Chapter 15 – The Dungeon (Seeking Recommendations and Collections)

Chapter 15 – The Dungeon (Seeking Recommendations and Collections)

This outcome was within Cheng Yang’s expectations. In this brutal apocalyptic game, who wouldn’t want to enhance their strength as quickly as possible?

Cheng Yang immediately issued orders, “In a moment, I’ll take you all out to continue hunting demonic creatures and earn as many spirit energy points as possible. Boss Li, you and the others should stay in the base to cultivate. Each of you has around ten spirit energy points, which is enough for an hour of double cultivation speed.”

For cultivators, cultivation itself was a form of rest and wouldn’t affect their mental state the next day.

Next, Cheng Yang opened the Archer Statue and chose to upgrade its magic power attribute. The magic energy points they had earned earlier amounted to over 400, enough to upgrade one attribute for each of the four statues.

However, the other three statues still needed an hour and a half to cool down completely. Cheng Yang didn’t plan to wait any longer and led Yu Kai and the others out of the base again.

This time, even without a summoner, Cheng Yang wasn’t worried about safety. The large groups of demonic creatures had already been wiped out by them earlier. Although new demonic creatures had respawned, their numbers wouldn’t be significant.

After another three hours of battle, Cheng Yang and his team returned to the base, which was already past 2 a.m.

On the way back, Liu Hao complained, “Yang, what kind of crappy game is this? There’s not even a healing priest. It’s such a pain!”

Cheng Yang smirked but didn’t respond. It wasn’t that this world lacked healing priests; they just hadn’t appeared yet. Pang Shan, for instance, was a combatant with priestly tendencies.

Upon returning to the base, the upgrades for the three attributes of the Mage, Warrior, and Summoner statues were complete. The upgrade ratio had increased to 8%. This meant that once these attributes reached level 2, they would enjoy an 8% attribute boost. Cheng Yang immediately chose one attribute from each statue to upgrade: life strength for the Mage, and magic energy for the Warrior and Summoner.

As a result, the nearly 300 territory spirit energy points they had just earned were all spent, leaving them with 351 points.

Cheng Yang was quite satisfied with the current situation. Earning a thousand territory spirit energy points in one night was a rare achievement. He knew this was largely due to the massive influx of demonic creatures right after the world’s transformation. In a few days, the respawn rate of demonic creatures around the base would return to normal, and they would be lucky to earn 500 spirit energy points daily from killing monsters within a kilometer of the base. Of course, after upgrading the territory, the gains might be greater, but the consumption would also be much higher, making the earned spirit energy points seem insignificant.

At that point, obtaining enough spirit energy points would rely more on donations from the territory’s inhabitants.

Currently, Cheng Yang’s magic energy had reached 63 points, but the effect wasn’t yet noticeable, as the additional 3 points weren’t enough for him to cast an extra magic missile.

Next, Cheng Yang began his cultivation for the night.

He now had 413 spirit energy points, which pleased him. However, as an intermediate magic apprentice, achieving double cultivation speed required double the spirit energy points of a beginner. Four hours of cultivation would cost him 80 spirit energy points. In the early stages, almost no one could afford such consumption.

Four hours of cultivation passed quickly, and Cheng Yang’s progress as an intermediate magic apprentice reached 3.2%, indeed more than double the efficiency of the previous night.

When he opened his eyes, the sky was already beginning to lighten. After four hours of cultivation, his mental state had returned to its peak.

Cheng Yang looked around and noticed that, apart from the four people on patrol, everyone else was lying on the ground resting.

He could only smile wryly. He couldn’t expect these people to cultivate all night without sleeping like he did. This was a habit he had developed after a year in the apocalyptic game.

Currently, Yu Kai and three other combatants were on patrol. For now, only ranged combatants were suitable for patrol duty.

Seeing Cheng Yang get up, they jumped down from the wall and quickly approached him, greeting him respectfully. Cheng Yang was their spiritual pillar, and this respect came from the heart.

“Yang, what are we doing today?” Yu Kai asked.

Cheng Yang had already made plans. “We’ll have some breakfast and then head to Huimin Town to the south of the base to see if we can rescue some people. We’re only a little over a kilometer away, and we cleared most of the demonic creatures along the way last night. Although some respawned during the late night, the frequency isn’t as high as when the disaster first struck, and the number of monsters won’t be large.”

Yu Kai was stunned. “What breakfast? Are we going to roast the meat of those demonic creatures?”

Cheng Yang replied, “Most demonic creature meat is edible, like the gray wolves we killed last night. But we won’t be eating that for breakfast today. Look, what’s this?”

