Arc 1 - Chapter 8
After Souma left, things started to feel very tiresome before I was too busy to EVEN care about it anymore.
Without Souma here to help me with the task from the Systems, I have to use 100% of my concentration again and continue to train before Protector could fully be awakened. Thus, I couldn't find the time to think about tiresome things anymore.
Since I don't want Grandpa to be affected by me because of our proximity, I'd chosen to train myself, the guards, and Akira on the weekend while Grandpa is resting.
Oh, I also hired a mother and child pair to look after Grandpa while we were out training. The mother was a good mother with a set of morals and her seven years old child. She doesn't have a husband since her husband died long before all this shit happened. And thus, she didn't worry about her husband during times like this. Only her son, who was only seven years old. Her name was Mouri Sayuri, and her son was Mouri Katsuki. Her husband, Mouri Kousuke, died before she noticed she was pregnant with her son Katsuki; thus, the boy had never met his father. As a result, he was pretty protective of his mom, too.
We let them live here with us, but their rooms were on the third floor. To be able to be somewhat of use to my grandpa, I had the guards train the boy along with Totsuki Kanae in their abilities. For Totsuki Kanae, that would be his Earth Ability; for Mouri Katsuki, that would be his Wind Ability. A Mutated Wind ability that was able to condense into a knife shape at the mere Level of 1. But due to its mutated property, Mouri Katsuki will need much more time and effort to train and control his ability properly.
Normally, we wouldn't help train these kids since they aren't our people. But, my grandpa took a liking to the Totsuki brothers and the Mouri brat. Thus he gives them the job of guarding him while I am not there. As a result, the two brats have to be trained first. Not that Grandpa needed the guards, really, since his much stronger than all of his guards combined and times that by a couple of hundred times, but it was more for image purposes than anything else.
I took Kanae, the guards, and Katsuki to train weekly inside the dungeon that was found a while ago. The one that is located about 45 minutes East of here. That dungeon was now called Sasamori Dungeon. Naming after the two abilities user that found it.
Dungeons were now very, very commonly known now, and thus their existence had been something that everyone wanted to make sure that are discovered as fast as possible. Because undiscovered dungeon means a monster's stampede, resulting in a large increase of ND-Zombies. And ND-Zombies are the #1 Enemies of all Mankind. If humans still wanted to continue to live onward, then Dungeons must be Discovered as fast and steadily as possible until all Dungeons are known.
That dungeon that the two abilities user found was an underground dungeon. You will find monsters like cave moles, slimes, insects, Undead(Not the zombie virus kind but the magical kind), golems, bats, such monsters like Cave Wolves, Dark Rats, and even rarer monsters like Magacockroaches, MegaSpiders, and Giant Centipedes. As a result, food, clothes, and necessities become very common in Aizubange Safe Base. This made it easier for normal civilian and non-ability users to survive. But it also speaks of how dangerous this world was becoming.
Sasamori Dungeon became the largest dungeon to exist near the Aizubange Safe base. And thus, Aizubange Safe Base once again has to expand its lands. Therefore, Aizubange Safe Base has expanded to include Aizuwakamatsu, Kitakata, Yugawa, Yanaizu, Aizumisato, and Nishiaizu under Aizubange Safe Base's territory. This resulted in a large increase of dungeons being discovered and more than 50 Outpost-Town being made. Therefore, many more people migrated to this place from the North, South, East, and West of Japan.
The Abilities users of Aizubange Safe Base have already started to conquer the dungeons that are nearby and within Fukushima prefecture. At least, the On-Ground Dungeons ones. As for the Mid-Air Dungeons, those dungeons are being cleared by me as a training ground for both myself and for the others that had come here with my grandpa.
Aside from the Midair Dungeons, I am also starting to suspect that Underground Dungeons will also become issues that will need a lot of people to investigate and discover. Otherwise, shit will hit the fan sooner rather than later, and by then, that dream(nightmare) that I had will become a reality. But this problem can be put on hold for now. I don’t have to worry about this problem at this moment in time.
What I should be worried about are Protector and my own strengths. Or lack of strength, for that matter.
It's just that... Due to the Dungeon's way of dropping currency, now a large quantity of Yuan is accumulated inside my Inventory, and yet I can't use it. After all, the Japanese currency is Yen. Not Yuan and or RMB. Not only that, Japan hasn't got well enough to trade with China, which made Yuan worthless at this current age and time. Thus, Yuan would have to be changed to Yen sooner rather than later. After all, this current stage of the apocalypse made international trading pretty much non-existence.
In fact, trading within its own country was still a huge problem.
There's no way that Japan, let alone a large country like China, can stabilize the economy yet at this current time for international trade.
It would have taken another 15 or more years for the economy to be stable for Yuan or any other currency to have its worth back. By then, I hope that ND-Zombies’ cures would have been found or at least have society back on somewhat stable ground.
Until then, all I can do is make sure that my people continue to train and get stronger.
Of course, I didn't directly start training my people right away. Totsuki Kanae was only seven years old this year, after all.
But, I can have Kanae and Katsuki started by first training their balance, stamina, and reflexes. These two brats are still brats, so they should condition their body first for only two months; since those two have Abilities, so their training speed and efficiency were not something that normal humans could do. Just two months was enough to set their body condition right.
While they were training their body to condition themselves, the guards were with me during the weekend to clear out the dungeons nearby that didn't get discovered by other Ability users as of yet.
As a result, as more time went by, and by the time the Dungeons stabilized enough, the walls surrounding Aizubange Safe Base expanded enough to add more than 200 additional kilometers of space to the Safe Base for Farming Purposes. By Farming, I mean Dungeon farming, okay?
The new dungeon I had found while taking the kids to train to kill Non-Dungeon-Zombies(ND-Zombies) was a very good Resource Dungeon for Japan. This dungeon was a ranked C- Dungeon with many resources that normal survivors could help gather.
By this time, winter was already here, even though it was only late September. And thus, that dungeon was a must for the people of Japan since the Tsuchida Clan had now established routes to transport goods from one Safe base to another somewhat safely.
Food, clean water, firewood, clothes, armor, weapons, and ammunition. Everything that humans need can be found in this dungeon. And since I was the one that found it, the tax of Crystal that went to me daily was enough to make me a billionaire in this new world in less than a month if I wasn't one already.
Of course, I converted the majority of those Crystal into Zombie Coins and other currency that the System uses instead of using them myself. I did, however, save only enough Crystal for Grandpa, the guards, Katsuki, and the Totsuki brothers, and enough for trading for when I go to China to build a somewhat safe base location for my cousin there. The rest were all converted into currencies that the systems use.
And when would I be going to China? In a couple of days. Before the snow started to fall.
After Souma left, about a few days later, I contacted Qian Wei and Qian Xiu. They didn't want to leave China since their children didn't speak Japanese. Thus, I will be going there. Yes. I know Mandarin enough to speak and write it fluently.
It was barely half a year into the Apocalypse, and with the Dungeon being stable now, I figured it was the best time for me to head to Chūgoku(China).
Level 10 Zombies are still rare in Japan since I have been taking the guards to clear a lot of undiscovered dungeons. And I was also occasionally vanishing by myself to clear them when it was high-level dungeons. As such, monster stampedes didn't often happen enough, and the number of zombies in Japan was relatively safe and manageable with the Abilities users that Japan has today. Not to mention, that person who created those high-tech mechanical objects was here, too. Of course, I can't forget about my own Clan. They will take care of Japan while I play in Chūgoku.
