Phantom Seed

Chapter 8

After dinner, they shared the loots of the day and went back to their tents to rest. While Xiao Feng was resting, Feng Yue was checking the inventory and warehouse. He also went to the mission hall, refreshing missions and posting new missions at the same time.

He needs to collect more supplies, as now more and more people are hunting higher-level monsters, the variety of their supplies have also increased. In addition to gel, cotton, and thread, He added boar meat, logs, leather, and coal.

When he was done, he checked the list of NPCs. Two NPCs came to his camp today. When his mission hall is still level 1, there can only be a maximum of two NPCs visiting his camp at the same time.

They will stay for 24 hours and leave when they are rejected or timed out. There is a 4-hours cooldown before a new NPC visits again. Feng Yue checked the status of the npc.

[ Name : Jack | Level : 1 | Skills : None | Rank : D ]

[ Name : Sally | Level : 5 | Skills : Cooking - intermediate | Rank : B ]

Feng Yue was overjoyed when he saw the information of the second npc. His luck does help him a lot. Usually in the low-level mission hall, the highest NPC one can get is C-rank, but his luck value is high, and he can trigger higher-rank NPCs.

NPC is divided into several ranks, the lowest is E rank and the highest is SS rank. The price he needs to pay to hire them also varies from a minimum of 100 coins and an addition of 100 coins per rank. He rejects Jack and hires Sally. It costs 500 coins to hire a B-rank NPC. 

After paying the money, a woman with brown hair and blue eyes appeared in front of him, she bowed and said, "Greetings, My Lord."

A notification sounded and a box appeared in front of Feng Yue.

[ Congratulations on hiring NPC Sally, do you want to give her a new name? Yes or No ]

Feng Yue thought about it and gave her a new name. Since he will hire more NPCs in the future, he might as well divide them into a team. He presses "Yes" and says, "Chef 001"

In an instant, Sally's name changed to Chef 001. He nodded and chose the restaurant in the building list. Now that a cook is hired, of course there will be a restaurant. He pays 1.000 coins and a new building appears in the camp. They went to the restaurant together.

"Chef 001, cook tomato soup, soft bread, and five-grain vegetable soup first. I'll prepare the ingredients." Feng Yue took out the ingredients from his warehouse while talking.

“Yes, My Lord.” Chef 001 said and started to work.

He also sets prices for the food. Tomato Soup and Soft Bread cost 100 Coins, and Five-grains Vegetable Soup costs 300 Coins. Although the price is sky-high, it is a life-saving food.

After all the preparations, he went back to his tent and fell asleep. On the other tents, Xiao Feng saw that he had returned to his own tent, so he closed the map. After that, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

*****

On the third day of the apocalypse, more people picked up the cards, and the situation was less chaotic. Just when Xiao Feng and Feng Yue finished their breakfast and were going to hunt some monsters, the sky turned dark and a vortex appeared in the sky.

There was a thunderous rumble from the vortex, and the tornado fell to the ground. People ran back from the outside, and took shelter inside the camp. Tornadoes change everything in their path, destroying buildings, roads, plants and animals.

Half an hour later, the tornadoes disappeared, accompanied by a huge buzzing sound, and patches of grains emerged from the ground. Vines, trees, and shrubs emerged, covering the ruins of the building.

In less than an hour, the world changed. The normal world is gone and becomes an MMORPG landscape. The asphalt road is gone, only the dirt road remains. Seeing this scene, the people in the camp finally understood the horror of the apocalypse.

While they were afraid of the unknown future, they were both excited and relieved to see the resources in front of them. They can finally start foraging and gathering food. People rushed outside and started gathering resources. Now, no one cares about anyone else.

They only focus on gathering food, so with many people foraging at the same time, a patch of wheat will be consumed in no time. But in the future, collecting food will not be so easy. People will kill each other for resources.

Feng Yue looked at the situation and said, "Xiao Feng, let's go further to collect some food. I don't think there will be any resources left around the safe zone."

"Okay." Xiao Feng also had the same idea as him.

With this decision, they went further and found many resources. Since Xiao Feng's lifeskill’s level is not high, Feng Yue took over the job. While he was gathering the food, Xiao Feng went to hunt monsters. As a party, he can still gain experience points even if he doesn't fight.

Through their teamwork, they managed to collect a lot of food, materials and coins in a short time. He even managed to get a few bags of seeds from foraging. Feng Yue is a hoarder, he collects everything he can, including vegetables and fruits. So in a matter of hours, he managed to get a lot of seeds of the new variety.

He even found flax patches. His eyes lit up when he saw it. It is currently autumn, not far from winter. They needed large quantities of flax and wool for winter clothing. Although there are a lot of resources in his warehouse, he won’t reject it even if there are more.

They returned to camp after exploring a new area. Exploring new areas took longer due to the constant stops to gather materials. It took Feng Yue twenty minutes to gather a patch of resources. Xiao Feng let him do what he wanted while he too went to do whatever he wanted.

When they went back to the camp, he checked the camp information.

[ Name : Winter Night | Size : Campsite ( Campsite, village, town, city, country ) | Level : 1 / 10 | Building : 3 / 6 ( +1 ) ( farmland, mission hall, restaurant ) | Population : 45 / 100 ( permanent resident : 2 , temporary resident : 43 ) | Note : Free barrier will be turn off after 11 days ]

There are more people today than there were yesterday. With more skills and equipment, people can hunt monsters faster and thus earn more money.

Xiao Feng split the money with Feng Yue, while all materials were given to him since he has higher life skill levels. After splitting their loot, Xiao Feng went out again while Feng Yue went to the farmland.