Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night

While the effort to replenish the losses which Zane had suffered in his battle with Gwen was minimal, the time it took was far more grueling. Simply travelling to Reno alone took roughly an hour of his time.

After arriving at their destination, Zane and the girls would fight eight hours a day, nonstop, before returning to Gravestone, where they would rest. Only to repeat the process again early the next morning.

They spent nearly half a month doing exactly this. Focusing on their own personal development while their scouts searched for another nearby Tier I Horde King to fight, considering Gwen was far more monstrous than they could have expected.

Despite being level 25, Gwen was way beyond Zane's capabilities, who was at the same level. This must be the difference between a level 25 "player" and a level 25 Boss. Regardless, the group would need to improve their levels and equipment if they wanted to face such a monstrous foe.

During this time, the amount of resources that Zane had recovered was enough not only to grant him and the girls an additional level up each. But it was also enough to fully arm his horde with Level 15 uncommon quality equipment.

Zane had not just wanted to replace the Ashigaru and the hoplites, which he lost to Gwen. No, he had far greater ambitions insofar as wanting to advance all of his undead minions to the third tier.

After all, that was the maximum he could currently raise his horde to. And if all of his undead were at a level of strength that was on par, if not superior to the likes of abominations, it meant they would have a much easier time dealing with a hostile horde.

Zane and the girls were advancing in power at a rate that could not be compared to, at least by, other human beings. But the same could not be said for the Horde Kings. In fact, if there was one thing that Zane noticed during these last two weeks of harvesting experience and resources, it was the fact that the Undead had begun also evolving at a rapid rate.

The amount of Walkers, who used to be the overwhelming majority of Undead within Bartholomew's horde, were rapidly being replaced by more powerful undead. Such as Leapers, Howlers, and even a few skeletons.

It would be fine if the increase in power stopped at Walkers transforming into Tier II Undead. Even the local Awakened were powerful enough to deal with such a threat now. But it didn't end there.

All tiers of undead began to seriously increase in number. Abominations were everywhere, and stalkers were lurking around every corner. Not to mention that Juggernauts were now running rampant. It was a catastrophic increase in power among the undead, and nobody knew why it had happened, and so suddenly at that.

Because of this, Zane's gains were significant, as such undead were not a threat to him, but he was starting to become worried about the settlement of New Reno. At the current rate, they would not be able to survive much longer.

Though nobody knew what was happening to the ruins of Old Reno, and the Undead within it. The reason for this change was actually quite simple: Bartholomew had risen in strength to a Tier III Horde King.

This meant that not only had his individual power had increased significantly, but so too had the size of his horde, and the speed with which his undead minions were capable of evolving into more powerful monsters.

After nearly two weeks of constant battle, Zane's horde had evolved in its entirety to the Third Tier. The weakest of which were level 10, and the strongest of which were level 15.

Though they were capable of evolving into Tier IV Undead with the amount of experience they had gained, Zane could not do this as he did not yet have the skill [Commander of the Dead - Tier IV].

Thus, all he could do was allow his undead to advance in individual strength, even if they could not evolve. Among his horde, its soldiers were all equipped with level 15 uncommon quality equipment, which varied based upon their specific role.

The Skeletal Archers had evolved into Ghoulish Crossbowmen, while the Skeletal Hoplites had transformed into Ghoulish Auxilia. Their spears had been replaced with swords similar in design to the Roman Spatha, and their armor had become an almost fantasy like version of ancient Roman equipment.

The individual states of these Undead were quite similar to that of a Level 10 Awakened, with most of their attributes being around the 13-15 mark. Making them rather exceptional combatants. At the very least, Zane's horde would be extremely difficult for most human survivors to deal with on an individual level. And he had 1,000 of them at his disposal.

Needless to say, Zane's power vastly increased over this two-week span. And during this time, Zane had also distributed the blood crystals he had gained to himself and the girls in an equal six party split.

Because of the increase in quality of undead. The majority of these blood crystals were now Tier II Blood Crystals, which granted 100 XP per blood crystal to Zane, rather than the usual ten.

As for the Girls, since they had the [Corrupted - Tier II] Achievement already unlocked, they gained 90 XP per Blood Crystal. Albeit they had to undergo a long and painful process when they consumed an entire stack of the things via their inventory system.

There were also, of course, a significant number of Tier III, Tier IV, and even Tier V blood crystals that they split among themselves. The higher the Tier, the more XP was gained from it.

