Chương 86: Chapter 83: Readying the Vanguard

It had been quite a while since I took a full look at my status screen. With my new exquisite wyvern armor fully equipped, I took a deep breath and pulled up the interface. STATUS Name: Derrick Miller Race: Human Level: 39 Class: Ranger Specialization: Shadow Ranger Class Evolution: Shadow Ranger (Level 25) Passive Effect: Grants +3 points to Dexterity and Constitution per level instead of +1.

Passive Effect: The Shadow Ranger receives full set bonuses for both Light and Medium armor types, and suffers only minor restrictions when equipping Heavy armor. Active Effect: May equip Heavy armor for up to 1 hour without penalty. After 1 hour, a -15% movement speed debuff is applied.

Titles: Mayor of Novus, Siege Breaker (+20% Total Attribute Bonus Applied) ATTRIBUTES Strength: 73 (88) Dexterity: 118 (142) Constitution: 118 (142) Intelligence: 101 (121) Wisdom: 68 (82) Charisma: 59 (71) VITAL POOLS Health: 1, 420 Stamina: 1, 420 Mana: 1, 210 Carry Capacity: 880 Armor Class: 375 SKILLS & ABILITIES General Skills: First Aid (Journeyman 5), Building (Master 0), Crafting (Master 2), Blacksmithing (Journeyman 3), Wilderness Survival (Journeyman 8), Sneak (Master 0), Herbalism (Apprentice 5), Alchemy (Journeyman 1), Inspect (Beginner 9), Teaching (Apprentice 3).

Combat Masteries: Dodge (Apprentice 7), Hand-to-Hand (Beginner 8), Blunt Weapons (Apprentice 1), Axe Mastery (Apprentice 8), Sword Mastery (Master 1), Bow Mastery (Master 1), Daggers (Apprentice 0). Arcane & Class Skills: Mana Manipulation (Apprentice 3), Minor Heal (Apprentice 5), Tame Animal (Apprentice 3), Spike Growth (Apprentice 5), Dark Vision (Journeyman 1), Ambush (Beginner 5), Hunter's Mark (Beginner 8), Marksman (Beginner 9), Power Shot (Beginner 7), Shadow-Stitched Arrow (Beginner 6).

SOULBOUND ITEMS This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. Custom Wyvern Scale Attire (Medium Set) UNASSIGNED POINTS Attribute Points: 0 | Skill Points: 0 I was absolutely amazed at what I saw staring back at me. Prior to donning this soulbound armor set, I only maintained an AC rating of a little over 100, if I remembered correctly. Now, I was standing at a stout 375.

Looking at the defensive stats, it made me feel like I should be occupying the main tank role on the team instead of acting as a pure damage dealer. I could only imagine what ridiculous AC level Joe was sitting at right now, considering his natural warrior bonuses to heavy armor stacked on top of his kit's doubled scale thickness and set multipliers. Furthermore, my mana, stamina, and health resource pools were all comfortably resting well over the 1, 000-point threshold.

The sheer volume of my status was a vast, unbelievable departure from the day I first initialized my system profile. My health pool wasn't even over 100 points back then. I was quite literally ten times stronger than I was when this whole apocalyptic mess started a few months ago. Dismissing the glowing blue screen with a massive smile on my face, I turned back to Joe, who was also grinning ear to ear after finishing the adjustments on his heavy plate.

"Are you ready to smash some zombie skulls?" I asked, slinging my bow over my shoulder.

"Hell yeah, brotha," Joe responded, his voice deep and eager.

"Sweet," I replied, nodding toward the door.

"Go ahead and gather up Zack and Tony. Have them establish a tight, minimal patrol rotation around the Novus perimeter. Those two and the rest of the available guards are coming with us to the cemetery." Joe gave a quick salute acknowledging the order and headed out to organize the barracks.

I immediately turned to the rest of the core dungeon team, instructing them to load up with every bit of equipment, ammunition, and survival supplies they thought they would need for an extended stay inside a highly hostile dungeon environment. I had a distinctly bad feeling that this was going to be a brutal, grinding fight to clear out the source of the spawns, and I wanted us prepared for the absolute worst-case scenario.

Following my own advice, I walked over to our alchemy lab and cleared out a generous supply of high-grade health, stamina, and mana potions. Next, I unlocked a secure, fireproof cabinet and retrieved over fifty baseball-sized alchemical grenades. If the intelligence reports from our scout teams were accurate, the undead were actively pouring out of that central mausoleum in waves.

We were likely going to encounter dozens, if not hundreds, of active targets congregating around the graveyard grounds, and a heavy volley of alchemical explosives would be the perfect way to thin the numbers before engaging in close quarters. From the lab, I made a quick stop at the settlement kitchens. I had the culinary staff package up thirty individual hearty servings of the thick beef stew they had been simmering for the evening meal.

If my team restricted themselves to only one dense meal a day—which was more than enough to sustain our bodies given our elevated levels and high endurance stats—I now held enough prepared rations to feed the entire team for six full days inside the dungeon if things went sideways. I was fairly positive an undead-themed dungeon wasn't going to provide us with clean, edible meat from our kills like the Dinosaur Point dungeon did.

In retrospect, realizing how vital mobile food supplies were becoming, we probably should have tasked the kitchens with manufacturing standardized traveling rations for the community weeks ago, especially for the guards running long-range recon patrols outside the safety of the Novus walls. With that in mind, I opened up the interface, accessed the global system store utilizing my administrative authority through the Novus settlement screen, and scrolled until I located premade survival ration bars.

The item description boasted that the bars were highly dense in raw protein and nutrients, though the text was noticeably vague about what ingredients were actually used to manufacture them. The ration bars were priced at ten copper pieces a unit, or a silver for a package of ten.

It felt a bit overpriced for basic emergency food, but I reminded myself that the system store purposely inflated prices on basic commodities to force human settlements to develop their own infrastructure and become entirely self-sufficient. Accepting the cost, I purchased thirty bars, adding another reliable layer of sustenance to our inventory. Once we actually crossed the threshold into the dungeon, we would see how each floor progressed and budget our meals accordingly.

Hopefully, we wouldn't be locked under the stone for more than a couple of days. The final task on my checklist before departure was to see Denise. Since she wasn't actively managing the kitchen floor during the afternoon prep, I figured she would be back at our quarters taking a well-deserved break between the lunch and dinner rushes. Sure enough, when I stepped through the door, she was resting on the living room sofa with her feet kicked up, enjoying the quiet.

I sat down beside her, gently pulling her into my side, and clearly explained the situation regarding the mausoleum discovery and our imminent deployment. As expected, she immediately expressed deep worry for the guard members and the safety of the dungeon team—especially regarding Mike and myself—but her tension visibly eased when she looked over the immaculate craftsmanship of our new armor and weapons.

Dealing with the stray zombie groups had become second nature to our defensive teams by this point, but Denise was quick to warn me against letting the guards become complacent or overconfident. Out here, a single mistake in the dark was all it took to turn a veteran guard into an undead monster.