XMTL

Old Lee’s eyes flashed with complicated emotions. In his eyes the punishment Cheng Yang gave him was far too light. After all, what he had lost was a human life! What Old Lee didn’t know was that a human lives were the most worthless things in this new world.

Cheng Yang cleared his throat, “Now that we’ve opened up a path into Cloud City, we won’t have any problems getting inside. However! The city is not the peaceful place you remember so we must discuss our actions before entering.”

Next Cheng Yang greeted the Vice Captains and left them to manage the normal soldiers while pulling the four Captains to the side.

“You know what’s happening inside the city?” Yu Kai asked.

“I don’t know exactly what’s happening but my visions have given me enough to deduce a few things.” Cheng Yang replied, “Right now, the safe zone at the center of the city should be under the control of the military. However, they won’t have many Professionals yet so the efforts to rescue civilians should still be in the initial stages.”

“It sounds like Cloud City is in a similar situation to the one Phoenix Village was in a few days ago.” Yu Kai said with a frown.

“It’s the same except on a much larger scale. The safe zone is five or six square kilometers and the number of Professionals should be about ten thousand. However, the number of people they have rescued definitely isn’t more than fifty-thousand.” Cheng Yang nodded his head.

Yu Kai’s eyes suddenly widened, “Yoko, what if we captured the safe zone!”

“Did you not hear what I said? There literally thousands of soldiers there. Even if they were all still normal people, military weaponry can still kill you easily.” Cheng Yang reprimanded his friend.

“Shit, I hadn’t thought of that… What do we do if the military learns about us? If they find out about us starting a government on public land, they’ll definitely try to interfere. Even if they don’t exterminate us, they’ll still try to control us. How are we supposed to fight guns?” Yu Kai lamented.

“There’s an easy solution.” Old Lee laughed, “Just don’t let them find out. All we need to do is rescue family members then return to the village. Once we get stronger, it won’t matter.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” Cheng Yang beamed, “As long as we can go unnoticed for a month, they won’t be able to pressure us anymore. Not only will they run out of ammo, but we’ll have gotten much stronger as well. I trust you all, so I want to say this. I am never going to give up control of Phoenix Village. I will never submit to others and when the village grows, I’ll lift you up as well.”

“I don’t know what the others will say, but you’re my best friend Yoko, I’ll stick with you no matter what. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that you, not the military, will save my family.” Liu Hau said patting his friend on the back.

“Yeah, I hope you’re able to save mine too, Yoko.” Yu Kai sighed, “After all, how can the military be better at saving people than a prophet?” He joked.

Although they believed that Cheng Yang could guarantee that their families were saved, it really wasn’t true. Only the two who were able to call their parents had a better chance of their parents being alive and that was only if they had made it to the safe zone. If they didn’t, their chances for survival were the same as anyone else.

“My Lord, I’ve already lived half of my life peacefully, so I am thoroughly prepared to spend the next half fighting on the behalf of my family!” Old Lee declared with a vigor unbefitting of his age.

“In that case, it’s time to make a plan.” Cheng Yang turned serious, “If we enter the city all together, we’ll definitely attract suspicion so I suggest we split up. Anyone with a family member in the city will stay here and the rest will return to the village to resume normal activities. What does everyone think?”

Old Lee and the others nodded, showing their approval.

“Old Lee, the majority of the people who have family in the city should be people who worked at your lumber mill. There might be a few others from Huimin with family as well. Your job will be to gather all of those people and have them tell you the address of the area they were most likely to be at during the earthquake. Although everything is in ruins now, most people wouldn’t move far since there are monsters everywhere.”

“Rest assured my Lord. I’ll also plan a route for when we enter the city.” Old Lee pledged.

“Yoko, how long will you be in Cloud City?” Yu Kai asked, “Will you be staying overnight or returning to the village? The return team can’t open the gate on their own.”

“We’ll be returning.” Cheng Yang said, “The specific time depends on how many people we are escorting, but I will force the group to leave by six.”

Yu Kai was able to understand the hidden logic behind his friends decision. If he wanted to maximize the class change statue research, he or Old Lee needed to be back in time to start a new one.

After the meeting ended, the soldiers of Phoenix Village split into two groups. Cheng Yang and the other team Captains stayed near the city while the second group was led away by the Vice-Captains.

The only oddity was that Old Lee’s Vice-Captain had family in the city so he had to nominate a temporary Co-Vice-Captain role while they were gone.

The overall leader for the group returning to Phoenix Village was Zhao Chuan. After working with him for several days, Cheng Yang was very impressed. He was trustworthy and had a good character. Even so, the other Vice-Captains retained their autonomy unless it was something major.

Although Cheng Yang and the Captains would only be gone for a few short hours, setting up a chain of command was absolutely necessary. He had seen more than one group get annihilated when they couldn’t figure out who’s orders to follow in the heat of battle.

After Zhao Chuan’s group disappeared into the woods, Cheng Yang turned to face the people behind him.

There were only thirty-five people, including Cheng Yang and the Captains, in the group entering Cloud City.

Cheng Yang cleared his throat. “You all have families in Cloud City, do you not?”

“We do!” the soldiers answered enthusiastically.

“I’m happy to hear that you’re all in a good mood. As many of you probably figured out, the reason we cleared the bridge today was to rescue your families from the ruins of the city.”

“Thank you, my Lord!” One of the soldiers shouted, followed by several other praises. Some of them were genuinely grateful, but Cheng Yang could see that others were just using this as an opportunity to display their loyalty.

As for whether those people were actually loyal to him, Cheng Yang didn’t care. He knew he wasn’t a leader. In his past life, he had seen thousands better than him lose out to the real kings in this world. What he wanted wasn’t loyalty but civic nationalism. He wanted them to feel like they belonged in Phoenix Village, to be proud of living there. That way, they would be less likely to leave.

Cheng Yang did his best to act magnanimous as he accepted the praise. “Thank you for all your kinds words. I’m deeply honored that you all feel this way. There’s just one last thing I need to say before we head into the city.”

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Cheng Yang finished fighting half an hour later. He had killed four hundred of the monsters before running out of Mana. The rest of the horde had fragmented. Without their leaders, the innate hatred monsters held for each other caused them to split into different groups.

Cheng Yang didn’t pay attention to the remaining monsters and ran to meet up with Yu Kai.

A few minutes later, Cheng Yang met up with Yu Kai.

“Yoko, what’s the situation? I heard a lot of noise earlier.” Yu Kai said, relieved to see his friend.

“We’ve pretty much won. We just need to clean up the scattered groups of monsters I couldn’t kill.” Cheng Yang passed Yu Kai his satchel, “Swap with me, I’m out of potions.”

Yu Kai took out the potions he had prepared for Cheng Yang earlier and they swapped bags.

“Quickly patrol your area then meet me in front of the bridge in twenty minutes.” Cheng Yang called over his shoulder as he ran into the woods.

Cheng Yang quickly tracked down one of the monster groups that had escaped him earlier. His arrival indicated that their lives were over.

In just ten minutes, Cheng Yang had destroyed three hordes. When he checked his status pane, he had gotten one thousand sixty three Experience Fragments. Seeing this, Cheng Yang felt that all of his struggles were worth it. Truly, the higher the danger, the better the reward.

When the battle was finished, Cheng Yang looked across the field of bloody corpses. Phoenix Village was going to have a food shortage soon so it was a shame they couldn’t use any of these monsters. It was too much work to transport them and most of them were inedible or disgusting.

Cheng Yang exited the woods and began to cross the bridge. To his surprise he found a single item glowing softly on the ground

He hadn’t heard that there was a treasure on the southern bridge in his past life. It can’t be that it appeared because he reincarnated, could it? His luck was too bad for that to happen. Cheng Yang pondered for a moment and thought of an explanation. Perhaps it had been pushed into the abyss along with the corpses of monsters. Or maybe someone had stealthily taken it during the battle then died shortly after. The simplest explanation of course was that the army had hidden its existence.

Cheng Yang strode across the bridge and picked up the item which resembled an ancient scroll.

Cheng Yang had seen dozens of treasures like this in his past life, although they were rare they weren’t that hard to find. A scroll meant one of three things: an architectural blueprint, a single-use instance dungeon or a skill scroll.

Cheng Yang desperately hoped it would be a blueprint but when he opened the scroll he found a grouping or arcane symbols and circles. It was a skill scroll. Although it would be useful, Cheng Yang couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

When Cheng Yang pulled up the scroll’s status pane, that feeling of disappointment completely disappeared. The skill draw into the paper was incredibly powerful!

---

Sacrificial Blood Cloud
Based off of an ancient forbidden technique that sacrificed a person’s life to permanently strengthen another. This version was created by a mad monk. although the power decreased the side effect lessened as well.

Grade: Unique
Requirements: High-Grade Apprentice
Cast Time: 12 seconds
Duration: 10 minutes
Effect: Gift one of the caster’s attributes in full to a number of allies dictated by the skill’s level base of five
Effect: All of the casters attributes are halved for the duration

---

Cheng Yang only needed to see its grade, Unique, to know it was something extraordinary. In his last life, Unique skills were incredibly rare, with only a few being publicized. The only downside to these skills was that they were much harder to level up.

After reading through the status pane for the skill, Cheng Yang realized why the speed of the monsters he fought had skyrocketed. It was definitely because the Blood Gehenna commander had mastered this skill. More than likely, the commander had trained the skill beyond level one.

