Astonishing enough, it was Bianne who got her hands on the [Arts of Cooking] ability crystal.
Apparently, she was the one to have cooked the beef stew and it tasted good.
Only Dilan didn't know that she could cook, which was quite helpful to fill the gaps of experience and certain cooking tips and tricks which the passive ability didn't teach her.
The [Basic Archer Mastery] ability was something most Survivors wanted.
It taught a lot of useful stuff, and by allowing one to fight at a long-range, one could actively gain Essences, status points, and possibly more abilities without being too close to danger.
However, in the end, it was Ailee, who was able to get her hands on the ability.
After giving it some thought, most survivors accepted that they were not eager to face life-threatening dangers on a daily basis.
And these dangers were greater if one included the fact that one was quite far away from others while using long-range weapons.
Thus, Ailee got the ability that she immediately bound to her.
Contrary to Dilan's earlier belief, only Oliver was the taker of the active ability [Violent Strike] and none of the other survivors wanted it.
Or, if he were to put it in better words, nobody wanted the ability because Oliver showed his interest in the ability.
Nobody wanted to fight in the front row as much as Oliver and Dilan.
That was why the other Survivors had decided to give both the chance to choose what kind of abilities they wanted, first.
With that in mind, Oliver received his first active ability!
'The ability will have a decent use for Oliver, once he becomes even stronger.' Dilan predicted while gauging how it would be for Oliver, who focused on Agility to use the violent strike.
An increase of 0.5 Strength was worth the status points of only one level, or the Essence crystal of two, or three monsters.
However, this was currently more than enough because they were unable to procure the Essence crystals of hundreds of different monsters.
Taking this into consideration before adding the fact that there were quite a few complications in the zombie hunt according to Oliver, Dilan modified his plan.
"Ailee, tomorrow afternoon I need the Reinforced Stone Spear back!" Dilan suddenly said, attracting everyone's attention.
The two old nurses looked at him as if he was insane because he needed some good rest to let himself heal.
But seeing Dilan's serious expression, and the determination in his voice, they were not able to say anything.
It would be wasted on him, either way.
As such, they just shook their head, while Ailee could only nod.
'Will he really be healed in 24 hours?'
Everyone had the same question in mind, but nobody asked him out loud.
He looked confident to recover in a mere span of 24 hours.
Thus, the survivors stood up before they returned to their previous tasks.
The groups from before changed, as some switched from going out to hunt to completing necessary chores.
Meanwhile, Dilan was left alone, providing him with the necessary time to think and figure out what they were supposed to do next.
'The Gate probably allows a batch of monsters to emerge every x amount of time. A few circles of spawnings should have passed by now…'
Dilan figured that the more he rested the bigger the number of Horned Rats and Grendels coming through the gate would become.
And this was without the possibility of even higher ranked monsters, such as existences like the Goblin Warrior, whom Dilan had seen emerging from the temporary Gate in the forest, step in through the gate in the hospital.
While he was thinking hard about the best possible plan, minutes turned into hours that passed slowly. On the brighter side, he recuperated faster as the effect of the [Regeneration] ability seemed to work much better with more nutrition.
Thus, he had a few more plates of the beef stew, before he got up from the ground after only 12 hours passed.
He knew that he couldn't fight properly yet, but he had to visit the loo.
After a total of 24 hours passed, everyone stared at Dilan, who was stretching his body as if he had never been shot.
When he removed the bandages in order to replace them with fresh ones, one could clearly see that the bullet hole was mostly healed and that only a little bit of flesh and skin was missing for him to be fully recovered.
It was not noteworthy, and once he was bandaged again, Dilan smiled lightly at Ailee before reaching out with his hand.
She let out a short sigh and handed over the Reinforced Stone Spear.
Grasping two rat horn daggers, she decided to use them for the next hunt.
Right now, it was the 5th day since the Primordial Ascension had been initiated.
The generators were still working, and so was the water supply.
Food and water were no issue for the time being.
It were the humans and monsters that caused far too much trouble, instead!
"Let's go." Dilan thus said before he opened the cafeteria's doors with a faint smile on his face as he thought,
'I can rest once I'm dead!'
Taking this motto to his heart, Dilan pushed his feet off the ground to catapult himself ahead the moment he saw the first group of zombies.
Making use of his agility of more than twice the human average, he appeared in front of the zombies before thrusting the spear out.
With the first zombie killed easily, Dilan retracted the spear before piercing it out once again.
A moment later he repeated the same step again but noticed that the next zombie was slightly faster than the rest.
Taking a step back to avoid entering the zombie's range, Dilan quickly retreated before he slashed horizontally, slicing off the upper part of the zombie's head.
Understanding the trouble Oliver had mentioned a day before, he decided to be more careful.
But instead of acting too vigilant, his thursts and slashes with the Reinforced Stone Spear became faster and more powerful with each attack.
He had missed fighting for two days in total.
Because he was rendered incapable of fighting for around 48 hours, the excitement that streamed through him at this moment allowed him to give his all.
In less than three minutes an entire group of more than 20 zombies died, and he managed to clear the hallway between the cafeteria and the entrance hall without any issues.
"Yep, he is definitely not injured anymore…" Oliver commented as a slight trace of joy, and a competitive spirit emerged within him.
The fear of being killed was still present within him. However, killing zombies was something as normal as waking up in the morning.
It was just natural to him now.
But that was mostly owed to his passive [Basic Dagger Mastery] ability as it provided vast information about daggers and the memories of amateur assassins.
Dilan had not received any information about how to wield specific weapons, what movements were powerful, or gaining real-life combat experience by binding an ability to himself.
Instead, he was just excited to fight because it made him feel alive, which was similar to pain.
The pain made him understand that his body was still alive while slaughtering his opponents made him feel euphoric as adrenaline coursed through his veins.
And excitement was something Dilan was bound to feel surging through his entire body for the following hours because many things were bound to change.