So, today will be the last day of this month that I will be training Kanae and Katsuki. Since I cannot take them with me to Chūgoku, I will be taking two of Father's subordinates who have a family member that guards Cousin Qian Wei and Cousin Qian Xiu there.
Those two guards were called Amano Hazama and Tsukushima Sena.
Anyway, both of them will be coming with me, but they won't be coming back with me to Japan since they will be living there with their family members. And I will be going back to Father's base to pick them up on my way to China.
But before that, I need to get out of this dungeon first.
Where am I? I am currently inside a Mid-air Dungeon.
I had just taken the two kids back to Aizubange Safe Base and was thinking of going for a drive because the smell from the previous zombie tide was still too much for me.
What previous zombie tide? The zombie tide occurred three days ago due to a few dungeon breakouts from the North. This had happened two weeks after Souma had left already. By North, I meant from Yamagata prefecture. That place... has completely been overrun by monsters that had turned into Zombies and had joined the ND Zombies. As such, I accidentally stepped into this midair dungeon when I was out driving for fresh air.
I don't have to worry about the north since the Abilities users that Tsuchida Minato leads have already gone up north to clean them up. And on their way, they're also re-establishing the Train lines to the North.
None of the dungeons from Yamagata have a higher rank than a C or above, so it will be fine even if I don’t go with them.
As for this dungeon that I am currently in, it was not a problem.
I should clear them out in a couple of minutes.
The Dungeon's Boss was not that strong anyway. It was just a Werewolf that had 3 stars to its name.
Hmm? What's that? Stars? Oh, they show how strong a boss is. 1 Star is the weakest. 12-Stars are the Strongest. At my current level, considering all of my abilities together, I might already be a 9-Stars Abilities user or higher: the one and only one to have existed as of yet, anyway.
Hmmm? The strongest in Japan? Not including me and my family, that would be Yamamoto Chikusa. Next up would be Tsuchida Minato. As this was what the public would know, that is.
Privately, and not including me or my family members, the strongest would be Tsunayoshi, followed by Hibari Kyoya and the people surrounding Tsunayoshi. And yes, that's only here in Japan. Team strength base-wise, Tsunayoshi's team's ranked second here in Japan. The first...
As for who was really the strongest being in this world, that does not include my family members and me; that would be a certain Earthling going by Kawahira. That person... was very similar to Souma but not. They both had lived for a long time. They both take their jobs and responsibilities seriously. And they both are natural at their nature’s disposition. Too natural, in fact.
With Kawahira, being the Great Mist that he was, I have known that it would have been easier for him if someone from my Family actually looked after the Three Sets of Artifacts, but... the thing is... My family’s bloodline is very, really incompatible with those artifacts. Enough to the point that if we touch those artifacts or even come near them, it would cause a huge disaster to happen. And thus, for centuries, my family had been one of the four families that Kawahira actually does not touch, even at the point of death or the end of this world.
As for how this Apocalypse happened with Kawahira being Here and all... that would be because even Kawahira cannot go against Higher Beings and the natural cycle of a world’s evolutionary phrases.
Even if this Apocalypse was started by a Man-Made Virus that had violently mutated, it doesn’t mean that this Apocalypse wasn’t one of the ways that this world has had to go through as one of the evolutionary phrases. Beside... At the back of my mind, I have this odd feeling that said something about this Apocalypse was possible only because the World wanted Kawahira to rest for a couple of hundred years. Otherwise, this Apocalypse won't happen, no matter how much shit has hit the fans. After all, Kawahira is and still is a very Great Mist.
Anyway, less talking, more killing monsters.
Two minutes later, I proceeded to dismantle the corpse of the Werewolves' Boss. It took about half an hour since this boss was more than 20 meters tall and weighed more than even an adult blue whale. All because of its bones and tendons. Those weighed very heavily and were the primary materials used to make siege weapons. Well, siege weapons that would be used against hordes of zombies. Like multi-shot ballista, multi-shot crossbows, and such. Thus, his bones and tendons weren't weighted normally by any means.
Anyway, the meats of this Werewolf Boss were very, very good. It was extremely dense but also extremely soft and tender once cooked. It also has a huge amount of energy within it due to how pure, strong, and high-level it is.
Yes, this werewolf's carcass itself was a rare magical item: the pelt, teeth, claws, bones, tendons, blood, everything. Even stomach acid was a type of rare magical ingredient used to make a kind of poison and anti-poison antidote. So, I extracted and took everything from the corpse.
Everything.
After that, I left this dungeon and returned home to let Grandpa know that I would be leaving to pick up Amano and Tsukushima.
Grandpa had prepared presents for Qian Wei and Qian Xiu, too, whom he hadn't seen in years. So, I took those presents with me.
Inside Stigma, I drove directly back to Father's base.
My old home.
And like before, I keep getting dragged into Mid-Air Dungeons and clearing it out with the speed of a hurricane going over the limit. After all, I didn't go using the same route that I had already cleared but rather another route.
The last Mid-air dungeon I hit was a dungeon with a lot of ... fruit and vegetable plants-looking monsters. Carrots, Onions, Potato, Celery, Broccoli, Cabbages, Turnips, Etc., Etc., Etc. You name it, and there is a horde of its monster version inside this dungeon.
My sense of smell... Yeah. I throw up a couple of times. Cries enough times because of the onions. Nearly fainted a couple of times because of the herbal spices, and it felt like smashing this dungeon to bits because of the spicy scents from the chili peppers-like mobs. Nonetheless, I didn't destroy this dungeon's core and took it back with me for my mother. After all, she loved to cook. And this dungeon provides free materials and ingredients for her. Thus, I took it back with me as a gift for my mother.
After that, I picked up Amano and Tsukushima as we left Japan.
We're traveling by air with Stigma once we hit the ocean. Both Amano and Tsukushima know me well enough that I don't talk much. If at all. And thus, they, too, were very quiet inside Stigma. The only times that they talked were when we were dragged into Mid-Air Dungeons. And we hit Mid-Air Dungeons a lot. Much to their surprise and shock. Although, they also got used to the frequency as fast as they could, too.
Most of the Mid-Air Dungeons that we hit when we were traveling from Japan to China were all Water-Based. So, you can imagine what sorts of loot we got from clearing those dungeons. From now on, seafood was never going to be a problem that Amano and Tsukushima would ever miss.
I give both Amano and Tsukushima each a Space necklace that won't appear on them after wearing it. And they both used the Space Necklace to store their loot from these dungeons.
By the time we made it to Chūgoku, we had already cleared out more than 30 Mid-Air dungeons, and a month had already passed by.
I couldn't be happier with that when I think of what would have happened if those dungeons overflowed into the ocean. After all, we cleared out more than 30 dungeons while out in the ocean, but that doesn't mean there aren't other dungeons out there—especially underwater ones.
30+ dungeons don't mean shit when there are still more than 500+ dungeons in the ocean!
Just between Japan, Korea, and China, there are still more than 500+ such dungeons! And you wanted me to be happy with only clearing out 30+ dungeons?! Nope! Not happening.
Anyway, once we hit China, the Mid-air Dungeons that we hit were cleared out by Amano and Tsukushima while I went inside my Farming Space and took care of my Farms.
I have been going inside the Space Farm once every week, but... I hit a level where once every week isn't enough anymore. I have to go inside my Space Farm every day now.
The fruit orchards I planted have now grown so tall and large that they might as well be World Trees and not Fruit Trees. This caused me to look like an ant every time I had to go inside to harvest the fruits from those trees. My size, in comparison to these trees, truly made me look like an ant.