Using the final attack of the commander as a reference, Cheng Yang was able to roughly gauge how powerful the skill had been. Based on the damage it had dealt, the Blood Gehenna’s stats had been reduced by no more than 20%. No wonder the skill was Unique!

Cheng Yang began to daydream about a scene where five Mages prepared their spells. Cheng Yang then transferred his Magic Attack stat to them, allowing them to blow a group of powerful monsters to hell in just one attack. It was the ultimate buffing skill!

Too bad it was a skill scroll, not a skill inheritance crystal, otherwise Phoenix Village would have become unstoppable.

In the end, Cheng Yang chose to learn the skill himself. He would be able to use this when leading armies or power up a group of guards when he was about to be defeated.

After a few minutes, Yu Kai and the other team Captains arrived at the bridge. Most of the soldiers wore ripped clothes covered in bloodstains, evidence of a harsh battle. If it wasn’t for the rules of god preventing them from dying, they might have had serious casualties.

“Yoko, you look happy, did you find something good?” Liu Hau asked with a goofy grin.

Cheng Yang nodded, “Yep, picked up a decent treasure. What about you? Did you get many Experience Fragments?”

“My team killed nearly five hundred monsters.” Liu Hau boasted, puffing up his chest. “The average soldier earned thirty Experience Fragment which is much higher than most days.”

Cheng Yang smirked before sharing how many Experience Fragments he had collected, causing Liu Hau to steam with envy.

“My Lord,” Old Lee interrupted their banter. “I’m afraid to say I was negligent in my duties. There were casualties within my team due to my inadequacies. Please punish me my Lord.” He said with a remorseful expression.

Cheng Yang’s laughing face instantly hardened. Although he had been preparing himself for such a report since the first day of the apocalypse it was still a shock to receive it so suddenly. He had been especially careful after collecting a large group of subordinates to protect their lives. After all, any soldier groomed since day one of the apocalypse was an extremely valuable asset.

Even so, Cheng couldn’t protect them from war. Even though wars in the apocalypse weren’t as bloody as those in the old war, they were still brutal. These weren’t wars against people but against remorseless monsters. Prisoners weren’t taken in these wars and they didn’t end until one side was completely destroyed. In the old world, genocide was considered the most vicious, evil, and brutal form of war but it would soon be considered commonplace. It wouldn’t be odd to see whole cities and villages completely wiped off the map.

“How many died?” Cheng Yang asked in a monotone voice.

“Only one person died thankfully.” Old Lee said, as if we were reporting the total destruction of his team, “If not for the potions we brought, I’m afraid many more would have followed him to the grave.”

Cheng Yang almost laughed when he heard that. Taking a moment to compose himself he cleared those negative thoughts from his mind. “Retrieve the corpse and give the dead a proper burial. We can’t let our precious comrade become food for beasts. If the soldier has a family in the village, we’ll make sure to take care of them. They will be moved into the first priority for becoming Professionals in the next round of selections. In addition, you will provide them with a large number of Experience Fragments. That will be your punishment! From now on, if a soldier dies, it is their team Captain’s responsibility to provide a pension to those they left behind. I won’t allow the pensions to be low but the exact amount can be decided on later.”

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Cheng Yang wanted to fire again instantly, but he needed a second and a half to charge up another Magic Missile. His Attack Speed bonus was quite small so all he could do was wait.

Luckily, the commander had no choice but to keep moving forwards in order to use its minions as meatshields. This allowed Cheng Yang to land another hit on the Blood Gehenna.

Cheng Yang didn’t have a skill that allowed him to view another creature’s status, so he could only estimate how much Health the commander had left. Normal High-Grade monsters would take four hits for him to kill but since the commander was a Blood Gehenna, it could take as many as eight if it absorbed enough blood. He would need to hit it with a Magic Missile at most four more times.

Right now, Cheng Yang didn’t even have time to make a single attack. The tree was entirely unable to withstand the combined attack of five High-Grade monsters and was easily felled. There weren’t any other tall trees around so it fell directly to the forest floor.

In the process of fallingm Cheng Yang kept a tight grip on the tree, sending a Magic Missile from out of the leaves at the commander.

Thanks to his finely honed battle instinct, Cheng Yang didn’t even need to look back in order to make a shot from so close. At the same time, the tree hit the ground, Cheng Yang started running again with the monsters in close pursuit.

He climbed up the nearest tree, which was only six meters tall. If this tree were to be felled too, he would fall right into the jaws of the monsters.

Why would Cheng Yang choose to do that instead of running? He wasn’t a fool but rather this was a calculated move.

Seeing that, the Blood Gehenna flashed a look of scorn towards Cheng Yang on its human-like face. In its mind, Cheng Yang was already a dead man. Although his health was low, his opponent was just a mage. Now that he was surrounded, what could he do? He could just sit back and watch Cheng Yang get torn apart.

Cheng Yang saw the commander shielding himself with the large branches of the tree he had been in earlier, ready to dodge or block any attack he made. Below him the tree was already starting to tilt. It was time for Cheng Yang to make his gamble.

Cheng Yang fired at the thin branch below him, snapping it and sending the Magic Missile into the monster below him. As he fell, Cheng Yang was already preparing another attack.

The group of monsters leaders didn’t hesitate to swarm towards Cheng Yang.

Cheng Yang landed on the back of the Graveseeker leader that had knocked down the tree and slammed his stave into the back of its head. At the same time he fired the charged Magic Missile, blowing its skull apart. The monster fell to the ground, deader than dead.

The other three leaders attacked all at once. The most vicious was the attack of the Venom-Toothed Wolf leader who directly ripped out Cheng Yang’s throat.

Cheng Yang tried to scream but only gargled blood. Although he knew that unless his Health reached zero he wouldn’t die, even if his throat was ripped out, the impact was just too strong. Even with the experiences from his past life, Cheng Yang cried as a whole was created in his neck.

Cheng Yang tried to dodge the other two attacks but since he was held by the neck by the wolf, he wasn’t able to. A scythe like arm slashed open his stomach and a horn gored into his back.

Cheng Yang’s Health bar instantly lost 38 points. Although the rules of god prevented Cheng Yang from dying, the pain from them wasn’t reduced in the slightest. His Physical Defense numbed the pain a little bit, but Cheng Yang still felt like he was dying all over again.

If not for having already died once, he probably would have fainted from the pain, sealing his fate. Tears leaked from his eyes as he quickly calculated the current situation.

It seemed very grim. He wouldn’t be able to escape without the leaders killing him from behind. More importantly, they tightly encircled him, unwilling to give him even the slightest opportunity to run away.

However, Cheng Yang never intended to run away. Forcing himself through the pain he uncorked a bottle and drank the liquid inside into his mouth. Instantly his wounds sealed themselves and his Health was restored in full.

This was his hidden ace, Health Recovery Potions!

The Standard-Grade Health Recovery Potion he had could restore 30 points of Health, an effect doubled by his Perfect Medicinal Body. As long as he drank one, he could instantly pull himself from the jaws of death.

Although it was wasteful to drink a bottle to restore just 38 Health, Cheng Yang didn’t mind at all. Potions were just a commodity worth a few Experience Fragments, nowhere near as valuable as his life. Even if it was a Pinnacle-Grade potion, he still would have downed it without hesitating.

Even when he was writhing in pain, Cheng Yang hadn’t forgotten to begin casting Magic Missile. As he drank the potion, he struck one of the leaders without even needing to aim.

Without giving him time to breath, Cheng Yang’s body was shredded once more by the monsters. Cheng Yang had already prepared another potion and thew out a second Magic Missile, killing the wolf.

Cheng Yang’s body was completely drenched in blood. If not for quickly ingesting the potions he had brought, his Health would have reached a measly twenty five.

A short distance away, the Blood Gehenna was frowning. Why hadn’t that human died yet? Even if his body was intact, he should still be on the brink of death after three round of attacks. It was after that last double attack from the remaining leaders that the Blood Gehenna noticed the shine of glass in Cheng Yang’s hand.

Cheng Yang continued with this unique fighting style. It could only be achieved by him who had money, a powerful Innate Ability, and incredible willpower. One after another, the two leaders attacking him died.

The commander had realized that the bottle allowed his prey to survive but even if it was cunning, a monster wouldn’t be able to understand the use of it. Seeing its remaining subordinates die, it grew nervous. It grabbed a large branch and charged towards Cheng Yang, intending to deal a killing blow.

Cheng Yang watched this happen unconcerned. He began to cast Magic Missile, waiting for when the monster would drop its shield. In the blink of an eye, the commander pierced Cheng Yang’s heart with its sharp claws. At the same time, Cheng Yang had thrown a Magic Missile through its guts. It died unable to comprehend why Cheng Yang was still alive.

Cheng Yang collapsed to the ground, panting. He wiped the tears and blood off his face before drinking his last Health Recovery Potion.

He watched the corpse of the Blood Gehenna commander bleed out on the ground. If he had been any slower in taking his potions or if he hadn’t been able to kill them all before running out of potions, he would have been the one lying dead on the ground.

Cheng Yang let out a long sigh before getting up off the ground. He was already used to living so close to death and only needed a short amount of time to return to his optimal mental state.

