15

This was within Cheng Yang's expectations. In a death game such as this who wouldn't try desperately to increase their strength?

"Yu Kai, I'm going to take you and the others here at the village out to hunt monsters to make sure you'll continue to have enough Experience Fragments." Cheng Yang said, "Old Lee, you and the rest will stay here and train for the next four hours before sleeping. Make sure to absorb some Experience Fragments. You have enough to spare."

For Professionals, time spent meditating for four hours was just as refreshing as a night's rest.

Next Cheng Yang opened the system panel of the Ranger statues and researched Hypertension Tendon Reinforcements to increase the Physical Attack of his Rangers. He still had enough Experience Fragments left over to research an additional attribute for each class change statue.

The other three statues still had an hour and thirty minutes left or so on their research so Cheng Yang left the village with Yu Kai and the others.

Although he only brought a single Summoner Cheng Yang wasn't worried about the Warriors as they would stay close to the village. Since all of the nearby hordes had been destroyed already they wouldn't run into any more for a few hours. The remaining monsters near the village were either alone or in pairs.

After another three hours of fighting it was a little past two in the morning.

On the way back Liu Hau complained to Cheng Yang, "Yoko, what kind of shitty game is this? There's not even a priest, we have tanks and DPS but no healers!"

Cheng Yang's lips curved up but he didn't say anything. It wasn't that god didn't create a Priest class but it simply hadn't been discovered yet.

By the time they returned to the territory the research for the first three statues had been finished. The chosen attributes each increased by 20% revealing the level two research that also increased an attribute by 20%. This meant is an attribute was researched to level 2 it would be a cumulative 44% bonus. Cheng Yang immediately chose three new research options. He chose to increase the HP of Mages with Body Strengthening Mana Flow and to increase the Mana of the Summoners and Warriors with Beast Spirit Implant and Muscle Micro-Mana Nodes.

After spending the needed 300 Experience Fragments, Phoenix Village was left with 351.

Cheng Yang was extremely satisfied with the current fiscal situation. In a single day his group had earned over 1000 Experience Fragments for Phoenix Village. This was entirely thanks to the increased spawn rate during the first few days of the apocalypse. In order to quickly populate the world with monsters that spawn rate was several times that of normal. To get 500 Experience Fragments in a 24 hour period was the very most you can hope for a week from now. Of course, when the village leveled up Cheng Yang would be able to collect more Experience Fragments but upgrading the village will cost more as well.

At that point the main source of income for the village will be donations from the citizens.

As for now, Cheng Yang's Mana had reached 72 points. It was enough to cast Magic Missile two extra times.

After finishing all of his administrative tasks Cheng Yang began his four hours of daily training.

His harvest for the day was four hundred and thirty-one Experience Fragments which left him very satisfied. This was enough to open up the four times training speed. He needed to absorb eighty Experience Fragments a day to get that, a level of consumption most people would be unable to keep up with. He also got an extra 13% training speed from the Meditation Hall.

Cheng Yang's four hours of training ended quickly and his experience bar was now at 5.2%. His training was indeed more than four times faster than last night.

When Cheng Yang opened his eyes it was already light and the meditation had restored him to peak mental condition.

Cheng Yang looked around and found that everyone, aside from the four patrolling the walls, had fallen asleep in the Meditation Halls.

Chen Yang smiled, the habit of sleeping was a hard one to lose. They would probably need a few months before they were capable of only meditating each day like he was.

At the moment, Yu Kai and three other Archers were maintaining a vigilant guard on the walls. Right now they were the best choice for patrolling.

When they saw Cheng Yang exit the Meditation Hall they jumped down and ran over to greet him. Cheng Yang was now the groups supporting pillar and he held a place of respect in their hearts.

"Yoko, what are we doing today?" Yu Kai asked excitedly.

"First we're going to have some breakfast then after that I will take a large group to the small town near here, Huimin, in order to save some of the residents. It's a little over a kilometer away which means were cleared most of the distance between us of monsters last night. Although more will have spawned for today we shouldn't run into any large groups we can't handle."

"What are we having for breakfast? Your not going to roast monster flesh are you?" Yu Kai asked in disgust.

"Most of the monsters you find can be eaten. The Venom-Fanged Grey Wolf is surprisingly delicious. We won't be eating that today however, we're having this." Cheng Yang pointed to a bag of dried biscuits and other compressed foods.