My Vegetable Gardens all grew so much that each plant was now easily 50 times larger and denser than before. I don't know what to do with these Vegetables aside from turning them into dried, pickled, and preserved vegetables.
But doing so will erase the freshness of the vegetables. So, I am very reluctant to do so.
Nonetheless, I don't have much of a choice. Inside my Inventory, there are already more than 50,000 Large Stacks of all sorts of fresh vegetables. EACH. Per kind.
And each large stack of Vegetables can be stacked up to [99,999] items per large stack. So, more than 500 million items of all sorts of vegetables, fruits, and greens are inside my Inventory.
Sighhhhhhh... What am I supposed to do with all these Vegetables? They're not normal vegetables I can sell or give out whenever I want. If these vegetables got out, the world would boil over.
After all...
[Orange Gem Carrot]
- Eating raw gives +3 Mana Permanently. Cannot eat more than 5 Orange Gem Carrots per month.
Cooking the Carrots with the right skills will give up to +20% Mana Regeneration/Spiritual Qi Regeneration for seven days duration. Cannot eat more than three times per month for people under Level 7. People who are above Level 7 can eat a dish with this vegetable 14 times per month.
[Sky Cloud Cabbage]
- Eating raw gives +3 Mana Permanently. Cannot eat more than 5 Sky Cloud Cabbage per month.
Cooking the cabbage with the right skills will give up to +20% Physical Strength Regeneration for seven days duration. Cannot eat more than three times per month for people under Level 7. People who are above Level 7 can eat a dish with this vegetable 14 times per month.
[Moon Dew Lettuce]
- Eating raw gives +3 Mana Permanently. Cannot eat more than 5 Moon Dew Lettuce steam per month.
Cooking the lettuce with the right skills will give up to +23% Sleep Resistance against magical attacks for seven days duration. Cannot eat more than three times per month for people under Level 7. People who are above Level 7 can eat a dish with this vegetable 14 times per month.
... Yeah. That. Right now, I'm level 9 all across, except my Space ability is at level 10.
If these vegetables made it out to the world... chaos would be the last of my worries. After all, these are only the low levels of vegetables. The higher level vegetables give out from around +10 to +25 different and various other statuses permanently. And those can never be allowed out until it is the right time.
Sighhhhh. Let's harvest these vegetables and replant them.
After I did that, I also harvested the fruit trees.
Sighhhhh... After this harvest, another 30 more Large Stacks of various fruits for each kind and 45 more Large Stacks of vegetables of various kinds were added to my Inventory.
What am I going to do with all these things inside my Inventory?!
... Hmmm. My intuition tells me to hold on to those for future usage, but... why? Why can't I sell these?
... my mind keeps going into weird and odd places when I think of the reasons why my intuition told me to hold on to these vegetables.
Like... world-changing events that are even more shitty than an apocalypse happening and a magical cataclysm happening right afterward with no rest for anyone.
... What is worse than a zombie apocalypse and a magical cataclysm happening one right after the other?
... The Ice Age plus Radiation mutation?
No-no-no-no-no-no. Bad brain! Don't think of bad things right now!
Don't jinx humanity!
Winter is coming, too!
After harvesting and replanting the vegetables, I went to the Workshop and continued to see if I could increase the spatial compression expansion inside the Space Bags that I made. So far, I have successfully made my Space Bags with dimensions of 49 meters by 49 meters by 49 cubic meters, which can have items stacked up to 100 for each stack of identical items. I wanted to see if I could increase that limited quantity of stack numbers up higher.
At my current Space System Ability levels, I can make any Space Items up to the cubic meter size of 9^9(387,420,489 cubic meters) since my understanding and comprehension of my Space Ability was only at level 9, not at level 10.
But... that's the thing.
Creating devices or objects for magical items such as Space Bags, Space rings, or even Space necklaces was a pain in the ass since you have to be very, extremely careful. One mistake and you could tear apart your space in multiple ways. After all, you aren't only compression matter into a tiny space. You are also compressing energy with matter into a tiny space that expands, secures and binds itself into another Space. This was a very dangerous combination.
So dangerous that if I made one tiny mistake in the formula, construction, and formation, I could destroy this whole planet. That's why I only create those Space Devices when I am inside one of the Systems' internal spaces.
This was why the Space Necklaces that I gave Amano and Tsukushima were only a 5m*5m*5m spatial Subspace necklace. The stack limitation for those two necklaces was only capable of stacking a limited amount of 25 items per stack and only a limited amount of 50 Inventory Slots. But that's already enough for the two of them to store away enough items and materials to last them at least for two to three years easily.
Ah... when I said stack of items, I mean that items that were identical get compressed into a stack so that it doesn't use a lot of space inside the Space Devices. After all, the Space Device wasn't the same as my Inventory, where there's a limitless amount of space slot for things. So, by using Compression Talisman and technology, the amount of space inside the Space Device that you save was very important.
For example, a small plastic bag can only hold on to 3 apples at maximum, even if you stretch the bags to the limit without breaking them. However, using Talisman Inscription and Magical Technology, the apple was compressed into only 1/100th of what it originally was. This means that the plastic bag could hold up to 300 apples before it breaks.
Once the items are taken out of the Space device, they return to their original size.
An understanding of spatial space, Time, Energy, and a bunch of other information was needed. My current comprehension of that information and concepts was only at level 9. But even at level 9, the limitation for the Stack Accumulation Compression inscription that I know of and understand about could make it possible for me to create the Great Stack Compression Talisman, which made the Stacking limitation of my current Stacking Compression goes from [99,999] items per stack to [500,000] items per stack.
From Large Stack to Greater Stack. This was a huge limitation to overcome, and I had done it just fine. However, for the next grade, it wasn't that easy to do.
The next upgrade from the Greater Stack would be the Elders Stack, which goes from [500,000] items per stack to [1,000,000] items per stack after that would be Venerated Saint Stack, which goes from [1,000,000] items per stack to [5,000,000] items per stack. Above that would be the Unlimited Stacking, which I admitted that I really want to create but will never be able to create due to the requirements.
Anyway, moving on.
And why am I in my workshop doing talisman inscription instead of helping Amano and Tsukushima with the dungeons?
Well... Amano and Tsukushima had actually actively asked me not to actively clear the dungeon with them and let them train themselves by themselves. After all, they wanted to get stronger before they reached their family member. So, I let them clear the dungeons that were under-ranked A. This way, they got to train, collect materials and resources, and at the same time, got to learn and train more new skills.
That's right. Their payment for coming with me was for them to learn three additional skills that would help them with their combat skills and efficiency.
Qi Meditation, Body Enhancement, and Heal Recovery. These three skills are gained through clearing dungeons. And to train them, they need to be trained within dungeons until they reach at least level 6 in those skills. Otherwise, they cannot be used outside of Dungeons since they don't have a system of their own.
As for their current level with those three skills, it is at level 5 right now. Peak level 5. They just need a couple more hours of training, and they should reach level 6. After that, they can start using their new skills outside of the Dungeons without any problem. Yep, to level up one level for each of those skills and abilities, they must clear one dungeon each. This meant that so far, they had already cleared 25 Dungeons by themselves without my help. Today was the 26th dungeon that they both were currently in the progress of clearing.
After I finished half of the inscription for the Greater Stacking Inscription, I left the Workshop and went back out. I went in from Stigma so I could choose to come out directly into Stigma.
Since we're officially in China right now, we need to be more careful because the dungeons and ND zombies in China are no joke. Due to China's larger population, the dungeons of china were also not small at all.