He would have time to rest when he was dead. Right now, he still had to face a thousand strong horde of monster that was hot on his tail. Despite the situation, Cheng Yang let out a light laugh. Killing the leaders of the horde hadn’t been very cost effective so he looked forwards to making up the deficit by slaughtering Low-Grade monster

He started leisurely jogging back towards the bridge.

The monsters in the horde didn’t know that Cheng Yang had already killed all of their leaders so they continued blindly charging forwards.

The difference in speed between the normal monster and the leaders was great enough that there was a significant gap between the two even after the commander died. Cheng Yang quickly intercepted them, insta-killing the monsters in the front.

A difficult fight had turned into a one way slaughter. Cheng Yang kited the large horde, throwing Magic Missiles into it without even aiming. Sometimes a Standard-Grade monster would try to fight him, but why would Cheng Yang feel pressured by something so weak?

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Cheng Yang’s attack had the same effect as poking a hornet’s nest. Every monster in the vicinity turned to look at him before letting out a battle cry. In an instant, countless monsters stampeded towards Cheng Yang.

Cheng Yang hadn’t hidden himself so, unsurprisingly, the monsters found him easily. Seeing the wave of monster led by the Blood Gehenna, Cheng Yang grimaced and ran south. Even under the pressure of a thousand monsters, Cheng Yang didn’t miss even one of his shots.

After running a hundred meters, Cheng Yang had managed to kill ten Blood Gehenna. The leader of the Blood Gehenna wasn’t like the wolf leader from yesterday, it couldn’t stand to see it’s underlings massacred. It used its superior speed to break away from the main horde and rush towards Cheng Yang.

Ten other monster leaders rushed out of the horde and joined the Blood Gehenna leader. At a glance, Cheng Yang couldn’t tell which monster was the commander for the whole horde since they were all High-Grade monsters, but there was no doubt that these were the best they had.

Cheng Yang smiled, as he had hoped, the leaders of the horde had rushed out to stop him. Although he was at a disadvantage against so many high level monsters, as long as he could kill them the rest of the horde would be easy to take care of. The key to defeating these leaders was that they were separated from their minions and their speed was inferior to his. They were at least twice as fast as the rest of the horde, but that was their limit.

Whether it was before the apocalypse or now, human endurance had its limits. Back in the old world, some athletes were capable of running three or four hundred meters at nearly top speed. Although becoming a Professional gave a person superhuman endurance, there was still a limit. The number of minutes a person could run at top speed was the average of their Physical Attack and Mental Defense.

Monsters often had different algorithm for calculating their endurance that was unique to their race. Although there were some monsters that completely outclassed the rest, most of them were still better than humans. So, although Cheng Yang’s speed is about double that of the other monsters, they would catch up to him eventually if he only ran.

After a short period of time, Cheng Yang decided to try and find the commander. If an Elite High-Grade monster caught up to him with a group of other High-Grade monsters when he ran out of endurance, he wasn’t sure he’d survive.

Distinguishing an Elite from a group of different monsters at the same level wasn’t easy but there was a special trick to it. All of the other monsters would be chasing him with all their might while the Elite would still seem rather leisurely.

Surprisingly, it seemed the Elite monster was the Blood Gehenna from earlier. After making up his mind, Cheng Yang shot a Magic Missile at the commander before accelerating to put some distance between them.

The Blood Gehenna was a smart monster, so after being hit twice, the commander realized it had been discovered. The monster had a great battle sense and immediately deployed a strategy that gave Cheng Yang a headache. Having grasped the rhythm of Cheng Yang’s attacks, the Blood Gehenna slowed down and blocked every subsequent attack by pulling another monster leader in front of itself.

Cheng Yang fired off a string of expletives at the commander in anger. If he had been able to learn new Mage skills from a High-Grade statue, these kinds of cheap tactics wouldn’t work against him. The chase lasted for nearly a minute, enough time for Cheng Yang to kill five of the leaders. This left the commander with only five meat shields.

The situation was quickly spiraling out of control so he decided to run away. He would have to try to split the leaders into smaller groups or lead them to his soldiers.

Although High-Grade monsters were a threat to Cheng Yang, that was only if they could catch him. All he needed was four Magic Missiles to end their lives, and he didn’t need to worry about Mana thanks to his potions. Although he would be able to kill nearly all of them before he ran out of endurance he still chose to run. Seeing how cunning the Blood Gehenna was, Cheng Yang couldn’t erase the worry in his heart that the commander was beyond dangerous.

Seeing that Cheng Yang planned to escape, the Blood Gehenna sneered. With a shout it expelled a dense could of blood mist from its pores. This mist then traveled through the air in tendrils invading the bodies of the other leaders. Cheng Yang was able to see a fine red glow cover each of the remaining leaders after a moment.

“Oh fuck…” Cheng Yang’s face paled and he suddenly recalled the result of the military’s battle to clear the southern bridge.

Cheng Yang hadn’t participated in the battle since he wasn’t a Professional, but everyone in the safe zone knew what had happened. At the beginning, the human side had an obvious advantage. Although there were several high level monsters, the horde was outnumbered ten to one and the army still had some high munitions weaponry left so humanity was able to somewhat restrain them.

Right as the battle was about to end, the remaining High-Grade monsters all went into a frenzy. Their Physical Defense increased to the point were no one could deal more than a single point of damage. This caused Cloud City to lose hundreds of soldiers. This was one of the reasons the army had such a hard time occupying Phoenix Village.

Why did the leaders suddenly go berserk near the end? It had always been a mystery to those that participated in the war, but many speculated that one of the leaders must have used a powerful skill. Cheng Yang was now able to verify that conjecture, the Blood Gehenna’s skill matched the descriptions he had heard!

As this thought flashed through Cheng Yang’s mind, the monster behind him accelerated explosively.

Cheng Yang yelped. What was that speed?! Aside from the commander, the other leaders all more than doubled their speed. He wouldn’t be able to outrun them anymore! He could only curse god for sending fast monsters at him one after the other.

Cheng Yang didn’t have time to lament his bad luck, if he were to get caught by those crazed beasts, he’d die for sure. Cheng Yang turned towards Yu Kai’s group praying that his endurance would hold out until he reached them.

As he ran, Cheng Yang finally began to miss. If he slowed down for even a millisecond there was no guarantee he wouldn’t die because of that. As such, he was only able to hit one in every five shots that he threw behind him.

As the gap closed between them, Cheng Yang was able to gain a small amount of comfort from learning that only their speed had been boosted. Four Magic Missiles still killed them.

Cheng Yang could feel that his endurance was almost gone. If he continued to run like this, he would soon be penalized by god’s rules. Once you used all of your endurance, your speed and endurance stats are halved. It isn’t hard to imagine Cheng Yang’s situation if that were to happen.

Cheng Yang wanted to directly kill the Blood Gehenna to end the buff effect but the commander’s cunning exceeded Cheng Yang’s imagination. No matter what Cheng Yang did, he was unable to get a clear shot. Especially while he was running like this.

Cheng Yang was panicking and could only use a temporary measure to last a little longer. He glanced around, hoping to find a tree he could climb. When he spotted one, he dashed towards it fiercely before jumping three meters into the air and catching a branch.

In less than two seconds, Cheng Yang had climbed to the highest point he could, ten meters above the ground. By that time, the monsters had caught up to him. Luckily the only fast climbers had been killed earlier so, although the remaining four were able to forcefully climb up a few meters, Cheng Yang could knock them off with Magic Missiles.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Cheng Yang acted like he was aiming down the trunk but actually fired towards the Blood Gehenna!

*Pfft* Since the attack had come from above and the commander had been slower than its subordinates, it was unable to block the attack. It let out a bloodcurdling scream as its flesh exploded.

After two of the monsters were knocked off of the tree the others realized that they weren’t going to be able to climb up to Cheng Yang. Once they realized that, they all attacked the tree itself, quickly eroding the meter thick trunk.

Each of these monsters was powerful in their own right, causing sawdust to fly into the air. They were like five steady chisels, capable of knocking the tree down at any moment.

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“The reason is that your bow can’t be considered real equipment. It didn’t even increase your damage by a single point and can be considered a special existence like a Warrior’s shield. All starting equipment is like this.” Cheng Yang explained when he stopped laughing.

“No way! Doesn’t that mean Rangers need to expend two thing to fight? Mana and Arrows?”

Cheng Yang was speechless, “Have you never used the arrows your quiver makes before? When you use one it increases your damage by two and a half points and you don’t need Mana. The ones in the store are even better and increase damage by five points.”

Yu Kai gave a wan smile but couldn’t retort. Although the increased efficiency of using the arrows wasn’t amazing it did allow a Low-Grade archer to have the same damage as a Standard-Grade one.

“Yoko, what are our plans for the morning?” Liu Hau asked, dispelling the unpleasant atmosphere.

“Most of Ox’s team is responsible for protecting the Loggers right now, as for everyone else, we’re going to visit Cloud City.” Cheng Yang said.

“We’re going to break through to Cloud City today?” Yu Kai asked in surprise.

Cheng Yang saw Old Lee send him a grateful look and nodded.

Yu Kai only nodded before shouting at his team to prepare.

The village become quite lively as all the soldiers prepared for the journey. In addition to Cheng Yang, every soldier was buying as many potions as they could. Mana Recovery Potions to ensure they were never defenseless and Health Recovery Potions to make sure they didn’t die randomly.

