Chapter 53
In the game’s plot, the Thunder Unit, which was always in the forefront in the struggle against the villainous forces, had always been hailed as one of the most dauntless weapons at the end of the world.
But this plot would only happen at least a year later. A group of the strongest warriors would have to be selected in this cruel confrontation, and in the midst, the number of people losing their lives and getting seriously injured would only increase.
However, Zhang Zhiyin did not want to see this happening. He didn’t want to send them to their deaths with his own hands.
Chen Guang was a man with rare talent. Not only was he a strong Level 5 wind elemental ability user who was close to reaching Level 6, but he also graduated from military school and received formal combat training. Zhang Zhiyin asked him to work with other ability users in order to develop a training plan that allowed the team members to run, exercise, learn, and practice effective * fighting skills every day, and held regular meetings every week in order to allow the team members to exchange tips and techniques.
In the beginning, the apocalypse was heralded by the chaos that swept through everything, even more so, ordinary people were forced to transform themselves just like ability users who could single-handedly kill the zombies. Many of their attacks were derived from their instinct. In the early stage of the apocalypse, all humans gathered together with the common purpose to defend themselves. In this precarious time, many of the fighters figured out their most suitable fighting methods against the zombies while working with one another. This was a biological instinct. It was rare for people to choose to go to the front lines in order to train together with other ability users there, on the contrary, most of ability users learned tips and tricks from each other privately.
However, a constant, scientific, and unified training could enhance combat effectiveness of a team in the face of a crisis. At least that was what Zhang Zhiyin thought. He hoped to train the Thunder Unit into the invincible team he saw in the game’s plot while also minimizing the casualties in the process.
He liked Y, but that didn’t mean that he agreed with everything Y chose to do. It was just that he wasn’t living in the game the previous years, so he didn’t take the story’s settings too seriously. Instead, like a person suffering from a middle school grade two disease, he thought that kind of character’s setting was very attractive. If he were to actually live in this world, he would want to do things that oppose Y’s decisions, even though he really liked him.
That would be the greatest desire of the captain with the eagle necklace, Shang Si, and Old Zhu— to let the apocalypse end as soon as possible, so that human beings could live a peaceful and stable life again.
Zhang Zhiyin announced that the existing Thunder Unit would be divided into two groups, the battle group, and the defense group. He chose twenty of the youngest, strongest, most promising, and outstanding people for the battle group, who would be responsible in handling the frontlines; this was what he envisioned to be the main force of the Thunder Unit; the rest would be put in the defense group, who would be responsible to support related jobs, where Old Zhu and other older members would be in charge of.
Implementing changes in any environment would undoubtedly be met with opposition. Zhang Zhiyin was not a stubborn person and was willing to consider the opinions of others. But when he decided to take a certain measure, he must ensure its implementation— and in the current environment, making use of the leader’s authority was a simple and effective way to ensure that the Thunder Unit would be unified.
After all, the end of the world was still a place where strength was valued the most.
Although officially, Zhang Zhiyin was still a Level 6 ability user, he was also equipped with his divine-grade armor and his ice elemental pistol. Zhang Zhiyin, who had both an ice ability and a precision ability, was not merely considered to be in the rank of Level 6.
On the third day after he arrived here, he led the team up to a nearby mountain to kill some zombies. He observed the level of his team while also taking part in the fight.
That area was carefully selected by him. In the game, there was a Level 6 fire ability zombie boss who also had a secondary ability. He stuck an invisibility talisman on himself and went to the spot on the previous night, and sure enough, he saw the boss. In the game, this was a wild map boss that an advanced player could handle by themselves. With his current level and equipment, this was not a problem for him at all.
So when the team came there during the day and he laid down his gun, fought with the boss and defeated it, his team members were in awe at this spectacle. They could not help but feel a little ashamed — that was the opponent he deliberately chose to display his battle prowess.
Growing up in a peaceful environment, as a gamer who almost couldn’t complete his military training and also being a weak office worker, the best training Zhang Zhiyin could think of for his team was to take them to an instance, fight the monsters and level up their equipment.
Past experience had shown Zhang Zhiyin that the instances in the game were also real locations in ’s world, and the monsters inside these instances would not resp.a.w.n. The treasures that would be dropped in this instance would be found as long as one looked for them carefully. The previous psychic zombie boss and wood elemental boss were proofs of this.
Just before he arrived, the Thunder Unit had been involved in a big battle with You Huo Base. The former captain died in that battle, but at the same time, You Huo Base also suffered a big blow, a small leader that was known as “Du Ya1” who caused a great deal of damage to the alliance was also seriously injured. Therefore, they did not organize any attacks or cause damages to the alliance’s headquarters for a short period of time, and this gave Zhang Zhiyin the time he needed to implement his plan.
When he returned to the real world again, Zhang Zhiyin went home after work and immediately opened the forum to download all the relevant instances and tactical strategies after which he proceeded to quickly memorize this information.
In the beginning, he only remembered them by forcing himself to memorize them, but he gradually gained some understanding and could comprehend many skills and rules.
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As usual, he logged into the game as soon as he got home, but he had been memorizing the attack strategies the whole while, and it was only around 12 o’clock at night when he felt sleepy that he remembered that he hadn’t visited Y even once today.
He went back to the game page, went near Y, typed one word, “Goodnight.”, and immediately logged out of the game.
In the base of Dr. Y, the boss of the apocalypse lowered his eyes, his expression became more and more melancholy.
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After Zhang Zhiyin returned to the world of , The first practice session he had arranged for the team was to go to a normal intermediate instance.
