Chapter 10: Chapter 10

Although all three were 1st-level spells and about equally difficult to learn, mastering them was another matter. Thorn Whip and Firebolt were obviously harder to control.

After memorizing the key points for casting Oak Club, Mu Ying began to practice, using the handle of her long-handled kitchen knife as her target.

According to the spell’s description, if cast successfully, her Perception attribute would temporarily replace her Strength attribute when wielding a wooden club.

In other words, when she attacked with a club imbued with Oak Club, it would be as if she had a Strength of 15.

For reference, an average adult male human only has a Strength of 10. With 15, she’d be stronger than a world-class weightlifter.

1st-level spells were indeed harder to cast, each attempt costing at least 5 mana points, and her practice efficiency was relatively low.

It took her the whole morning to get the hang of it, but she could finally cast it with some consistency.

There was still a lot she needed to learn, but unfortunately, the outside world didn’t allow her to stay shut in forever. The purpose of learning was survival, so in the end, she’d have to gain experience through real combat.

Mu Ying glanced at her level: [Class: Druid LV1 (39/100)]

Of that, 13 points were from kills, and 26 from class experience.

Since she was still attuning to the trees in the camp, she’d gained less class experience this morning than yesterday—only 8 points. Still, this vast forest was a perfect training ground for a druid, much easier than killing zombies.

Unfortunately, while attuning to nature, her awareness of her surroundings was dulled, making it unsafe. So she didn’t dare use Nature Sense too frequently outside the camp.

She also discovered that harmonizing with healthy trees yielded less class experience than helping trees in poor condition.

By that logic, planting from scratch should earn even greater rewards from nature.

Coincidentally, the Oak General Store was also buying saplings and seeds—a win-win.

After a one-hour nap to restore her mana, Mu Ying packed her bag and set out.

The camp was quiet; she didn’t see anyone else—everyone must have gone out.

Mu Ying left the camp, following the mountain path through the forest park. Before long, she ran into some familiar faces.

A few members of the mountaineering club were leading several zombies through the woods, heading toward the camp.

Mu Ying gave them a wide berth, slipping onto a side path.

The main road through the forest park led to Qingshan Town, but the path she took led to a rural gravel road, along which a few scattered households remained—mostly elderly folks unwilling to leave their old homes.

In such farmhouses, you could usually find some vegetable seeds and grain. More importantly, the elderly and children were more vulnerable to zombies and had a harder time logging into the game, so there should be zombies around here, but they’d be scattered and less dangerous.

The mountain path exited beside a house, and as soon as Mu Ying emerged, she ran straight into two zombies.

One was wandering outside the outhouse, while the other stood dazed inside.

About ten meters away was a haystack, with an old yellow ox tied to a tree beside it.

The zombies seemed uninterested in the ox, ignoring its lowing. Instead, the ox was startled by Mu Ying’s sudden appearance.

The zombie outside the outhouse started shambling toward her, while the one inside was blocked by the half-broken wooden door, which rattled as it tried to get out.

“Perfect opportunity!”

Mu Ying backed away, preparing her spell. The moment Oak Club was ready, she charged forward, swinging her long-handled kitchen knife.

With a single stroke, a head flew off—like slicing a watermelon, clean and effortless.

“….”

Ignoring the splattering rotten flesh and blood, it was actually quite satisfying.

This told Mu Ying a lot. While Oak Club was still active, she quickly ran over to the outhouse.

The door was too narrow for effective swinging, so she hacked at the door itself. When the zombie emerged, she chopped at its neck.

[You killed 2 zombies. Gained 2 kill experience. Gained 6 copper coins.]

Mu Ying picked up the dropped coins and continued exploring the house. She remembered an elderly couple lived here—the one in the outhouse was probably the old man.

Circling to the front door, she found another zombie in the main room, clawing a side door to splinters.

After killing it, Mu Ying opened the door to find a bedroom. On the bed lay an old woman, her face bluish and lips purple, hands folded on her chest. An empty bottle of paraquat lay on the floor by the bed.

Mu Ying sighed. The apocalypse was cruel—dying was easy, surviving was hard.

She searched the house, finding a red plastic bag in the bedside drawer containing several packets of seeds wrapped in newspaper. There were quite a few varieties, though not much of each.

In a storeroom between the main room and kitchen, she found a wooden rice bin. Climbing up, she saw it was half full of unthreshed rice, with a nest of mice inside.

On the table beside the bin sat a ceramic jar of lard and a bamboo basket with more than twenty eggs.

Mu Ying took a shirt from the clothesline outside, lined the basket, and layered the eggs with rice for protection.

She also took a few pieces of cured meat hanging from the kitchen beam and filled a bag with rice from the bin.

This haul would last her quite a while, and transporting it wouldn’t be a problem.

She fetched a bucket of water, poured it into the dry trough by the haystack, and added a bit of Spring of Recovery water. After using Wild Empathy to befriend the old ox, she managed to strap two large bamboo baskets onto its back.

Leading the ox along the gravel road deeper in, she pulled a few vegetable seedlings from the fields along the way.

The last house belonged to a solitary old man, who had also met a tragic end. Using the house for cover, Mu Ying killed one zombie, but as she was fighting the second, her kitchen knife’s handle broke.

She grabbed a hoe leaning under the eaves and swung it—cracking the zombie’s skull wide open.

Weighing the hoe in her hand, she realized, “This is actually better than the kitchen knife!”

She decisively ditched the knife for the hoe, and even took the old couple’s hoe on her way back.

This house had about the same supplies as the previous one, so Mu Ying only took the hoe and a small packet of seeds she found wedged in the wall."

"After searching these two houses, Mu Ying was ready to head back.

First, the bamboo baskets on the old ox’s back were almost full; second, she planned to take a longer, roundabout path home.

With the old ox as her companion and reminder, she could also find a few older trees along the way to attune herself to the power of nature.

She even snipped a few branches from each type of tree, placing them in bottles filled with water mixed with Spring of Restoration.

This longer route ran almost right alongside the reserve’s wire fence, peaceful all the way until the valley near Crescent Lake, where things got lively again.

“Don’t you people have any sense of public decency? Luring zombies right to the gate—how’s anyone supposed to get in or out?”

“Yeah, exactly! This isn’t even your camp, and you’re blocking the entrance. We almost got bitten by zombies and I hurt my arm in the chaos. Shouldn’t you compensate us?”