Cheng Yang’s commanders also bought potions but they were only going to act as extra bags for Cheng Yang. All of the potions they bought would go to him.

After everyone was finished preparing Cheng Yang opened the gate without a word. The hundred and fifty strong army directly exited the gate leaving a strong impression on the civilians in the village.

Even during the march Cheng Yang wasn’t complacent. He was constantly scanning the side of the road, looking for alchemical components he could use. Searching for herbs and the like was really only suitable as daytime work.

Since the army was marching in a different direction than the one he search last night Cheng Yang gathered enough components to make forty potions only two kilometers in. If he didn’t need to stay at the front of the army he would have been able to gather at least double that!

Of course, Cheng Yang didn’t carry the components he found himself. One of his team’s members was tasked with doing that. This could be seen as an abuse of power but since the soldier seemed excited by the various components Cheng Yang didn’t worry about it.

After a little more walking Cheng Yang ordered the army to halt.

“My Lord, is the bridge to Cloud City nearby?” Old Lee asked.

“There are still another two kilometers to go but we need to start acting now otherwise it will be impossible to succeed.”

“Whatever you command I will complete it thoroughly my Lord.” Old Lee patted his chest. He was fired up knowing that this was the last barrier between him and his family.

Cheng Yang gathered the Captains. “From now on we’ll be moving independently with our teams. As we continue moving it is important that we clear the monster hordes on the way. Whenever you encounter a horde either destroy it or lead it away from the bridge, we can’t let them attack me from behind at a critical moment.”

“Yoko, what do you mean? You aren’t planning on attacking the horde on the bridge by yourself are you?” Yu Kai interrupted.

“You’ve got it right, since its not safe for the rest of you to go I’m starting the fight alone. After all, the leader of this group is an existence you simply can’t defeat. You’re too weak to join the fight with me but your job is even more important. Although I’m fast enough to run circles around every monster there if my path to retreat is cut off I’ll definitely die. That’s why you absolutely must not leave any hordes in the two kilometers between here and the bridge.”

“My Lord, this is too risky, let us join you.” Old Lee urged, “With the help of our potions we can still help you fight.”

“Don’t worry, its not as dangerous as you’re imagining. Don’t bother with the hordes numbers, most of them are only Low-Grade. My speed is easily five or six times faster than every one of those monsters below Standard-Grade. The only monster there capable of pressuring me is the leader. If the situation isn’t looking good I’ll just turn around and run. If the leader is smart it won’t chase me. If it does dare to follow me back, you’ll be waiting and it will never return.”

Cheng Yang’s confidence infected the Captains. Even Old Lee had been convinced by Cheng Yang.

“My Lord,” He said, “How big of an area do you need us to open up for you?”

“At least one square kilometer. After all, the amount of space a thousand monsters will take up isn’t small. If the space I have isn’t big enough it will be hard for me to move around. Make sure you move in a predictable way otherwise I won’t be able to find you when I need to get more potions.”

“Rest assured, we’ll make sure to follow the same paths after you leave.” Yu Kai said.

Cheng Yang nodded and then began to assign tasks. He would head directly to the bridge alone. Two of the four teams would sweep directly around the perimeter and the last two would walk in a circle between the bridge and the outer perimeter. After walking another six hundred meters, the teams and Cheng Yang split up.

Cheng Yang chose to follow the same path he had the day before. Although it being clear yesterday didn’t guarantee that it was today, it was still less likely for him to run into a large horde. As for the newly spawned monster he ran into? Cheng Yang just smashed them with a Magic Missile.

Cheng Yang was especially careful to conserve the potions he had while clearing the path to the bridge. After he finished, he went back the way he come collecting alchemical components. Unlike the previous night, he used the Harvest skill to collect the components. Although he knew how to collect basic components without the skill, he would only be able to cry if he found something rare and his Harvest skill wasn’t a high enough level.

The only hiccup during this time was that after he had already cleared the path, he ran into a horde with over a hundred monsters. Although he tried to defeat them without using a potion, he had to in the end.

The other four groups had a much easier time. None of them had run into a horde with over eighty monsters so they quickly completed their patrol. It would seem that after Cheng Yang cleared the area yesterday, very few monsters had wandered over.

Before each group returned, they were able get a good look at the deep ravine surrounding the city. They were also able to see the bridge through the cracks in the trees. Cheng Yang hadn’t lied, there were at least a thousand monsters and not a single person couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread.

After they all gathered together at their original position, Cheng Yang grabbed an extra potion from Yu Kai before heading out to face the monster horde.

The other leaders exchanged a few words before scattering into the woods once more.

Cheng Yang once again stood in front of the horde that guarded the southern bridge into Cloud City. Looking over at the group of monsters, Cheng Yang cursed his luck. In the time since his last visit, a large group of Blood Gehenna had joined the horde. These monsters were fierce, cunning and possessed a powerful passive skill. They were monsters he definitely didn’t want to face.

Individually they were nothing special, but they were able to absorb the blood around them to increase their Health. Although he would be able to insta-kill the first few like any other Low-Grade monster, as the battle continued their Health would reach the level of a Standard-Grade monster. Fighting a group of them would cause his potions to be expended much faster than normal.

Regardless, he still needed to kill them in order to reach Cloud City. Old Lee wasn’t the only one eager to get to Cloud City. Although Cheng Yang wanted to help out Old Lee, he had his own reasons for going to Cloud City. He remembered from his previous life that the city housed a number of good things. There was at least one instance dungeon and the spawn rate for treasure was higher in the first few days in the city than in other areas. Although he couldn’t bring an instance dungeon back to the village, he could still collect some treasures. As long as he killed the leader of this horde, all of those treasure would be his!

Cheng Yang subconsciously grinned. He turned towards the horde with renewed vigor and ran forwards.

The bone stave in his hands started to glow with magical energy before Cheng Yang shot a Magic Missile into the crowd. It flew forwards and directly decapitated a Blood Gehenna. It couldn’t even let out a scream before falling to the ground lifelessly.

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Although it was only a Low-Grade potion, it was far stronger than the one he had found earlier. It was a potion that anyone would envy due to its doubled effectiveness.

The most amazing part of the potion wasn’t the actual effect, but that Cheng Yang’s name was in the item description! It was the unique privilege of people who received a Profession Talent. As long as you could create a product that was better than a standard one, your name would be added to the title.

If Cheng Yang were to use the potions he had just made, the effects would be doubled once more which would put their effectiveness leagues ahead of those from the store. With this, a large gap could be created between him and everyone else.

His success rate was higher than average today since he was able to make 13 potions, something that made him feel highly satisfied. The key was that only successfully using a skill provided experience towards leveling up a Profession. Since he had made 13 potions, his experience bar had reached 13%.

Even though only successes mattered, Energy was consumed regardless of whether the skill succeeded.

Cheng Yang placed the Alchemy Pot and the potions he had made into his backpack and continued to search the forest.

After using all of his potions, Cheng Yang returned to Phoenix Village. His harvest this time was much bigger than earlier, he had gained 2200 Experience Fragments! Although it was impressive, it wasn’t something he could replicate. After this night of slaughter, all of the large monsters hordes in the area had been completely eradicated. If he wanted to gain large amounts of Experience Fragments, he could only journey further from the village.

However, the further you had to travel the longer it would take to get there which would reduce your overall efficiency.

Immediately upon his return to Phoenix Village, Cheng Yang began his daily training. He now had a room to himself on the second floor where he could be alone.

Cheng Yang’s experience bar had reached 7.8% once he had finished training. Most of the soldiers in Phoenix Village had similar percentages but those that had unlocked four times training speed were closer to twenty percent.

When he left his room he saw Old Lee still meditating across the hall. With a smile, he went outside to check the class change statues and found, to his delight, that the Priest statue had leveled up up to Standard-Grade. Now Phoenix Village would be able to have 12 Priests.

Now each team could have two Priests or they could double the number of teams they had. After all, the Priests of Phoenix Village were far from normal, as they had the top level skill Angelic Inspiration!

Cheng Yang gathered the civilians in the village and tested them until he found seven people with the potential to be a Priest. The process took Cheng Yang more than half an hour and a lot of Experience Fragments, but it was more than worth it to have the best Priests Phoenix Village could.

After that, Cheng Yang started a new research for all five statues. He estimated that tomorrow, the four primary statues would level up late in the afternoon. Right now, they only had a two research options left: the two Defense attribute upgrades.

When they did level up, the only thing stopping the whole village from leveling up would be a twenty thousand Experience Fragment deficit. After all, most of Phoenix Village’s Experience Fragments were used the same day and all of the hordes within its collection radius had been destroyed. Now, they could only rely on the slow respawn rate near the periphery and the small hordes teams managed to lure inside the collection radius.

Although Cheng Yang didn’t know exactly how many Experience Fragments could be gained that way, he knew that earning a thousand would be a very good day.

If it weren’t for the instance dungeon providing 1000 Experience Fragments a day, they wouldn’t be able to gather that many Experience Fragments for months. They could rely on individual donations but that would just mean neglecting the growth of Phoenix Village’s soldiers.

Take yesterday for instance, dozens of people took Alchemist or Logger as a Profession but not one of them could buy knowledge for their Profession. Most of them couldn’t even buy the tools they needed. These people could barely afford their own training, they were in no position to donate to the village.