This instance was not difficult to deal with, the level of the zombie in it was around Level 3 or 4, but many characteristics of the instance were strange: the crystal nucleus’ drop rate was high, but because the price of the Level 3 and 4 crystal nuclei in the game was cheap, there wasn’t much use for them, so it wasn’t much in demand with the players. In reality, however, such places test one’s physical strength and endurance. For the whole day, they frequently fired bullets, used their abilities, and even waved their cold weapons around that made their hands numb.
But when they saw the nuclei they’d harvested, they became excited again.
Because of the existence of the Bai Mang a.s.sociation in this world, the crystal nucleus had a wider range of use in this world, and its usage was not limited to raising the level of the ability users. The ability users could exchange a certain amount of low-level crystal nuclei with the alliance and in return get a high-level crystal nucleus suitable for their abilities.
After resting for 3 days, Zhang Zhiyin led the team to the White Bones Cave instance that he had tried out before and found out that it was a good place for the team to refine their skills.
This instance was one of the earliest caves that were abandoned after the experiment of the zombie virus, so the zombies inside were particularly strong, and the zombie boss eventually developed wind, thunder, and poison abilities.
But this instance would also drop the White Bone Armor. This set of armor would greatly increase the defense stats of the wearer and also increase the wearer’s attacking stats, making this instance the first choice for many players who desire a high damage output ratio.
The density of the zombie mob in the White Bone Cave was smaller than that of the previous instance the team used to practice, but they were even more powerful now. With the training the team had gotten, they didn’t find the zombies too tough to deal with. It took the team about 3 hours to advance into the depths of the cave.
The more they advanced, the fewer zombies they encountered, but the levels of the zombies kept increasing correspondingly. The zombies that came out during the end of each path had the ability of the average small boss. When they reached the end of the road, the team stopped to take a break as a big boulder blocked their path. The people in the battle group had started to become fatigued.
In comparison, Dadao and the older members in the Thunder Unit were still in good shape, and they were even more cautious than before.
Zhang Zhiyin glanced at his team members around him and realized that it wouldn’t be a good idea to continue forward. At this time, directly attacking the boss might not work well. If the casualties were heavy, it would hurt their morale, so he ordered a temporary retreat.
Tang Li, who was familiar with Zhang Zhiyin from before, was now in the Thunder Unit. His wife, Xiu Mei, also came to the base station to help with cooking duties. Their daughter Xiao Li also came to help out with some odd jobs.
When Zhang Zhiyin led the team back to the base, he saw Xiu Mei, Xiao Li, and the defense group who was a.s.signed to stay in the station along with Uncle Kao. When they approached, they also saw a little girl next to the group. She was less than one meter tall and seemed to be no more than fourteen years old. She looked very beautiful. From some angles, she almost looked too delicate and exquisite. Only when she turned her face did they noticed that her eyes were gray and unfocused.
Evidently, this little girl was blind.
Xiao Li stood by her side. She wanted to converse with her but she didn’t dare to approach too close to her.
Uncle Kao came over and explained the situation to Zhang Zhiyin and the rest.
There was a small town occupied by zombies next to the base. The level of zombies in this village wasn’t high. The Thunder Unit didn’t go there to exterminate the zombies specifically, but when there was some spare time they would dispatch 2 or 3 people to forage nearby locations for usable materials— The current living conditions of the Thunder Unit and that of the alliance’s headquarters could not be compared at all; Compared to the frontline, the only difference was that they had 2 or 3 more roofs on top of them.
As a result, when they cleared out a supermarket today, they chanced upon this little girl. The girl was not only blind, but she was also mute. After communicating with her by writing on some paper, the team members learned that the girl was called Xiao Mo and that the supermarket was run by her family. There was a slight mental fluctuation in the body. After an evaluation, it was found that she would awaken as a Level 1 psychic ability user. This would help her survive this apocalypse.
After Zhang Zhiyin agreed, Xiao Wei was allowed to stay in the station.
At this time, Yin Xiaoxiang heard Zhang Zhiyin’s voice. It peeked with its head from behind the door and ran to him, but it stumbled and fell on its b.u.t.t.
Zhang Zhiyin: “…” How stupid.
He completely forgot that he himself was even more stupid when he had turned into a cat. He b.u.mped into the boss’s calf and fell on his back. He was sore and he whimpered grievously, Yin Nian had to soothe him by holding him in his hands for a long time.
Xiao Mo seemed to have sensed something, she faced Yin Xiaoxiang, stooped down and stretched out her hand, as if she wanted to touch it.
“Be careful, it spits ice.” Zhang Zhiyin reminded her. Yin Xiaoxiang wasn’t close with other people and had a prideful personality. It would spit ice shards at anyone who wanted to touch it, even if it was people like Dadao, Ah Kong, and other acquaintances. This little guy wasn’t tall, but his power was high, and now the ice shards it spit could freeze an entire hand.
He didn’t expect Yin Xiaoxiang to not dodge Xiao Mo’s hand and neither did it spit ice shards at her.
It was a miracle. Zhang Zhiyin exclaimed: “Xiao Mo, can you help me watch over this cat here?”
The older Yin Xiaoxiang was, the less obedient it was and he couldn’t control it well. Every time he opened the door or the window, it’d find some nook to slip out. It was the apocalypse and it was not safe for it to just go as it pleased. He didn’t think like an ordinary cat and it would not respond to its name. Zhang Zhiyin was really worried something might happen to it.
The girl couldn’t see nor speak, but she actually understood his words and obediently nodded her head.