Lu Feng stared at the game screen in his mind. After their initial confusion, the zombies, lacking any real intelligence, began to wander aimlessly around the gold shop.
He glanced at his steel blade and was surprised to find it perfectly clean, without a single trace of the recent battle.
'This is pretty amazing. The harmful substances must have been cleaned away.'
'Still, this is a good thing. At least I don't have to worry about bringing out any viruses or anything.'
With another thought, Lu Feng re-entered the game and slashed at a nearby zombie.
The steel blade once again split the zombie's head in two, and it slowly crumpled to the ground.
[Congratulations! You have killed a zombie and gained 5 EXP!]
After killing one zombie, Lu Feng swung his blade and killed another.
This time, a nearby zombie suddenly lunged at him, its hand slamming heavily onto his shoulder. The zombie was surprisingly strong, but thankfully he was wearing military camouflage. Aside from some pain, he wasn't injured.
'If I had been wearing a short-sleeved shirt, I could have been in big trouble.'
'In plenty of zombie shows and movies, this was exactly how the minor characters and extras ended up dying and turning.'
Lu Feng quickly thrust his steel blade up through the zombie's chin, the tip piercing straight through its head. The moment he pulled the blade out, a thick, black, foul-smelling liquid gushed from the zombie's head.
Hearing the commotion, the other zombies began to swarm him again.
He quickly withdrew from the game with a thought. On the game screen, the zombies looked confused after losing track of him and resumed their aimless wandering.
By repeatedly exploiting this bug, Lu Feng soon cleared out all the zombies in the gold shop. As he finished off the last one, two notifications sounded simultaneously.
[Congratulations! You have killed a zombie and gained 5 EXP!]
[Congratulations! You have gained enough EXP to level up. Level increased!]
'Five EXP per zombie, and 100 EXP to level up. That means exactly twenty zombies poured into this gold shop.'
In that instant, Lu Feng felt a small, warm current course through his body. It was a comfortable and peculiar sensation.
He immediately checked his character stats:
Character: Lu Feng
Gender: Male
Level: 2
Strength: 6.5 (Average Person: 5)
Agility: 6.5 (Average Person: 5)
Stamina: 6.5 (Average Person: 5)
Spiritual Power: 0
EXP: 0/200
His stats had indeed changed after leveling up. Strength, Agility, and Stamina had all increased by 0.5, becoming 6.5.
'So my physical body has gotten stronger. That explains that comfortable and peculiar sensation.'
'Now that I'm Level 2, I need 200 EXP to level up again.'
Lu Feng wasted no time. He exited the game, found a duffel bag in his apartment, and brought it into the game. Then, he walked up to a counter and excitedly eyed the gold jewelry inside.
This time, he didn't smash the counter. 'Who knows if there are more zombies outside? It would be a pain to attract more.'
'The gold shop was still open when the apocalypse hit, so the counters weren't locked. I could just open them. Smashing it before and attracting zombies... I was such an idiot.'
After opening a counter, Lu Feng grabbed the Golden Maitreya Necklace in the very center. 'This type of necklace is probably very popular with older people.'
[This is a necklace forged from pure gold!]
Lu Feng saw the informational prompt again.
'It seems the game's inspection function only works inside the game. When I took that Gold jewelry out before, I didn't get this kind of prompt.'
Lu Feng quickly put the Golden Maitreya Necklace into the duffel bag, then began stuffing all the Gold from that counter into it as fast as he could.
After finishing one counter, he started on the Gold jewelry in the second, then the third... the fourth...
It took some time, but he finally managed to stuff the Gold jewelry from over ten counters into the duffel bag. By now, the bag had become quite heavy.
With another thought, the duffel bag appeared with him back in his real-world apartment.
Lu Feng finally let out a sigh of relief and looked back at the game screen in his mind.
'Since this is the game world of *After the Apocalypse*, it's impossible that there's only this one gold shop. There has to be a whole world out there.'
He was curious about the world outside the gold shop.
At that thought, he entered the game again with a thought, picked up the steel blade he had set down earlier, and walked out of the gold shop to see what lay beyond.
He was in a massive, circular building. From his position on one of the middle floors, he could look down and see rows of shops, each with a different sign.
The signs all had a sci-fi look to them, not something you would see in modern society. According to the backstory of *After the Apocalypse*, the game was set in the real world's future.
The game never specified exactly how many years in the future it was.
It seemed this place was a circular Department Store.
What horrified Lu Feng was the sight of zombies wandering in front of all the shops, their numbers varying from store to store.
When he looked toward the ground floor, the sight was even more shocking; the zombies were packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Apparently, the apocalypse had struck when this place was at its busiest.
Two roars echoed in Lu Feng's ears.
He turned his head to see two zombies lunging at him, with more following close behind. His current floor was also swarming with zombies.
However, besides the zombies, his sweeping gaze seemed to land on another gold shop on the opposite side of the atrium.
He immediately retreated into the cleared-out gold shop and exited the game world with a thought.
Back in his apartment, he let out a long sigh of relief. His mind was on the other gold shop he had just seen.
'If that's true, then as long as I clear out the zombies outside, I can get my hands on the Gold jewelry in that other shop as well.'
Lu Feng looked at the game screen in his mind again, and this time, he discovered something new. He found that he could move the game's point of view with his thoughts.
This surprised him.
Soon, he had moved the view outside the gold shop, where he saw the wandering zombies. The shop on the opposite side was, indeed, another gold shop.
'In other words, there's more than one gold shop in this Department Store.'
However, that was as far as the game's view would go. When he tried to control it further with his mind, the picture refused to move.
'It seems the view can only move to places I've already been. Anywhere else is off-limits.'
'But there's no rush. I need to deal with the Gold jewelry I brought out first.'
With that in mind, he took off his protective gear and military fatigues. After a quick wash in the bathroom, he changed his clothes, then placed the steel blade and protective gear inside the gold shop in the game.
'The gold shop is already clear, so it's a convenient storage space.'
Afterward, Lu Feng headed out, dragging the bag of Gold jewelry.
Once downstairs, he hailed a taxi and gave the address of his fruit shop.
He was truly nervous the whole way, his guard up the entire time. When the driver glanced at him, he couldn't help but wonder if the man had malicious thoughts.
He didn't relax until he arrived at the fruit shop and brought the duffel bag inside.
He quickly carried the duffel bag into the back room and poured all the Gold out onto the bed. For a moment, the brilliant, golden gleam of the jewelry under the light was blinding.
At that moment, Lu Feng felt a truly surreal sensation.
'Robbers risk getting shot just to rob a single gold shop, and I've just gotten the contents of one for free.'
Then, he immediately grabbed an electronic scale and began weighing all the Gold jewelry.