As for potions, their need for them wasn’t as great as Cheng Yang’s. Even if it sped up their attack efficiency, everyone else hunted in fairly large groups so they didn’t need to be able to use more attacks than the Mana capacity supported.

Aside from a couple Health Recovery Potions meant for emergencies, most people simply didn’t buy potions.

After Cheng Yang performed the class change ceremonies for the new Priests, he ran the Hard Difficulty Blood-Soaked Cathedral. A half-hour later, Cheng Yang appeared outside the instance dungeon.

Now that Cheng Yang had access to potions, he was able to clear the instance dungeon more efficiently. He even received two pieces of Black Iron equipment, a lucky occurrence.

The wristband and pair of shoes he received didn’t increase his Magic Attack or Mana so Cheng Yang didn’t want them. If a piece of equipment didn’t increase his combat potential as a Mage, it was more efficient to give it to someone else.

Cheng Yang now had one thousand one hundred Experience Fragments. He had considered making a thousand of them into a training bundle, but decided that it was more important to get the Loggers who gained their Profession yesterday working. After buying 20 sets of logging tools, Cheng Yang was left with a hundred Experience Fragments in spare change.

Then Cheng Yang gathered twenty people who had become Loggers and distributed the tools he had bought.

Of course, Cheng Yang didn’t give these tools away for free. Each Logger had to agree to give the first fifty cubic meters of wood they harvested to the village free of charge.

Originally, god’s rules dictated that all wood was the exclusive property of the one who harvested it. Even if a territory took the wood by force, they wouldn’t be able to use it until they paid. They wouldn’t even be able to extort the wood from the Loggers since the price wasn’t decided by them but the rules of god.

In general, the price of wood fluctuated between two and five Experience Fragments per cubic meter. Cheng Yang’s quota of fifty cubic meter’s wasn’t arbitrarily decided but was so that even if the price was at its lowest, he would make up the money he was owed. After he bought the wood from the Loggers, they would just donate the Experience Fragments they had earned back to the territory.

Seeing that Cheng Yang had finished training, Old Lee waved at Cheng Yang and walked over. “My Lord, will we be able to fight our way into Cloud City today?”

Cheng Yang looked over at the anxious man with sympathy. “Today, after you clear the instance dungeon use all of the Experience Fragments to buy potions. After that we will make some plans.”

Old Lee opened his mouth to respond but stayed silent for a long time. “The blockade in from of the city only has seven hundred monsters my Lord. We’ve already killed hordes with three hundred or more, even with potions are we still not strong enough?”

“That was only their numbers yesterday, right now there should be more than a thousand waiting for us there. With that many monsters, there is definitely a High-Grade monster and possibly even a Pinnacle-Grade monsters if we’re unlucky. If we are unprepared, we will suffer greatly.”

Old Lee understood that even if he didn’t want to accept it. Even if every magician in the village fired on one at once, it would still survive and if it ever reached them, it would insta-kill the weaker Professionals.

Cheng Yang saw Old Lee’s crestfallen expression and knew he was just worried about his family. “Don’t worry, I didn’t say we couldn’t today, just that we need to do some preparation to keep us safe. Your family would be sad if you died during the assault.”

“I will obey your orders my Lord.” Old Lee said sobering up.

Afterwards, Old Lee gathered the members of his team and entered the Blood Soaked Cathedral.

At this time, Cheng Yang didn’t leave to hunt, instead he supervised the Loggers as they harvested wood in the lush forest a kilometer from the village walls. After a few days of accelerated growth, several trees had reached a diameter of six hundred centimeters and were the perfect candidates for obtaining wood.

The twenty Loggers didn’t start immediately since Cheng Yang needed to prepare a security force for them. The forty people selected served the dual purpose of killing the monsters that spawned nearby and carrying wood back to the village. Without these guards, the Loggers wouldn’t be able to focus on felling the trees.

Cheng Yang completely passed off the responsibility of guarding the Loggers off to Lau Hui. Although this would decrease the amount of Experience Fragments they would gain today, someone had to do it. The downsides to harvesting professions only existed for territories below the High-Grade. Once Phoenix Village leveled up again, every citizen would receive a Loyalty stat, representing their contributions to the territory. Many of the privileges and benefits the territory had to offer could only be accessed by people with a high Loyalty stat.

Lau Hui had cleared the instance dungeon earlier so his team immediately went out to support the newly equipped Loggers.

Half an hour later, Yu Kai exited the instance dungeon. In general, every team would try and clear the instance dungeon within an hour or two of finishing their training. After all, they would be able to obtain equipment for themselves in addition to the large number of Experience Fragments.

After exiting the instance dungeon, Yu Kai walked over his an accusatory expression. “Yoko, why didn’t you warn me that the bows in the Lumber Mill needed actual arrows? I went into the shop before entering the instance dungeon and saw a beautiful bow that increased damage for only forty Experience Fragments. I thought it was a great bargain but after buying it, that damned manager told me it needed arrows and each bundle of five cost a whole Experience Fragment each!”

Cheng Yang didn’t even bother trying to stifle his laughter, “That’s on you idiot, what kind of bow wouldn’t need arrows?”

Yu Kai huffed, “How was I supposed to know? My old bow didn’t need arrows.” He argued.

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The level of danger Ascendants had was plain for all to see, but if you asked Cheng Yang if he wanted to run into one, he would raise his hands and feet to give you an affirmative answer.

That wasn’t to say Cheng Yang was impatient to die. Rather, Ascendants had a very valuable quality.

Ascendants could be tamed and turned into Familiars.

Sadly, finding an Ascendant was too rare and with their variable strength, finding a decent Familiar was even rarer. In his past life, a woman with a powerful Ascendant Familiar had gone from an ordinary person directly to the Lord of a territory. That story had inspired thousands around the world to try and obtain their own Familiar. It was quite common for a person who didn’t have any hopes for getting stronger to venture deep into the wilderness in hopes of taming an Ascendant. Almost none of them returned.

Although Cheng Yang hoped to encounter an Ascendant, he also knew that it was impossible right now. In his past life, an Ascendant had never been sighted in this area. The areas around the safe zones and Territory Altars were the places god cared about the most and as a result, the new rules of this world were most complete in these areas as well. Since they were a byproduct of the clash of two worlds, Ascendants tended to live at the edges of god’s world, where the rules were incomplete.

Ascendants were still a very distant existence for Cheng Yang and it was more important to get stronger here than to risk everything in the wilderness.

As Cheng Yang continued to sweep the forest, if he ran into hordes with less than 80 monsters he wouldn’t use a potion. Instead he would use the old method of hiding and replenishing his Mana. This was to maximize the benefits he gained from his potions.

Over the next hour and a half, Cheng Yang destroyed: a large monster horde of 300, two hordes of two hundred, and eight smaller ones. Once again, his Experience Fragments reached the 1600 range.

By that time, he had used all of his potions and decided to go home.

Back in Phoenix Village, he found Liu Hau training. His team was also training in their respective Meditation Halls. In order to ensure maximum training efficiency, only Professionals were allowed to use the Meditation Halls. All of the civilians had to sleep outside.

Perhaps if these people had been in Phoenix Village since the start of the apocalypse, they would have protested this treatment, but after what they experienced in Huimin they were grateful even for that. They had seen too many deaths during the rescue and cleanup operations. If you were lucky you’d have a complete skeleton, if you weren’t it might just be a few finger joints scattered on the ground.

Those scenes made the survivors of Huimin grateful just to be alive and safe. As for a place to sleep, who would still demand that? Who would dare demand that?

Cheng Yang now had to decide what to do with the thousand Experience Fragments he had. Should he use them for himself or let others train with them?

There was no doubt that if he lent out the Experience Fragments it would greatly speed up the growth of Phoenix Village’s soldiers, but Cheng Yang couldn’t trust many others yet. That many Experience Fragments wasn’t a huge amount for a territory but they were still important to Cheng Yang’s personal growth right now.

The catch was that if he didn’t lend the Experience Fragments they wouldn’t help his training speed at all. To unlock a faster training speed, he would need a lot more than two thousand Experience Fragments. After the eight-times training speed you would unlock sixteen times training speed when you gathered ten thousand Experience Fragments. Cheng Yang would still need a week to obtain that many.

If he lent his thousand Experience Fragments to his soldiers, six would be able to level up to Standard-Grade in the same amount of time.

After some thought, Cheng Yang decided to lend these Experience Fragments and the ones he would make over the coming days to others for training. After the total he had lent out reached ten thousand, he would take them back and unlock sixteen times training speed for him and the team Captains.

Right now it was 10:00 at night and Cheng Yang still had four hours before he could train again so he decided to settle an important matter. Waking Liu Hau from his state of meditation, Cheng Yang asked: “What do you think of your subordinate Chen Chao?”

“Chen Chao? She’s a capable person and reliable. She’s a Ranger and was a soldier before the apocalypse so she’s adapted quite easily. She’s contributed a lot to Phoenix Village after we saved her and her mother from Huimin. She’s also well respected by many of the people from Huimin.”

“If you approve of it, I think you should make her your Vice Captain. Your team will only get bigger and it won’t be possible to manage it on your own so it’s important to choose someone you can trust before you need them.”

Liu Hau understood what Cheng Yang was saying so pondered on his words for a minute. “In that case, I really think Chen Chao is the right choice. Her military background will help me compensate for my lack of management experience. Now that I have someone good, you better not try and steal her from me Yoko.” Liu Hau warned.