"This is great!" Yu Kai rejoiced, "I'm starving! Last night I had nothing to eat and even ran around doing things."

It was indeed a cruel thing to let a rich kid like Yu Kai to go hungry for a night, otherwise why would he react so greatly to a simple biscuit.

"Go wake everyone else up," Cheng Yang said, "Then we'll distribute some food and start our expedition. This time I'll only leave eight people in the station to defend the village and take the rest with me to ensure our safety."

Although Cheng Yang wanted to bring everyone with him the most efficient way for the territory to gain Experience Fragments was to continuously kill monsters right after they spawned. This ensured that the respawn rate would remain at its highest. This was a fact found out only a few months after Phoenix Village was built in his last life.

"Ah!" Yu Kai suddenly remembered something, "Yoko, can you take a look at the thing that appeared next to the Territory Altar? I studied it this morning when it appeared but I have no clue what it is and was too afraid to touch it."

Cheng Yang froze up then walked over to the altar.

When he got there an oval shaped curtain of light caught his eye. It was something Cheng Yang couldn't be more familiar with.

It was a portal, more accurately, it was a portal to an instance dungeon.

However, Cheng Yang had no clue why an instance dungeon appeared inside Phoenix Village. He would have remembered it there was one in his past life.

Suddenly Cheng Yang had an idea, didn't he move a strange rock next to the Territory Altar yesterday? It was still there after the earthquake but was now missing.

Was the stone disk the initial state of the instance dungeons? Did it only activate after the first night? The possibility of this was quite high since there would be no other way to explain why the instance portal had appeared otherwise.

If that were true didn't he waste his two days before the apocalypse? If he had known to look for those rocks there were five instance portals near Cloud City and he could have collected them all. However, now that they were portals there was no way to move them.

Looking at the portal again Cheng Yang calmed down, other than Phoenix Village which other village had an instance portal?

When a village reached High Grade it would be possible to build a Trial Hall which would open up an instance dungeon for people to do trials in. There was a limitation to those instance dungeons however as the number of Experience Fragments dropped was only a third of that outside of them and they didn't contribute to the village Experience Fragments.

As for natural instance dungeons, they had the same drop rate for Experience Fragments and since it was within the one kilometer range of the Territory Altar wouldn't those Experience Fragments be added to the village stockpile? Cheng Yang remembered hearing that a village in America that had reached Pinnacle Grade, expanded to encompass an instance dungeon and that was the case.

Phoenix Village on the other hand had an instance territory in its collection radius while it was Low Grade meaning its level up rate would be greatly increased.

Of course there were other benefits of clearing an instance dungeon were far better than just Experience Fragments. There was a chance for the monsters inside to drop equipment, skill scrolls, potions and even rare special items.

Cheng Yang knew that this portal led to an instance of the Blood Soaked Cathedral, a Low-Grade instance dungeon. An instance dungeon of this level at Normal Difficulty would be filled with Low Grade and Low Grade Elite Immature monsters with a few Standard Grade Immature monsters sprinkled in. Lastly it would contain a High Grade Immature monster as the Boss.

The first clear of an instance dungeon at each difficulty level would always yield a special item which is why Cheng Yang had been so desperate to locate it before the apocalypse.

The special item for the Normal Difficult Blood Soaked Cathedral was the Priest Idol. When it was placed near a Territory Altar a Priest Class Change Statue would appear. On the first clear of the instance dungeon in the world there would be a 100% chance of the Priest Idol appearing.

There were other ways to obtain the Priest Idol but this was the fastest by far. If Cheng Yang could obtain it quickly his Priests would always be ahead of other Priests in the world.

Upon seeing the portal Cheng Yang changed the day's plans. Originally he was going to go to Huimin but now he was determined to get the world first clear for the Blood Soaked Cathedral. As long as there were Priests on a team the number of fatalities would instantly be halved.

Of course, under normal circumstances there would be no way for Cheng Yang's group to kill the High Grade Boss but Cheng Yang knew the strategy to easily clear the instance dungeon. It was a cheat of sorts but who would dare condemn such a method after the apocalypse?

"What the hell is it?" Yu Kai asked panicking after seeing Cheng Yang's rapidly changing expressions.

"It's an extremely useful thing." Cheng Yang said, "It's an instance dungeon. You, Old Lee, Liu Hau and Lau Hui will clear it twelve times before heading to Huimin."

Yu Kai immediately followed Cheng Yang's order and went to go wake up the people Cheng Yang wanted.