Chapter Seventy-Three: The Ghoul-Infected

Night quietly descended, and bonfires and cooking smoke rose within the Storm Gathering Grounds, casting a glow of human life into the darkness.

Inside his pocket space, Lu Sheng harvested the results of the muscle dog's day-long training. With the essence of the Black Iron Tree, the muscle dog's workouts were showing obvious improvement; however, even a thousand pounds of Black Iron Tree Essence could only support training up to the third tier. After retrieving the muscle dog, Lu Sheng received fifty percent of the day’s training effect transferred to himself, and he could distinctly feel his strength increase. Because the muscle dog could only train for twelve hours a day, Lu Sheng always released it in the morning and recalled it at night.

What disappointed him today was failing to obtain any Vitality Grass, which meant his Bloodthirsty Mosquito couldn’t achieve a tenfold enhancement—that was a pity. Tomorrow, he needed to head to the main city, and Li Kuang would also lead four hundred men to the Autumn Hunt. Only Lei Yan could be sent to lead a team to Dagger Mountain in search of the grass.

The Autumn Hunt was quite important; as long as they could gather enough resources, the strength of the gathering grounds would rise as well. Of course, from what Lu Sheng had learned about the Autumn Hunt from Li Kuang, the Frost Gate would never abandon too many resources; they would only leave behind a portion for the various gathering grounds to fight over—considered a small benefit for them.

At dinner time, Lu Sheng set up a grill at his door, taking out some Fangboar meat and a variety of vegetables to prepare a barbecue. The ingredients in this world were exceptional; no matter how they were cooked, as long as the chef’s skill wasn’t terrible, the food turned out delicious.

The vegetables Wang Xian brought were crisp and juicy, rivaling fruit in flavor. Especially the green radishes: eaten raw, they were crisp and refreshing, a sweet burst flooding the mouth with every bite. Lu Sheng’s meals were now the finest in the entire gathering grounds.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Three heavy iron clangs reverberated throughout the settlement—their warning bell, sounded only when danger was near.

In an instant, the entire gathering grounds sprang into action; everyone who had been eating grabbed their weapons and headed for the main gate. Lu Sheng tidied up quickly and prepared to check on the situation. Incidents like these at night were common; monsters would attack from time to time. The night watch could usually handle such threats without raising the alarm—if the bell rang, it meant either too many monsters had appeared, or they were unusually strong.

By the time Lu Sheng reached the gate, the battle was already underway. He was startled by the monsters he saw.

Zombies?

The creatures immediately reminded Lu Sheng of zombies, though not the slow-moving kind. These monsters were fast, their skin black, otherwise indistinguishable from humans, with ten sharp claws for fingers and swift, lethal attacks.

What made Lu Sheng think of zombies was that slashing any part of these monsters—except the head—was useless; only decapitation ended them.

"Attack the head! Don’t bother with any other part!" Li Kuang was at the front lines, quickly identifying the monsters’ weakness. There were about three to four hundred of them, their strength roughly equivalent to mid-tier first level, with the stronger ones approaching late first level. The gathering ground’s defenders were capable of handling them.

Yet Lu Sheng felt uneasy. He decided to kill one himself to see if these creatures were infectious.

Li Kuang, seeing Lu Sheng emerge, greeted him with a smile: "Sir, leave these monsters to us. There’s no need for you to get involved."

Lu Sheng replied, "I want to kill one myself to check. Try not to let these monsters scratch you; be careful." Li Kuang’s mind raced—could these monsters be poisonous?

"Listen up, everyone! Be careful—don’t let these things hurt you!" Regardless of the specifics, since Lu Sheng had spoken, he would take no chances. Besides, caution was always wise; he was simply issuing another reminder.

Lu Sheng used spatial traversal to appear before one of the monsters, lashing out with his tier-four Frogman Spear.

The monster’s head exploded instantly!

[Ghoul Infectee]
Quality: White
Tier: Mid First Level
Skill: None

The moment he killed the creature, Lu Sheng inspected the dropped card. According to its description, these monsters had no skills, which suggested they weren’t infectious. After all, infection would likely count as a special skill.

Even so, Lu Sheng insisted everyone remain cautious—better to take longer in battle than risk injury. At the same time, he joined the fray, weaving among the ghoulish infectees and swinging his spear; with every strike, a ghoul’s head burst apart.

Faced with such a bizarre enemy, Lu Sheng chose to act, quickly ending the fight—if infection was possible, it would be a major problem.

With his involvement, the battle ended swiftly. Lu Sheng’s strength and abilities were overwhelming; against these tier-one monsters, a casual swipe was fatal.

Once every monster was slain, Lu Sheng ordered Li Kuang to check for any injured personnel. Anyone wounded should be quarantined for observation. He also explained his reasoning to Li Kuang, who hurried off to conduct the inspection.

By the time all was settled, it was past nine o’clock. Now, all Lu Sheng needed to do was wait for the Water Spirit Fruits to ripen and for himself to reach the fourth tier. He was eager to see what level he could attain with these ten tier-four Water Spirit Fruits.

The Spirit Fruit would need about another hour to mature. The wait was long—in this world without phones or any pastime, there was little with which to pass the time.

Finally, after an interminable hour, Lu Sheng entered the sub-dimensional space, excitement growing at the sight of ten glistening blue fruits. He picked them from the tree, supplied the Water Spirit Fruit Tree with plenty of Twin-headed Fire Serpent corpses, and awaited the next batch.

Back in his room, he took out a Water Spirit Fruit and ate it in a few decisive bites. A surge of energy instantly flooded his body, gathering in his abdomen before being absorbed by his life card, the Chrono-ant.

A powerful swelling sensation radiated from his abdomen, spreading throughout his body—he felt as if he might burst. Fortunately, the Chrono-ant absorbed the energy rapidly, and the swelling peaked and then receded.

Without question, he had underestimated the potency of a tier-four spirit fruit, especially a blue-quality one. His own cultivation was still at the third tier; had his life card not been of high enough quality to absorb the energy so efficiently, the fruit’s power might well have torn him apart.

Lu Sheng breathed a sigh of relief only when the swelling sensation finally faded. With just one tier-four Water Spirit Fruit, he’d already advanced to late third tier—skipping straight over the mid stage!

It seemed that tonight, these ten tier-four Water Spirit Fruits might truly propel him to the fourth tier.