Chapter 65: Preparations Before the Second Wave

Bang!

A massive black bear collapsed to the ground, its head vanished from its neck, blood fountaining skyward like a high-pressure hose.

Its body was covered in bone spurs, and even through the black fur, the bulging muscles were clearly visible.

Standing upright, it was three meters tall and weighed a ton; when it ran, the earth thudded beneath it.

Unfortunately, even such a powerful black bear was no match for Fang Shi — not even for a single exchange.

One sword-slicing move, and its head moved house.

Fang Shi glanced at the data panel, his face showing disappointment.

"Target dead."

"Extracting target soul energy. You gained 210 experience points."

Apart from experience, not a single survival point — in short, a losing deal.

The system simply leaves no loopholes to exploit, and don't even think about farming monsters endlessly in the training grounds or staying there forever.

Moreover, and most importantly, the Trial Tower is not a refuge.

Once the second wave arrives, no matter what you're doing inside the tower—

you'll be kicked out without exception. Which means even though Fang Shi has over 2,100 survival points, he can't stay in Sky Sword Sect for a full 21 days.

At most, he can stay 19 days before having to leave.

Of course, the above assumes that the Sky Sword Sect world has no time-acceleration effect.

"I need to hurry. It wasn't easy getting that chatterbox Senior Brother Ling to leave."

"Otherwise, fighting magical beasts that wield spells? Where would I find the ease for that?"

Bang!

Soft earth was stomped into deep pits as Fang Shi shot toward his next target like an arrow leaving the bowstring.

……

Ancheng, a riverside apartment.

Zhao Wenjun, his hand wrapped in bandages, stood at the edge of the floor-to-ceiling window, gazing at the fires in the night sky.

"Professor Wang, how are all the arrangements coming along?"

Behind Zhao Wenjun, a scholarly-looking middle-aged man sitting in a chair said: "Officer Zhao, everything is ready."

"Registration and cataloguing of survivors, supplies, lodging, water and sanitation — all civilian matters have been fully planned out."

"Once we recapture District DC next and relocate the civilians, we'll be well-prepared to handle the second wave."

Watching Professor Wang's confident expression, a smile also appeared on Zhao Wenjun's weary face.

With Fang Shi's intel, plus the Trial Tower serving as an intelligence relay—

humanity was no longer going into the second wave completely unprepared.

Extensive arrangements had been made in advance to face the coming challenge.

"Thank you for your hard work, Professor Wang — worrying over this for three days and nights without sleep."

Professor Wang smiled and said: "Just three days without sleep, that's nothing."

"Back in the day, to run an experiment, I lived in the lab — seven days with less than ten hours of sleep total."

"Now my constitution is even better than before. Pulling an all-nighter is a breeze."

"It's you, Officer Zhao — don't throw your life around so recklessly when hunting."

Zhao Wenjun turned around and shrugged indifferently: "Aren't there clerics? Those divine spells are amazing — one cast and you're fully restored."

Professor Wang said seriously: "Divine spells aren't omnipotent. Our Mage Department has studied them — the principle of Moderate Wound Healing is roughly accelerating cell division and enhancing the body's self-recovery."

"Like your near-death experience the other day — shattered bones, displaced muscles and organs. Using Moderate Wound Healing alone only barely kept you alive."

"Later we found several doctors to properly clean the wounds, suture and treat them, and only then used Moderate Wound Healing again to achieve a perfect recovery."

Zhao Wenjun praised: "Worthy of being Ancheng's number one mage — you've got all this figured out crystal clear. Under your leadership, our Ancheng Spell Research Institute has become famous too."

A hint of pride appeared on Professor Wang's face. Mages are a high-intelligence class.

Although players can change class freely, in practice those with naturally low intelligence can't cut it.

Spell slots are few enough, and learning new spells is incredibly difficult.

You could say they're just a useless mage.

And in the apocalypse, there are far too many such mages.

Most people lack self-awareness — they see "mage" and immediately pick the class.

Their abilities are so low they can't even perform support duties well, nor can they kill monsters.

Similar classes include Cleric, Warlock, and Druid.

All of them have extreme requirements on personal attributes.

This ties into the most important factor: spellcasting ability.

As for melee classes, although they also have attribute requirements, at the end of the day you just need to be able to lift a blade and slash monsters.

Melee proficiency improves simply by killing more monsters.

But spells are like math — if you don't get it, you just don't get it.

If your attributes aren't enough, you'll never learn them in a lifetime.

Zhao Wenjun added: "Oh right, why didn't you guys just keep using divine spells to heal my arm? Now I can't go level up."

Professor Wang shook his head: "Divine spells have a price — at least, that's the case with the low-tier divine spells we've encountered so far."

"Second-circle Moderate Wound Healing enhances cellular division, but in reality it also consumes lifespan."

"Your injuries at the time were simply too severe. To save your life—"

"the clerics present were given a standing order to perform over-treatment."

"It has severely worn down your cellular telomeres, already exceeding a threshold."

"If we continue using divine arts to treat you, it will cause severe telomere damage."

"You must rest for a while, let the cellular telomeres recover somewhat, before we can resume divine-art treatment."

"The Medical Department already has corresponding cases — some veterans who relied on the wonders of divine arts."

"Every battle they fought without a care, chasing efficiency, heedless of their own injuries."

"The result was hair turning white overnight, and the aging of muscles and organs."

"Therefore, we've already forbidden the Medical Department's priests from continuing to treat you."

Zhao Wenjun fell silent for a moment: "Uncle Wang, do you think lifespan still matters now?"

"If we don't hurry and level up, how are we going to weather the crises to come?"

Professor Wang also fell silent — they were both already upper echelons of the human gathering place.

They naturally knew the Second Surge was not the end.

There would still be a Third, a Fourth, each one stronger than the last.

By their estimates, in the end massive numbers of legendary creatures would even appear.

Precisely because they understood, the pressure on them was immense.

Zhao Wenjun, as one of those holding the highest military ranks, didn't know about soldiers going white-haired?

He knew, but so what — if they couldn't survive the present, dying of natural causes in the future would be a joke.

Even Professor Wang, after using up his daily allotment of light spell slots every day, still had to take up a blade and fight in melee, and had honed quite the skill at close combat.

At night he still had to go to the research institute to carry out research on spells.

Busy around the clock, Zhao Wenjun watched and felt for him, so he found an excuse to summon him over to report on work.

Don't be fooled by how much they've chatted — for Professor Wang, it was actually an excellent rest.

Professor Wang's expression was resolute: "We must always give it our all — only that way can we avoid regrets and remorse."

"Besides, didn't we already work it all out back at the Stone City Conference?"

"As long as humanity can progress with every one, surge after surge, that is the source of humanity's evolution."

"Humanity will grow the strongest, until no one can come to offend us."

Hearing this, Zhao Wenjun let out a laugh: "Then let Uncle Wang and me work hard at it together."