China's large population has caused the evolutionary stages of ND Zombies to be slightly faster than in Japan. And thus, there are a lot of level 10 zombies here. In fact, Level 10 Zombies are the most common zombies now in China. Of course, it is still rare to find level 8 Zombies, but that doesn't mean it wasn't here. I am so glad that I agreed to come!
Fighting Level 10 Zombies would be great for warning up if I wanted to train my abilities.
And according to Father, China has a couple of tens of undiscovered ranked S dungeons that have Dragons living in them. And thus, these dungeons were the perfect place for me to train to the next level.
Especially if I wanted to fight against enemies that are much higher level than I am.
4 hours later, and after accidentally hitting more than 3 Mid-air dungeons, we finally got to the small safe base that my cousin lived in. We didn't meet them directly in front of the gate to that small base but rather a couple of miles away. On a former school's soccer field. I parked Stigma and came out with Tsukushima and Amano.
Qian Wei and Qian Xiu were already outside on the field. waiting for me with their family members and Tsukushima and Amano family members.
Their wife was not out with them, but their children were all there... well, except for the one that had died.
And... hmm? What's with this odd sensation in the air? Did something happen?
What happened to Zhang Baili? The lover of both Qian Wei and Qian Xiu.
I had met these two guys before... But we're not that closed.
Not because we don't get along well, but rather because the two Qian Brothers are both very... possessive of those that they let inside their hearts.
And since they knew that I had Souma already and won't let them into my heart, they divided a line that made it impossible for us to be a close family member. After all, whenever one of our Clan members chooses to take the surname Qian, it means that their loved ones are also another Qian. This has been a thing in our Clan for much longer than even the first System.
My great-granduncles were also from the Qian side. But they didn't go to China and instead went to Korea. Before they died, they came back to Japan and were buried in the family's graveyard on the side of the Qian. As a result, they will keep getting reincarnated back into our clan.
After all, these two brothers... Well... Whatever. They are what they are. Love is Love. No matter how amoral it seems at times for people of this age.
Otherwise, do you think I would be able to accept Souma? Who was not even Human?
Well, moving on.
Qian Wei was the older one, but he was the one that liked to move things in the background and let his younger brother Qian Xiu take care of things in the front.
But this time, both of them stepped up to welcome me. "Qiming-dage," They called. I heard it as using the characters for Enlightenment, but... are they seriously calling me that? The last time that we met, these two brothers were already 8 years old, and I was only 5 years old then. And they had called me "Child of Morning". Not Enlightenment. And... aren't they older than me? Why are they calling me older brother?
I looked at them with confused faces.
Qian Xiu chuckled slightly before coughing into his fist, "Okay, okay, we'll stop playing. A'Chen, how have you been?" He asked, using the character for morning, dawn, and daybreak this time. I nodded to the two brothers as I took out the Space Bags that Father had given me to give to the two brothers. And then, I also gave them the gifts that Grandpa wanted to give them.
Qian Wei and Qian Xiu both accepted their gifts with gratitude and small smiles on their lips. Then, I looked at the children...
There were four sons and three daughters originally, but now... There are only three sons and three daughters.
The daughters all took their mother's surnames with their father's name as their first initial name. Zhang Weiren, Zhang Xiuli, and Zhang Xiufei were the girls' names.
The sons are Qian Bingrong, Qian Bingfei, Qian Yingnan, and the youngest who passed away, Qian Yancheng.
*Bingrong was the oldest son, followed by Qian Bingfei, Zhang Weiren, Zhang Xiuli, Qian Yingnan, Zhang Xiufei, and Qian Yancheng.
After Yancheng was killed, Zhang Xiufei turned back to being their Three-Names-Family's youngest child.
This year, Xiufei was already 12 years old. And so, she had already learned how to grieve and mourn her younger brother's death.
I took out six engraved talismans, jade-bead bracelets, and signals for each of the children to come to me.
The first and oldest, Qian Bingrong, was the first to come to me with a nervous and somewhat fearful look on his face. I didn't care for his nervous look and just chose one of the bracelets for him. Qian Bingrong's bracelet was slightly blue with alternative green jade beads. On the beads were his names and birthdays.
After Bingrong was the rest of his siblings.
After giving Zhang Xiufei her bracelet, I nodded and turned toward the two brothers.
"Blood," Once you're safely home, let out three drops of your blood into the beads lines that had engraved of your date of birth on them. I said to them.
I still didn't talk much, so Qian Wei and Qian Xiu had to translate what I was saying to their sons and daughters.
The kids all nodded in understanding, but there was confusion and caution in their eyes.
After that, I didn't care about them as I asked my two cousins about their situation.
Zhang Baili was now in a self-reduce coma due to guilt.
It turns out that the cause of their youngest child's death was this woman. She had unknowingly killed an unborn child two years ago. And that person remembers her.
Zhang Baili has a younger cousin from her mother's side, Han Mengmeng. Han Mengmeng was three years younger than Zhang Baili, but she was far smarter, wiser, and much more low-key.
Han Mengmeng and her three-year-old fiancee had just gotten married when her husband got into a car accident and passed away. This happened four years before the apocalypse happened. And during that time, Han Mengmeng was already pregnant for three months.
When Han Mengmeng was four months pregnant, Zhang Baili thought that her cousin had eaten herself fat due to grieves and sent her some medicines... that accidentally killed her baby. When Han Mengmeng noticed that her stomach pains weren't normal, it was far too late to save her baby. The baby was her beloved's last treasure to her.
If this was all, then Han Mengmeng might forgive Zhan Baili since she didn't know and it was truly an accident. But... when the zombie apocalypse happened, Han Mengmeng's new abilities awakened Mind Reading and a rare power that was able to see the past.
Turns out... Her beloved husband liked Zhan Baili and had chosen to stay with her because he wanted to see Zhan Baili. But... 2 years into their engagement, that man fall in love with Han Mengmeng instead and completely let go of his feeling for Zhan Baili.
So, he was happy to marry Han Mengmeng and even have a child with her. This changes when he and Zhan Baili accidentally meet during a Party where Qian Wei and Qian Xiu are.
Zhang Baili accidentally got drugged, and while Qian Wei was out to call a doctor to detox her, and Qian Xiu had to make sure that their children were safe at that party, Han Mengmeng's so-called Beloved, who had drunk too much alcohol, stumble into her room by accident.
And... roll in the sheet with Zhang Baili. By then, Baili was already unconscious, so she didn't notice anything. But... that person does.
He was guilty, and so he wrote Han Mengmeng a letter to explain the situation, but before he could send it, he got into a car accident and passed away. That letter was also completely burned in that accident.
Thus, when Han Mengmeng's power awakened, and she saw the past, she blamed his death on Zhan Baili. Since then, Han Mengmeng has hated Zhan Baili so very much.
Even though it wasn't Zhang Baili's fault that he died, she still got traumatized by knowing that she had unknowingly slept with someone other than her two husbands.
Her mind was especially fragile after her son's death, and thus, when Han Mengmeng told her that it was her who killed that boy due to 'that' accident, Zhan Baili's mind completely broke, and she fell ill.
As for Han Mengmeng, she killed herself after she told Zhang Baili everything. Right in front of Zhan Baili.
This caused her mental illness to be even more severe.
Therefore, by the time I got here, Zhan Baili was already in a coma that she put herself in.
This woman... was so weak and selfish. She didn't care that her other six children still needed her help during times like this and just let go of her willpower to fight.
