"No, you Celestials live in constant war, so I can accept your snoring. After all, you're from a war-torn region, so I understand your sleep problems, especially after drinking beer. But why…?"
Li Ke glanced at Tsunade, who was sprawled on a blanket, legs spread wide, arms outstretched, her ample bosom blatantly displayed.
"You, a ninja who should theoretically be on covert operations, snore?"
He looked at Tsunade, sleeping so casually, and, unable to bear it any longer, covered his ears.
Under the moonlight, both of them looked quite attractive after their baths, especially when lying on the floor; their naturally shaped breasts were captivating. But the loud snoring from both of them kept Li Ke awake.
But what was even more devastating for Li Ke was that just as he was drifting off to sleep—
"Hey, it's dawn, time to get to work."
Kiri slapped him on the backside, waking him up.
"Huh?"
Li Ke looked at Kiri blankly, then at the sky, and silently made a decision.
Tonight, they had to sleep in separate rooms!
"Ah, okay, you guys go sell some ammunition first, I'll cook, and after we eat, we'll start digging the fortress."
A groggy Li Ke barely sat up. He started working listlessly, shaking his head constantly, trying to stay awake.
The two women ignored him, going to wash up, then selling off the extra robot turret ammunition at the shop. They returned to Li Ke's side, looking at the meat porridge he had cooked.
Today's meal was still peas boiled with small pieces of meat, nothing special, just some salt Li Ke had found. But that was already pretty good; at least none of the three seemed to have any complaints about the taste.
"Alright, now it's time for everyone to get back to their own business."
Li Ke patted his face. He currently had eight skill points, four from completing quests and the rest from leveling up, so he planned to use them all at once and release all the problems at once.
That's why he had sent the two women to the merchant's place to wash up.
"Okay, okay, you go ahead and get busy. We'll dig according to our original plan."
Kiri waved her hand. They had agreed to dig a large pit along the merchant's shop, trying to trap as many zombies as possible, and then build a suspended house.
However, on top of that, they still needed to leave a large amount of earth and stone for defense.
That's a ladder—an underground passage that could allow them to escape the suspended house in an emergency, and a cliff with an underground passage, a ladder for them to move.
Of course, while it's called a suspended house, Li Ke and his group didn't intend to leave it suspended in mid-air. Instead, they left a large amount of earth and rocks in one area, reinforced it with system blocks, and left a passage leading to another underground chamber. This wasn't a difficult task for them.
If the suspended house was safe, and the reinforced concrete could withstand zombie attacks, they would stay in the suspended house. If it couldn't withstand the attacks, they would move directly to the cliff and head to the underground fortress on the cliff.
The ladder was relatively simple; it could be made of wood. And digging out the area around the female merchant's house wasn't too difficult either. After all, for Tsunade, who had plenty of stamina and could swing a pickaxe and shovel all day without getting tired, it would basically be a day's work.
As for the two separate dark chambers, that wasn't a big problem either. It just required them to be deep enough, with ladders laid out along the way, and a good strategy for defending against zombies. With the system blocks, this problem could be easily solved.
In fact, if Tsunade dug the cave while Li Ke and Kiri continuously killed zombies from behind, even a small opening could hold off an endless horde of zombies.
So, the three of them discussed it briefly and came up with this plan.
Li Ke didn't say anything, but slowed down his eating pace. After confirming that Tsunade and Kiri were both mining, he quickly ran towards the female merchant.
He rushed forward without noticing the meaningful looks the two women gave him as he walked away. He was in a hurry to add skill points, but the two women had no interest in watching. After mocking Li Ke, they continued their digging.
Li Ke quickly closed the door, took all the necessary defensive measures, and then opened his skill list to start adding skill points.
As he added points to his stamina, Li Ke felt his body grow stronger and more powerful. Not only that, but his fatigue and drowsiness vanished, leaving him full of energy.
However, he discovered a problem: when he reached six stamina points, he found that reaching seven would require two skill points. He frowned, hesitated, looked at his remaining skill points, gritted his teeth, and added them anyway.
The next moment, he felt an even stronger sense of comfort than all his previous sensations combined. He couldn't help but hug the female merchant, panting heavily.
He had never felt so good.
But this was also the problem. He was too energetic now; he felt he would be doing his physical abilities a disservice if he didn't run tens of thousands of meters!
No, to be precise, he felt like he wasn't even a normal human being anymore!
He felt no exertion moving his limbs, and even after five or six repetitions, with the female merchant's abdomen slightly bulging, he felt no discomfort or even the slightest movement in his body.
"This is a qualitative leap..."
Li Ke took a deep breath, but looking at his still energetic body, he dared not use his remaining skill points on it.
He had already spent almost an hour here. If he could explain it as him organizing the furnace before, it was no longer justifiable now.
"Damn it..."
So Li Ke took another deep breath and had to buy a roll of duct tape from the female merchant's shop, binding his limbs to his right leg to prevent injury while running.
Then, he sprinted out, beginning his quest journey.
But this time, he discovered he was running incredibly fast. Previously a complete loser who could only run 100 meters in 15 seconds, this time his running speed wasn't much slower than those zombie Usain Bolts. In fact, he could clearly feel that if it weren't for the thing strapped to his leg that was severely hindering his running, he could be even faster!
"Did this guy get his butt on fire?"
Kiri looked at Li Ke, who seemed frantic, somewhat speechless and puzzled. But when she clearly saw the unidentified stick-like object strapped to Li Ke's leg, her eyes sharpened.
"This guy..."
Although Kiri hadn't attended her comrades' parties or those strange dates, she'd seen everything in bars. While there were things far more impressive than what she was seeing, she'd never seen anyone maintain such energy under these circumstances.
Then, she gave a disdainful sneer.
"Hey, Miss Tsunade, let's figure out how to make a bed and get a separate room. Otherwise, this guy might actually attack us at night, and I don't want to wake up to something weird."
"Okay."
Tsunade remained as taciturn as ever, because to her, everything was the same.
Li Ke's first three tasks went smoothly without any trouble. These slow-moving zombies were nothing compared to the energetic Li Ke. Li Ke felt that if he didn't want to accidentally hurt his brothers, he would definitely chop them down with his axe to calm his surging energy.
But…
The difficulty lay in the last task.
"..."
Looking at the pit that Tsunade and Kiri had created—forty meters deep and fifty meters wide and long—Li Ke stared at the question mark in the center of the pit and couldn't help but feel a question mark appear above his head as well.
How was he supposed to start the mission now?
After much deliberation, Li Ke reluctantly ran down the ladder they had provided, then used three wooden frames to climb to the question mark high in the air, and pressed the E key.
The next moment, a two-story wooden house appeared before him, then plummeted to the ground. Li Ke watched helplessly as the house fell a certain distance before a mission failure message appeared before his eyes. The wooden house then smashed to pieces below, furniture and items scattered everywhere.
Before Li Ke's eyes another question mark appeared.
He tried pressing the question mark again.
The question mark disappeared, and another identical wooden house appeared before him, then fell straight down as well.
Then the question mark reappeared before him.
"..."
A bug?