Graah!
"Fu**ing hell!" A curse slipped out of Adrian's mouth when he heard the zombie growl and throw itself against the energy shield without any concern about itself.
Its body slammed against the shield, a crackle of blue appeared on the shield as it pulsed with energy but it held strong.
Quickly, Adrian gathered the scattered branches, and ran into the control room.
He threw them all in a corner and tapped the Control Hub tab hurriedly.
[ Control Hub ]
[ Manager: Adrian Cross
Region: Verdant Plains
Difficulty: Low
Area: ~31,415 Meter squares. ]
[ Energy - 95% (Lowest) ] ( Recovering at the rate of 1%/hr )
[ Shield - 99% ] (Recovering at the rate of 5% / 1% of Energy)
// Stop recovering the shield? //
[ Tank - Energy-infused water (Lowest) x100 L
Purified water x 999 L ]
[ Tap Water - Energy-infused water (Lowest) ]
[ Sphere Slots - 5 ]
// Note: You can increase the number of slots by leveling up the control room. Further information is not accessible currently. //
***
Adrian breathed a sigh of relief, but he still felt worried.
Just a single slam by a single zombie was able to deplete the shield by 1%, what if there were tens of zombies attacking the area at once?
Or worse, what if that monstrous centipede decides to attack him?
Adrian checked the control hub again, but decided not to stop the conversion of energy into the shield.
He peeked out of the door and glanced towards the zombie that was still scratching his bloody claws against the shield.
It didn't seem like it had any intention to stop anytime soon.
'Bruh, the longer that fu**er scratches my shield, the faster it will drain out.' Adrian grumbled in his mind while staring at the zombie.
Luckily for him, there was no beast or other zombie in the immediate surroundings of that undead bastard.
'Should I try to hit it…' Adrian gulped in fear as well as a tinge of excitement.
His entire body felt goosebumps just at the thought of moving near that scary and disgusting zombie, but he also felt the excitement of maybe getting some op loot from it.
'Or…' Adrian's eyes travelled to the small bunch of branches he collected.
A smirk tugged at his lips as the new idea took a complete root in his mind.
He sat on the floor and began to snap the branches into smaller pieces with brute force, but quickly realized it was harder than it seemed.
So he stood up and pressed the wood on the edges of the metallic control room, using the edge to snap it.
With the adrenaline at the thought of his plan working, it barely took a few minutes to gather 20 wooden chips that suited the requirement set by his fabricator.
Adrian took another glance at the control hub to check his energy, and it was currently at 93%.
Then he switched to the Manager tab and clicked on the Energy Chips recipe under the Fabrication Grid section.
[ Fabrication Grid ]
[ Selected Recipe - Energy Chips (Junk) ]
// Please put the required ingredients inside the slot. //
// Ingredients: 20 Wooden Chips + 300 ml Energy-infused water //
// Use the Energy-infused water directly from the tank? //
// Y / N //
After the texts, a 1x1 meter tile on the floor of the control room snapped out of place and a dark hole opened underneath.
The tile was directly under the floating monitor, being the centermost tile in the room.
Adrian smiled and clicked the Y button while tossing the collected 20 wooden chips inside the hole.
'Phew, I'm glad it can use the water from the tank like I hoped, it would have been a drag to find a way to transport the water.'
[ Crafting time: 20 seconds. ]
He watched as the timer ticked down, and when the timer reached 0, ten glowing wooden chips floated out of the slot in the floor.
It floated mysteriously, just like the monitor.
Adrian didn't move to grab them, as he simply moved his finger and tapped the Bonding sphere recipe on the monitor.
[ Selected Recipe - Bonding Sphere (Common) ]
// Please put the required ingredients inside the slot. //
// Ingredients: 10 Energy Chips + 1 L Energy-infused water //
// Use the Energy-infused water directly from the tank? //
// Y / N //
Being slightly used to the process, Adrian simply pressed Y.
Whatever force that kept the energy chips floating suddenly disappeared, causing all the floating chips to fall back into the darkness, and a new timer to appear.
[ Crafting time: 27 seconds ]
Adrian stared at the darkness for a few more seconds, trying to see whatever was going on inside, but he was unable to.
So he sighed and clicked on the control hub to check the remaining energy.
[ Energy - 91% (Lowest) ] ( Recovering at the rate of 1%/hr )
[ Shield - 97% ] (Recovering at the rate of 5% / 1% of Energy)
'That's not good, there is no longer enough sunlight left to fill the bar to full.'
He had initially guessed that the time was around 9 am, and since then, around 20-30 minutes had passed.
According to his earthly knowledge, the sunlight could last as far as 5 pm, which would be just 7 hours.
So even in the best case, he can only get 7 % more energy, not accounting for more energy drain by shield and maybe the need to convert more water into energy-infused water.
Amidst his thoughts, 30 seconds passed and the crafting was completed.
Adrian involuntarily held his breath as he watched a brownish, wooden spherical object float out of the darkness.
The texture on it appeared raw and natural like wood, but inscribed with dark blue swirling inscriptions that Adrian didn't have a clue about.
In the middle, a blue line ran across the sphere, dividing it into two parts.
On the front, a smaller circle was protruding from the blue line, a small rune in the center of the circle.
The rune appeared like an inverted Y, or maybe like the symbol lambda (𝜆) that Adrian had studied about in his classes.
"Wow…" he gasped in awe, feeling a childish giddy feeling envelop him.
The Bonding Sphere looked quite different from the balls used in the anime, but to Adrian, it felt all the same.
"Now… let's see if we can capture a zombie!" he grinned, grabbing the bonding sphere gently in his hands.