Since there was nothing much to buy, Lin Chen temporarily lost interest in the shop.
He was the first to leave and returned to his Treehouse to continue studying Spells.
He had to gain some self preservation ability as soon as possible.
Yesterday, he had already learned two cantrips, and today he planned to try a 1st level Spell.
There were fewer than 20 1st level Spells to choose from, including attack and healing Spells, but most were auxiliary Spells.
Lin Chen urgently needed to improve his combat ability, so attack Spells were his first choice.
The three attack Spells each had their focus: Shillelagh was suitable for close combat, while Thorn Whip and Burning Hands were better for ranged attacks, though the latter was not suitable for forest terrain.
After much consideration, Lin Chen chose to learn Shillelagh first.
Although they were all 1st level Spells with similar learning difficulty, learning them did not mean mastering them; practice was still needed, and Thorn Whip and Burning Hands were clearly harder to control.
Lin Chen noted down the casting essentials of Shillelagh and began practicing, using the handle of his long handled cleaver as the target.
According to the effect described in the Spell list, upon successful casting, when using a wooden club, his Perception attribute would temporarily replace his Strength attribute.
This meant that when he attacked with a club enchanted with Shillelagh, it was equivalent to a person with 15 Strength.
An adult human male only has 10 Strength, so 15 Strength would make him stronger than the world's top weightlifters.
1st level Spells were indeed more difficult; each casting required at least 5 Mana points, and the efficiency of practice was also relatively low.
He spent an entire morning before he finally got the hang of it and could cast it successfully with relative stability.
There was still much to learn, but unfortunately, the external environment did not allow him to constantly shut himself away and study.
The purpose of learning was for survival, so ultimately, he had to gain experience in combat.
Lin Chen glanced at his level: [Profession: Druid LV1 (39/100)]
Of this, 13 points were kill experience and 26 points were professional experience.
Because the objects of his Sense Nature were still the trees in the camp, the experience gained from his professional cultivation this morning was much less than yesterday, but still 8 points.
Such a large forest could be said to be an excellent training ground for a Druid, much easier than killing zombies.
Unfortunately, in the Sense Nature state, his perception of the surrounding environment would be affected, making it unsafe, so he did not dare to use Sense Nature frequently outside the camp area.
Adding icing to the cake is never as good as sending charcoal in the snow; Lin Chen found that the professional experience gained from harmonizing the Nature power in healthy trees was less than helping trees in poor condition.
By analogy, planting from scratch should yield more rewards from Nature.
Coincidentally, Oak Grocery was also collecting plant saplings and seeds, killing two birds with one stone.
Lin Chen took an hour long nap; after his Mana was restored, he left with his bag.
The camp was quiet; he did not see anyone else, so they must have all gone out.
Lin Chen left the camp and walked out along the mountain path of Forest Park.
After a short walk, he met some familiar faces.
It was those few people from the Mountaineering Club; they were leading several zombies through the woods, heading towards the camp.
Lin Chen avoided them from a distance and turned onto a small path.
The main road of Forest Park led to Green Mountain Town, while the small path he took led to a country gravel road.
Along this road, a few scattered households were mostly elderly people unwilling to leave their old homes.
Such farmhouses usually had some vegetable seeds and grains, and most importantly, the elderly and children were more vulnerable to zombies, making it harder for them to log into the game.
Therefore, there should be zombies around here, but they would be scattered and not very dangerous.
The mountain path exited at the side of a house, and as soon as Lin Chen came out, he ran head on into two zombies.
One was lingering outside the dry toilet, and the other stood blankly inside the toilet.
About ten meters away, there was a haystack, and an Old Yellow Ox was tied to a tree next to it.
The zombies seemed uninterested in the Old Yellow Ox; its mooing could not attract their attention, but they were startled by Lin Chen's sudden appearance.
The zombie outside the dry toilet walked straight towards him, while the other's path was blocked by the half broken wooden door of the dry toilet, which rattled as it was bumped.
"Good opportunity!"
Lin Chen retreated while preparing his Spell, and the moment Shillelagh was cast, he charged forward, brandishing his long handled cleaver.
With a swift motion, a head flew off, as if slicing a watermelon, completely unimpeded.
"..."
Ignoring the splattering rotten flesh, it was still very satisfying.
This gave Lin Chen a lot of confidence.
Before Shillelagh wore off, he ran a few steps to the dry toilet.
The toilet door was too narrow for him to chop effectively, so Lin Chen simply chopped at the door.
As soon as the zombie came out, he chopped at its neck.
[You killed Zombie x2, gained Kill Experience x2, Copper Coin x6]
Lin Chen picked up the dropped Copper Coins and continued to explore the house.
He remembered that an old couple lived in this house, and the one in the toilet should be the old man.
Circling to the front door, he found another zombie in the main hall.
The door on the left side of the hall had been thoroughly clawed apart by it.
After killing the zombie, Lin Chen opened the door.
Inside was a bedroom, where an old woman lay on the bed with a pale face and purple lips, her hands crossed over her chest.
On the floor by the bed was a scattered bottle of paraquat.
Lin Chen sighed; the apocalypse was cruel.
Dying was easy, but surviving was hard.
He searched the entire house and found a red plastic bag in a drawer by the bed, containing several packets of seeds wrapped in newspaper.
There were many types, but not much of each.
In the utility room between the main hall and the kitchen, there was a wooden rice bin.
Lin Chen climbed up and saw that it stored half a bin of unthreshed rice, and a nest of rats had made their home inside.
On the table next to the rice bin were a porcelain jar and a bamboo basket.
The porcelain jar contained lard, and the bamboo basket held over twenty eggs.
Lin Chen took down a piece of clothing from the clothesline outside the house, padded the bamboo basket with it, and then layered rice and eggs.
Lin Chen also selected and took down a few pieces of cured meat hanging from the kitchen beam and filled a bag with rice from the rice jar.
This much food was enough to last for some time, and transporting it back was not a problem.
He fetched a bucket of water, poured it into the dry trough by the haystack, and added a bit of spring of recovery.
After establishing a good relationship with the Old Yellow Ox using Wild Empathy, he successfully placed two large bamboo baskets on its back.
Leading the Old Yellow Ox along the gravel road and further in, he also pulled up a few vegetable seedlings from the farmland along the way.
The innermost house belonged to a solitary old man, who had also unfortunately perished.
Lin Chen, using the cover of the house, chopped down one zombie, but when he was chopping the second, his long handled cleaver unfortunately came off its handle.
As Lin Chen fled, he grabbed a hoe leaning against the wall under the eaves.
With one swing of the hoe, the zombie's head was directly split open.
Only then did he realize, weighing the hoe in his hand, "It seems easier to use than the cleaver!"
He decisively abandoned the cleaver for the hoe, and even on his way back, he took the hoe from the old couple's house.
The items in this household were similar to the previous one, so Lin Chen only took the hoe and a small bag of seeds tucked into a crack in the wall.