As for Qian Wei and Qian Xiu, after they found out that she had slept with other people aside from them... their feelings for her were pretty much... gone bye-bye. That's how the Qians are, after all.
They are possessive like that. Even if Zhan Baili woke up again, Qian Wei and Qian Xiu wouldn't care for her anymore.
As for her children, the kids... are very indifferent toward her for some reason.
I asked Qian Xiu, and it turned out... that Zhang Baili wasn't a good mother at all.
She gave birth to them and loved them for the first three years of the children's lives, but once the children turned four years old, she started to get very abusive toward them. Bingrong, as the oldest, was the one who bore her physical abuse the most since he wanted to protect his other siblings.
How Qian Wei and Qian Xiu didn't notice this problem until their youngest daughter's birth...
I can only look at the two twin brothers with disapproving and disappointed looks.
But upon seeing how the children react toward their own mother's health... Hmmm... Just how bad was the physical abuse from that woman? I feel that this woman hid her shortcomings much better than what could be considered normal.
Or... was this woman mentally ill long before this shitty apocalypse happened?
No wonder the two of them didn't seem to care very much when they requested help from my father. That request wasn't very urgent at all.
The only reason why the two of them still somewhat cared for Zhang Baili was because of their youngest son's death... but now that they knew the reason...
Sigh...
What a mess... The Qian's love relationship was always so messy and immoral, but the partners of the Qian were never the type that had mental health illness or physically abusive tendencies like this Zhang person before.
I looked at Qian Wei and Qian Xiu with a frown on my face.
"... This..." This Zhang Baili didn't mess with you two's karma and dharma value, right?
I asked Qian Wei and Qian Xiu.
Qian Xiu stopped walking and started calculating his and Qian Wei's Karma and Dharma values...
A minute later, Qian Xiu's face was completely black with killing intentions.
This caused Amano and Tsukushima's family members to lower their heads in fear while the children all looked at their fathers and papa with confused looks.
Seeing the bloodlust on Qian Xiu's face, I shook my head and looked around us. Even though we're in a somewhat secret location with no zombies' insights, we're still out in the open, and it isn't good for us to stay here for long.
I took out a talisman and threw it on the ground. A couple of seconds later, misty smoke started coming out of the talisman, and soon enough, a large city bus appeared on the soccer field with no sounds.
Everyone, especially the kids, looked at me with wide-open eyes and in shock. Their jaws dropped, with their faces twitching was a very amusing expression, but I didn't bother to look at them for long.
I just told everyone to get on the bus while I went into Stigma and connected the bus to Stigma. Then, I directed Stigma to start floating up, and soon enough, we were more than a hundred meters into the air. The kids were all excited, but they didn't make a sound. The adults, too, didn't make a sound either. However, their eyes were more than telling.
I opened the back of Stigma's trunk and connected the bus's front door to it. Then, I asked Qian Wei and Qian Xiu about their next plans.
First of all, they planned to go back to the small base to take Zhang Baili with them before going to the Southeast Base in the south. They had to go back to that small base and pack up everything. Not only that, Qian Wei and Qian Xiu's children have to bond the bracelets first. Thus, the first step was to go back to that base.
Next, they hope that with my help, their new home in the Southeast Base will be a safe home for them and their children. Amano and Tsukushima also hope their family will be happy in the Southeast Base.
After that, Qian Wei and Qian Xiu wanted me to help train their sons and daughters a bit. And, if possible, awaken their innate abilities. Living in this current world was far too dangerous without the ability or two to protect them. For me, living in this apocalypse world was actually fun since I ... well, with my personality, it was fun. But for them, it was far too dangerous.
After that, Qian Wei and Qian Xiu hope I can teach them how to cultivate vegetables, grains, and fruits safely.
In other words, help them learn how to survive in this new world.
The Asahi Family has a connection with Ancient China's Old Ancestry Lineage, and thus, we have a lot of information and cultivation methods for martial arts. These martial arts manuals were then enchanted and enhanced by my Grandpa and Father throughout their life. And thus, the grades and mastery got even higher. Weakness was eliminated; thus, those martial arts manuals were far more precious than before.
If Qian Wei and Qian Xiu wanted me to train their children, then I could, but it would have to be by the old traditional methods and not via my Systems like how I trained Amano and Tsukushima.
I asked the kids if they really wanted to be trained by me, and they all said yes—even the youngest daughter.
I nodded in understanding when I saw their determination and resolve.
After that, I went back to Stigma and placed the bus and Stigma to the ground since we were coming closer to the small, safe base now.
I had Amano's oldest brother, Amano Jirou, who drove the bus while I drove my Stigma, and we all slowly made our way to the gates of the small, safe base.
This small safe base was located slightly more up north but more toward the rural area, and thus, there weren't too many zombies. However...
There were a lot of hidden dungeons that hadn't been discovered yet.
As a result, the Qian family members and subordinates have a taste of what Amano and Tsukushima have to go through during their trip from Japan to China.
Dungeons discovering and Dungeon Clearing with a speed that causes them all to go into a daze from sheer pure shocks with their jaws dropped to the floor of the bus.
12 Ranked D Dungeons, 8 Ranked C Dungeons, and 4 Ranked B Dungeons.
The first Ranked D Dungeon was filled to the brim with snakes. All sorts of snakes. There were so many snakes of various sorts and sizes that Qian Xiu fainted from pure fright, and Zhang Xiufei screamed out loud in pure disgust.
While Zhang Xiufei dislikes snakes, her older sisters love them.
To eat them, that is.
The second dungeon that they had accidentally stumbled into was a ranked B Dungeons filled to the brim with... multiple-legged insects. This time, Qian Wei fainted in fear while Zhan Xiufei fell in love with them. As for the rest of the people, they could only try their best not to show their disgust at them.
The third dungeon was a Ranked C Dungeon, but it didn't have any monsters in it. Instead, there were forests of trees of all sorts. I liked this dungeon very much, and thus, I didn't hesitate to take the core with me without destroying it. I have a feeling that I would need it for something soon enough.
The fourth dungeon... was better left unsaid because it would only cause countless people to throw up. It was a ranked D Dungeon.
As for the rest of the dungeons, there was a Spider Cave dungeon, a waterfall dungeon full of silverfish that would love to be piranha fish, and countless other varieties of danger that caused everyone else to shiver in fear.
By the time we came to the gate of the small safe base, everyone was already desensitized by what they had experienced while being pulled by Stigma into those dungeons. So, all of their faces were completely blanked out.
When it was their turn to check in, they all did so routinely but subconsciously.
When Qian Wei and Qian Xiu showed me where they were currently living, along with their subordinates, I could only think that China's situation was really bad.
A 3-story apartment complex. Each floor has six residential units, so the whole building has 18 residential units altogether. However... The top floor belongs to someone else.
And so, the Qian family members and his subordinates can only share the first and second floor together. Qian Wei and his brother shared their residential unit with the whole family. There were only three rooms altogether. The husband-wife-husband shared a room, the daughters shared a room, and the sons shared the last room.
The kitchen was small, the living room was small, the bathroom was smaller, and everything was pretty much smaller. Luckily, the owner of this building was a good landowner/homeowner, and thus, everything was in a great state even during the apocalypse.
The first thing that we did was to have the children bond and consolidate their bracelets.
This took about 30 or so minutes for all of them. After that, everything was packed up really fast now that they had their own Spatial Bracelet. The team had a Space Ability user, but that person could only hold on to a limited amount of things since his Space Ability capacity was only so much. But now that the kids have their own Spatial Bracelet, space is no longer a problem.