While Bartholomew's strength had vastly increased, including that of his horde. It was really a double edged sword. Because it meant that the growth of Zane and the girls, which had largely been stagnated until now due to the paltry sum of XP gained from consuming mostly Tier I Blood Crystals, had been thrown back into full throttle.

Over the past few months, Zane had mostly been disposing of his Tier I Blood Crystals, either for gold in the system's store, or by giving them out to the citizens of Gravestone so that they could raise his level. The amount of Tier I Blood Crystals he would have to consume to gain one level was simply absurd, and because of this, they were better off used elsewhere.

But this mentality had changed. With the increase in quantity of higher Tier Undead, as well as the fact that Zane and the girls had now found an opponent nearby that they could not defeat. Zane's natural desire to improve himself was kick-started back into overdrive.

Because of this, Zane and the girls consumed their entire collection of blood crystals, and each of them gained at least one level from it. However, blood crystals were not the only way for Zane and the girls to level up. And they each gained more than one level because of this.

For example, Zane gained daily XP from the Undead stationed in Gravestone, for every item they crafted, for every hour of working the fields, and for every hour of patrol, Zane gained a small amount of xp from each Undead working for him. It was insignificant on its own, but with a thousand undead grinding away XP for Zane twenty four Horus a day, over the course of two weeks, it added up.

There was also a matter of achievements gained. With Zane and the girls each killing enough Tier V Undead, which due to Bartholomew's increase in power had sky rocketed in numbers enough so that each of them were able to unlock the achievements [Slayer of the Dead – Tier V] and [Corrupted – Tier V] which they had not been able to do so before.

With all of these things combined, Zane himself advanced three levels, from level 25 to level 28. While the girls all advanced from level 21 to level 23. Thus, after gaining all of these levels, Zane quickly looked over his character screen and applied his attribute points as follows.

---

[User: Zane Graves]

[Race: Human]

[Subrace: Living Dead]

[Level: 28]

[HP: 200/200]

[Attributes:]

[Strength: 20]

[Dexterity: 21 (+9)]

[Constitution: 20]

[Intelligence: 20]

[Wisdom: 17]

[Charisma: 20]

Skills:

[Dead Man Walking – Tier IV]

[Commander of the Dead – Tier III]

---

After applying his attribute points to the areas which he thought were best, Zane nodded his head in approval. All he needed he was three more points in order to make all of his attributes at a superhuman level, after which he would focus his efforts primarily on Dexterity and Charisma, with a few points added into Strength and Constitution every now and then.

However, something shocked Zane when he confirmed the spending of his attribute points. A message appeared in his inbox. It was from the system itself. And it contained the following text, which Zane read in disbelief.

[Congratulations on advancing your charisma to 20! You have surpassed your human limitations in terms of influencing and commanding others. As a result, from here on out, for every attribute point you invest in, Charisma, you shall gain +1000 to your Horde Limit. As a little gift from yours truly, your base Horde Limit, without the addition of personal equipment, has been boosted to 2,000.]

Zane's eyes widened in disbelief when he saw this. He now had the ability to control 2,500 undead with both his base horde limit and his equipment, that gave him an additional +500. He had more than doubled the amount of undead he could control in a single instant thanks to the wise spending of his attribute points.

When Zane thought about this, it was indeed a huge boost of his power. But this also meant he would have to spend another two weeks making sure that he captured 1,500 more undead and raised them to Tier III.

Reflecting upon this, Zane groaned loudly in agony. This truly would be a never ending grind, wouldn't it? Despite having such dreadful thoughts, there was something that caught Zane's interest when he re-read the message.

Zane wondered why the System had said the words "a gift from yours truly." Did this imply that the system was really an intelligent being of its own? Or had it been created by an intelligent designer, and for what purpose?

Ultimately, Zane did not want to continue with this train of thought. As it would lead him down a rabbit hole, which he simply could not find an answer to at this time. Instead, his thoughts drifted towards something far more promising, and that was how the attribute system worked, specifically Charisma.

Due to his unique skill, charisma was an incredibly useful attribute to Zane, as it effectively raised the limit of how many undead servants he could control at any given time. But with this sudden increase in growth, there were several questions to be had.

For example, if Zane increased his charisma to 30, would he then be able to get an even larger increase in horde size for every point of charisma he invested in? How large would that be?

In the end, Zane could only admit that he honestly had no way of knowing the answer to this exciting question until he could fulfill the requirements. And at his current rate of development, it would be a very long time before that happened.