Hong Xia led me and Lisa out of the boss's room and into the other parts of the bunker. As we traversed the corridor, he turned to regard me and Lisa.
"So you're Lisa, right?" He asked, evidently having heard me introduce her as such when speaking to Wang Yang. Lisa nodded, and Hong Xia turned to me. "I'm guessing your name is Luo Fu then."
Say what?
"No!" I snapped. "My name is not Luo Fu! Where did you even get that idea from?"
"Oh, sorry." Hong Xia scratched his head sheepishly. "I assumed that you are Luo Fu because we seem to be ripping off Dark Sea Era right now."
"Whatever happened to ripping off Extraordinary Evolution?" I retorted, rolling my eyes. "Or was it I can copy talents/Your Talent is Mine? Or Evolution Frenzy? Or Super God System?"
"Yeah, well…none of them has a blond heroine named Lisa."
"Well, if we were to talk about Dark Sea Era, then where's Yi De Ya? She should be the main heroine here, right?"
"We have Lou Qian, who's the heroine of Extraordinary Evolution," Lisa said brightly. "She should be back in District 4 by now."
"Ah, so your name must be Ming He then!" Hong Xia guessed. I buried my face in my palm.
"NO!"
"Duan Fei?"
"He doesn't have a sister," Lisa informed him. She brightened up. "But he has a brother, though!"
"That makes no sense! Cultivation story or system story protagonists never have brothers! They should only have sisters for that incest cliché!"
"What the fuck are you rambling about now!?" I demanded, feeling a migraine build up behind my temples. This was making less and less sense. "This is reality! Why the hell are you talking about all these random post-apocalyptic system stories?!"
"Dark Sea Era doesn't have a system, though!"
"I DON'T CARE! STOP GUESSING MY NAME INCORRECTLY! I'm not from any of those post-apocalyptic zombie/mutant stories!"
"At least he didn't mention The Last Human. Otherwise he might guess that your name is Zuo Tian Chen."
"He might, but your name isn't Xuan Xuan."
"Nah, this world is too different from the one in The Last Human. There's no system there, and it's more of a cultivation story in a post-apocalyptic world that uses viral energy instead of qi." Hong Xia shook his head. Both Lisa and I gaped at him. We didn't expect him to have read all these post-apocalyptic stories. It was actually kind of absurd, now that we thought about it.
Actually, I didn't think Lisa would have read them either. When I glanced at her, she blushed.
"Dark Sea Era is my favorite," she admitted. That was…predictable, considering that she was a clone of one of the heroines in that particular series. Then she sighed and her shoulders slumped. "But Luo Fu is too in love with Yi De Ya to ever look at Lysa's direction. That just breaks my heart."
"Um…okay." I didn't want to get involved in shipping wars. I of all people knew just how set authors were on their chosen heroines. The moment they decided on the first heroine, it didn't matter how much she sucked or how much better the other heroines were – the protagonist would always choose the first heroine. Either that or it would be a terrible harem ending where all the girls would inexplicably be happy to share the protagonist between them.
However, if any of the girls was to end up with another guy, the (male) readers would be screaming NTR and swearing to murder the author. Such double standards never failed to amuse me.
In any event, I was also amused that Hong Xia was aware of all these series. When he caught my look, he shrugged.
"You can exchange points for manhua," he explained and raised his smartphone. "There's this app in our smartphones…and we're bored. There's not much entertainment, so I sometimes trade points away for locked chapters of manhua. I've been following quite a few post-apocalyptic series because they kind of remind me of our reality right now."
As for me, I had been reading all these post-apocalyptic stories for…uh, research purposes. To navigate through my current reality.
"…you really can exchange points for anything, huh?" Lisa murmured, amazed. Hong Xia nodded somewhat excitedly.
"Yeah, and I'll be introducing you to the cafeteria. You both have a hundred points each, so trade them for some good food. You deserve it for saving our lives." Then he hesitated, staring at me. "So, um, if you're not Luo Fu or Ming He, then what's your name? How do I address you?"
"I'm Feng Zhi Ming," I replied with a slight bow of my head. "And as you already know, this is my girlfriend, Lisa. Nice to meet you, Hong Xia."
The red-haired dude beamed and then led us to the cafeteria. We stepped inside to see a place bustling with activity, people queuing up to collect food and then settling down at the tables to eat.
The atmosphere was a little…odd. On one hand, we had the military types gathered around half of the tables, bragging boisterously and celebrating their latest antics…basically delighted that they survived close brushes with death. Across the other tables, though, the mood was more somber. The other residents in the bunker were glumly eating…and their meals were a lot less and a lot plainer than the meals the military dudes were having.
I understood why when we reached the counters where chefs and staff served food. They had a holographic menu projected next to their stalls, labeling the food they had available and the costs of each. The costs varied among the types of food. A single potato cost about 10 points, but adding condiments were extra. The more luxurious meals were about 50 points, served as a set – rice with vegetables and meat.
Glancing at the tables, I saw that the non-military people were eating plain potatoes or salads consisting only of one type of vegetables, and little else. In contrast, the warrior types were feasting on extravagant sets.
I frowned. Lisa nudged me gently, her brow furrowed.
"What should we do?" She whispered. I sighed and scratched my head.