Qian Wei also sends his sons to help the other households under them. Thus, less than 3 hours later, everyone packed up everything they could and would like to take with them.
When the whole Qian Team went to return the property unit to the safe base, it caused a lot of commotion for the people of that base. However, Qian Wei and Qian Xiu didn't bother to explain anything and just left with their whole team.
And just as we left that small safe base, we all got pulled into another hidden dungeon on our way to the Southeast Safe Base.
The two Qian brothers exchanged looks and sighed out loud with exaggeration.
This time, the dungeon was a very low-ranked F Dungeon; thus, I used this opportunity to teach the kids and everyone else about what their innate abilities can and should be able to do.
We didn't instantaneously clear the dungeon this time but instead took our time inside the dungeon to train properly.
Zhang Weiren, the oldest daughter, was actually a mutant Earth variant ability user for the girls. Her power wasn't pure, so the branches that she could investigate and cultivate were limited, but the power behind her attacks and moves was twice as powerful as a normal Earth-elemental ability. She can Petrified Soil into Stone and reverse it back. At the first and second levels, that was all that she could do.
But once she hits level 3, she can create Earth and/or Stone spikes that are as strong as metal with no problem. Once she hit level 5, her Earth Domain would increase, and she could even turn her Earth Spike into Diamond Spike for as long as her stamina and ability capacity last. At level 7, the earth and soil that she can influence will become "Diamond Ranked" soils that will enhance any plants. At level 9, her Earth ability and domain can influence a whole city region. If she was lucky, worked hard, and had enough opportunities, then at level 12, she could move this whole continent. Earthquake? No problem. Volcano eruption? No problem.
The second oldest daughter, Zhang Xiuli, was a rare ability user. She was a summoner. An Art Summoner. Her ability was specifically tied to the game "Age of Raid: Shadow of The Emperor." This game was very popular, and this girl loved playing this game as a form of copping due to her mother's abuse. Unlike her older sister, her ability is dependent on her stamina and ability capacity limitation.
At level 1, she could only summon 1 subject/object/being from that game. At level 2, she could summon 2 subjects/objects/beings from the game. At level 3, she could summon 4. At level 4, she could summon 8. At level 5, she could summon 16. At level 6, she could summon 32. And so on and on. Depending on her lucks, the subject/object/being that she summoned from that game would be various. But nonetheless, everything from that game was very useful to her since she knew nearly everything to know about it due to peer love for it.
All children from Qian Wei and Qian Xiu were very characteristic and had their own innate abilities. It's just that when I checked on Zhang Baili's coma body, I didn't find any innate ability in her at all. And yet, she has the ability to grab a hold of both Qian Wei and Qian Xiu's hearts enough to give them 7 children with no problem.
Not only that, she was able to influence the two brother's Karma and Dharma enough to influence their next reincarnation cycle. But she has nothing at all to be able to do so. This caused me to look at both Qian Wei and Qian Xiu occasionally while I was training their children and their subordinates.
Yes, I also trained their subordinates, too.
Amano and Tsukushima's family members all have a great aptitude, and so their innate qualities were pretty good. Four have Fire Elemental Abilities, 7 have Earth Elemental Abilities, 3 have Water Elemental Abilities, 3 have Speed and Strength Abilities, 8 have Heightened Senses for danger, scents, hearing, vision, and even zombie sense. There were even 2 rare metal and thunder elemental among them.
As for those that don't have innate abilities, I trained their physical strength, speeds, reaction reflexes, martial arts, shooting skills, and melee skills.
We spend 7 months inside that dungeon, training from floor 1 to floor 50. Then another 3 more months from floor 51 to floor 100 and cleared the dungeon at last.
By then, I had already done all that I could for them regarding strength for surviving during the apocalypse. Even though I don't talk much, I still could instruct everyone by using Voice-Reading Programs that I installed onto the drones my father had made. Thus, my instruction and communication problem when instructing everyone was good enough that they didn't cause any problems during these times.
When I came to China, it was early September, but after training inside that dungeon, 10 months passed, and it was already early July.
Once we were out, the first thing we did was to completely obliterate all the zombies nearby and collect as many zombie nuclei as possible.
Qian Wei and Qian Xiu were more than happy to lure in thousands of zombies for his children and subordinates to clear off. Both from Non-Dungeon Zombies and After-Zombified Zombies.
In that one week, that whole area's zombies were completely cleared off, and they got more than 180,000 nuclei of various levels. Most of the nuclei were from level 11th, 10th, and 9th zombies, but there were more than a hundred of the level 8 zombies' nuclei too.
Team Qian was a great team that didn't take advantage of their team members. Thus, after a week of fighting zombies outside, they divided the zombie nuclei equally among everyone. As for me, since I didn't join them in their fights, I didn't take any of their nuclei even after it was ofter to me.
Instead of fighting weaklings like these 12th, 11th, and 10th level zombies, I keep my eyes out for level 9th and level 8th zombies instead. In fact, I was looking forward to seeing if there are any mutant or variant zombies. But to my big disappointment, after waiting for 7 days, none were showing up—only a bunch of level 10th abilities zombies.
Thus, we continue onward toward the Southeast Safe Base with no more hesitation.
The Southeast Safe Base, nicknamed Tyrant Safe Base, was actually pretty close to the coastal region but further enough that it wasn't near large coastal cities and towns.
When we got closer to the Southeast Safe Base, we all saw a large and tall wall surrounding the safe base area. However, to the side of the wall, there were many tents and temporary homes too.
There was no need for anyone to tell me why people lived outside of the safe wall since the answer was obvious at first glance. China's population has always been very high, and thus this didn't surprise me at all.
We ignored these people as we all went ahead toward the Wall Gate and waited for our turns. There were a lot of people waiting in line with and without a car of their own, too. Thus, no one particularly paid us any attention, even if our transportation vehicle was a bus and not a car.
We didn't have to wait long before it was our turn.
Since we were all together, the guards and staff members of the military officers that registered us had to take quite some time to finish registering everyone. This includes letting them know about the coma of Zhang Baili.
When the officers noticed the coma of Zhang Baili, their eyes changed somewhat because Zhang Baili really was a beautiful woman, even at her current age. However, Qian Wei didn't hesitate at all to say that she was his and his brother's wife. This caused the officers to clear their thinking their minds. After all, it was clear and obvious that Qian Wei and Qian Xiu were Ability Users.
The rule of this Southeast Safe Base, nicknamed Tyrant Safe Base, was very simple, clear, and out in the open.
There's no such thing as free lunch in this base. Everyone has to have a job, contribute to a safe base, and be active in doing something that will help their community in one way or another. Ability users are treated slightly better than normal people here, but their responsibility is also much higher and riskier. The elders who couldn't use much strength had their own jobs. The sick have their own workspace. The disabled have their own work. Everyone has their own jobs and responsibilities to fulfill.
The reason why this base was nicknamed Tyrant Safe Base was that the military commander who controlled this base did it in a very tyrannical way. But, this made this base one of the safest bases and the less discriminated base between Ability Users and Normal Survivors.
Once we were checked into the safe base, the first thing that we did was check for a living space.
This base was built and expanded from a county size town located between Ganzhou, Longyan, and Meizhou. It was expanded, built, and extended by the survivors to what it was today. It was now the size of a large city surrounded by a large, wide, tall wall made of bricks, stones, and concrete.
