So, Zhang Yanhang was preparing to visit all three locations, starting with the gun shop to the west of the apartment to resupply his ammunition, then heading to the slot machines to the northwest to see if he could find a way to bring the machine back, and finally, checking out the Big Treasure Box to the north of the apartment to see if it could actually be opened.
By the time he completed this objective, Zhang Yanhang would have made almost a full circuit around the area. Thus, he planned to advance while clearing the nearby zombies, gradually eliminating all the zombies on the periphery before attacking the large groups of Lickers and Tyrants in the city center.
Yes, both Lickers and Tyrants were plentiful in the city center, which was precisely why Zhang Yanhang didn't just cut straight through the city center and then use it as a base to sweep the periphery in a circular fashion. He was worried that he wouldn't be able to handle it, or rather, when faced with a large group of Tyrants and Lickers, Zhang Yanhang even doubted if he could end up dying right there.
Under those circumstances, the only thing Zhang Yanhang could practically do was to run away. As for standing his ground? That wasn't an option. A large group of Tyrants could corner him against the wall and beat him down indefinitely, an experience he had already had many times in the game, and not something he wished to replicate in Ashen Century.
Hence, Zhang Yanhang's current strategy was to first clear the peripheral zombies, then, in the process, accumulate Soul points to enhance his strength before going on a rampage in the city center.
However, considering the size of Raccoon City was forty to fifty square kilometers, Zhang Yanhang felt that it was impossible to complete this task in one day. No matter how he thought about it, clearing the entire Raccoon City would take several days at least. Even more so, if the cleaning took longer, he felt that the entire eight-day holiday for National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival combined wouldn't be sufficient.
Considering there were conservatively a few thousand zombies in Raccoon City, assuming he could kill a hundred zombies per hour, it would still take dozens of hours of continuous effort to clear Raccoon City. The problem was he couldn't sustain that level of effort. Being only First Tier, he still needed sleep, and he wasn't a robot, he could become tired and needed rest to recover his physical strength.
Whether it was resting or sleeping, these would all consume a certain amount of time. Therefore, Zhang Yanhang felt that normally, he could work for at most about 16 hours a day. "Even 007 couldn't manage it, I really am unworthy of my title as an Awakener. But right now I'm only First Tier, once I reach Second Tier, maybe I'll be able to maintain 007 status for extended periods."
As one climbed the ranks, an Awakener's need for sleep would gradually decrease. At First Tier, where Zhang Yanhang currently was, one only needed six hours of sleep a day. At Second Tier, a maximum of four hours was sufficient, and Second Tier Awakeners could even replace some of their sleep with cultivation. In extreme cases, they only needed two hours of sleep a day to maintain sufficient energy.
So, regarding the three objectives he had planned, Zhang Yanhang was ready to proceed in stages. For now, he planned to complete the first stage, which was to resupply ammunition at the gun shop, given that using bullets to kill zombies was indeed much more efficient than using a chopper.
Then, once the first stage was completed, Zhang Yanhang would start from the gun shop and make his way to the Second Tier: the slot machine.
"Since everything is planned out, let's start executing," Of course, Zhang Yanhang hadn't forgotten about the small goal he had set previously – to raise his Level to LV.5 within two hours. He felt he would probably achieve this small goal while completing the first stage of the plan.
Incidentally, the distribution of monsters in Raccoon City was like a tree-ring cake, with the outermost layer having the largest area, but there were mostly ordinary zombies and Zombie Dogs, with only a few areas containing Lickers. Then there was the middle layer, where the proportion of zombies was reduced and replaced with a higher number of Lickers and Zombie Dogs, mingled with a few scattered Tyrants.
At the very center was a large number of Lickers, Tyrants, and creatures like Hunters.
And the landmark of the city center? The Raccoon City Police Department! According to Zhang Yanhang's knowledge, underneath the Raccoon City Police Department was a lab belonging to the Umbrella company.
So, it was only natural that experiments from the Umbrella company lab were found around the center of the city.
Zhang Yanhang's current location was the outermost layer, since it was already right up against Goblin Plain, it couldn't help but be considered the outermost layer. For original chapters go to novel⟡fire.net
Before going out for a monster hunt, Zhang Yanhang checked his belongings again. After making sure he had everything, he locked the doors and windows and re-entered the corridor.
As he approached the staircase, Zhang Yanhang glanced at the clean floor, feeling a strong sense of unease as if he had forgotten something. After pausing for a moment, he quickly realized, "Wait, where did the Goblin Merchant's corpse go? Why is there no green blood on the ground either?"
"Could a monster have taken a liking to it and stolen the corpse? But I clearly locked the main door downstairs. Plus, I cleared all the zombies in the apartment, if a monster had broken in, how could I not know?"
Zhang Yanhang took out his Enemy Seeking Radar and checked the monster situation in the apartment, only to find that there was no enemy presence; indeed, he had cleared it out completely.
"If it wasn't the work of a monster, who else could it be? Could it be that corpses could just vanish into thin air with their green blood?" Doubtful, Zhang Yanhang went downstairs to check on the previously disposed zombie corpses, only to find that they were gone as well.
"Could they really have vanished into thin air?" After all, it was Ashen World, with completely different rules from the Main World, so it was actually pretty normal. Hence, Zhang Yanhang ultimately accepted the game mechanics that monster corpses would respawn. Upon reflection, practically all games had such a mechanic. Therefore, perhaps it wasn't surprising that monster corpses in Ashen World would respawn.
Reaching the entrance of the apartment, Zhang Yanhang took out the main door key from his shoulder bag and obediently used the key to unlock the door, primarily because he didn't want to cause unwanted destruction to the entrance that might allow random monsters to sneak in, such as the previous Goblin Merchant, which had entered because the main door had been unlocked.