Chapter 187: Chapter 187 Temporary Truce
Combat Island, Central Mountain Range.
Lin Yi found Louis.
This mechanician showed off his latest invention.
It’s a spiked anti-tank obstacle, but designed against infantry.
These hedgehogs are made from steel beams welded together, each beam about 2 meters long and sharpened at the tips.
They’re designed to be easy to assemble and disassemble, with additional rods inserted into the ground to secure them firmly in place.
According to Louis, these obstacles should be able to inflict damage on the zombie army and slow them down.
After consulting with Solomon and Hubert, they decided to manufacture a thousand of these "hedgehogs," which cost the shelter 400 tons of steel and 47,000 Coins, leaving a budget of 123,000 Coins.
"Where did all my money go?" Lin Yi wondered to himself as he walked into the weapon workshop.
He thought he should have more Coins. But when he reached his destination, he realized what was going on—
Previously, he had Sylvie make twenty sets of power armor.
The weapon craftsmen and Louis had completed the finishing touches on the Slaughterer-1 model and started working on the Slaughterer-2 model.
There’s not much difference between these two models, except the armor plates on the Slaughterer-2 are easier to install.
They also made some minor adjustments to the mechanized components of the powered exoskeleton to better keep up with the user’s quick reflexes and reactions.
Of course, they haven’t completely solved this issue, but the situation has slightly improved.
The design of the power armor has also been slightly modified to become more... striking, or rather cooler.
The external components have been strengthened, affecting its total weight, but the load-bearing capacity remains exceptional.
These improvements also raised the price from 7,000 Coins to 7,500 Coins.
So far, they have produced eight sets of power armor, totaling 60,000 Coins in expenses.
Lin Yi ordered Hubert to find someone to test these armors before going to see the professor for a physical check-up.
Fortunately, this check-up wasn’t as time-consuming as last time; the results came out after half an hour.
"Hmm... if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions," the professor said while looking at his monitor, "Artificial Intelligence has made an interesting prediction and reached some conclusions."
"Ask away," Lin Yi said as he lay naked on the examination table.
"You participated in a battle today. Did you feel tired?"
"... I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it. But... I wasn’t gasping for air or sweating or anything."
"Good, how did you feel this morning?"
"I was itching all over, and my skin kept peeling off."
"Aside from that, did you feel energized?"
"Yes, I felt fine," Lin Yi answered after seriously considering the professor’s questions.
"How often do you go to the bathroom?"
"Pretty frequently, several times a day."
"Your body is self-cleansing. Let’s see how things develop," the professor said, glancing at Lin Yi’s 3D image.
Lin Yi’s entire body was being examined by a powerful machine, with a special liquid injected into his bloodstream.
"The Third Level Regeneration Skills seem to have other effects besides healing wounds. Your body is undergoing changes, and so is your DNA. Compared to my analysis two weeks ago, your DNA has changed by 500%. But don’t panic! I think your skill is trying to bring your body to an ideal state..."
"And what does it consider my body’s ’ideal state’ to be?"
"I don’t know."
The professor’s frankness surprised Lin Yi.
"However! I believe it’s purifying your body, removing genetic mutations and abnormalities."
"Understood... what about my hand?"
"As for your hand... it’s 80% healed. By tomorrow or the day after, you’ll be fully recovered. I suggest you rest and eat more."
After the check-up, Lin Yi took a shower.
Looking in the mirror, he noticed that the scorched skin on his back was now gone.
Lin Yi lay down on the bed and began to think.
Their many skills were underestimated or completely unused and needed to be utilized.
In their trade with the Beastmen, they obtained the skills of "Spitting Deer" and "Furious Ridge," but haven’t taught them to anyone yet.
And those two aren’t the only strange or seemingly useless skills.
For instance, there’s a skill "Perceiving Undead Creatures" that turns the user into a zombie radar, but at the First Level, the detection range is only five meters...
There are also skills that enhance vision, but compared to those that can burn hundreds of zombies at once with a fireball technique, they’re pretty insignificant.
Although it’s necessary to have a few scouts with perception skills, that’s about it.
There are many skills that can boost various attributes, but they usually either aren’t very effective or change a person’s appearance, turning them into monsters.
On the other hand, a skill that allows objects to be thrown long distances is quite popular now.
The most skilled throwers can toss a canister of burning agent right at the fast-moving mutant’s feet, not to mention the spears crafted by the weapon craftsmen.
