The broad-shouldered man walked forward steadily, a determined look in his eyes. Without hesitation, he grasped Bai Zemin's sword and approached one of the fallen zombies.
Thunk!
He stabbed down, the blade sinking through the zombie's skull. It stopped moving instantly. After a few seconds, a glowing scroll appeared on top of the corpse, surprising him for a moment—but instead of stopping, he simply pocketed it and kept going. He struck down another, then another, growing more confident with each swing. When he was done, he walked back and returned the sword to Bai Zemin with a short nod.
Zaid had been watching the entire time. What caught his attention wasn't the man's courage—it was Bai Zemin's expression. For a brief moment, a cold, cunning smile flickered across Zemin's face.
'That's… new,' Zaid thought, frowning slightly. He'd seen Zemin smile before, but never a smile like that. It was only now that he considered that more might have happened to Zemin since the start of the apocalypse than he had let on.
Zaid tilted his head, watching as Zemin praised the man with an encouraging nod.
"Good. You're not useless after all," Bai Zemin said, his tone perfectly casual—but something about it made the air feel heavier for just a second.
Zaid blinked, his thoughts racing. Is it just the stress? Or… did something change in him when this all started?
He quickly shook the thought away, leaned his scythe against his shoulder, and clapped both cheeks with his hands—earning confused looks from the others.
"Uh… Zaid?" Wei Jun asked, raising an eyebrow.
Zaid grinned. "Ah, nothing. Just making sure I'm still sane. All good here!"
Shangguan Bing Xue gave him a look with her usual coldness, although he fancied that he could see a hint of bewilderment, before turning away.
Internally, Zaid sighed. 'What am I even thinking? Zemin's still Zemin. No point overthinking it. If something's wrong, he'll tell me when he's ready.'
He smiled faintly and decided to let it go.
The remaining three survivors who had stepped forward each took their turn with the sword, slaying a few zombies under Zemin's calm instructions. Once the last of the undead were finished off, Bai Zemin gathered the four around him, speaking softly but with that same commanding tone. A few minutes later, the group resumed walking.
The four new evolvers joined the front ranks, walking alongside the others. Yingzi quickly struck up a conversation with them, her bright personality cutting through the grim atmosphere. Zaid found it amusing—she'd seemed so shy before, yet now she was the most talkative of the bunch.
Meanwhile, Shangguan Bing Xue, Wei Jun, Chen He, and Liang Peng seemed to be thinking about something from how quiet they all were, although it wasn't as if Zaid knew any of them well enough to judge what they were thinking about.
Thanks to Yingzi's chatter, Zaid managed to learn more about their new comrades. The broad-shouldered man was named Zhong De. He seemed like the hardworking and honest type—and, surprisingly, a year younger than Zaid. The scrawny boy was Fu Xuefeng, a freshman who seemed shy but started talking more once Yingzi got him going.
'Kind of hard not to when you've got a beautiful girl talking to you that enthusiastically,' Zaid thought with a smirk.
The girl who had come to wake them earlier was Cai Jingyi—she seemed like the bubbly, friendly type who clearly got along with everyone, which explained why she'd been the one to approach them that morning.
And lastly, there was Kang Lan, a quiet, intelligent-looking girl. At first, Zaid thought she was just reserved, but after overhearing a few snippets of conversation, he realized she was just a bit shy.
After a bit more walking, they saw a group of five big dog-like monsters. Before anyone else could claim them, Zaid called out, "Leave these to me! I got a new skill I want to try!"
Before they could answer, he stepped forward and summoned five of his skeleton soldiers to distract the dogs. He then aimed his left hand at one of them, focusing on the Lightning Bolt skill. Suddenly, a searing bolt of yellow lightning shot out of his hand and struck the dog he was aiming for, causing its head to explode.
"Haha!" Zaid laughed, marveling at how powerful his new skill was while ignoring the notification he got from the Soul Record. He then proceeded to kill the rest of the dogs.
After that, they continued walking, and although it seemed the others were silent and thinking about something again, Zaid wasn't paying attention; instead, he was looking through his rewards. While nothing dropped from the 'Black wolves' as the soul record called them, he had managed to gain 10 points to strength and 15 to agility, so he decided to check his status.
[Zaid El-Amin -Level: 25 Race: Human Job: None Title: None Strength: 130/ Agility: 126/ Health: 200/ Stamina: 98/ Mana: 270 / Magic: 250
free stat points: 50 Skills: Active (2/5): Skeleton Summoning, Lightning Bolt, Passive: Iron Body, Special Forces soldier, Danger Sense]
[You have now reached level 25, you have received two stat points to distribute freely ]
[You cannot reach level 26 before you get your first job and evolve to First order. All soul Power acquired during the evolution process will be recorded and calculated once the first class has been successfully acquired.]
After looking through his stats, Zaid started grinning giddily before he paused at the last message, wierding everyone else out.
' So after reaching level 25 you get the opportounity to choose a class and from the way things are worded the process to evolve will take a while and I can't level up or gain stats while I'm evolving, so if i take too long there is a chance the others will get stronger than me, also once I evolve i'll become a First order whatever that means' Zaid thought
'Eh, whatever, I'm putting the horse before the cart, I should check out what classes I have, god I hope it's something cool'
[All soul Power absorbed has been calculated. You can choose one of the following jobs -
1) Scythe wielder
2) leader
3) Lightning Mage
4) Necromancer ]
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Author's pov: Hmmm, I wonder which Class Zaid will pick.
(as if it wasn't already obvious, lol).
Sorry it took so long to upload this chapter, life happened, but hopefully I'll be able to start uploading more often