"I'll take the potato," I told the chef. He nodded and plopped one down on a plate before shoving it to me. Evidently he thought I was a non-combatant and was thus treating me with disdain. He treated Lisa with a bit more respect, though, passing her a potato on a plate rather than thrusting it at her like he did to me.
When he caught sight of Hong Xia's expression, he turned pale and fumbled with a salute. Hong Xia ignored him and turned to me and Lisa.
"Are you sure that's all you want? You can order more, you know. You have plenty of points, and it'll be easy for someone of your caliber to earn more back when you take on tasks from the boss."
My lip curled. "So Wang Yang just hands out tasks and does nothing, but he has the best pick of everything?"
"That's…" Hong Xia trailed off and looked away uncomfortably. "He's the boss. If it weren't for him, most of us wouldn't have survived. He's the one who took charge and found this bunker, and brought all of us together. We owe him our lives."
"There is gratitude, and then there is exploiting other people." I sighed and shook my head, knowing that there was little point in arguing. "Well, this is enough for me. Lisa, if you want, you can order some more."
"No, I'm fine with this as well."
"Um, it'll be all right." Hong Xia tried to brighten up. "You probably can save up your points for later."
"Later?" I stared at him skeptically. "What else do we spend points on? The manhua you mentioned earlier?"
"Well, yeah…but not just manhua. There are, uh, other forms of entertainment. I'll show you later. Kelsey will be performing tonight, as usual."
Again, Kelsey. A familiar name, but I couldn't put a finger on where I had heard her name before. From a manhua, maybe. Not that I cared. There were more important things to do at the moment.
With just a potato, I finished it rather quickly. While waiting for Hong Xia to finish his more luxurious meal, I conjured the system and studied it. The slaying of the fused Mu Rong Shao and Darla Yoo abomination had granted me 50 points, and I had killed a bunch of zombies to add to my Kill Count meter. Apparently the tentacles also counted as separate entities, so when I obliterated them with my plasma rifles, they netted me a bunch of points. Not as much as warrior-category mutants, but still a sizable 20 each.
Thanks to that, I now had enough points to upgrade Hades.
Should I add to my stats, though? Or should I leave them at 50? I didn't have enough to raise them by much, and if I diverted some points away to my stats, I wouldn't have enough to unlock the second level of Hades.
I wavered for a bit, and decided to pump all of my points into the second level of Hades for now. Depending, my Ability would save my life more reliably than having high stats. Also, I figured that I would have the chance to boost my stats later, especially if my upgraded Ability improved the rate at which I could kill zombies.
With that decided, I moved all of my Kill Count points into my Ability and unlocked the second level. A new holographic window appeared, visible only to me.
1. Cheat Death: Saves the user from certain death by a single lethal strike. Cooldown: 12 hours.
2. Death Dealing: Inflict the damage that the user had sustained on an opponent. Cooldown: 10 minutes.
At first glance, I saw that the upgrades had halved the cooldown for my Ability. That was tremendous. Being able to cheat death twice in a single day might save my life one day. Also, the ability to inflict damage back to an enemy in half the time might prove the difference between victory and defeat, especially since most battles wouldn't drag as long as 20 minutes. 10 minutes might still be a bit long, but it was more bearable and practical when compared to the previous cooldown.
However, what caught my attention the most was the third new ability outlined underneath the previous two.
3. Death Hounds: Summon a pack of 3 Death Hounds that will obey the user's every command and are absolutely loyal to the user.
That was something I hadn't seen before. A summoning Ability? I had never heard of any evolver having such an ability before. It wasn't elemental, psychic, physical or biological. It bordered on magical.
Just what the hell was this Kill Count system? How did it conjure loyal familiars from out of thin air?
"Zhi Ming? Are you all right?"
Lisa's voice returned me to reality. She had finished her meal as well, and was staring at me in concern. I dismissed the holographic window and turned to her, nodding with a strained smile. No point thinking about such mysteries right now. The present was what mattered. If I could use this new Ability to my advantage, then I could not only increase the rate at which I killed zombies, but also ensure my survival. Interestingly enough, there was no cooldown for the third ability, so I assumed I could summon the death hounds anytime I wanted, as long as I had the evolution energy or willpower to do so. The only restriction was that I could only summon three at a time.
Most likely that number would increase when I upgraded my Ability to level 3, but for now I should return to boosting my other stats.
"All right!" Hong Xia had finally finished his meal as well. He was a fast eater. Actually, I was a slow eater, so I was glad I just took only the potato, or everyone would be waiting for me. We rose from our seats and returned our tray and plates to the washing area where a single sullen guy did the dishes. Some of the combatants tossed a few insults at him, and he bristled. But he couldn't do anything. I watched him sympathetically, but other than telling the guys to stop, there was nothing I could do.
Fortunately, the combatants simply made a caustic remark or two before leaving, so there wasn't exactly any appropriate moment for me to intervene. They were gone before I could step in. Hong Xia hastily stepped in, as if he was worried I would say something stupid.
"Okay! Lighten up, you two! I know! I'll bring you to Kelsey's concert! It's held in the Bar! Follow me!"
Lisa and I exchanged a glance before plodding after an excited Hong Xia. We didn't know what to expect. I mean, a concert in a bunker? In this post-apocalyptic scenario? It bordered on…the absurd. Also, the "Bar"? What kind of place was this Bar?
Nothing good, I was sure. Nonetheless, there was little we could do but follow our host to the place where these ragged band of survivors sought whatever entertainment they could.