Chapter 23

Rubbing his aching head, Tang Yu exhaled.

Building the walls had been more troublesome than he had imagined.

His past constructions had all involved indicating a location and then using the resources, upon which the building would be automatically constructed.

But walls were different. A single wall was made by combining countless ‘wall units’, and the cost of building a wall was also dependent on the number of ‘wall units’ built.

He had a stockpile of Origin Crystals, but he had used up a massive amount of stone. Fortunately, he had tasked the basic automatons with demolition. Without enough tools and relying purely on survivors, he could probably have spent another week and still not been able to build a wall.

However, the most troublesome factor was not the cost, but indicating the location.

When he normally built something, Tang Yu simply needed to stand next to the location. But things were different with walls. The wall covered such a large range that, regardless of where he stood, there would always be a place out of his vision. Tang Yu had decided to stand on the top-floor balcony of the castle and use ‘long distance’ construction for the walls.

This was a very strange feeling. It was like he was standing from an even higher viewpoint and observing the domain.

In the end… Tang Yu felt a little dizzy.

Was it because he lacked mental energy? It seemed that he would have to take things a little easier in the future.

…

While Tang Yu built the walls, Roger killed off invading demonized beasts.

At this time, Yilian had a grave expression.

She had a kitchen knife in her hand and was staring at the ingredients before her.

These ingredients were not the batch from Wang Tai’s private stash, but from an ingredient resource pack that Tang Yu had bought. They were all top-class ingredients, and they came in great variety. Avian, aquatic, terrestrial, fruit, vegetables—it was all there.

This was her first time working with ingredients like these, and Yilian was rather dumbfounded.

Let alone used them, she had not even heard of many of them before. She had heard that the nobles of the inner city would hold feasts with all sorts of foods, but not even a feast would feature so many rich ingredients.

She was rather nervous. The Overlord had placed all these precious ingredients under her care.

This was her mission. For this task, Yilian was even more serious than when she dealt with demonized beasts.

She opened a cookbook next to her. The Overlord had given her several books on cooking. She had spent the last two days reading through them several times, and she found the field wide-ranging and profound.

Though she had been self-reliant, no one had ever given her ingredients to cook… She was a very serious and earnest student.

In the kitchen, Yilian began to follow the steps in the cookbook. Though this was her first time, her movements were not slow.

She very quickly began to place various plates of food on the table.

When Tang Yu came downstairs, he saw Yilian wearing a plain t-shirt and shorts, a green kitchen apron in front of her chest, prettily standing next to the table like the nice girl from next door.

Compared to their first meeting, Yilian was more cheerful and lively, occasionally flashing a smile. But she was still rather reserved, insisting on waiting for him to sit down before she took her own seat.

The food was very rich, and though these were just ordinary dishes, they smelled delicious, and his nose was already twitching.

This was the most delicious meal Tang Yu had seen since the apocalypse. He almost couldn’t believe that Yilian, who had only been studying cooking for two days and had cooked for the first time, could cook something so delicious.

This talent… capable on both the battlefield and in the kitchen, and she can even occasionally play the part of an air conditioner. Tang Yu felt ashamed that the most he could do was make instant noodles.

“Mm, this braised pork is pretty good…”

Tang Yu ate a piece, glanced at Yilian’s thin body, and placed several pieces on her plate.

In truth, he also wanted to call Roger over, but Roger was probably the busiest person in the shelter. With his body recovered, he had thrown all his energy into the domain, leaving early in the morning and returning late at night as he battled with demonized beasts. Although Tang Yu had sent Roger food, he probably didn’t care what exactly he was eating.

Before the apocalypse, he would have been one of those workaholics that forgot about food and sleep.

The two of them were both Awakened, and Awakened needed to eat more than ordinary people. While things were fine for everyday activities, once they got into intense battles, Awakened needed more energy to restore what they had consumed.

All the food was quickly consumed.

Yilian had a very happy look on her face. Even though she had made the food herself, it was impossible to describe the sensation on her taste buds until she actually tasted it, and she had never imagined that a day would come where she could eat such delicacies.

She felt very fortunate that she had been able to come here.

Tang Yu also felt very blessed.

To live in such a safe castle and feast on such gourmet food was an experience that many small shelter chiefs could not enjoy.

…

After finishing the meal, the two of them set about their own tasks.

