Third chapter of the week (August 6). Sorry for the delay guys, Udeze was resolving issues IRL. Anyway, as said before, from now on there will be only 3 chapters per week. BUT! Because we pa.s.sed 1000 on the NU Reading List, there will a bonus chapter this week, for the count of four. Cheers! Now there will be bonus chapter if the reading list reaches 1500. Go GO! The bonus chapter will come later today.
If the Reading List on NU reaches 1500, there will be a bonus chapter! Currently: 1020/1500.
Chapter 58: Returning Back in the Darkness of the Night
A proper hot meal. How long had it been since the last time they had one?!
Some small amount of food ingredients had long been made ready by the Overlord Gang"s members in their kitchen. After the candle was lit they were able to see clearly. Yun Tu, Feng Ling, and Qing Yi took some food from their interspatial rings and let everyone have a full meal.
Since the Northern District was full of people, the threat from the zombies simply didn"t exist for Yun Tu"s team that consisted of Awakened people. Even if a Green Zombie appeared in this area and they might be unable to defeat it, they would still be able to run away ahead of the ma.s.ses. The dangers simply didn"t exist for them since they could run faster than any normal person.
Amongst the three women, Feng Ling didn"t involve herself in the cooking, but Qing Yi and Li Xin were both quite the chefs. In just a short while, dozens of large bowls had already been set and served upon on the dining table.
"With the advent of the Apocalypse, everything on Earth has changed. And you all know too that it won"t be easy to gather everyone like this again. So, we might as well establish our own guild now!"
Qing Yi spoke out her suggestion. Although she could see that Yun Tu was no longer repelling everyone, he also had yet to speak about it personally. This made her suspenseful and anxious, worrying that Yun Tu would leave tonight, alone.
"We are willing to follow every command from Big Brother Yun Tu. Big Brother Yun Tu must be our leader and lead everyone to fight!" Feng Ling also backed Qing Yi"s words from behind.
"We have been convinced and trust you! You"re our leader who will lead us on the battlefield from now on!" The other people also stood together.
Yun Tu perfectly realized that a lone wolf, however powerful, would eventually fall in this Apocalypse. Since the establishment of a guild was the only way, he had to speak about something and some rules, even though the words would be unpleasant to hear.
He observed everyone around and then asked, "IF, if there"s only one last piece of bread on the table today and we"ve all been starving for a day, I want to ask you, who will eat that last piece of bread?"
All of a sudden, everyone who was busily talking with each other completely quieted down!
Only after a long time did Feng Ling opened her mouth and spoke, "We"ll believe in your decision." After which, everyone took the same stance and said that they would put their faith on Yun Tu.
Yun Tu smiled and asked in reply, "Do you believe that I"ll distribute the last piece of bread fairly to everyone?"
Once again, everyone fell into silence. It was obviously clear that in their eyes, Yun Tu was not such a saint to begin with!
Whilst looking at those people who were silent and taciturn, Yun Tu said, "I do indeed have the idea to establish a guild. In fact, it has long been budding within my mind. But everything is not what all of you have thought of and imagined. Do bear in mind that I will never take that last piece of bread for myself nor will I share it equally to everyone. As such, only people who have the ability and have given more contribution to the guild will win the respect and best treatment!"
There were more people around him now, and since he had said that they would have a meal today, he didn"t want to take his words back. But still, he had to say that he would treat some people differently. Then, he took out a bottle of red wine and asked, "Who amongst you have killed another person?"
Feng Ling and Gui Jiaosan raised their hands. Yun Tu hinted them to put down their hands since he had also witnessed them killing someone.
With a bit of an embarra.s.sed expression, Qing Yi spoke in a low voice, "I was only able to shoot the gun before, but the shot didn"t kill the man, unfortunately!"
"I"ll have to mark your words. Do remember that killing zombies and beasts in the Apocalypse is far from enough!" Whilst speaking, Yun Tu opened the bottle"s cap but he only poured a cup filled with red wine for Gui Jiaosan, Feng Ling, and Qing Yi.
"The core members will have a proper nice meal. As for the full members, they can eat their fill while the remaining personnel will only get half of their ration. Since our guild is established during this dark night of the Apocalypse, then Dark Night shall our guild"s name and call!"
"Later on, whenever each and every one of you display good performance, you will have decent meals and drinks. Contrarily, even if everyone is familiar with each other, if one of you find others with the tendency to betray the guild or that you often makes mistakes, do bear in mind that I will be merciless and will remove the said person at once. With this, I hope everyone can work well together!"
With such a few forewords from Yun Tu during the dinner, the Dark Night Guild had formally been established. Everyone clearly remembered the emphasized "remove" word. Although the word was not made clear with another following word, everyone present could tell what it really meant!
Yun Tu also didn"t explain much further on how standard members could become core members. However, his att.i.tude was obvious. Yun Tu was the leader— the monarch— of this Dark Night Guild, and the three people who held cups of wine were the current core members.
However, even though they didn"t drink that cup of wine, their ability to become the first batch members of the Dark Night Guild was enough to make them happy. After gesturing and having everyone finish the full meal for dinner, Yun Tu gathered everyone as he took the weapons he had been stockpiling and distributed them.