According to the rumors from other survivors, this base used only to be included half of Wuping County. But, the three teams that founded this base secured its surround and made four other nearby counties into their safe base, too. As a result, this base was the largest and safest base here in China due to the sheer size of the walls that were made to surround this base.
This means that there was a large number of spaces left that weren't in use by anyone.
Since Qian Wei and Qian Xiu wanted to build a home that no other people could get into without their permission, they had chosen to live in a large apartment complex that wasn't cheap at all in a quick good community.
The rules of this base didn't allow Ability Users to buy a house but rent it from the base. Thus, Qian Wei and Qian Xiu went to rent off the top 16th highest floors of a half-done building, which had 46 floors in total. This was not cheap for them, but it was still much cheaper than other already-built buildings in this safe base. So, even though it was very expensive, they still would rent this place for themselves anyway. Their rental terms were for 5 whole years, and they paid it right there and then after signing the documents.
After being shown the location of the building, we discussed real quick what to do with the rest of the floors that weren't finished building yet. After all, their contracts didn't say that they could use the 30 floors below them. As for the elevator, they would only use it from 8 am to 6 pm Monday through Friday. The other times they would have to use one of the four stairs that this building has.
Once they made their requests and needs, I drew out a quick blueprint and started to finish building the building according to the blueprint. For those top 16 floors, each floor has 8 residential units. Each unit has 4 bedrooms, 1 shower room, 1 bathroom, 1 toileting room, a dining room with a small kitchen area, and 3 closets for storage. For easier access, I built another large enough elevator for transportation goods from floor 30 to floor 46.
Then, I let them watch as I started to modify this building to hell and back with materials they got from the dungeons they had cleared off with me.
The walls, ceilings, supported beams, foundation, and even the roof were all modified, strengthened, and reinforced by me with no hesitation.
This building itself was one of the newer built commercial-residential buildings that were just built a year ago before the start of this Apocalypse. And thus, everything in this building was in a state of half-finish. As a result, by the time I finished reinforcing this whole building, everything about it changed, and yet I didn't even break a sweat, unlike before when I did my own home and my former home.
After reinforcing everything within the building itself, I started to strengthen and reinforce the basements and foundation of this building. This way, I wouldn't make mistakes about weight distributions and won't create accidents like building collapsing since I would know where the foundation will need to be strengthened.
The basement of this building already has a basement of its own that was already completely built by the builder before the apocalypse happened. But, it wasn't large, thick, or strong enough to support this newly changed building. Thus, all I had to do was to expand that basement wider and thicker, create more foundation supportive beams, metal strengthens the joints, made other deeper basements in the four corners of the building for water purification area down there, and create a bunch of water tanks for drinking water, purifying water systems, water pipes, and made sure that the water system will reach very kitchens, baths, and sinks in this building.
By now, my cousin and their subordinates had already gotten used to how overpowerful I am and, thus, didn't make a scene as they watched me completely change this building of theirs into something new.
Normally, buildings like these have built-in floor heating that the government controls, but ever since the start of this apocalypse, China's heater laws were all shoved into the corner. So every home was now under its owner's control. As a result, I didn't hesitate at all as I built two different heating systems on the top 16 floors of the building. The first heat system was on the floor, created and controlled by the temperature outside to maintain the inside at a constant 72 degrees Fahrenheit. This made all rooms, halls, and spaces on those 16 floors warm but not too warm.
The second heating system is a Water-Wind Heating-Cooling system powered by zombie nuclei. It can be turned higher(hotter) or lower(Colder) with a push of a button or two. This second system is only installed in every living and dining room, not in other rooms.
After I finished with that, everyone started to assign units to themselves while making sure to leave floor 45th and floor 46th completely empty.
Why? That would be because those floors will be for indoor vertical, hydroponic, aquaponic, and small animal farms. As for the roof... a bunch of solar panels were put up there to generate electricity for the farms' usage.
Of course, that wouldn't be enough space for raising small animals. And thus. I made sure that every unit had its own balcony, large and wide enough to raise small animals like quail and rabbits. Of course, to prevent trouble, I also made sure that every balcony was completely barricaded off with mesh metal sheets and glasses sheets.
Once that's done too, I left the rest to them and slept in Stigma. I set Stigma into floating mode and ensured that Stigma was on top of the roof before going to sleep. I am so damn tired. Being around people is very tiring. Their aura is a pain in the ass.
I don't know how long it took for Qian Wei and Qian Xiu to finish furnishing, organize and assign what needed to be assigned, but by the time I woke up; it was already 4 hours later.
I put Stigma away and went down to see what else team Qian needs before I go play around with China's hidden midair dungeons.
"A'Chen, could you show these guys how to set up a vertical farm? They have now known how to do the hydroponic farm since you had shown them those already, but the vertical farm is hard for them mainly due to the difficulty with maintaining it." Qian Xiu asked with a large clipboard of information about hydroponic farming and designs in his hand.
His oldest son was already settling up the farm for vertical farming behind him, but the boy hesitated regarding spacing and where to place certain containers and pipes.
I nodded in understanding as I input more information into the drone that would read out what I wanted to say to them. First of all, the spacing problem that A'Rong faced wasn't that hard to fix.
It depends on what crops and vegetables go to where the spacing of height and length differences. This floor of the hydroponic farms was all for vegetables that don't grow vines and thus don't need that much spacing. For this floor of vertical farms, there are four hydroponic systems set up in total; Nutrient Film Technique, Drip System, Wicked Hydroponic, and Deep Water Culture.
As for the nutrient solutions, the pH level needs to be generally close to 6 but never below 5 or above 7, and all the fish that were used were from me; thus, the small aquaponics that I created for this floor's farms were also very good for water maintaining. The only problem with aquaponics is the risk of the fishes turning into zombies and the risk of contamination. I solved this by using a couple of talismans that isolate, purify, and maintain constant water flows into the aquaponic tanks.
Then the light source, which was all from me. The grow light that I made was all powered by zombie nuclei, and thus electricity isn't needed. And these grow lights of mine have high coverage area and a great quality light spectrum that is the same length as the real sun during a good summer day of 75°F(22.88°C). It could be manually set to 5 degrees lower or higher up to 10 degrees as if the sun was going from East to West.
The growing medium varies depending on what vegetable it will be growing on. The majority of the growing medium was expanded clay pebbles, coco fiber/chips, and rocks of various sizes.
Once I explained and helped A'Rong build the floor 45th vertical farms, I left the rest to them. After all, the aquaponic farms for the th 46th floor were actually easier to set up since it doesn't have a lot of varieties. As for the small animal farm or barn was created inside three housing units on the 46th floor with an air recycling system built in.
Once I made sure that they didn't need any more of my help, I left with Stigma and started to fly around the base in midair.
Yep. I found a hidden ranked B- Dungeon right above this base, alright.
And it was filled to the brim with large-size Rodentia and Lagomorpha.
All were Magical and very strong, fast, and will eat anything their way.
Especially for the Lightning Horn Rabbits, Twist Tails Rat, Metal Claws Rabbits, and Long Teeth Porcupines.
The lightning horn rabbits were especially fast. Fast enough that made them look like lightning strikes whenever they move.
The Twist Tails Rat have 4 to 9 tails that are long, barbed, and can twist in all sorts of way. If you got scratches by those tails... the chances of being poisoned were pretty damn high.
Metal Claws Rabbits are huge rabbits that have metal for claws. And oh boy, those claws aren't for decoration. They're sharper than knives, stronger than steel, and can demolish stones into powder with no problem.
