and there was only a finite amount available to the public.

Then they remembered Stephen Xing. He owned the bush that these Xing gems came from! Where was he? He must have more!

It was true. Xing did have more. During the two years, he unsuccessfully tried to propagate the bush to get more output. He tried different means and finally found that only the dirt from the same place where the bush was found was able to grow bigger.

Unfortunately, by that time, all the dirt was already dug up by tourists and scientists.

Stephen Xing was originally so rich before the ZA but then money became useless. He and his whole family never got any ability power and were all normal. But since they were wealthy and went into hiding on a timely matter, they were safe in his fortified estate. He thought he would live the rest of his life behind his estate but when he got the news that his Xing gem can help turn normal people without abilities to people with abilities...

He immediately consumed a gem and upgraded to become a Fire ability. He then quickly formed his own team of powers with his family and his remaining loyal employees.

During the 2nd to 5th year, he quickly amassed a large amount of talents and quickly overthrew the other bases around his area. Small square beads of gems were given out like candy as rewards, corruption ran rampant, but he became the most powerful power user so he was able to squash down a rebellion within his midst. He truly became a tyrant. Overtaking multiple counties and cities.

He pushed others out to kill zombies while he stayed inside his villa. He became filthy rich again but then something happened to his plant. It disappeared. Panicking, he tightened his fingers from giving out his remaining reserves. Suspecting his family, his paranoid eyes followed them with hatred, eventually leading to a public execution killing them off all at once at his base. By that time, he had close to 5000 abilities on the base on various sides. There were huge amounts of casualties. He was greatly injured during the internal civil war and died weeks later without knowing truly who stole his plant.

The person who ended up stealing the plant was his wife, Lily Li.

Today's date was May 15th and Aria planned to discover that plant first.