-"Of course! Open it right away!!"
Chen Luo hesitated not at all; in the absolute ecstasy of a gacha winner, he decisively issued the command to activate the newly received lucky bag without a moment's pause.
-[Ding! Congratulations, Host, on successfully activating the Ultra Rare (UR)-quality「Lucky Bag」!]
-[Luck smiles! The Host has officially unlocked the R-grade active skill: 「Surprise」!]
Skill Description:
Hurl a soul magic orb into the air; upon landing, it detonates over a wide area. Targets within a 1.25m radius immediately enter a Stunned state for 1 second, simultaneously suffering (35% AD + 45% AP) wind-slash damage. Survivors of the explosion will continue to be afflicted with a 70% Slow effect, weakening over 2 seconds. Cooldown: 7 seconds.
Looking over the stat block, this was clearly a typical area-wide crowd control skill commonly seen in MOBA arena games. Nevertheless, for an 「Infinite Jobholders」 player with a free skill set like Chen Luo, this was an extremely terrifying team-fight creation tool. Especially given the flexible, unpredictable playstyle of the Unclassed branch, a soft CC combined with short hard CC skill like this was precisely the master key.
One must know that in this world's practical combat mechanics, skills capable of stacking multiple layers of detrimental effects—especially consecutive Crowd Control—were extremely rare and usually carried R-tier or higher quality. Though 「Surprise」's raw damage wasn't particularly outstanding, its seamless CC chain alone—1 second of complete immobility followed by 2 seconds of sluggish quagmire—was enough to make it a nightmare on the battlefield. In a life-or-death battle where every millisecond and every stat point decided survival, 1 second of immobility was more than enough for an expert like Chen Luo to unleash a killing combo on the opponent.
The Half-human children standing around stared at him dazedly nodding to himself for a long while in front of the base door. When Chen Luo snapped back to reality, exiting the dazzling system interface, all 5 children collectively let out sighs of relief. After all, from the perspective of NPCs who possessed no system, Chen Luo's behavior of standing blankly and smiling to himself looked utterly bizarre and incomprehensible.
At this moment, time had just shifted into early afternoon. Though the apocalypse sky outside was still veiled in a layer of gray gloom, it was essentially fairly clear, contrasting completely with the dark, suffocating atmosphere inside the base hotel—where the rooms were only lit by flickering field torches emitting acrid oil smoke.
Starting on lunch preparations, the shy but capable Alice took the initiative to approach the field stove to help Chen Luo pick vegetables and wash ingredients. As for the other children, after a morning of hard live-combat training and a grueling field hunting sweep, the accumulated fatigue instantly vanished the moment they flung down their weapons and collapsed onto the comfortable mattresses in the main room. The soreness in their muscles and the dull aches in their joints from combat impacts quickly eased under the relaxation of the safe room, lifting the children's spirits anew.
To reward the children's outstanding performance, Chen Luo decided to show off by making two nutritious dishes: 「Cheese Mushroom Mashed Potatoes」 and 「Grilled Meat with Wild Mushroom Sauce」. For warriors in their physical development stage, a simple but energy-explosive, protein-rich meal was always the optimal choice.
The pleasant sizzling of grilling meat echoed from the field kitchen, fragrant fat dripping onto the blazing pan. The rich aroma of cheese intertwined with the tantalizing scent of butter-roasted potatoes quickly spread through every nook of the room. The children lying around instantly sprang into a sitting position, their stomachs rumbling with hunger at the hot food.
About 35 minutes later, all the fragrant dishes were complete and beautifully plated. As was his habit, Chen Luo portioned out the rich grilled meat with a separate serving of mushroom sauce and carried it down to the floor below for Hina and the wolf pack. The moment she caught sight of Chen Luo descending with a steaming plate of fragrant meat, Hina's stomach betrayed her with a growl. Nevertheless, with the proud self-esteem of a Silver Wolf Tribe Spiritual Beast Princess, she absolutely refused to humble herself to beg. Hina crossed her arms, struggling to maintain a haughty face, and questioned him as if Chen Luo were her personal chef:
-"Bringing up the food now, are we? And where did you lot run off to sweep all morning, daring to leave this princess behind at base, huh?"