“Why would I need to do that?” Cheng Yang chuckled.

“That’s true, the entirety of Phoenix Village is in your control after all. Even so, you absolutely can’t transfer her to a different team!”

“Alright, I promise I won’t.” Cheng Yang said throwing up his hands. He knew that if he didn’t make that promise, Liu Hau wouldn’t ever let the issue rest.

Cheng Yang then asked if Liu Hau thought anyone from the other teams was worthy of a promotion. After a few minutes of discussion, Cheng Yang had a list of suitable candidates.

At the same time, Yu Kai’s team returned from Huimin with a group of survivors and a large amount of resources. Cheng Yang had the same discussion with Yu Kai who immediately nominated a member of his team that Cheng Yang hadn’t expected.

When the nominee stood in front of Cheng Yang, he realized it was the taxi driver who had been with Lau Hui. It was only now that he learned his name, Lu Jiacheng.

Lu Jiacheng was a Warrior and had a B-Rank Innate Ability. Although this wasn’t impressive for Phoenix Village, he would have been a fairly high ranked individual in the Phoenix Village from Cheng Yang’s previous life.

Cheng Yang knew the other teams wouldn’t return for a while so went to rouse Chen Chao from her meditation. Cheng Yang then explained the rules for experience sharing before loaning her one thousand Experience Fragments.

The rules were fairly simple: the Experience Fragments could not be used for personal reasons and after using them for four hours, they must immediately be given to the next Vice Captain.

Next, Cheng Yang went to the Alchemy Tower and bought another twenty Mana Recovery Potions. After that he left Phoenix Village.

This time, Cheng Yang’s goal was different so he bought Ever-Burning Oil from the Alchemy Tower as well to make a torch. His goal now was to collect the alchemical components needed to make a Mana Recovery Potion. He wanted to quickly level up his Job and couldn’t do that by wasting Energy.

Energy wasn’t a resource that could be recovered by a potion. His Energy would only be refilled every day at midnight. If you didn’t use it all before midnight, the remainder was completely wasted. Skills gained from a Job were powered by Energy instead of Mana so there was a limited number of times you could use them every day. The only way to increase that number was to level up your Job and the only way to do that was to use Job skills.

This time, Cheng Yang not only brought a torch but also took his Alchemy Pot with him. Although it was rather large, his superhuman strength allowed him to carry it with ease.

He had to say, although the first few weeks of the apocalypse was like a hell to most people, the crafters from his previous life would consider it heaven. Just like monsters, the spawn rate for various materials used by Jobs was incredibly high on the first day. Right now, materials that would take an hour to find in his previous life, were scattered all around the village.

Using a torch to light his way meant that even distant monsters would travel to attack him, but it made finding alchemical components very easy.

After walking two kilometers, Cheng Yang’s bag held more than twenty uprooted plants. If he hadn’t just been collecting the ones needed to make Mana Recovery potions he would have harvested dozens more. Unfortunately, the amount he had collected was only enough to make three potions.

Whenever Cheng Yang got close to a large monster horde, he would have to smother the torch’s flame. If he wasn’t careful, he might find himself totally surrounded.

Cheng Yang would then eliminate the horde and relight the torch and search the area. If he found any of the plants he needed, they would immediately be snatched up by him.

Electrical lighters couldn’t be used right now but luckily Cheng Yang’s soldiers had found hundreds of gas lighters in the ruins of Huimin. If they hadn’t, Cheng Yang would have had to resort to using flint like in ancient times.

It was ten minutes before midnight when Cheng Yang finished gathering enough components to make twenty potions. Since he didn’t need to use the Identify of Harvest skills thanks to the experience from his past life, he was able to devote all of his Energy to the Refine skill. Although, if the materials were of a higher level he wouldn’t dare risk harming them by manually harvesting them.

Cheng Yang stopped wandering around and went into a ruined building to refine potions. The actual process was quite simple. He just needed to prepare the components according to the recipe, put them in the Alchemy Pot, and use the Refine skill. After a certain period of time, the potion would either be completed or explode.

Of course, the Refine skill didn’t have a perfect success rate. For the Mana Recovery Potion, the success rate was around 60% for a Low-Grade Apprentice Alchemist. The success rate was quite high since recovery potions were the most common potions. For rarer potions, the success rates would usually be abysmally low.

The actual refinement only took a few seconds and if it succeeded, Cheng Yang would pour it into one of the bottles he had prepared.

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Cheng Yang’s Mana Recovery Potion (Low-Grade): Restores 20 Mana instantly and then 4 Mana every second for ten seconds

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Cheng Yang wanted to learn the Health Recovery Potion recipe as well but didn’t have the Experience Fragments to do so. It wasn’t a huge loss for Cheng Yang since he wouldn’t need Health Recovery Potions often. He only needed to prepare a few just in case.

Of course, it wasn’t enough just to learn the reciepe for a potion, several other tools were needed such as an Alchemy Pot or Alchemy Furnace. When creating advanced or specialized potions you would only need more and more equipment.

Cheng Yang purchased the two pieces of equipment he would need for now from the shop: an Alchemy Pot and a set of Alchemy Utensils. These tools were generally inexpensive and only cost 200 Experience Fragments in total.

Cheng Yang looked at the status pane that only showed 400 Experience Fragments and couldn’t help but smile, looks like he would be busy tonight.

Fortunately, spending so much wasn’t without other benefits. The village received over 70 Experience Fragments in taxes and 3 were given to him as the Lord.

He spent one thousand six hundred Experience Fragments and they gave him back three? What a slap in the face!

It was already late when Cheng Yang left the Alchemy Tower. When he did he saw a large crowd outside of the Lumber Mill door trying to look inside. Cheng Yang guessed that a few people must have tried to enter and had been thrown out by the manager.

he knew that if a manager didn’t like someone they wouldn’t act civilized. They would just sweep their hands and have you thrown directly out of the store. Even in his past life no one knew the limits of the managers. A few people had even tried to steal from a store and dropped dead on the spot.

“Yoko this… why is there someone in there?” Liu Hau asked when he saw Cheng Yang, looking as if he had found a life-saving rope.

“Why can’t someone be there?” Cheng Yang asked indifferently.

“But th-” Liu Hau was interrupted before he could ask another question.

“Well, Koko, I can’t really tell you. Just know that they may not be people from earth and that they still have the same intelligence and emotions as one. Treat them as well as you treat me and it will do you some good in the future.”

“What can I gain from that?”

“If one day you have enough to buy something you’ll understand immediately.”

Liu Hau wasn’t a fool and could think of a few things that could mean. Was the benefit that they could buy goods at all? Were the people who offended the manager not allowed to buy things?

Liu Hau smiled bitterly. “But none of these people offended him, why were they still driven out? I didn’t even dare try and go inside.”

“These civilians? They don’t even have a single Experience Fragment, that’s why they were kicked out. The people in the stores worship money. If you have enough, they’ll treat you like a god.”

“Really?” Liu Hau hesitated at the door of the Lumber Mill.

“You won’t know if you don’t go in.”

“Okay, I try it.” Liu Hau threw his hands up before walking into the Lumber Mill. Twenty seconds later he still hadn’t been thrown out.

Before the rest of the crowd tried to enter the building Cheng Yang made an announcement. “The stores are only for Professionals, if you don’t have one you can’t join in on the fun.” Most of the crowd dispersed and Cheng Yang explained Professions to the Professionals. He told them what types of Professions there were and the details about Profession tests.

“In addition, if you want to be able to take the Profession test then you need to buy something worth at least ten Experience Fragments. Alright, that’s everything.” Cheng Yang then left the soldiers of Phoenix Village to decide which Profession they wanted. It was a matter of personal preference and he didn’t want to impose his will on them. It would affect their productivity if they didn’t enjoy the Profession they had.

After his speech Cheng Yang dropped his alchemy tools off at his house then left the village. His goal was to fight a large monster horde on his own. Since he had so many potions now he wouldn’t have to worry about running out of Mana mid-battle.

Of course, it would be great if he could find some alchemy components tonight as well but he didn’t have any hopes for that. Finding monsters in the long grass wasn’t hard but to find a few specific plants wasn’t easy, especially at night.

Cheng Yang spent a couple minutes quickly rushing outside the territory boundary and into the forests beyond.

He ran a couple kilometers away from the village walls and arrived at a location that had never been patrolled by the village soldiers. The level of danger here was high since there would be dozens of medium monster hordes and even a couple with several hundred.

Originally Cheng Yang was going to leave the smaller hordes to his soldiers later but in order to avoid accidents tonight he decided to take care of them.

After successfully destroying two smaller monster hordes Cheng Yang came across one with over 300 monsters in it.

During the day he had killed a horde of the same size but the tactic he had used was just too slow. He would kill a few then run away and recover. This kind of guerrilla warfare just wasn’t very efficient.

The situation now was totally different. He had enough potions, and Cheng Yang was a very practical person. After seeing the horde of Graveseekers, he charged towards them, unleashing a Magic Missile that ended the life of an unwary Graveseeker.

Cheng Yang didn’t show mercy and continuously rained down attacks while retreating at a slow pace..

After losing a few of their numbers, the leader of the Graveseeker horde realized they were under attack. It let out a baby-like scream and the entire horde rushed towards Cheng Yang.

