After moving the slot machine back to apartment 301, Zhang Yanhang once again sat on the dilapidated wooden bed and began to ponder a serious and earnest question, "Should I get some sleep and rest for a bit now? After all, I haven’t slept for a day and a night, not to mention that I’ve been working continuously for over eight hours."
For this question, Zhang Yanhang was genuinely conflicted. After about five minutes of indecision, he arrived at his final answer, "To prevent sudden death, I’d better catch some sleep." Zhang Yanhang felt he had already been working hard enough, so a little nap shouldn’t be a problem.
Besides, he had a full four days to squander and more than eighty hours left before the next transmission channel would open. No matter how he thought about it, there was no way Zhang Yanhang wouldn’t be able to clear the ground level of Raccoon City within eighty-plus hours. Given the ample time, taking a break halfway shouldn’t pose an issue.
In addition to preventing his own sudden demise, Zhang Yanhang mainly didn’t want to encounter a Second Tier Second Star Lord Monster Tracker while exhausted. He felt that even at his peak condition, he might not necessarily be able to beat the Tracker, let alone when fatigued.
Although Zhang Yanhang had only been working for a little over eight hours, his various stats were indeed beginning to decline, so taking a short rest before continuing to clear the Outer Zone seemed to be the best choice at the moment.
"Since I’m going to sleep, I should make myself as comfortable as possible. If the sleep quality is high, I’ll also shorten the time needed to recover," he thought.
Therefore, to get a good night’s sleep, Zhang Yanhang used Alchemy to reforge the old wooden bed’s mattress, making it softer. After reforging the mattress, he also fixed the bed slats, which always creaked annoyingly when he lay on them before, affecting his mood.
After repairing the mattress and bed slats, Zhang Yanhang used various old clothes and blankets from other rooms to reforge a set of bedding and pillows for himself.
Lying on the rejuvenated dilapidated wooden bed, Zhang Yanhang couldn’t help but praise his own handiwork. While it wasn’t as good as the big bed at home, the current state of the old wooden bed had become quite comfortable.
Now, Zhang Yanhang had taken off his heavy anti-explosion and bulletproof helmet, bullet and stab-proof vest, various knee and elbow guards, and cut-resistant gloves, leaving only a thin outer garment on. Although he preferred to sleep naked in the Main World, in the unsafe Ashen World, he didn’t fancy doing so.
What if he encountered enemies while sleeping naked? In such situations, he usually wouldn’t have time to get dressed and would have to fight bare against his opponents, which was undeniably awkward no matter how you looked at it.
Although the blue Energy Shield on his skin could offer some minor coverage, after all, the shield was semi-transparent. So, it couldn’t cover up much.
Lying on the old wooden bed, Zhang Yanhang let his mind wander to strange thoughts while yawning, and then his eyes closed, seamlessly entering a state of sleep—yes, falling asleep was that fast for him; he could sleep as soon as he hit the bed.
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October 5, 2020, the fifth day of the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday, afternoon, 2:15 PM, Ashen World, Raccoon City, Dulda Apartment, apartment 301.
The just awakened Zhang Yanhang opened his bleary eyes and stared at the still somewhat unfamiliar gray-white ceiling, "Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?"
After contemplating these philosophical questions while staring at the ceiling for a while, Zhang Yanhang became slightly more alert, probably because he had just woken up and was inexplicably melancholic.
Zhang Yanhang picked up the multifunctional wristwatch from beside his pillow to check the time, "I slept for eight hours? Huh? Why did I sleep for eight hours?" To this result, Zhang Yanhang was startled—he didn’t realize until he checked.
"I clearly set an alarm for six hours, why did I sleep for eight?"
Zhang Yanhang struggled to recall the deviation, and as he did, he suddenly remembered that it was he himself who had turned off the alarm. Although the alarm did indeed ring two hours ago and woke him up, the first thing he did after waking was to turn off the alarm and then go back for a bit more sleep, leading to another two-hour slumber.
"Never mind, let it be eight hours then, it’s just two more hours of sleep after all. Maybe it’s because my Physical Strength consumption this time has indeed been much greater than last time."
Last time when Zhang Yanhang cleared the Outer Zone, he used the Enemy Seeking Radar to scan for enemies, which consumed Energy Value. But this time was different; he had been using the more convenient Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil, which significantly consumed his Physical Strength.
Zhang Yanhang estimated that at least half of the Physical Strength he had used up was spent on using Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil to sense enemies. After clearing an area of Zombies, he would sense again, which is why he exhausted a significant amount of Physical Strength.
The main reason Zhang Yanhang did this was to improve the efficiency of the cleanup. Although the efficiency did indeed improve a lot, the consumption of Physical Strength also shot up.
In addition to using Seeking Fortune and Avoiding Evil, encountering larger numbers of Lickers and Zombie Dogs was another related reason that increased his energy expenditure. Compared to the weak Ordinary Zombies, dealing with stronger Lickers and Zombie Dogs inevitably required him to expend more Physical Strength.
Besides, this time Zhang Yanhang had killed a lot more Zombies during the eight hours than the previous time. Last time, he killed eight hundred Ordinary Zombies, but this time, he eliminated twelve hundred, a full one-third more. As a result, his Physical Strength consumption had increased.
"Sigh, I suddenly feel like going to the Elf Forest to kill some clean and pretty Elves and Unicorns. Although I have the Energy Shield to block the filth from the Zombies’ blood now, the disgust remains the same. If I could kill some clean and pretty Elves and Unicorns, it would definitely purify my soul filled with negative energy."
Perhaps because he was more emotionally sensitive after just waking up, when Zhang Yanhang recalled matters related to Zombies, he suddenly felt a bit averse. Of course, it might also be just a simple feeling of killing fatigue, having killed several thousand Zombies in a row. So, at this moment, he suddenly wanted to kill something fresh and clean to change his mood, as a kind of reprieve.