Chapter 135: Chapter 86: Tempering (Part 2)

Claire Chapman helplessly rubbed the back of his head. "Of course not! It wasn’t that I was afraid you wouldn’t take me, but that my dad wouldn’t let me go. They decided they might just settle down in The Dead City, but I refuse. That place is ridiculously remote, not even as good as Glimmerlake Base. What’s the point? I’ve always wanted to go to Central City, but he was dead set against it. So when I heard you all were going, I just went ahead and left without telling him." The situation in The Dead City had mostly stabilized, and Marcus Monroe’s people were generally reliable. His father was also a quiet man, so staying there would be relatively safe. With that, a major weight was finally lifted from his mind.

As he spoke, Paige Summers was also thinking.

In truth, bringing him along would provide them with more security.

The only downside was that it would consume more fuel.

However, Marcus Monroe had given them plenty of reserves, enough to get them to the next base along their route.

All in all, it was a worthy trade-off.

Besides, he was already here. It wouldn’t be right not to take him.

So she nodded, brought him over to the campfire that Levi Young and the others had already started, and briefly explained his situation.

No one objected to gaining a free fighter.

Claire Chapman was finally, officially, accepted into the team.

However, he was far more than just a fighter. Everyone soon discovered that this man was much more useful than they had imagined!

Besides his superpower, Claire Chapman’s boxing was also outstanding.

His Fighting Technique wasn’t just for show; it was a set of real, lethal skills. Although he was facing Mutant Beasts, his moves had been modified and didn’t seem rigid. Combining his superpower with close-quarters combat, he aimed for a single, decisive blow. The stability, precision, and ruthlessness of his strikes were unmatched in the group!

Paige Summers asked him about it and confirmed her suspicion: most of what he had learned came from his father. Before the apocalypse, Forrest Chapman had been an elite special forces soldier.

Of the four of them, everyone but Sean Raines, who didn’t follow the combat path, benefited greatly from him and learned many new moves. With her Speed Superpower as a foundation, Paige Summers’s progress was remarkable. She abandoned the useless parts of her Sword Skill, making her style even more incisive! Erin Quinn, being smaller and weaker, specialized in evasion and also saw impressive results.

Levi Young’s progress was the slowest.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t working hard, but that he was simultaneously practicing with the Iron Whip Paige Summers had specially modified for him from other weapons. It was no easy task to wield the over-two-meter-long Iron Whip smoothly. To make things more challenging, Paige Summers had even embedded a Monkey Claw—which she had obtained while hunting with Marcus Monroe’s group—onto it, creating a barbed section that was over a meter long. A single lash from the whip was guaranteed to rip a huge chunk of flesh and hide from a Mutant Beast. If wielded skillfully enough to strike a weak point like a major artery, a one-hit kill was not out of the question!

Of course, Levi Young hadn’t reached that level yet.

But he was extremely hardworking.

He worked so hard that even Claire Chapman was stunned. ’Even when Dad was training me back in the day,’ he thought, ’I wasn’t this dedicated!’

For Levi Young, effort naturally paid off.

After more than a month, not only could he wield the Iron Whip competently, but by combining it with the footwork Claire Chapman taught him and his own superpower, he was no longer in the awkward position of only being able to defend himself against ordinary Mutant Beasts.

Seeing how powerful the Iron Whip was, Claire Chapman grew very envious and began pestering Paige Summers to make him a weapon too.

Paige Summers sighed and rubbed her forehead.

’Thank goodness people started using some kind of energy block to power tools after the apocalypse. Not only does it make them several times sharper, but it also means we can do without all that bulky equipment for fine polishing. And thank goodness Marcus Monroe prepared a complete set for me back then, which I was able to bring along in my storage space. Otherwise, it would be impossible to satisfy their requests!’

For Claire Chapman’s weapon, she crafted a complete set of crescent-shaped Flying Knives, designed around his superpower. They were larger than typical throwing knives but were very thin and exceptionally sharp. Both the inner and outer curves of the crescents were bladed. Once he mastered them, slicing off a Mutant Beast’s head with a single knife would be no issue. Even against a large beast, it would have no hope of escape if struck by two or three knives at once.

When he received this set of knives, Claire Chapman was incredibly excited and praised Paige Summers to the skies.

It wasn’t just empty words; a warmth instantly filled Paige Summers’s chest.

Afterward, like a little kid, he couldn’t help but practice on targets like trees even when there were no Mutant Beasts around. His enthusiasm was no less than Levi Young’s!

Seeing how much they liked the weapons she made, Paige Summers was also quite happy.

But compared to metal Artifact Making, she still preferred working with wood.

Whenever she came across good wood on the road, she couldn’t resist taking some. In the spirit of research, she also created a few things, the most popular of which was the Pathfinder Rat.

It was less than a foot long and very agile. Only the wheels on its underside were metal; the rest was all wood. However, its outer layer was coated with the sap of a mutated plant, which became extremely sturdy after solidifying.

When it encountered obstacles or pits, it could perform simple detection and provide feedback. The detection system had been provided by Sean Raines. It was originally used for cave exploration, but after Paige Summers modified it, its capabilities were clearly much greater. Of course, its most important function was its ability to sound an alarm upon detecting a living creature.

The alarm displayed directly on a remote control in Paige Summers’s hand, and she could also use the remote to get a preliminary count of the creatures.

Its power source was the same kind of energy block used for the Artifact Making tools.

This was the only drawback.

The battery life was too short. On a good road, it could last for about two hours. If conditions were poor, it might only last half an hour.

Fortunately, they also had Sweetie.

With air and ground surveillance complementing each other, they were able to avoid some areas with dense Mutant Beast populations, except for when they needed the combat experience.

The Pathfinder Rat gave Paige Summers an idea about energy. After discussing it with Levi Young, they began to experiment. They wanted to see if they could use medicine to draw out the energy from Crystal Cores. The energy inside a Crystal Core was compressed; if it could be extracted for external use, instead of just for human absorption, its applications would be absolutely enormous!

Of course, this was an extremely difficult experiment. They could only do their best to explore the possibility and didn’t expect immediate results.

What did show obvious results, however, was their superpower ranks.

By the time they were nearly halfway through their journey, having traveled for over a month, Erin Quinn and Levi Young had successively Promoted to the Fourth Rank. Although Paige Summers and Claire Chapman didn’t Promote, they could feel the energy within their bodies growing much more substantial.

The most noteworthy of all was Sweetie. The little guy, who snacked on First Order Crystal Cores all day, had finally Promoted again after a period of slumber!

Its body was now quite huge—it could actually carry a person on its back!

Seeing this, everyone was tempted.

But Sweetie was very principled. It wouldn’t let anyone near its back except for Paige Summers. It would just flap its large wings at them, kick its legs, and fly away!

And so, under several pairs of envious gazes, Paige Summers got to thoroughly enjoy the special privilege of being its owner!