Cheng Yang slightly accelerated, although it was still far below his top speed. He was now retreating at the same speed that the Graveseekers were advancing at.

When the horde had lost a tenth of its members, Cheng Yang ran out of Mana. Cheng Yang immediately reached into the bag on his back and drank a Mana Recovery Potion.

A refreshing coolness permeated Cheng Yang’s body. The fatigue of the day melted away and Cheng Yang’s Mana began to replenish.

Cheng Yang only paused for seven seconds before firing Magic Missiles again. That was all it took for Cheng Yang’s Mana to be completely refilled. Thanks to his new Innate Ability, Cheng Yang’s potions were twice as effective. The Standard-Grade potion originally wouldn’t have been enough to fully restore his Mana, but now some of it was wasted.

The slaughter continued as Cheng Yang annihilated an Elite Standard-Order monster, driving the others into a frenzy.

The Graveseekers continued to run at Cheng Yang with red eyes like a swarm of bees, incapable of assessing whether this was a fight they could win. Just like that they condemned themselves to the fate of becoming Experience Fragments for Cheng Yang.

After the battle, Cheng Yang checked his harvest. He had gained 314 Experience Fragments but only used 7 potions. Since the potions cost a total of 56 Experience Fragments, his net gain was only 258. Although this might seem like an unreasonable cost, if you considered how much longer it would have taken otherwise, it was well worth it.

When he took care of a horde of the same size earlier, he had needed an hour, an army, and extreme focus. Now it just took 7 or 8 minutes for him to do it alone without feeling stressed at all. Tonight he would only be able to deal with two more large hordes using this method.

This was because Cheng Yang didn’t have a Spacial Ring yet. If he did he could just buy as many Mana Recovery Potions as he could and slaughter his way across the forest.

This was Cheng Yang’s unique advantage. Even large hordes were completely incapable of pressuring Cheng Yang. If that god saw how well Cheng Yang was doing, they would probably cry.

Of course, Cheng Yang wasn’t arrogant enough to believe he had reached the point that he was invincible. Countless powerful people in his last life were capable of achieving the same thing as him but still randomly died in the wilderness. In this new world, there was no way to know when an astoundingly powerful creature would appear out of no where.

In this new world, the most powerful creatures weren’t monster but rather Ascendants. Monsters were creatures transported into this world that followed certain rules. Their strengths and weaknesses were easily predictable, as were their growth rates. The same couldn’t be said about Ascendants. They were animals from before the end of the world that were mutated by the residual energy of the apocalypse.

The strength of an Ascendant was very hard to gauge. Some were weaker than Low-Grade Immature monsters, barely stronger than ordinary animals. As for the most powerful Ascendant seen in his past life, it completely dwarfed the most powerful monster seen. It had been seen killing a Pinnacle-Grade Mature monster with a single casual swipe. A Pinnacle-Grade Mature monster was capable of destroying an entire territory and it was killed just like that!

The strength of Ascendants left humanity quaking in fear. Luckily their numbers were small ,and they mostly stayed away from the areas humanity lived in.

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Cheng Yang’s surroundings distorted and he disappeared in a curtain of light.

When Cheng Yang opened his eyes again he was surrounded by thousands of magical herbs and plants.

Cheng Yang was unsurprising since all Profession tests would occur in a unique instance dungeon. As such, when you died in a test you would be transported back outside completely unharmed.

At that moment Cheng Yang heard the Alchemy Tower manager’s voice in his head: “Welcome to the Garden of Pan Lan. The test will begin in 10… 9… 8…”

Cheng Yang was tense. He really hoped that the test wouldn’t include a Pinnacle-Grade monster in any way. The gap between levels was biggest when you were an Apprentice, at that level fighting against higher level monsters was nearly impossible. The monsters stats would be similar and people’s equipment would be too low level to provide a substantial boost.

If Cheng Yang had to deal with a higher level monster, it would be impossible for him to defeat it. The terrain of the garden was also flat so he would have no where to hide.

He felt the probability of that happening was quite low. Even if this was the Hellish difficulty trial even a High-Grade monster would be enough to guarantee that no one would pass. Even if it was hard it was supposed to be possible.

The manager finally finished counting down: “Identification and collection of alchemical components are the two most basic skills an Alchemist can learn. Some may look down on the task as menial but it is the true basis of alchemy. For your test please find and properly harvest the following components in the next thirty minutes. Sword Grass, Corpse-Thistle…”

When he heard what his test would be Cheng Yang felt 10,000 grass mud horses gallop through his mind. When they passed, Cheng Yang couldn’t suppress his excitement.

The task was just getting a few components.

To anyone else this task wouldn’t be easy, especially in a garden with thousands of different plants. It wasn’t because modern doctors never used traditional medicines but because all of the plants worldwide had undergone drastic changes. Even if Hua Tuo himself appeared to take this test he would only be able to rely on his luck.

To Cheng Yang, this test was laughable. In his previous life, although he hadn’t been an Alchemist, he had become very familiar with alchemical components since most Alchemists would hire others to gather them. The components he needed to gather were the ingredients for a Mana Recovery Potion, although it could also be a Health Recovery Potion if the proportions were changed.

Why did Cheng Yang receive such an easy test? Cheng Yang guessed it was because the creation of each test wasn’t done individually by god but was an automated process. If that was the case how could an algorithm guess that he had been reincarnated? Right now the average level of strength for humanity was infinitely close to zero. That is to say, even a test where you needed to steal a plant from a Low-Grade monster could be considered difficult. Since fighting stronger monsters than that would still be easy to him, it must have changed the test accordingly.

This guess was mostly right. Profession tests were actually created without considering the average strength but instead were based off of personal strength. The difficulty was calculated so that regardless of a person’s level there would always be a consistent chance of passing the test in an unintended way. For instance, if the test he had was given to millions of people, only two or three people would pass by pure luck. This was in line with the rules of this new world.

What the algorithm didn’t know was that even fighting a Standard-Grade monster would be a harder test for Cheng Yang that the one it had given.

The garden wasn’t large, only ten thousand square meters, but it was completely overgrown with all kinds of plants. Cheng Yang even saw dozens rare varieties that tempted him to fail the test and grab those instead. In the end he could only stare at them enviously since even touching them might mean failing the test.

For ten minutes Cheng Yang scoured the garden.

“Dragon Creeper Buds, found…”

“Mystic Ice Flowers, done…”

“Earthworm Root, here…”

In just a few moments Cheng Yang had collected all ten components.

“Are you sure those are the ten components you need to pass the test?” The manager asked when he proclaimed he was finished.

Cheng Yang did not hesitate to reply that he was.

In an instance, the space around Cheng Yang distorted and he found himself facing the manager once more.

“Are you really coming back so soon?” The manager asked, unable to help giving him a disappointed look.

It was no wonder she didn’t believe in him. From her point of view, Cheng Yang achieving the level of High-Grade Apprentice in just four days put him at the absolute top of humanity. If such an amazing person were to wholly dedicate themselves to the test maybe they could produce a miracle. Even if it was possible it would still take the entire testing period to even have a chance. Since he was leaving so soon didn’t that mean he was giving up and trying his luck?

Cheng Yang smiled and showed the manager the ten components he had gathered. “I was just lucky. The god of this world must favor me since the names of each plant popped into my head just by looking at them. Naturally I finished quickly.”

Looking at the components Cheng Yang had placed on the counter the manager felt like she was in a dream. For someone who had yet to become an Alchemist this task was just too difficult. Even more so, Cheng Yang was the very first Alchemist so not a single soul on this planet knew the names of these plants before today!

The manager had nothing else to do but smile, since Cheng Yang had gathered these components he had passed without a shadow of a doubt. “It seems like you are a natural Alchemist my Lord. Your talent is enough to make even the gods envious. Since you are the first person to become an Alchemist I am pleased to announce that you have been granted a unique Innate Ability, the Perfect Medicinal Body. This Innate Ability will allow you to receive twice the benefits with half of the side effects whenever you use a potion. At the same time you have completed the Hellish difficulty test so your Alchemy Talent is top tier. You’ll be able to see the specifics when you become an Alchemist.”

The manager took out an intricate pale gold medallion from under the counter. “This is the Alchemy Profession Token, you can use it to immediately become a true Alchemist.”

Cheng Yang had gotten a Profession Token in the past but his had been crude and grey, obviously far worse quality than the one he had just received.

When Cheng Yang took the Profession Token, he held it in his hand and silently used it. Immediately after Cheng Yang felt that his palm was empty and the Profession Token had disappeared.

Cheng Yang couldn’t wait to open up his properties panel and found that a new column had appeared titled “Profession”.

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Alchemist
Level: Low-Grade Apprentice (0%)
Energy: 20

Alchemy Talent

• The effect of potions that affect the Mana attribute are doubled

Skills

• Identify (Low-Grade): Identify alchemy components and what potions they can make
• Harvest (Low-Grade): Harvest an alchemical component without damaging it.
• Refine (Low-Grade): Create a potion

Recipes

None

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Compared with his class status, the information about his Profession was much more concise. Even so, the Alchemy Talent he had received was overwhelming. Ordinarily people wouldn’t have any bonuses that apply to their Profession, although some people would have an Innate Ability that affected their Profession. If you completed the Hard difficulty test you would receive a few Profession Talents but weather they were good or not depended on luck.

