NOVEL NEXT Chapter 23: To Confuse theMasses
There were, of course, some people who didn’t trust Cheng Yang and believed that everything he said was just a ruse. Since there was no other choice they decided to just wait and see. After all, as long as they weren’t driven from the village they wouldn’t suffer.
Cheng Yang didn’t pay attention to those people and instead brought those he had chosen up to the Territory Altar. He could only transfer thirteen people so he checked their aptitudes to make sure his team would have an equal number of people with each class. Those that were unlucky enough not to make the cut were told that they were first in line to join his team the next time they made selections.
Of the thirteen people Cheng Yang had performed a class change ceremony on, ten had A-Rank Innate Abilities. As for the other three, two were B-Rank, and one was incredibly an S-Rank! That powerful S-Rank talent was Zhao Chuan, the first person that Cheng Yang had first saved from Huimin.
It would appear that those now were still among the first in the world, otherwise the Innate Abilities of the people he had just had performed class change ceremonies wouldn’t have been so strong.
Zhao ChuanPhoenix Village SoldierClass: SummonerLevel: Low Grade Apprentice (0%)
Age31Life Span110HP36MP24Physical Attack7.5Magic Attack1Physical Defense1.2Magic Defense1Attack Speed1Movement Speed2Innate Abilities
- Receive 30% more stats in the Physical Attack attribute when you level up
- Movement speed is increased by 100%
- Beast Way (Special Ability): All enemies within 100 meters of a summoned creatures have their stats suppressed by 10% if they are the same or lower level. Effect increases by 10% and triples in range every four levels.
Skills
- Meditation (Low Grade): Meditate to absorb experience fragments and level up
- Summon Wolf (Low Grade): Summons a wolf with stats equal to the summoner | Duration: 10 min | Cost: 10 MP | Cast Time: 1 min | Proficiency: 0%
Equipment
- Wooden Staff: Status symbol of the summoner | No bonuses
Cheng Yang was shocked when he viewed Zhao Chuan’s stats. He didn’t expect for one of the people he picked to have a Special Ability.
General Innate Abilities enhanced a person’s stats. Some of the rarer ones increased hidden stats such as attack range. Even rarer were Lord Innate Abilities and Manager Innate Abilities, the only difference being that they increased the stats of a person’s territory. Special Innate Abilities are far more powerful but have a major downside. Unlike General Innate Abilities which are usually just less useful if you pick the wrong class, Special Innate Abilities are always useless if the person picks the wrong class. For example, if Zhao Chuan hadn’t been a summoner his incredibly rare Special Innate Ability would have been entirely worthless.
Right now Zhao Chuan’s ability would have a negligible effect if he were to fight in a small group since it is hard to notice a difference of 10% when the enemies stats are so low. When he gets stronger and participates in a war his Special Ability would take away hundreds of points of stats collectively. He would be a nightmarish existence for any army to face.
Next, Cheng Yang picked five of the people from the original soldiers to join his team, finishing the roster.
Right now Phoenix Village was only Low Grade so Cheng Yang couldn’t build any of the military oriented buildings and was unable to give any of the soldiers proper ranks. Thus the team management and hierarchy was quite loose.
After checking the aptitudes of the people picked by Yu Kai and the others he left them to do the class change ceremonies on their own. He then took his group to the north of the village so he could explain how their new abilities worked and impart some fighting techniques and knowledge.
After Zhao Chuan and the other new soldiers became Professionals, the physiological gap between them and normal people only grew wider. They saw that the new soldiers had the same weapons as Cheng Yang’s group that had saved them. Didn’t this mean that they had the same power as well?
“Hey you, why won’t you let us gain that power too? You’re a class traitor!” A voice filled with anger shouted from the crowd.
Cheng Yang didn’t even need to turn around to know that Hu Jun was acting up again, “I said this village belongs to me so I can decide not to let people gain power if they want.” He said blandly, “If you have a problem with that feel free to leave the village.”
“Why should I leave?” Hu Jun shouted at Cheng Yang, “I am the mayor of Huimin and legally this village is built within its county limits, I think it’s you who should leave!”
Cheng Yang whipped around to look at Hu Jun in awe. Could such a fool truly exist in this world? Yu Kai and Old Lee gave Hu Jun the same look. Even some of the civilians in the crowd couldn’t believe his behavior.