-"Heh, since when did this arrogant princess start taking notice of and caring about my whereabouts?" — Chen Luo set the large platter of meat before her and smiled teasingly.
Hearing Chen Luo's joke, Hina's face immediately turned red as a ripe tomato. She flared up, about to lunge at him for a bite to teach him a lesson, but seeing the generous amount of delicious food prepared for both her and the wolf pack, Hina could only stomp her feet in helpless frustration, finally sitting down to sulkily gnaw on meat and bones.
Chen Luo returned to the 4th floor, where Alice had swiftly laid out the food neatly on the table. Each child received a hearty portion. Merely looking at the warm scene, the cheerful laughter, and the mouthwatering aroma of food, anyone glancing in would mistake this for a family on a picnic in an old building, not desperate survivors struggling through a cruel apocalypse.
After the group finished their meal, Chen Luo instructed the children to rest in the common living space while he went downstairs, using the free time to sit and study the Alvibion secret tome's「Magic Overview - Beginner」section. The magical treasury of this world was immense; one couldn't memorize it all overnight, but accumulating foundational theory was never a waste for an Unclassed.
When he reached the page recording the operational mechanics of slave contracts and the method of removal via the「Slave Key」, Chen Luo finally breathed a sigh of relief. Having the children continue wearing those shackling slave collars wouldn't only negatively impact their psychology, but also create major barriers if he later led them into ordinary cities or concentrated human refuge areas.
Continuing through the following pages, Chen Luo immersed himself in the history of elementary spellcraft—from Fireball Art and Waterball Art to complex magic matrices. Absorbed in his reading, he inadvertently flipped to the「Crafting & Repair - Forging Technology and Blueprints」section.
Instantly, the Alvibion magical page in his hand suddenly flickered with brilliant golden light. When Chen Luo opened it, what appeared before his eyes was the detailed blueprint for restoring and repairing the「Myriad Pole Divine Sword」!
The repair process was fundamentally not too complex for his craftsmanship, but the prerequisite was constructing the「Forge Furnace」. That wasn't all—the material list demanded extremely expensive components: 「Black Stone」, 「Silk Jade」, and especially「Manvurlinn Jade」—a rare metal jade smelted from a complex combination of Purple Quartz, Cobalt, Ferrite, and Magical Dust.
Scanning the crafting material list, Chen Luo furrowed his brow. Aside from Cobalt, Silk Jade, and the natural lava source for superheat fuel, the remaining components could be gathered or bought from the store. When he activated the 3D simulation image of the Manvurlinn Jade, Chen Luo couldn't help but gasp at its beauty: a block of deep purple jade hiding glittering metallic veins within. He knew exactly how difficult it was to smelt this jade; in his past life, the Crafting circle always demanded sky-high prices whenever someone ordered one. Had the smelting formula not been leaked early into the community, it would certainly still be the exclusive "golden goose" of the master blacksmith class.
Carrying thoughts of materials, Chen Luo walked dazedly down to the ground floor. Barely two hours had passed, yet he felt as if he'd buried his head in books all day. Driven by the instincts of a resource collector, at some point a reinforced smithing pickaxe had found its way into Chen Luo's hand, and he just swung it into the underground rock wall.
*Clang! Clang! Clang!*
The rhythmic clang of hammer blows rang through the still space. Only when a large stalactite chunk shattered and fell at his feet did Chen Luo snap out of his forging trance. Peering into the pitch-black depths below, he didn't hesitate to spend 450 Ether Crystals to buy a bottle of「Temporary Vision Enhancer」from the system. This underground cavern was both vast and deep; he had no intention of fumbling around in total darkness.