Another underestimated skill is Earth Magic.
There’s only one Earth Mage in the Shelter, but he’s hardly useful. He can create pits on the ground beneath the enemy’s feet to trip them over.
At Level Five, the skill’s range and pit size will increase, and he can even create small hills.
However, Lin Yi firmly believes the potential of this skill far exceeds everyone’s understanding; Earth Magic can achieve astonishing feats like Fire Magic.
He also thought about that cute girl with the "Banshee’s Wail" skill, the one capable of Telekinesis, and six Skill Books featuring "Precise Shooting."
Although these skills may have hidden potentials, they still have plenty of potentially more practical transformation, magic, and Archer Skill Books.
Lin Yi drew a conclusion.
Zoe’s "Summon Black Panther" skill might be extremely useful, provided she upgrades it to Second Level or higher.
There are countless other skills, but the people in the Shelter simply aren’t abundant enough to learn all the skills...
Generally speaking, people only learn and upgrade one skill, and in over half of the cases, they get their destined skill upon becoming a Professional.
...Except for him, currently, no one is fortunate enough to receive extra Skill Points...
Lin Yi pondered for a while, then got up to eat.
Dinner time.
As usual, the food was abundant, with a wide variety of dishes, including fish, roast chicken, soup, and more.
Chen Youyou took a careful look at Lin Yi and commented, "Boss, you look much better!"
"Yeah, he looked super scary before... Ouch!" Annie exclaimed, as Orianna gave her head a sharp smack.
Lin Yi chuckled and asked, "By the way, Orianna, how’s the harvest?"
"Boss, everything’s good, though it would be nice to expand the farmland a bit."
"Right... I completely forgot about it, where’s Solomon?"
"He’s doing some barricades with Immanuel," answered Solomon’s wife, Giselle.
Her belly seemed bigger every day, even every hour.
Lin Yi’s gaze moved from Giselle’s pregnant belly to the Shelter’s seasoned tech geek.
"Got it... Louis, how’s your steampunk monster coming along?"
"Boss, I’m still working hard on it..." the Mechanician replied dejectedly.
He truly needed help, but no one else in the Shelter had the suitable skills.
At this point, Sylvie looked at the boss’s almost regenerated hand and asked, "Boss, when will your hand fully heal?"
"Tomorrow or the day after."
"Your skill is amazing!"
"Yeah, but not much use in battle, you know, other Professionals can regenerate limbs too, it just takes them a long time."
"I bet I could use it to grow my hair down to my ankles in a few days! I remember you, Boss, liking girls with long hair..."
Sylvie mumbled softly, but the boss was lost in thought and didn’t hear her.
At this point, Lin Yi looked over at Zoe.
"When we take this island, I want to help the members improve their levels! Zoe, I’m really curious to see what changes your skill will have at Level Two."
"But... Little Black will grow bigger... it won’t be cute anymore..." The girl looked at the little black cat curled up at her feet.
Little Black was always with her, even when she bathed.
"But that way it can protect you, if anything happens, it could save your life, or maybe even your friends’ lives."
Lin Yi thought for a moment and looked directly at her.
"Hubert said you guys did a test, in fact, it only eats zombies, right? When it grows up, it’ll be able to hunt food by itself."
"But... it..."
Zoe looked at Little Black’s adorable black eyes and finally whispered, "Alright..."
"So it’s settled then, Chen Youyou, we’ll announce this good news after we conquer the island, the situation now is too tense."
After dinner.
Lin Yi went fishing again with the old beastman, Teruo.
There were about a dozen people by the lake fishing, but they were spaced far enough apart not to interfere with each other.
Almost all of them were men over forty... except for one woman who looked about thirty-five, fishing with two rods at once.
After two hours of fruitful fishing time, Lin Yi arrived at the social area.
He didn’t want to sleep, there wasn’t anything good on TV, and he wasn’t interested in watching movies.
As usual, the social area was crowded.
People here wore smiles, dressed neatly, clean and fresh, and ate well.
Lin Yi also noticed a few soldiers patrolling, they were unarmed but could still swiftly deal with troublemakers if any issues arose.
After wandering around this area for a while, Lin Yi headed to the nearest concert venue, where Katsya and her band happened to be performing.
The young girl with white hair was singing an upbeat rock song. Her voice was really good, singing incredibly well, hence the audience was large...