There were a lot of pistols, but there were only a bit more than ten rounds of bullets and magazines. After which, he distributed the bullets to Qing Yi, Li Xin, and Gui Jiaosan.
Same as with the pistols that needed the bullets, there were no bullets for the a.s.sault rifle and submachine gun, so Yun Tu thought that he could only throw away the weapons.
Subtly understanding what Yun Tu had in mind, Liu Wei quickly spoke, "Give that to me. It would be great if I can find the bullets for it later. Even without the bullets, I can still use it to scare off people for a time!"
Since Liu Wei"s words made sense, Yun Tu casually handed it to him.
As for the "one shot one death" strike gun, the sniper rifle, there were only two round of bullets left, so Yun Tu gave them to Pockmarked Face since he was a soldier with excellent marksmanship. Whilst handing over the gun, he solemnly spoke, "This one is our big killing tool! At times, I may also need to use it to shoot. At the other times, you"ll be the one who uses this thing!"
Feng Ling who still held the last anti-tank grenade felt that she must give it to Qing Yi, but Yun Tu stopped her midway and said, "You cannot use this thing for self-defense later. Use this to kill the enemies, so take care of it well!"
"In addition, the team must be of the consensus that each and every one of you has the obligation to protect our Priestess, Qing Yi. Even if we are not engaged in dangerous situations, there must be someone amongst you who, to the best of their ability, never let Qing Yi stroll around alone. For this, Li Xin will take the duty, and as for you—Feng Ling and Pock Face, the two of you are responsible to watch over her in fights. Bear in mind that you must carefully give your full attention to watching over Qing Yi"s position. You two must never, by any means, let her fall into danger!"
"No way, it"s no good! I"m not a child who needs everyone to protect me anymore!" Upon listening to such arrangement from Yun Tu, Qing Yi"s face was flushed crimson as she blurted out a response, looking extremely embarra.s.sed.
"It"s not because I have a bias for you! If you are safe, everyone in the team can act boldly to their heart"s content as they charge through the enemy lines, since they know that you"re there and is able to treat them if they get injured. So, I made this arrangement with everyone"s account in mind!" Yun Tu"s words were very clear. It was the truth that everyone knew very well; they also expressed their consent.
After having completed the distribution of the firearms, Yun Tu took out some materials from his interspatial rings and began his Alchemy altering and tempering. Since the difficulty and the materials needed to temper the weapons the second time was quite difficult and had higher requirements, Yun Tu only altered Feng Ling"s twin curved blades to the Second Tier and he only upgraded the other cold weapons to the First Tier and distributed them one by one afterward.
Although there were fourteen people in the team, apart from Gui Jiaosan and Li Xin"s sons who were too small to be involved in fights, all the other people were able to fight. He a.s.signed each person with a weapon he obtained from the Secret Areas after upgrading them.
Since everyone knew perfectly well that such weapons were hard-to-come-by items, happy smiles surfaced on everyone"s faces. The weapons boosted their self-confidence to the sky, for they wouldn"t need anti-tank grenades to face and win against the Green Zombies with these G.o.dly weapons in their hands.
The last thing to distribute was armor. Apart from the armor he seized from Duan Minghui, Yun Tu also got some from the w.a.n.g Brothers from exchanges.
Yun Tu wasn"t used to wearing protective gears since his main attack was mainly based on sneak attacks and stealth strikes, so there were two pair of gauntlets and two pairs of combat boots left that he intended to distribute.
At present, apart from Feng Ling, the strongest person should be the Pockmarked Face. His initial stats in agility and strength were both at 12 points, so he would be the perfect candidate as a tank who would charge to the front lines. Therefore, Yun Tu equipped him with protective gear first. The next priority would be Liu Wei and finally, Feng Ling and Gui Jiaosan.
"I believe you understand why I gave you these protective gears, yes?" Yun Tu asked.
"I know. With these protective gears I"ll be the one who will brave the dangers and charge to the front lines!" Pockmarked Face was a man with few words, and he answered the question with a resolute tone and expression.
"Since you"ve been mentally prepared, then it"s good. You must understand that the ones who fear death will die faster in this Apocalypse. Don"t think that by charging to the front lines you"ll become the first one to die amongst us. I hope you won"t have any other thoughts from my arrangement!"
"Rest a.s.sured, Big Brother!" Liu Wei and the Pockmarked Face replied in unison.
The items had yet to be finished being distributed since there were three Job Scrolls left. One was a Shadow a.s.sa.s.sin Scroll which was left for himself, and the other ones were the Magic Imbuer and the Flame Master Scroll.
The Flame Master as well as the Priest Main Jobs were heavily influenced by one"s Spirit stat. A teenager who got a Blood Crystal from Yang Suyan and became Awakened— a fourteen years old boy— Xiao Bao was the same with Qing Yi as he had high Spirit that exceeded others. So Yun Tu directly gave this precious scroll to him.
"Big Brother, thank you! No matter how dangerous it would be, I"ll definitely not cower when I have to charge to the forefront in battle!"