There was no need to go exploring at night, and Yilian fully used the time available to her to improve her strength. Besides refining Soul Energy, she studied that tattered magic book every day.

Tang Yu had looked at the book before, but for him, the book was no different from gobbledygook. It wasn’t because he was illiterate. Rather, this sort of magic book wasn’t written with ordinary words, but with words that were imbued with special power.

These words were very special and were difficult to copy, causing magic books to be very rare. In addition, reading books written with these words did not require recognizing the characters. What was key was understanding and comprehending the contents.

It was clear that Tang Yu didn’t have this talent.

He had never placed any hopes on his talent. In any case, if he lacked talent, he could just make up for it with external add-ons. And if he had add-ons, what did he need talent for? Was it edible?

Recently, Tang Yu had stopped hunting demonized beasts. In any case, his fighting power in the team was average, so after thinking about it, he had put aside the idea. Going out hunting wasted too much time, and there were a hundred things that he needed to do in the domain.

For example, bolstering the shelter’s reserves…

The domain had a wall now. Ten meters was enough to keep out the majority of the demonized beasts, and the walls produced by the system were tough enough to hold off even a demon flood. With this, he had a basic defense line.

What Tang Yu needed to prepare now was awakening equipment.

This item could be considered standard for a shelter. In one aspect, awakening equipment would increase the chances of a survivor awakening and give the shelter more Awakened to work with. Another aspect was that producing awakening equipment wasn’t that difficult for a shelter, but it was very difficult for groups of ordinary survivors.

Tang Yu knew how to produce this equipment, for it was no secret.

In the early days of the apocalypse, when signals could still be broadcasted, a scientist developed a way to facilitate ordinary people awakening, a method which the government swiftly announced. It was precisely this awakening equipment that allowed many of the small shelters that lacked in defense to survive attack after attack from demonized beasts.

This simple awakening equipment was a circlet.

Tang Yu took ten Origin Crystals of about the same energy value. This was the first material used in the Awakening Circlet, but gathering just ten Origin Crystals was already a very difficult task for many survivor groups.

In order to increase the quality of the circlet, he used Origin Crystals which were the equivalent of two units of Origin Crystal. These only had a chance of forming in demonized beasts that were equivalent to Awakened Tier 2 or higher.

One also needed demonized beast blood and bones, which he took from the bodies of high-tier demonized beasts.

Tang Yu soaked the Origin Crystals in the blood. He needed to soak them for at least three hours, after which he needed to find a suitable bone that he could sculpt into a circlet, then dig out ten holes in which he could implant the Origin Crystals…

He didn’t really know how to sculpt, but it wasn’t like the looks mattered. After working away for quite some time, he looked at the bone that could barely be considered a ring with a great sense of accomplishment.

But the process was a little like… some sort of heretical ceremony. Tang Yu understood that human scientists still had a very shallow understanding of demonized beasts and Origin Crystals. For them to produce something usable was already impressive. Caring about the form? That was impossible.

This sort of crude awakening equipment had its own flaws. It wasn’t like anyone with the aptitude to awaken would awaken with the help of the Awakening Circlet. It simply increased the chances.

From what Tang Yu understood, only sufficiently talented people could naturally awaken without the help of an external force. Perhaps as time passed, more and more survivors would awaken, but it was clear that many people couldn’t wait for that moment. The Awakening Circlet simply reached the goal of awakening by stimulating something.

“I can give this circlet to Old Chen and let him decide how to handle it. I’ll just use the rules that most other shelters use. In the end, this consumes Origin Crystals, so survivors can’t just use it for free.”

For survivors to use the Awakening Circlet, they either had to pay Origin Crystals or sign a contract with the shelter. If they didn’t awaken, then they would remain a low-class survivor, but if they did awaken, they would have to serve the shelter unconditionally.

Even so, survivors would still scramble madly to obtain it. Nothing else mattered compared to the temptation of becoming an Awakened.

For the sake of getting stronger, since they didn’t have the money, they would just sell their bodies…

Once he was done with the Awakening Circlet, Tang Yu readied himself to draft a planning map for his domain, using the domain map as his reference. But he suddenly noticed that something was wrong, and upon close inspection, he discovered several red dots in his domain.

These red dots were slowly moving.

They had come from the vacation villa’s entrance.

They had already mixed in with the green dots.