The World Cataclysm - Chapter 70: Cloth Shop

[You have reached level 8]

[You have earned 2 free points]

Near a medical faculty, Dave killed a mid-rank Giant and finally increased his level. After three weeks of wandering through the university and hunting zombies, he was able to visit every place on the campus and gather information about different locations of their university.

“Aaargh!”

Dave could already hear growlings of zombies that were rushing towards him. Without any side thoughts, he quickly grabbed Survival Coins lying near the Giant’s corpse and fled in the opposite direction from the roars.

“Get away from me. I don’t have time nor energy for small fries like you.”

Although he could easily deal with a bunch of zombies on his own, it was still dangerous to confront them in the open space. Killing them wasn’t worth the problems it could bring him since he would have been eventually surrounded by zombies if he hadn’t escaped right away.

No matter how strong he was, he would still be ripped by zombies to shreds if he got surrounded by them. So quickly sprinting away from them, Dave formed a mana barrier in the air and hopped onto it to jump over a thin, almost invisible thread of mana.

Landing on the ground, he killed a zombie sprinting towards him, dodged another one and fled into one of the alleys. Zombies chasing after him tripped over the thread and stumbled upon other zombies, blocking the way for others.

Noticing the congestion of zombies as he was running, Dave thought, “Tsk…Unfortunately, mana threads can’t cut zombies’ limbs, otherwise it would have been an excellent trap. At least, I know that there is no Devourer here, and I also levelled up.”

It would have been much better if his mana threads could cut them into pieces. He could have set threads all over the university and bait other zombies into them. Easy game and easy gain!

But his mana threads could only give small cuts to them…not to the point of slicing them to pieces. Of course, it would have been cool otherwise, but he should be satisfied with what he has rather than desiring it so badly. Small cuts would have worked on humans yet weren’t effective on zombies that were immune to pain.

Setting several threads would have also been a non-effective option since zombies running into trapped zombies with threads stuck in their flesh would have easily snapped them instead of getting cut. Better to set one thread on the leg level, so zombies would stumble upon the ones that tripped.

After 5 minutes, he was able to lose other zombies and get to a safe place where he could catch his breath. As he searched for clues for three weeks, Dave decided to change the time when he goes searching. Usually, he went outside in the afternoon but decided to change it to the morning. Perhaps, that way he could find them. Though he needed to change the time he trained normally.

‘Oh! My status window!? I decided to save my free points for the future yet it won’t harm him to check my stats…Status Window.’ Dave thought inwardly as the information window popped up right before his eyes.

[David Murckly

Level: 8

Survival coins: 1403

Class: None

Mana: 27/64

Strength: 21 (+1)

Agility: 19 (+1)

Stamina: 17

Intelligence: 11

Spirit: 7 (+1)

Free points: 2

Innate ability: Regression

Skills: Elementary Cooking (LVL 2), Gaming (LVL 8), Mathematics (LVL 7), Leadership (LVL 2), Meditation (LVL 3), Flash Step (LVL 1), Mana Application (LVL 4), Mana Threads (LVL 4), Mana Barrier (LVL 2), Mana Enhancement (LVL 2), Reinforced Breathing (LVL 2), Swordsmanship (LVL 5), Battle Focus (LVL 4), Mana Sensing (LVL 2)]

‘Cool! I gathered quite a lot of Survival Coins in three weeks. My strength and agility are also rising once a week, while my stamina increases by a point in 4-5 days. My training is already bringing me visible results!’ Dave thought. If he ignored the lack of results in his search for Devourer and future tyrant, he was quite satisfied with the progress he made in the past three weeks.

Just in ten days after the start of everything, he was able to collect approximately 290 coins, considering that it was shared between others by whom it was killed. However, in three weeks, as he was hunting alone and killed zombies on the way, he got another 1100 coins on top of that.

Moreover, he was able to significantly increase his stats with his special training. Just in three weeks he started, he was able to get additional 12 points in total: 6 points of stamina, 3 points of strength and 3 points of agility. Although it would get slower as it goes higher, it was already amazing that he could increase his stats in such a short time.

However, the rate at which his stamina increased was already slowing down. He suspected that its rate would be the same as his strength’s and agility’s when it reaches them. The best aspect of his training was that it was adaptable to his stamina. As strength and agility go higher, stamina would also be dragged until it reaches their level.

On average, the rate at which his stats rose was a point in a week for strength, agility and stamina when it reaches the former ones. However, as they would go higher, a week will turn into a month and a month would turn into several of them. At some point in time, he would need a whole year to raise his stats by even a point. So it was better to save up free points and stockpile them, using them when they were truly needed.

On top of everything, he raised his level by killing zombies every day for three weeks as he tracked down most of the mid-rank zombies that he could find. Levelling up was especially hard when he was much stronger than zombies surrounding him.

But perhaps, slow evolution process of zombies wasn’t so bad since he could build up his stats while he could and the situation in the university would be much more peaceful. That way, much more people would survive and they could take their time to kill all zombies in the university.

However, on the downside, he didn’t obtain any Treasure Chest in those three weeks. Well, it was understandable since he easily dealt with mid-rank zombies, so it was smooth sailing in those three weeks.

‘Ehh…Last place to check before returning to the dormitory.’ Dave sighed inwardly as he moved to the last location he needed to check for today. Every week he was taking turns checking those since there were lots of locations where Devourer and Richard were seen. As a result, he tried to cover all of the places in a week.

…

After some time, Dave reached the last location he needed to check on. Currently, he was located in one of the entertainment areas where most of the shops and entertainment facilities could be found like the one where the cafeteria was located.

It was a nice place with lots of amenities like cloth shops, cafes, and facilities for entertainment purposes. However, as popular as it was before, it had plenty of zombies wandering from one place to another, making it not the best place to find shelter.

Observing everything from up above, Dave scanned through the area and noticed a small group of people slowly advancing through a small alley. They were extremely cautious as they held metal pipes in their hands, seemingly ordinary ones, not a weapon from the Treasure Chests.

Dave wouldn’t have paid them any attention if he hadn’t noticed that their bags were seemingly empty, and they were coming from the other side of the area. ‘Interesting…What they are searching for? They don’t seem to come here to test their luck…’

He found something odd in them. They didn’t seem to come here to obtain food or anything else, on the contrary, considering that they were whispering with each other all the time and pointing their fingers to different buildings, he guessed that they were searching for something in particular.

And he was right at that point!

After some time, they silently walked to one of the cloth shops, trying not to catch the attention of other zombies, as they silently walked into the shop. Finding it odd, Dave thought, ‘It didn’t seem that they were completely sure that they chose the right place, more like they pinpointed it.’

He decided to check on them with Mana Sensing and if there was nothing interesting in them, he planned to leave them alone. So he jumped out of the window from where he was observing everything and used mana barriers as platforms to get on the roof of the cloth shop.

Landing on the rooftop, Dave concentrated his senses on the space below him and sensed several people inside the cloth shop. On top of three people that just entered, there was another batch of people inside it, and it didn’t seem that the trio was welcomed there. ‘Interesting…Are they fighting with each other?’