The usually wooden-faced Xiao Bao was quite excited. He was emotionally moved since Yun Tu gave the most valuable Main Job Scroll to him.
"Bear in mind that the Flame Master is one of the most powerful occupations in the initial stage of this Apocalypse. This occupation has a long-range area carpet bomb. Use the skills to their fullest and showcase the Flame Master"s superiority. Later on, you will have your place in the guild, so you better protect yourself well, and then protect your friends and the whole team!"
As for the Magic Imbuer, it was only a secondary occupation and didn"t need high requirements. Yun Tu finally decided to give it to Li Xin since it was not easy for a woman to become a strong warrior. But if she could become a competent supporter, she would also be able to contribute a lot to the team.
With the crumbling of the scroll into pieces, an Awakened with another secondary occupation had been born. The Magic Imbuer was pretty different from the Alchemist job, since the latter almost had no prerequisite conditions. As long as the Alchemist"s skill level and the materials tier were sufficient, an Alchemist would still be able to upgrade equipments unceasingly.
In regards with the energy from the mutant beasts" Monster Cores, it was quite useful for the Magic Imbuer but yet didn"t provide sufficient condition for attaching magic, which was particularly emphasized on what kind of materials that could be attached onto the weapons and the special effect it enclosed within, coupled with how much of the dosage and proportion the materials should be used. In short, the occupation was much like creating a formula for Traditional Chinese Medicine as one would need to spend a lot of time in study and try to achieve the best. In this sense, the Magic Imbuer—or Enchanter—significantly depended on ones" talent. However, this kind of talent was not something based on one"s Awakened stats. No one knew for certain what type of person was able to become a powerful Magic Imbuer.
In the early days of the Apocalypse, there were few special materials to be found. Although after having entered the first Secret Area Yun Tu had collected some materials such as Energy Crystals, gallbladders, and other items he found in the bodies of beasts; however, he was not, after all, a Magic Imbuer in his past incarnation, so he was also quite clueless about the materials needed for the enchanting and imbuing process.
And since he had already collected the gallbladders and Monster Cores from various kinds of beasts from Secret Area, he gave all of them to Li Xin to carefully research with.
On the other hand, Li Xin was naturally very happy after she became a Magic Imbuer. But, after fumbling with each of the materials Yun Tu had given her for ten minutes, she wasn"t even able to figure out the uses for each one of them nor as to how to create any methods to create the most basic formula for the imbuing process from the provided materials.
"I"m really sorry. It"s because I don"t have much talent in it. Even though I"m able to perceive the characteristic for each of these materials independently, I can"t figure out as to how would I use it for the enchanting formula!" After confirming over and over again and eventually finding that she couldn"t figure it out, Li Xin could only look at Yun Tu with a helpless and desperate expression as tears began to well up in her eyes.
In fact, the kind of needed materials and ingredients that could be used in the early days of the Apocalypse was really too few to begin with. Basically, n.o.body could ever get anywhere without sufficient materials and equipment. In Yun Tu"s past incarnation, a lot of people thought that the Magic Imbuer profession was the most useless secondary occupation. Even if the said person was able to enchant and imbue some magical properties to the items, it would be considered… pure luck. However, Yun Tu didn"t think of it this way as he came back with this second repertoire.
"In any case, I"m giving this ring to you. If at some time within your observation you can find and sense anything with magical properties, or you feel that you could use those things for the imbuing and enchanting process, you can take and collect those items first. After which, you can take your time to research them once you"ve stockpiled a lot of items in the vault. You might be able to create magic enchanting and imbuing formulas later."
Yun Tu knew the kind of perk and traits of the Magic Imbuer profession had so he didn"t feel disappointed at all towards her failure, since the materials he had been collecting had not been enough to begin with. It could be said that he had expected this result so he didn"t blame her, and instead, gave her an interspatial ring.
"Big Brother, thank you! I will work hard!" Li Xin choked up and replied with a sob.
She had used up the valuable scroll Yun Tu gave her, and became a Magic Imbuer. But the fact that she couldn"t even make any contribution at all to the team, made her felt very uncomfortable psychologically, even though Yun Tu didn"t blame her.
After all the resources had been completely distributed, the whole team had begun to take shape of its embryonic form as the team"s combat strength also couldn"t be compared with their state before.
"Big Brother Yun Tu, take this Blood Crystal and use it!"
Qing Yi still had a Second Order Blood Crystal. Although they had paid painful sacrifices to get this thing, since everyone insisted for Yun Tu to take it, he didn"t refuse it.
More or less, a team must have one member with top-cla.s.s combat strength. Otherwise, if they had to face the Green Zombie or another powerful human character, it would be inevitable for casualties to happen if they faced them with only the advantage of numbers…
After Yun Tu swallowed this Second Order Blood Crystal, Yun Tu quickly saw his own basic stats enhanced once again.
Strength16Spirit16Agility16Vision16Hearing23Chemoreception16His hearing stat was unexpectedly the only parameter that reached 23 points; as for the other stats, they now respectively had also reached 16 points. After having completely absorbed the energy in this Second Order Blood Crystal, Yun Tu stood up and moved his body slightly as he could feel that each and every cell in his body was filled with power.