Chapter 13: Chapter 13

“Huh? So we’re stealing a national treasure’s food?” Liu Luoluo latched onto the key point. She glanced at the tiny Yuan Gun Gun, hesitated for a second, then decided to keep drinking.

“Did you manage to sell seeds today?” Li Wei was still focused on quest progress.

“Yeah, I went to some farmers’ homes and sold a bunch of crop seeds—pretty much got a full set,” Mu Ying answered honestly.

“No wonder they wouldn’t take ours when we went later,” Li Wei groaned—they’d just been a step too late!

Thanks to Mu Ying’s reminder, their earlier argument had been interrupted. Even though they’d been arguing fiercely at the time, they didn’t plan to lure another big horde of monsters back.

With the shortcut gone, they had to look for zombies in less crowded places, so they ended up visiting scattered farmhouses, found some seeds, and even got a pig.

Now, with no fridge and not much salt, the meat wouldn’t keep, so they decided to roast it and share with everyone—helping to ease the day’s tensions.

But when they tried to sell seeds, they were turned away. Oak Tree General Store only accepted seeds or saplings they hadn’t bought before.

“Hey, kid, you just called that girl Mu Ying, right? Which ‘Mu’? Which ‘Ying’?” An older man next to Liu Cheng patted his shoulder.

“I don’t know, why do you ask?” Liu Cheng looked puzzled.

“Check the leaderboards—the top player is called Mu Ying! Could it be her?”

Liu Cheng and his friends had been busy all day and hadn’t checked the world forum. Hearing this, they quickly pulled it up—and sure enough, it was true.

He excitedly ran over to Mu Ying. “Hey, can I ask you something? Is your name ‘Mu’ as in ‘wood’ and ‘Ying’ as in ‘firefly’?”

Mu Ying nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. Why?”"

"“Wow, you’re amazing! First place on the level rankings—how did you do it?” Liu Cheng exclaimed in shock, his voice full of admiration.

“What? First on the level rankings?” Mu Ying quickly opened her player manual and flipped to the world forum’s ranking page.

[Level Rankings]

[No.1. Mu Ying (Druid, Level 1, 54%)]

[No.2. Huo Shaobai (Warrior, Level 1, 50%)]

[No.3. Miao Guowei (Warrior, Level 1, 50%)]

[No.4. Zhan Qing (Rogue, Level 1, 50%)]

[No.5. Tang Zheng (Warrior, Level 1, 50%)]

……

At first glance, it looked almost the same as yesterday, except she had suddenly shot up from outside the top 100 to first place.

She checked the battle rankings next. As expected, nothing had changed—those rankings were based on combat achievements, and she’d only killed 18 zombies so far, so it was normal she wasn’t listed.

Liu Cheng’s exclamation drew most people’s attention. Quite a few others were flipping through their player manuals just like her. After reading, they all stared at her in silence.

“……”

“Don’t look at me like that. Think about what I said today—class experience is important too. If you learn how to earn class experience, you can easily get on the rankings too. Those stuck at 50% with good battle rankings are probably just focusing on killing zombies. Their combat experience is maxed out,” Mu Ying explained honestly.

“Boss, I was wrong! I shouldn’t have tried to take advantage of you yesterday. Please, help me out!” Liu Luoluo clung to Mu Ying’s arm, pleading.

“I’m a Priest, just like Druids are divine spellcasters. Druids worship nature, so Priests should worship their gods, right? After what you said today, I spent ages in my room praising my god, but it didn’t do anything! Where did I go wrong?”

“Uh… I can only share my own thoughts, not saying I’m definitely right.” After seeing Liu Luoluo nod, Mu Ying continued, “Personally, I think most people don’t act unless there’s something in it for them, let alone… well, you know what I mean. For us Druids, it’s not about praising nature, but about contributing to it or getting closer to it—that’s when you gain something.”

Liu Luoluo clapped her hands together. “I get it! The Priest class description says the god grants power to their followers! Followers—faith! Mu Ying, thank you!”

She happily threw her arms around Mu Ying.

Mu Ying was a bit overwhelmed by the sudden intimacy, but she was genuinely glad for Liu Luoluo’s breakthrough. She hoped Liu Luoluo would train hard, get stronger, and contribute lots of money to her territory.

After all, you have to nurture your “leeks” before you can harvest them.

With Liu Luoluo’s success as an example, the campfire gathering turned into a workshop on class progression. Most of the time, Mu Ying was offering advice, but others joined in the discussion too.

Through this, she gained a deeper understanding of other classes and even discovered a new pattern:

The difficulty of class progression is also affected by your attributes.

For example, for Druids and Priests, the higher your Perception, the easier it is to connect with your source of power.

Her Perception was 4 points higher than Liu Luoluo’s, making it much easier for her to communicate with nature and gain its favor.

She also realized how rare spellcasting classes were. Of the twenty-some people present, only four—including herself—were spellcasters.

None of the others had a spellcasting attribute above 10, so they hadn’t even had the option to choose a spellcasting class.

But right now, spellcasters were also the weakest. Divine spellcasters like Priests had it a bit better since they had something to learn, but other spellcasters had to collect spells themselves.

The group’s unlucky Mage, Cheng Wei, complained that although the general store sold low-level spells, even the cheapest cantrip cost half a silver coin—about 50 copper coins, which meant killing a dozen or so zombies just to afford one.

Mu Ying genuinely sympathized—how rough! But when she heard the cantrip Cheng Wei wanted, “Ray of Frost,” could both deal damage and slow enemies, she couldn’t help but feel a little envious.

Looking at the Druid’s spell list, what did she have for cantrips? Nothing offensive at all. Clearly, Mages were the real pure spellcasting class.

Still, Mu Ying preferred her own class. Mage spells were hard to learn, and in this environment, you had to rely on your team in the early stages. If you didn’t have reliable teammates, you’d end up as just another pile of dirt.

Besides, nature was so wonderful—full of vibrant green life, much more interesting than a pile of complicated books.

The campfire gathering brought everyone closer together. Even though the apocalypse was cruel and people’s hearts were unpredictable, at least for now, they hadn’t lost hope or the moral baseline of civilized society.

Many people agreed to form teams and planned to go out together to hunt zombies for money the next day.

Cheng Wei and the others invited Mu Ying to join them again, but she still declined, saying only that if they met and had the same goals, they could act together.

Her focus was on training and learning spells, which took a lot of time, so she couldn’t fit her schedule to others and didn’t want to disrupt her own rhythm.

Even during the evening chat, she didn’t neglect her spell practice. She’d made good progress on Entangle, and after testing it with the others, found it could restrain several adult men at once—making it even easier to deal with slow-moving zombies.

That night, she stayed up late. Back in her treehouse, she cheerfully counted her copper coins.

Twenty new people had arrived today. Even though the treehouses weren’t rented out, entrance fees alone brought in 100 copper coins. Adding the 35 copper from the five mountaineering club members, she counted and even found three shiny silver coins in the pile.

She checked her adventure log.

[Oak General Store paid 3 silver coins for June’s rent.]

No wonder—someone with a demi-plane really was loaded.

Mu Ying counted her savings: 203 copper coins and 3 silver coins.