Chapter 31

As they were talking, Li Wanshan and the other four people instantly appeared in front of Cheng Yang. Judging from their expressions, they had also gained quite a lot. Now, Li Wanshan was already holding an ordinary iron sword that increased his attack power, and he was also wearing a leather armor.

Cheng Yang immediately told Li Wanshan about his plans, and Li Wanshan was naturally extremely grateful. Unlike Yu Kai and the others, Cheng Yang's trust in him over just a few days truly moved him.

Afterward, Cheng Yang checked his Spirit Energy and found it had already reached over 1,600. Originally, after a night of cultivation, his Spirit Energy had been reduced to less than 1,200 points. However, passing the difficult level dungeon and the taxes collected from the territory over this period had increased his Spirit Energy to over 1,600 points.

Cheng Yang then took out 1,000 points and traded them to Niu Bing. There was no other choice, as among the four of them, only Niu Bing had not yet started cultivation.

After making the arrangements, Cheng Yang opened the five职业 statues and selected the attributes to upgrade. This morning, the 100 people who changed their professions had depleted all the territory's Spirit Energy. However, after Cheng Yang and the others swept through the dungeon, the territory's Spirit Energy had increased to 1,300 points, after deducting the nearly 70 points of taxes Cheng Yang collected and the salaries paid to Yu Kai and the others.

Cheng Yang immediately upgraded the 2nd-level Magic Power of each statue. After the upgrade was complete, everyone would receive an 8% Magic Power boost. In the early stages, Magic Power was the main factor limiting the sustained combat ability of each profession. Especially since Luofeng Village had not yet built a potion room.

However, upgrading the 2nd-level attributes of the profession statues required 10 hours. By the time the upgrade was complete, it would be evening. Moreover, just this round of upgrades consumed 900 points of Spirit Energy, partly because the Priest statue was still upgrading its 1st-level attribute, which only required 100 points of Spirit Energy.

After handling this matter, Cheng Yang looked at the sky; it was almost 10 o'clock. At this time, Niu Bing had already entered a civilian house to cultivate, leaving Yu Kai and the others waiting for Cheng Yang's instructions.

"Lord, do you think we have the strength to go to Xiangcheng City now?" Li Wanshan hesitated for a moment and then asked.

Cheng Yang understood Li Wanshan's thoughts, pondered for a moment, and said, "If we spare no effort, we might be able to break into Xiangcheng City, but whether we can find your families is uncertain. I think this: today, you should all go to Huimin Town to collect wood. If we can get enough materials to build a potion room, we will gain the right to buy potions. With potion supplements, we should be able to smoothly go to Xiangcheng City. Of course, this is just my guess. I will go to Xiangcheng City alone to investigate the situation and see what happens."

Li Wanshan nodded. He could not find any reason to refuse Cheng Yang's suggestion. He was very clear that he had no right to put the entire territory at risk for his personal interests.

Afterward, Cheng Yang handed the pair of Light Boots he had just obtained to Liu Hao, who was overjoyed. With this item, his speed advantage would be further enhanced.

Now, the Blood Church's normal difficulty level still had one entry opportunity, but Cheng Yang did not plan to let anyone enter. After all, those who had entered the dungeon had already used up their chances for today. Others who had not been there could not guarantee their safety, and theory was one thing, but without practical experience, it was hard to put people at ease.

According to Cheng Yang's arrangements, Yu Kai, Niu Bing, and Cheng Yang's three teams would join forces to go to Huimin Town, with the main goal of rescuing people and the secondary goal of collecting wood. Since Cheng Yang was going to act alone, his team would be led by Zhao Chuan. Niu Bing was still cultivating in a civilian house, so his team would temporarily stay in the base to guard it. They would only act when Niu Bing finished cultivating and transferred his Spirit Energy to the next person.

As for Liu Hao and Li Wanshan's teams, they would go in other directions within the territory to find and eliminate suitable monster clusters. This was a necessary task because these monster clusters would merge with each other over time. Without external intervention, some stronger monster clusters would grow like a snowball, eventually becoming a massive threat.

Cheng Yang clearly remembered that in his previous life, a base near the original forest had not been able to clear the monster clusters in the forest in the early stages. After half a year of the apocalypse, the base was completely overwhelmed by millions of monsters. The most troublesome part was that there was a monster with peak 2nd-level strength in the cluster, which was the main reason for the base's destruction.

Before Cheng Yang was reborn, humans still did not understand the evolution pattern of these mutated beasts. However, they did understand a few things: these monsters, like humans, were very weak when they first appeared in the world. As time passed, they would become stronger, and the speed was not slow. Additionally, any cluster of more than 20 mutated beasts would have a mid-1st-level leader. When the cluster grew to a certain size, more advanced mutated beasts would inevitably appear. People did not know whether the appearance of advanced mutated beasts was due to the cluster's growth or whether the appearance of advanced mutated beasts caused the cluster to grow.

However, regardless of the reason, Cheng Yang did not want super-large monster clusters to appear around his base, as that would be a huge threat to the territory.

After Liu Hao and the others left one after another, Cheng Yang also went out through the north gate.

After walking about a kilometer, Cheng Yang did not see any monsters, which was quite normal because this area already belonged to Luofeng Village's territory, so no monsters would spawn here.

What was even stranger was that the trees in this area had disappeared overnight, as if they had never been there, leaving only grass less than half a meter high.

As he continued deeper, Cheng Yang's journey was no longer so easy.

It was only the fourth day of the apocalypse, but the trees had already started to spread to the middle of the road, and many had grown to four or five meters tall. Walking inside, one could not see the distant situation clearly.

Fortunately, Cheng Yang's hearing was much stronger now, and any movement within 40 to 50 meters could not escape his ears.

On the way, Cheng Yang rarely encountered lone monsters, which did not surprise him. As time passed, the random spawning of monsters would gradually disappear. People did not know why the gods had such an arrangement, but most people speculated that the purpose might be to give unconverted survivors a chance to catch their breath and to avoid giving Spirit Energy to those who had already converted. After all, killing a lone mutated beast was too easy.

Of course, the number of mutated beasts that spawned had not decreased; the additional ones mostly appeared directly in monster clusters.

For example, Cheng Yang discovered a monster cluster ahead, and its size was already no less than 50.

This time, Cheng Yang's purpose was only to scout, and killing 50 mutated beasts would be quite troublesome for him. He would rather face ten clusters of 20 or fewer mutated beasts than encounter a cluster of 50.

However, when Cheng Yang climbed a tree and saw something placed on the ground in the center of the monster cluster, he did not want to leave.

PS: The extra chapter today will also be posted at midnight! The increase in recommendations is not very encouraging, and the increase in collections is also not very strong. Brothers, we are still 60 collections short. Can we complete it by tomorrow morning?