As for the Long Teeth Porcupines... those were smaller, but well... aside from their needles, you have to worry about their teeth that are sharper and stronger than even diamonds.
Lucky for this base, this Midair dungeon wasn't going to overflow anytime soon. And thus, this tyrannical base was safe now that I had cleared it out.
From this dungeon, I gained a lot of pelts, meats, and materials to use. Especially those sharp Long Teeth Porcupine's materials. Damn, crafting tens of thousands of needles that are about the size of my forearm and longer than a couple of meters was fun. Using these "rods" of needles to stab zombies' heads off to death was very, very satisfying.
Once I am out after clearing everything from this dungeon, I drop the meats and pelts for the Qian Teams member to process it.
The meats from the Rodentia can be made into various foods, while the Lagomorph's meats were seasoned, dried, smoked, and well, whatever else that they wanted it to use for.
It would take the team more than 3 weeks to process everything with the amounts of goods and materials that I left them.
I didn't stay and left again as I continued to fly above the base's aero area.
Hmm... Aside from that ranked B Midair Dungeon, there was no more hidden Midair Dungeon in this base. Lucky for them.
As for On-Ground and or Underground Dungeons... There are two dungeons that I could sense. But for those two dungeons, I will leave it to the Abilities Users of this base to take care of since it was only a ranked-C and ranked-D dungeons.
I just have to tell Qian Xiu to let the higher-up of this base know about where those two dungeon doors are located, and that's it.
After that... I searched for Ranked A and Ranked S Dungeons to train myself.
I had a great time at this.
The hidden and undiscovered Ranked A and Ranked S Dungeons in China were... plentiful.
I found 3 dungeons that had already overflowed and had caused a couple of large waves of zombie hoard that had completely caused 5 small bases nearby to well... completely collapse. As for where those bases are located? In Wenzhou, Jinhua, and north of Hangzhou.
This whole province of Zhejiang was completely overrun by Dungeon-Turned Zombies creatures and None-Dungeon Zombies of grades 10th, 9th, and 8th Zombies. There were no Grade 11th and 12th zombies found here.
I have to create traps of all sorts just to clear out all of the zombies here. In the end, even a few Grade 7th Zombies show up to play with me.
I was one happy man after that.
I spent over 3 weeks gathering, clearing, and trapping all the zombies in this province. By the end of this trip, I gained more than 700 million nuclei of various grades and types. I have a feeling that if I hadn't got here to play with these zombies, then they would have made their way toward the Southeast Safe Base, and that base would have completely gone bye-bye, too.
Lucky for that base, I was here having fun with these little cuties as my punching bags. And thus, they avoid a huge zombie siege.
After all, these 700 million zombies even have a few Rook Grade Zombies in their ranks. Yes, Level 7th Zombies are called Rook Grade.
Rook Grade = 7th Level Zombies.
Knight Grade = 6th Level Zombies.
Bishop Grade = 5th and 4th Level Zombies.
Queen Grade = 3rd Level Zombies.
King Grade = 2nd Level Zombies.
Emperor Grade, which wasn't in chess, was the equivalent of a Level 1 Zombies.
As for a higher grade than that... That would be a Level Zero(0) Zombie. The Chaos Zombie Emperor. If a Chaos Zombie Emperor appeared, this world would be done. And it won't just be this planet that's done for. This whole solar system will be done for.
Hmm? Worries about overworking myself? Not needed. I always made sure that I rested enough in Stigma whenever I needed to. As such, I didn't overwork myself too much.
After clearing those 3 overflowed dungeons, I went around and found 4 more hidden dungeons that hadn't overflowed. All of these 4 hidden Dungeon were all ranked-F, and thus, post no problem for me at all.
I didn't waste time as I took their Cores with me as I made my way back toward Tyrannical base.
Qian Wei and Qian Xiu were pretty damn surprised when I dropped some materials and resources for them. These couple of million nuclei caused Qian Xiu to faint nearly.
"A'Chen, where did you go?" Qian Wei's face was pale with shock as he counted how many level 9th and 8th zombie nuclei I gave them.
Zhejiang Province. I answered them as I transferred all the data from Stigma Records about this Province to them.
Then, I ignored the brothers as I went to take a long bath in their home.
When I came out, the whole team discussed what to do with those couple of million level 9th and 8th Nuclei. I didn't join in the discussion and left again.
This time, I am going Northwest. I have a feeling that I would find very good things there. And thus, I didn't waste time at all as I got into Stigma and left.
I did encounter a lot of good things in the Northwest of China.
6 Hidden Midair Ranked S Dungeons, 3 On Ground Ranked S Dungeon, and I even got a couple of hundreds of pets of various types. My Farming System was very happy with that.
I spent about 5 months here and gathered all the survivors that were still alive in this region into a small safe base.
The Northwest Safe base that used to be here had long ago collapsed under siege of ND zombies. And thus, I have to create another safe base for these survivors.
This small safe base was very small.
Only a couple thousand survivors were living here now. I set up farms, water reservoirs, weaponsmithing manufacture, walls, and countless other things for them before leaving.
Everyone cried, but I didn't bother to care. After all, I am not Chinese. I don't owe these survivors anything. However, I created a training dungeon for them and, thus, expected that they would survive. If not... well, my humanity does not care at all.
Due to the temperature, it was easier for me to sense the Midair Dungeons on my way back. And thus, I can choose which dungeon to go into without getting dragged into all of them. As a result, I only went into ranked B and higher dungeon.
This enabled me to train myself quite efficiently since these are high-level dungeons.
As a result, by the time I made it back to the Tyrannical Safe Base, more than a year had already passed, and it was already March next year.
My sibling should have already been born; thus, I am thinking of returning to Japan.
Thus, before returning to Japan, I went to see Qian Wei and Qian Xiu.
The Southeast Safe Base, aka Tyrannical Safe Base, has changed a lot during the time that I wasn't there.
A new wall expansion was built for a new district and lands. Looking from within Stigma, I could tell that all those buildings in the new district were all indoor vertical farms buildings.
I think I know what's going on.
This district reeks of Qian Wei and Qian Xiu's movement all over.
I shook my head as I returned to where the two brothers' home was. That whole area has now changed beyond recognition.
Before that building was the only building in this area, but now... a new 'downtown' area has spawned out of nowhere.
Although the other buildings were built to look like the building I built for the Qian Brothers and their team, I could tell it only looked like it. It does not have the same features and functionality as the building that I built. Nor was it as secured.
Stigma stopped on top of the Qian Brothers' house building as I waited for the brothers to notice me.
It didn't take long, just a couple of minutes, before the rooftop's accessible door was busted open, and two panting brothers looked around the roof with hope and excitement in their eyes.
Seeing the brothers, I turned Stigma's invisible mode off and parked lightly on the roof.
"A'Chen!" Both brothers ran toward me with huge grins on their faces. Behind them, the panting sounds of their sons and daughters soon reached my ears, and a couple of seconds later, all of the Qian Siblings busted into the rooftop too.
"Uncle Chen!" All the kids shouted with excitement in their eyes as they all looked at me.
I nodded to the kids and then handed the Qian Brothers the data that I had gathered these past months.
Then using the drone, I told them that I was going back to Japan.
The kids' eyes widened, and tears started to gather in them.
Then, I threw another spatial bag filled with level 9, level 8, and level 7 nuclei to the two brothers before getting into Stigma and leaving without any hesitation.
There's no helping it. It's time for my little sibling to be born. And now that I can somewhat control my... stupid innate constitution ability to a higher level, I can finally go back to Japan to see my family members.