“You bastard!” Lau Hui roared, “Who rescued you from the ruins this morning? Who brought your family back from Huimin this afternoon? Who fed you two meals today? You’re the mayor? You think you’re the boss here? How could we have saved someone so ungrateful? Idiot!”
“You, you, you…” Hu Jun pointed his finger at Lau Hui, “Don’t think that little act of righteous anger will fool the People’s Army when they arrive! They’ll see right through you and then we’ll see who’s in charge of this village!”
Old Lee snorted, “I don’t know when the army plans to show up but what I do know is that if we threw you outside you’d be nothing but bones in ten minutes.”
“You… you’re a murderer! This is a crime!” Hu Jun’s face was as red as a tomato, “Everyone will you continue to be blinded by these people? There’s only thirty or forty of them! As long as we arrest them then we can take control of the station! Then we can all become powerful!”
Old Lee turned to Cheng Yang, “Just say the word and I’ll go down there and shut that fool up.”
Cheng Yang nodded in his heart. He was right to put his trust in Old Lee. If he really needed to test Old Lee’s conviction’s the best way would be to order him to kill that mayor of Huimin Hu Jun.
Luckily for the mayor, Cheng Yang had no plans to kill him right now. “Old Lee while that man is a big trouble it will dirty our hands to harm him. During the apocalypse so many humans have already died, we shouldn’t add to that number.”
Old Lee was slightly stunned. He didn’t understand Cheng Yang’s decision but since Cheng Yang told him not to do anything he wouldn’t.
Cheng Yang turned to face the crowd, “Hu Jun, your proposal didn’t seem to resonate to well with the crowd. It seems that everyone here saw through your desire to take over the village. At such a critical moment of life and death you should learn not to be too greedy. I have already promised that once I am able everyone here will gain the powers my comrades have. The reason I only gave them to around sixty people today is because the village would only allow that many more to gain power.”
Cheng Yang took a moment to let his words sink in before continuing, “Although I am very ashamed of your behavior Hu Jun, I don’t want to kill anybody here nor cast you out from Phoenix Village. However, if you want to be able to eat you are going to need to contribute something to the village.”
Hu Jun had a complex expression on his face. He realized that he had overestimated the influence his previous position would have over the people here. Before the apocalypse he was a fairly big figure in the area but now he just looked like a raving bum. In front of a bunch of people struggling to survive the title of mayor was useless.
Even so Hu Jun didn’t regret his actions, instead he just hated Cheng Yang even more. Although the other side had allowed him to continue living in the village he didn’t feel a shred of gratitude.
He now knew that right now there was nothing he could do. He could only hold his tongue and shoulder the humiliation Cheng Yang had dealt him. He just had to wait for the army to arrive then he could watch them kill Cheng Yang and his followers. Then he could take credit for it and get promoted to the mayor of the village!
So, after Cheng Yang finished speaking he just grunted and walked away from the crowd. Throughout the whole ordeal his brother Hu Yang hadn’t said a word which made people wonder where his loyalty lay.
Cheng Yang didn’t understand Hu Yang’s actions either but he didn’t worry about it. As long as they weren’t a Professional, Cheng Yang had absolute control over the crowd. He only needed a thought and they would be teleported outside the village. After seeing that everyone else would immediately become obedient.
After watching the drama unfold the crowd surrounding Cheng Yang dispersed. At the same time the last class change ceremony was completed. Now that everyone had transferred Cheng Yang led all the new recruits to the top of the walls to kill the monsters that had accumulated over the last few hours. Under the instructions of Cheng Yang those new recruits quickly familiarized themselves with their new skills.
Cheng Yang then jumped down from the walls to let the other four lead the rest of the training. He walked over to the Territory Altar to create another ten Meditation Halls. If there weren’t enough Meditation Halls it would affect the growth of the new soldiers.
Looking at the pitiful number of logs that were left next to the altar Cheng Yang felt quite sad. It would seem that he needed to focus on finding wood in the ruins of Huimin tomorrow. If he had good luck they would find quite a bit but it was very easy to return empty handed. Not to mention that even if they found wood it would be difficult to transport back to the village.
A distance of one kilometers was very short before the apocalypse. A car only needed a couple of minutes to drive that far, even less if it was on a highway. God’s new rules made cars impossible to use though, although cars ran on gasoline they still needed electricity to start.