Chapter 11

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

The sky seemed to change color, and a moment later, the dark cloud overhead seemed to be tinged with a layer of blue ice crystals.

No—not just tinged…

Chen Haiping felt a harsh and frigid air blasting against his face, and right in front of his eyes, a blue light erupted from the center of the pitch-black flock of sparrows. In a flash, almost ten of the Demonized Sparrows were frozen solid, and the rest of them swayed in the air, affected by the cold.

Nearby, Yilian had a solemn expression as she raised both of her hands into the air. A blue arrow made of ice and as thick as her arm coalesced, and then it shot into the air, leaving ripples in its wake.

The icicle shot into the sparrow flock and exploded, spewing ice shards and frigid air in every direction…

It was an ice-type ability!

Chen Haiping had never imagined that such a delicate girl would be one of the rare Awakened with special abilities!

Not even one in a hundred Awakened was guaranteed to have a special ability!

This was something ordained by heaven, and Chen Haiping was filled with envy. Meanwhile, Yilian’s strength continued to surprise him.

Chen Haiping had originally felt Yilian to be a rather weak Awakened, but he was now witnessing Yilian swing her hand again and again, creating icicle after icicle and exterminating the Demonized Sparrows without even breathing hard. His mind was left reeling with indescribable shock.

If this were someone who had just awakened to an ability, using the ability once or twice would be their absolute limit. He had seen the number one Awakened of the shelter use their power to create explosions, and while its power had been immense, it had not been able to last for long.

In comparison, Yilian was completely relaxed. Whether it was condensing cold air into icicles or controlling the area in which they exploded, it was clear that this girl was holding back!

Chen Haiping would probably find it very hard to understand things like the profession system, spells, or high-level automatons, and he couldn’t be blamed for this. After all, even Tang Yu only had a surface understanding of these things.

…

Yilian left out a light breath, calming the surging mana in her body.

While Chen Haiping was stunned and reeling, she… was rather happy.

Each person would have a different definition of happiness. Some people felt happiness when eating gourmet foods, some people felt happiness from acing the enemy team, and for Yilian, happiness was proving her worth and helping her Overlord.

Once the flock of Demonized Sparrows had been killed, invisible ripples radiated out and began to converge and flow into her body.

Yilian’s crystalline eyes flew open.

This was…

She had awakened three years ago, but before finding that ragged magic book, she had never had a way to improve her strength. Even though she could sense a strange energy around her, her control over the power of ice remained extremely weak.

Upon finding the magic book, she had learned of a Wizard’s most basic ability: meditation.

Meditation was the most fundamental way to increase one’s strength, and Yilian had heard that other professions had similar methods. But the pure energy flowing into her from the Demonized Sparrows she had killed was nothing but a fairytale to her past self.

This energy was far too pure!

By just refining it a little, she could make this power her own. This was many times faster than meditating, and it came with no side effects.

Over the last three years, she had managed to bring her strength to a peak Tier 2 Awakened. If she continued with her normal meditation pace, she would have probably needed half a year to successfully break into Tier 3. But now… Yilian felt that she simply needed to refine a little more of this kind of energy to reach Awakened Tier 3.

This speed almost felt like a fantasy.

Yilian recalled her Overlord saying that there would be a pleasant surprise once she killed demonized beasts, called Soul Energy.

So this… was Soul Energy?

…

Tang Yu was rather happy once those Demonized Sparrows had been slain.

These demonized beasts were weak, and the chances of them having Origin Crystals was low, but there were also a lot of them. Tang Yu happily prepared himself to start digging for crystals.

But on second thought, he realized that he was no longer alone. He had his first small moving team, and it was best put to use digging out crystals.

As for Yilian, she had seemed so timid, and just yesterday, she had appeared so lost and confused, even tiptoeing on the smooth floors of the castle… but now, in front of the Demonized Sparrows, Yilian didn’t seem panicked at all.

After thinking about it a little, Tang Yu understood. Though Yilian was young and lacked fighting experience, she had just been through a difficult defensive battle. These Demonized Sparrows paled by comparison.

With this good start, Tang Yu continued on his original plan, continuing to clear out demonized beasts region by region while searching for anything useful left behind from the shelter.

It was dusk by the time Tang Yu returned to the villa area.

Counting the Origin Crystals in his pocket, Tang Yu smiled. That most exciting moment where he could start building had come—the moment where he opened his wallet.

Coincidentally, several survivors arrived, pushing a cart.

A large pile of miscellaneous items had been piled up in the center of the villa area, almost like a mountain of trash. These were all the remnants of buildings, like cement slabs with rebar sticking out of them, and also many damaged goods. Whether before the apocalypse or in the present, these were things that nobody wanted, but Tang Yu had a dire need for them.

“Move all these things in front of Villa No. 3.”

Tang Yu pointed at Villa No. 3, located in the inner part of the villa area. Farther inside were Villa No. 2 and the castle. The castle was some distance from the cliff. This barren clearing was perfect for Tang Yu’s purposes, as it was the safest place to put his core buildings.

Tang Yu already had plans to make this a forbidden zone. So long as he blocked the opening up ahead, he could seal the area tight. Even though people couldn’t enter the core buildings without Tang Yu’s permission, in order to avoid unnecessary problems, it was better to isolate these buildings away from the survivors.

It wasn’t long before the survivors had left a large pile of materials in front of Villa No. 3.

Villa No. 3 was already in terrible condition, littered with bullet holes, claw marks, and even the scorched craters left by explosions. In front of this villa, the pile of material seemed even more like a garbage heap.

This was no good… Tang Yu gave a slight shake of his head. Once he built up his core buildings, he needed to clean up his domain. If he wanted to develop this place into a shelter, he had to make a good impression. Moreover, when he walked out of his castle every day, he had no desire to see this sort of mood-ruining scene.

Once he had sent away the survivors while making them leave the cart, Tang Yu called over Number One and Number Two to take this valuable ‘trash’ to the clearing behind the castle.