Chapter 5: Resource Collection

The thin, dark-skinned old man Jimmy narrowed his eyes, watching the zombie vigilantly as he reached out to rest his hand on his crossbow.

The zombie wobbled over to Fang Heng and dropped the materials it had collected outside onto the floor one by one.

[Hint: Your zombie has completed a round of resource searching early. You have obtained: Firewood*2, Small Stones*7, Feathers*4, Bird Eggs*2, Scrap*2, Plastic*1].

Fang Heng waved his hand, signaling the zombie clone to head back outside for another round of "AFK" farming.

"Th-this is..."

Liao Bufan stared at the zombie delivering materials to Fang Heng in shock, too stunned to speak. After a long while, he managed a weak, "Is this really how the game is played?"

"What are you talking about? This is just basic operation."

Fang Heng said this while putting away the materials, leaving only the two bird eggs, which he held up to his nose to sniff.

Hmm, not rotten!

This zombie clone was lucky; it had stumbled upon a bird's nest while searching and found two eggs to use as food.

"Basic operation my foot! How come I can't do that?" Liao Bufan finally snapped out of it. Fearing that Fang Heng might change his mind, he quickly added, "It's a deal, Fang Heng. Like we agreed, I'll trade all my materials for one of your boiled eggs."

"That goes without saying."

Fang Heng swept all the materials in front of Liao Bufan into his backpack.

Most of the materials Liao Bufan had collected were of no interest to Fang Heng, but one of them was an evolution crystal fragment, which he needed.

"Good lad, impressive. Your talent skill is extraordinary; it must be a high grade."

Seeing that the zombie posed no threat, Jimmy had put his weapon away early.

"It's an S-rank talent skill."

Fang Heng admitted it openly.

"No wonder."

Jimmy nodded with a smile. Living in a shelter with someone who possessed an S-rank support talent meant he would benefit from it to some extent.

Liao Bufan, as usual, stared longingly at the two bird eggs in Fang Heng's hands, drooling, and urged Fang Heng to get to work.

"Fang Heng, stop talking about all that nonsense. You've already taken the payment, hurry up and cook! What are we waiting for?"

"For boiled eggs, we should need water, right?" Liu Lin realized that Fang Heng's talent skill was even more powerful than she had anticipated. After the initial shock, she took the initiative to show goodwill, saying, "I have water here; I can lend it to you."

"No need, no need."

As Fang Heng spoke, he looked up toward the door again.

Another zombie wobbled in from outside the wooden door.

It stood before Fang Heng and, just like the previous one, began pulling materials out of its backpack one by one.

[Hint: Your zombie has completed a round of resource searching early. You have obtained: Firewood*7, Small Stones*2, Glass Bottles filled with River Water*2].

Fang Heng took the glass bottles and placed them on the campfire to heat and boil.

Drinking river water directly had a high probability of causing negative status effects.

There would be no such concerns after boiling it.

Liao Bufan watched eagerly as the water boiled, unable to help but think that this guy Fang Heng’s skill was too perfect—it was practically like using a cheat code for survival in the apocalypse!

Fang Heng waited leisurely for the water to boil, then cracked one bird egg into each glass bottle.

[Hint: You have completed the preparation of boiled eggs. You have learned the Cooking skill, skill EXP +1].

Two bottles of simple boiled eggs, done!

"Hoo, hoo, so hot, so hot."

Once the cooking was finished, Liao Bufan impatiently took the glass bottle, not caring that it might burn his mouth, and took a large gulp.

Boiled eggs were truly great! They quenched his thirst and increased his hunger bar!

With one boiled egg down, Liao Bufan's satiety increased by 15 points, and his feeling of thirst was mostly relieved.

He sat before the campfire, silently glancing at Liu Lin, and suddenly felt that the potato he had eaten not long ago didn't taste as good anymore.

Selling himself out so quickly—this was such a bad deal!

Fang Heng drank his bowl of boiled eggs slowly.

Too bad it didn't fill him up.

Liu Lin was right earlier; food in the forest was extremely difficult to obtain. Out of the 10 zombies sent out to search, only one had found food.

However, Fang Heng wasn't worried. After all, the first round of searching wasn't even finished yet. With a few more rounds of AFK farming, finding enough food and water wouldn't be a problem.

After filling his stomach a little, Fang Heng began preparing for the night.

In the game, to survive the night safely in the early stages, one needed a campfire to maintain temperature in addition to a shelter, and a simple bed for sleeping.

The campfire was already there; he just needed to ensure there was enough firewood.

Crafting a simple bed was also very easy.

It only required basic firewood combined with thatch.

In the zombie apocalypse game, players were only allowed to log off after crafting a simple bed.

During the log-off process, the game defaulted to the player entering a sleep state, which allowed for rapid recovery of stamina, and the satiety bar would decrease more slowly than usual.

However, if a player's bed was destroyed while they were logged off, the player in reality would be immediately pulled back into the Main God game and receive a negative effect.

[Hint: You have completed the crafting of a simple bed. Your Basic Crafting skill EXP +1].

"Fang Heng."

"Hmm?"

"Hehe." Liao Bufan leaned in, scratching his head sheepishly. "I forgot to craft a bed. Could you lend me some materials? I'll pay you back tomorrow."

"No need to pay it back, consider it a freebie."

Fang Heng casually gave the simple bed he had just crafted to Liao Bufan.

The materials for the bed were too common; they could be found almost anywhere in the wild and weren't worth anything.

"Ha, that's too kind of you. Thanks! If you need anything in the future, just call me, I'll definitely help."

Liao Bufan patted his chest, signaling that he was reliable.

The group sitting around the campfire sorted through their day's harvest and took the opportunity to craft some basic survival tools.

Fang Heng yawned, feeling a bit tired, and wondered if he should just log off and get some sleep.

But before that, there was one more thing to do: night watch.

Taking turns on night watch was necessary. Although the zombies outside couldn't get in, what if other players entered?

"Let's arrange the night watch."

None of them were novices. Seeing that no one objected, the thin, dark-skinned old man Jimmy followed up on Fang Heng's suggestion: "Let's divide the time. From 12:00 AM to 8:00 AM, each person will be responsible for two hours of watch."

After discussing it, Fang Heng chose the 2:00 AM to 4:00 AM slot to log in and keep watch.

"Alright, everyone, let's log in 5 minutes early."

With the night watch schedule set, Fang Heng gave the zombies the command to infinitely loop the "AFK" resource search.

"Everyone, I'm a bit tired, so I'm logging off first. See you all tomorrow."

Fang Heng said this, and without waiting for a reaction from the others, he lay down on his simple bed.

[Hint: Player is about to exit the game].

[Hint: Player has been online for 7.9 hours today, gaining a total of 30 hours of offline time. Please return to the game before your offline time runs out].

[Hint: Please note, under certain specific circumstances, you will be forcibly pulled into the game].

Seeing Fang Heng log off just like that, the others in the small wooden cabin looked at each other in silence.

In the early stages of the game, it was generally better to stay in the game as long as possible to accumulate more offline time and meet the 30-day game time requirement mandated by the Main God game sooner.

Why was this guy so eager to log off?

Liao Bufan looked at Fang Heng's simple bed, shook his head, and muttered to himself.

"Big shots... they really do whatever they want."