The moment the potion seeped into his body, a mild numbness surged up his nose. Chen Luo blinked once, and the entire pitch-black cavern before him instantly blazed into brilliant brightness as if hundreds of high-pressure lamps had just been switched on!
Examining the surrounding terrain closely, Chen Luo recognized this as a Ravine—one of the geological cave structures beloved by miners and crafters in his past life. Not only did it possess extremely abundant mineral deposits, this ravine system also connected to a series of vast underground veins. As long as one prepared enough food and water, miners could camp and survive here for months on end. Most importantly, the Ravine structure had permanent geological stability—no worry of collapse—and constant convection airflow, so no oxygen shortage either.
Sweeping his gaze across the glowing rock walls, Chen Luo immediately spotted veins of raw Cobalt and a subterranean lava flow—two extremely prominent targets among the gray rock strata. As for Ferrite ore, its color blended so well into the stone backdrop that it was very hard to distinguish from a distance.
But why was Cobalt so expensive and difficult to harvest? The problem lay not only in its rare reserves but also in its infuriating physical properties. Cobalt was a metal that accumulated magic particles abundantly, yet in its natural un-smelted state it was extremely brittle and fragile. A single misjudged or off-angle pickaxe swing would shatter the entire raw Cobalt block into fine powder, rendering it unrecyclable waste. Worse, it typically only distributed in the mid-rock strata of these deep ravine walls. To extract Cobalt intact, miners were required to possess a crowbar pickaxe reinforced with Silk Jade or coated with Core Enhancement.
Staring at the precious resources before him, Chen Luo's mouth watered, but he understood this wasn't the time. Outside, dusk was beginning to fall, and the vision potion's effect was about to wear off—he needed to return to the surface.
When Chen Luo climbed back up to the living floor, the sky had shifted to dusk. The Half-human children were still sitting together in the main room. Before descending underground, Chen Luo had spent a few dozen Ether Crystals to buy them some simple entertainment toys; in this deprived apocalypse world, aside from going out to slaughter monsters, there was nothing else to do—if he made the children sit staring at walls all day, they'd sooner or later sink into depression.
Tonight, the group didn't eat an extra meal, but Chen Luo suddenly noticed a serious problem: after days of surviving outdoors without proper hygiene, the children's body odor had become noticeably strong. If this state continued, the entire enclosed living space would fill with an unpleasant stench.
Utilizing the leftover stone collected from digging, Chen Luo set about building a field bathroom. He carefully hollowed out an auxiliary space in a corner of the ground floor, expanding the area to assemble a large communal bathing pool. For bodily functions, there was already a designated area, but bathing without clean water couldn't be solved simply by towel-drying.
After over two hours of diligent chiseling and stone assembly, Chen Luo completed a sturdy bathing pool. He also cleverly dug a fire pit beneath the pool's base to conveniently burn wood for heating the water. When the「Water Domain Formation」was activated, clean magical water began condensing and gushing forth, gradually filling the entire reservoir.
The firewood was ready, and steam began rising warmly from the water. Chen Luo immediately opened the system store and quickly ordered 3 premium jasmine-scented soap bars at 300 Ether Crystals. If he wasn't going to bathe, fine—but once he bathed, it had to be fragrant and clean!
-"Brother Chen Luo, what is this thing? A bathtub? It's so big, brother!" — Aaron and Mana cried out in unison in astonishment.
Though they were once Half-human noble children, having a spacious, warm-water bathing pool as large as a mini swimming pool underground amid the resource-strapped apocalypse was still a miracle far beyond their imagination.
-"Hurry up and go bathe, kids—the water's already been heated. How can your bodies feel comfortable without proper washing!" — Chen Luo smiled encouragingly, waving the group over.
He had planned ahead, designing the pool with two separate sections shielded by stone walls; after all, Mana, Celes, and Alice were girls and needed necessary private space. Outside, Chen Luo had laid out fresh, clean new clothes. These outfits had been pulled from the earlier Safes but never sold; now they became the perfect change of clothes for the children.