All of those paled in front of the Profession Talent received by someone who passed the Hellish difficulty test. Most Profession Talents would increase a minor aspect of production such as reducing the amount of time, energy and resources needed to create a potion or boosting a single skill. Moreover the bonus would be far less than 100%.

At this time Cheng Yang thought of a wonderful thing. Wouldn’t he be able to make potions that were four times more powerful than normal for himself? If he just used this to create recovery potions he wouldn’t care that much since it would just save him some time but he knew that there were potions that temporarily or permanently increased attributes! If he combined his Alchemy Talent and Perfect Medicinal Body he would become incredibly powerful!

Cheng Yang forced himself to calm down, “Thank you for this opportunity, manager. Can you tell me what recipes are available?”

“I only have two recipes, the basic recovery potions. If you want more hurry up and increase the level of my Alchemy Tower.” The manager nagged.

Cheng Yang nodded, “I’ll be sure to do that, for now may I buy the Mana Recovery recipe?”

The manager happily went over to the shelves behind her and retrieved a sheepskin scroll, “This will cost one thousand Experience Fragments.”

Cheng Yang didn’t hesitate to buy it immediately. Although 1000 Experience Fragments was an astronomical price it wasn’t unbearable for Cheng Yang.

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Harvesting so much wood in one day was far beyond Cheng Yang’s expectations. He could see just how desperate everyone was today.

Cheng Yang was very clear on what he would build with this wood. First would be the Lumber Mill. If he didn’t, he would constantly be anxious. No one knew how many large pieces of wood were left in Huimin, and if they didn’t find enough to build the Lumber Mill tomorrow, they would be stuck scavenging the rest from scrap.

The second building would be the Alchemy Tower. The role of potions wasn’t necessarily more important than the other types of equipment, but they were absolutely vital if they wanted to reach Cloud City.

As for the remaining 20 cubic meters of wood, Cheng Yang was going to upgrade his Meditation Hall instead of leaving it for tomorrow. As the Lord of Phoenix Village, he should at least be able to enjoy this small luxury. The effect of the Standard-Grade Meditation Hall wasn’t that much better, but an extra 6.5% was still an increase.

After making this decision, Cheng Yang immediately built all three buildings.

For some time, the village which had already become dark, was suddenly lit up by the three curtains of light that appeared.

This scene shocked the people brought from Huimin. Most of them hadn’t even seen a class change ceremony and had no idea what this curtain of light represented. All they knew was that an incredible event was happening right in front of them.

After the light curtains dissipated, two new buildings could be seen. Cheng Yang’s Meditation Hall had also expanded.

The physical difference between the Low-Grade and Standard-Grade Meditation Hall was quite large. The Low-Grade buildings were a single room covering twenty square meters and inside, five beds surrounded a brazier. In comparison, Cheng Yang’s Meditation Hall now had two stories, covered an area of forty square meters and had individual rooms. If the Low-Grade Meditation Hall was the equivalent of a university dormitory, the Standard-Grade one would be a single-family house. The only real difference from a typical house was that it was made from wood, not brick.

Cheng Yang knew that two stories was the limit for Meditation Halls. Even after being upgraded to High-Grade, it would still only be two stories. As for when he would get the chance to upgrade his home, he didn’t know.

Although the Standard-Grade Meditation Hall was familiar to the citizens of Huimin, the other two buildings were totally strange. While they were strange to other people, Cheng Yang had seen those buildings in those locations every day for months. Seeing them standing there again just made him feel more at home. In this life, however, they were completely owned by him.

Cheng Yang ignored the gawking crowds and entered the Alchemy Tower.

The manager of the Alchemy Tower was dressed in the same clothes as the one Yuan Jianzhe had met. Unlike the commander, Cheng Yang wasn’t surprised in the slightest to see a human inside. He already knew that there would be managers in each of the buildings and that they weren’t from this world. He didn’t know everything, however. He wasn’t sure if they were fully sentient or just managers created by god.

Many people in his last life had tried to answer this question, hoping to find out from the managers, what kind of existence that supposed god was. They made almost no progress by the time Cheng Yang died. No one had even successfully lured one out of their building. They would only fulfill their duty of selling goods and teaching related Profession skills.

Of course, the managers in the safe zones could only sell goods.

“My Lord, what do you need to buy?” The woman said, figuring out Cheng Yang’s identity at a glance.

“Let me take a look at your catalog. If I see anything decent, I’ll buy it.” Cheng Yang replied respectfully.

“Of course.” The manager said gently. She reached under the counter and handed a book to Cheng Yang.

Cheng Yang took a look inside and saw a simple list of potions. Cheng Yang had found a Low Grade Mana Recovery Potion which recovered 30 Mana the day before, but the catalog had the more powerful Standard and High-Grade versions. Potions at that level would be more than enough for Cheng Yang to use for a long time.

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Mana Recovery Potion (Standard-Grade): Restores 30 Mana instantly and then 8 Mana every second for ten seconds

---

The catalog also had Health Recovery Potions that had an identical effect except that it affected Health. As well, unlike the Mana Recovery Potion’s regeneration effect which would stop when you used a skill, Health Recovery Potion’s regeneration effect would stop if you took damage.

Those two types of potions were the only ones useful to Cheng Yang. Although there were others, they weren’t useful for fighting. After all, this was a Low-Grade Alchemy Tower. You couldn’t expect too much.

“Give me twenty Mana Recovery Potions and five Health Recovery Potions, all standard-Grade.” Cheng Yang said after browsing the catalog.

“Standard-Grade Recovery Potions are eight Experience Fragments each.” The manager said with a smile, “Your total is two hundred Experience Fragments for twenty five.”

Cheng Yang didn’t hesitate to pay for his goods and received them in a complementary cloth bag. Low-Grade Recovery Potions were much cheaper at two Experience Fragments each, but their effect was just too poor for someone at Cheng Yang’s level. It would be too cumbersome to carry enough Low-Grade potions to match the effects of twenty Standard-Grade ones.

“I plan to learn how to make potions and become an Alchemist.” Cheng Yang said putting the bag’s strap over one shoulder, “May I know what the conditions to become one are?”

“Becoming an Alchemist is quite simple, just pass a small test. However, I urge my Lord to consider this carefully as you can only have one Profession and will not be able to switch later. ” The manager replied with bright eyes.

“I am sure of my decision. Since I wasn’t able to become a Priest, the only way for me to save lives in this world is to become an Alchemist. I hope you will help me fulfill this wish.”

“That you would do such a thing when you are the Lord of this territory shows you have a righteous soul. Phoenix Village is truly blessed to have you rule it. Since you have such great ambition, I can naturally help you. The test you take to become an Alchemist can either be Easy, Difficult or Hellish. The quality of your Alchemy Talent will be decided by the level of difficulty you choose. Which one would you like?”

After listening to the manager, Cheng Yang hesitated. The real reason he had chosen to become an Alchemist was the reward for being the first Alchemist in the world. Although other Professions had their own rewards, the Alchemist one was perfect for a front-line fighter. Cheng Yang also didn’t want to pick a useless Profession such as Logger or Farmer. Although they had good rewards, there was no way to benefit from the Profession itself, whereas an Alchemist could refine their own potions, saving them Experience Fragments.

The Easy difficulty wasn’t hard to pass at all, but the difficulty sharply spiked with each increase in difficulty. Although the Hellish difficulty might be hard beyond belief, even if you died during the trial, you would revive in the Alchemy Tower again. Of course, the penalty for failure was that you could not retake the test for three months. If he was able to pass the test now, he could absolutely guarantee that he would be the first Alchemist in the world but at that point, the chances of Cheng Yang becoming the first Alchemist were slim.

In his previous life, fewer than thirty people in the world had announced that they had cleared the Hellish difficulty test. Those numbers alone showed just how hard it was to complete the trial. It was exceedingly difficult to complete higher difficulty trials, but there was a correspondingly huge reward. Those that had completed the Hellish difficulty test were comparable to the people that had unique classes. Although clearing the Hard difficulty was only as good as having a rare class like Priest, they were still leagues above people that only cleared the Easy difficulty.

After a fierce internal struggle, Cheng Yang decided to take the Hellish difficulty test. If you didn’t have the spirit of adventure, you wouldn’t go far in this world!

Cheng Yang hadn’t made that decision out of arrogance or because of how high level he was. Instead the choice had been made after carefully considering his past knowledge.

As time passed in his old life, the Profession tests got harder and harder. This was because the actual content of the test wasn’t tied to the difficulty but the number of people who had entered a Profession, the average level of people in the Profession, the highest level of someone in the Profession, and the average level of the world’s Professionals. That is to say, each time someone took the test, it would get slightly harder. The difficulty levels were each scaled off of this general difficulty.

It was widely believed that god did this so that people wouldn’t be able to increase the number of people who passed the Hellish difficulty, as they learned more about the tests and the Profession itself.

What would that mean for the difficulty of Cheng Yang’s test? There were no Alchemists currently and the average level definitely didn’t exceed Low-Grade Apprentice. Cheng Yang being at the High-Grade Apprentice level was truly unique. Since that was the case, even if the test was nearly impossible for a normal person, for Cheng Yang who had the knowledge of his past life and a high level, it should be difficulty but not exceedingly so.

“I choose the Hellish difficulty test.” Cheng Yang said, “Please administer one for me.”

“It seems I wasn’t wrong about my Lord’s ambition!” The manager praised.

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