Chapter 6: Chapter 6

“You really know how to enjoy life, little one,” Mu Ying said, gently rubbing its belly with her fingertip."

"After learning how to sense nature, Mu Ying gradually became obsessed with it, tirelessly using this skill to observe the natural energy within all kinds of plants.

She was especially drawn to the ancient trees—the older the tree, the stronger its natural aura, making it easier for her to sense. In this state, she could truly feel the vitality of the plants, which filled her with joy and made her never want to harm them again.

Gaining experience for her class by sensing natural energy was much easier than killing zombies, though it was less efficient.

After several attempts, Mu Ying discovered that not every session of sensing nature would grant her progress. Only when she gained some insight or felt a deeper connection with nature would she earn experience.

If she helped a struggling plant become more vibrant, she would also gain experience.

However, using her nature sense would cut off her awareness of her surroundings, so Mu Ying only dared to use it freely within her own territory. Outside, she had to be extremely cautious and never ventured far. As soon as dusk fell, she would return home.

By now, she was already a [Druid LV1 (21/100)], which was equivalent to having killed 21 zombies.

Mu Ying was quite satisfied. Cheerfully, she used some collected dry branches to start a fire and cooked a pot of fish soup, even splurging a little by adding some Spring of Restoration water.

She set aside a small bowl of fish soup for Gun Gun, and used the rest to soak some instant noodles for herself.

The only thing she regretted was losing her phone. She had no way of knowing what was happening outside, and Shi Yin still hadn’t come looking for her. He was probably off in another dimension receiving his inheritance by now.

Without novels or online updates to accompany her meal, even the delicious fish noodle soup seemed a bit bland. Mu Ying could only pull out the player’s manual to read.

By this time, the world forum was already bustling with activity.

The leaderboard at the top of the forum had been unlocked, divided into a Level Ranking and a Battle Record Ranking, each showing the top 100 players.

Mu Ying clicked in for a look—she was nowhere to be found on either the Level or Battle Record rankings.

This was no surprise.

For trained soldiers, people with some combat skills, or even just strong adult men, killing zombies wasn’t much of a problem.

If they were in crowded places, they’d probably have no choice but to fight zombies head-on, racking up plenty of combat experience.

The top 100 players were all above level 40, with the top 10 all at level 50.

There was a lot of overlap between the Battle Record and Level Rankings—about 80% of those listed were physical-attack classes like Warriors.

Scrolling down to the public chat area, the first trending post was:

“Warriors are OP! Mage classes are so miserable!”

Posts in the public chat area weren’t linked to player IDs, making it feel like an anonymous message board. Mu Ying clicked into the top thread.

“Picked Mage for nothing—still can’t do anything...”

“Where the heck do you even get spells? Is this damn apocalypse game bugged?”

“Told you, Warriors are the way to go. Skills are easy to learn, and killing zombies is no problem.”

“No way, no way, Mages don’t even have spells? At least us Priests have a spell list, though it’s hard to learn. Guess that’s what I get for being an atheist—I’m not great at sucking up to gods!”

“As a veteran game designer, classes that are easy to learn usually have a lower ceiling, to keep things balanced. Mage classes are tough early on, but they’ll definitely make a comeback later...”

Browsing the forum chat area felt a lot like scrolling through Weibo, and she picked up a lot of information.

For example, when the apocalypse game went live, some people’s phones just vanished while they were playing—lucky for them. Others were driving and suddenly found themselves thrown onto the road. Those on planes or ships had it even worse.

Water, electricity, and transportation systems had all collapsed, and only cold weapons remained. Human civilization had been set back by hundreds of years overnight.

One post in particular caught her attention:

“Found a camp with NPCs! Coordinates: South Suburbs of Qu City!”

“I found one too, right in my family’s field. It fell from the sky with a meteor. At first, it was tiny, but then it suddenly expanded hundreds of times. There are buildings inside, but I didn’t see any people. You need to pay 10 copper coins to get in though—way too expensive!”

“I went in. All the buildings are shops selling all sorts of stuff, and the NPCs are inside. There’s even a shop selling spell scrolls!”

“Is our planet really being taken over by a game? Even NPCs are showing up. Are these camps the newbie villages? Can we do quests there?”

Mu Ying read through a lot of related posts and started to seriously suspect that the Lord’s Order she’d picked up was the precursor to these camps. If no one picked up a Lord’s Order for a while, it would automatically turn into a camp.

Looking around, her own camp had nothing at all. Why did other camps already have shops and NPCs?

She checked her territory info and found that there was indeed a type of functional building in the blueprints section: Shop.

[Facility: Shop]

[Function: Can attract merchants to set up shop, and provides protection for shop owners]

[Scale: Depends on the size of the residential building used in construction]

[Required Materials: Residence x1, merchant recruitment costs extra]

[Blueprint Conversion Cost: 100 Energy]

To build a shop, she’d first need a residence as the main structure. The shop blueprint was more like adding extra functions to a residence, and its size and appearance would depend on the style of the residence. Converting the blueprint would cost 100 energy, but she only had 80 right now.

Mu Ying then checked the residence options. There were blueprint templates, but all required large open spaces—and all those trees were her cultivation resources. She couldn’t bear to cut them down.

To preserve the trees, Mu Ying decided to design her own residence. Creating a blueprint didn’t require advanced drawing skills; she could just add conditions to design the building.

Residences were for living in, and unlike in real online games, there was no inventory system here. Most people would need a secure place to store supplies, so a residence was a good choice.

So her first requirement was safety, with some anti-theft measures.

It also needed to blend in with the forest environment—ideally, making use of the trees without affecting their growth.

Finally, the appearance should match the forest vibe: fresh, natural, cozy, and comfortable.

After entering these requirements, the residence blueprint she imagined gradually took shape.

[Facility: Treehouse Residence]

[Function: For living in; fireproof and moisture-proof; offers some anti-theft and protective features]

[Scale: Depends on the size and number of trees supporting the treehouse]

[Required Materials: Large trees, wood, a small amount of energy]

[Blueprint Conversion Cost: 50 Energy]

Blueprints only needed to be converted once and could be reused. Both shops and residences were facilities that would need to be built in large numbers in the camp, but residences required little energy, and there were plenty of big trees available. The main issue was gathering enough wood.

If she didn’t want to cut down trees, collecting wood would be a hassle. Fallen branches and leaves within the camp could be converted into wood, but even if she used all of them, she’d only get 20 units.