Yu Kai followed Cheng Yang’s pointing finger and saw a large bag filled with compressed biscuits and other dry rations. He was overjoyed. “This is great! I’m starving. I didn’t eat anything last night and worked all night.”

Indeed, making a rich second-generation starve for a night was quite painful. No wonder he was so excited to see the compressed biscuits.

Cheng Yang said, “Go wake the others, and we’ll eat together before setting out. This time, I’ll take half the people to Huimin Town, and the rest will stay at the base to kill the surrounding demonic creatures.”

Although Cheng Yang wanted to take everyone, leaving the demonic creatures around the base untouched would be a significant waste. To maintain the highest respawn rate, it was best to kill them as soon as they appeared; otherwise, the respawn rate would drop. This was a lesson learned by countless people in the past.

Suddenly, Liu Hao remembered something and said, “Yang, go check what’s behind the altar. It appeared early this morning, and I studied it for a long time but couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t dare touch it at the time.”

Cheng Yang was slightly taken aback and immediately walked towards the back of the altar.

A two-meter-tall oval light screen instantly came into Cheng Yang’s view. He was all too familiar with this.

This was the teleportation gate, also known as the entrance to the game’s dungeon.

Cheng Yang couldn’t understand why the dungeon entrance had appeared in the base. In his previous life, this place didn’t have such a thing.

Suddenly, Cheng Yang remembered something. Hadn’t he moved a strange oval stone slab near the altar yesterday? He remembered it was still there after the earthquake ended, so where had it gone?

Could that oval stone slab have been the initial form of the teleportation gate, activated on the first night of the apocalypse? This was highly likely; otherwise, Cheng Yang couldn’t explain how the dungeon entrance had appeared in the base.

Thinking of this, Cheng Yang felt a pang of regret. If he had known this earlier, the past two days would have been a waste. He knew there were at least five dungeons of various levels around Xiangcheng City. If he had moved the initial stone slabs of those dungeons to the base, what a significant advantage that would have been! But now, that possibility was gone, as once the teleportation gate formed, it couldn’t be moved.

Looking at the teleportation gate, Cheng Yang quickly calmed down. In this world, which base had such a wild dungeon?

When the base upgraded to a level 3 village, a Trial Hall would appear. This building was essentially a place for people to accept trial missions and enter trial spaces, which were also dungeons. However, the spirit energy points earned in such dungeons were only one-third of the normal amount, and the territory wouldn’t receive territory spirit energy points.

What were the benefits of a wild dungeon? First, the spirit energy points earned in a wild dungeon were the same as in the main world. Second, as long as the wild dungeon’s entrance was within a kilometer of the base, combatants could earn spirit energy points by killing demonic beasts in the dungeon, and the territory would also receive spirit energy points. This had been verified in the past, though it was nearly a year after the apocalypse began when a base in the U.S. upgraded and its territory range happened to include a nearby wild dungeon.

Now, Luofeng Village had such a dungeon from the start, which would significantly boost its upgrade speed.

Of course, the benefits of a dungeon weren’t limited to this. There was also the chance to obtain equipment, skill books, potions, and other items, and in special circumstances, even unique items. Like the dungeon before them.

Cheng Yang was very familiar with this dungeon. It was called the Bloody Church, the lowest-level dungeon. In its normal difficulty, most monsters were at the early first stage, elite monsters at the mid-first stage, and the final boss at the late first stage.

If Cheng Yang remembered correctly, completing the first clear of this dungeon on normal difficulty would yield a treasure. This was the main reason Cheng Yang had been eager to find this dungeon.

This treasure was the Priest Statue. Offering this statue to the altar would cause a Priest Class Statue to appear in the territory, allowing people to become priests. The benefits were obvious. This first clear wasn’t just for this dungeon but for all Bloody Church dungeons worldwide. Only the first clear had the chance to obtain this Priest Statue treasure.

Of course, there were other ways to obtain the Priest Statue, but this was considered the easiest method in the past. Basically, whoever discovered the dungeon first and had sufficient strength could clear it.

Originally, Cheng Yang planned to go to Huimin Town first, but seeing the teleportation gate changed his mind. Having a priest along would make the journey much safer.

Under normal circumstances, even if Cheng Yang took all his people, they probably wouldn’t be able to clear this dungeon. The late first-stage boss could wipe them out. However, Cheng Yang happened to know an unconventional way to clear it.

“What is this thing?” Yu Kai asked, noticing Cheng Yang’s changing expressions.

Cheng Yang replied, “This is a good thing. You can think of it as a game dungeon. Go call Haozi, Old Niu, and Boss Li. We’ll try this dungeon together. After we finish, we’ll go to Huimin Town.”

Yu Kai had no reason to refuse and immediately went to the residential area to wake everyone up.