"Phew..."
Li Ke massaged his temples once more, finally clearing a bit of the fog from his brain. However, his forehead felt burning hot to the touch. This feverish sensation was undoubtedly a lingering physical consequence of using that skill book.
I won't end up cutting my life short over this, will I?
A flash of worry crossed his mind, but deep down, he knew that if he were given the choice again, he would still use it without a single shred of hesitation.
The reason was incredibly simple. The moment he closed his eyes right now, he could effortlessly sense the direction of the wind around him. He could map out every single physical object within a three-meter radius.
It was an extraordinarily bizarre sensation. The more violent or rapid the motion of an object, the easier it was to pinpoint.
However, the ability wasn't omnipotent. To be precise, Li Ke had only just unlocked the bare minimum basics of the skill. He could vaguely perceive that something was near him, and if an object closed in at high speed, closing his eyes allowed him to detect its trajectory much faster.
It was still highly blurry—more of a gut intuition than a crystal-clear image.
Li Ke had no idea what kind of astronomical stat boost a skill like this would give someone like Kiri, who already possessed godly, peak-human sensory perception. But for an ordinary guy like him, it was a total game-changer.
He could clearly feel that after processing the skill book, his base reaction time had permanently improved. It was especially true when he closed his eyes to actively channel his focus; his mental reflexes spiked significantly.
If he were to dump his hard-earned skill points into Agility right now, his combat speed would likely become staggeringly fast.
Yet, this entire progression system was provided natively by the 7 Days to Die world system. This meant that any other survivor in this realm could potentially loot the exact same books, and with their superior base stats, they would grow infinitely stronger than him.
This realization left Li Ke feeling deeply melancholic. Sighing, he pulled up his system interface.
"Seriously, what is the actual point of my built-in cheat code?"
His personal system interface seemed completely useless. Aside from delivering vague alerts about a massive war for dimensional control, it provided absolutely zero concrete guidance.
Furthermore, out of his two primary unique skills, the title of 7 Days to Die Dimensional Master was tied directly to this world.
He wasn't even sure if his Endless Traveler status originated from this specific dimension. Long story short, his system was undeniably powerful on paper, but practically worthless to him in his current situation.
However, as his eyes scanned down to his actual status values...
[Character Status]
Level: 17 Days to Die
Dimensional Master: 32%
Endless Traveler (LV1): 35%Energy: 495
"It actually jumped all the way up to 32%? But I literally haven't felt a single change in my body. And how exactly am I supposed to level up past Level 1? If it requires grinding mob kills, shouldn't slaughtering that massive horde of zombies have granted me at least a single level up by now?"
Li Ke stared at the Dimensional Master progress bar, clicked his tongue, and shook his head. All he had done was survive a single blood moon horde in this place. Did simply staying alive actually count as exploring a dimension?
Or did it mean that, just as he suspected, the difficulty of this world was spiking higher and higher over time?
He was also deeply fixated on that "Level 1" status. He truly couldn't wrap his head around how to level up his character profile. Yet, he had a strong gut feeling that the moment he finally pushed past this level cap, he would unlock the supernatural powers he so desperately craved.
"Nothing but a bunch of riddles," he muttered.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Li Ke stopped overthinking the system metrics and turned his attention back to Kiri.
Watching her pull one ridiculous, high-tier item after another out of the loot drops left him burning with envy. Her luck was truly god-tier. Then again, if she didn't possess that absurd level of fortune, she probably would have never survived the cutthroat Lawless District back in her own world.
Deciding to give his eyes a break from watching Kiri treat zombie corpses like a literal treasure hunt, Li Ke turned and walked over toward Tsunade.
When he found her, Tsunade was busy reinforcing the perimeter of their base using structural steel pillars and system frames. Instead of adding unnecessary clutter to their already highly optimized suspended house, she was constructing a massive curtain wall roughly five meters outward from the structure. Her goal was to completely encase their floating fortress in a secondary layer of armor.
This was a high-risk construction job that only someone of Tsunade's caliber could pull off effortlessly. Thanks to her perfect chakra control and physical stats, she didn't have to worry about losing her balance and falling to her death.
Tsunade worked at a breathtaking pace. By the time Li Ke arrived, she had already snapped the entire grid of system frames into place. All that was left to do was overlay the structural steel pillars onto the wireframes to form a series of seamless, heavy-duty defensive bunkers. While a setup like this still couldn't permanently stop a tidal wave of flesh and blood, it would significantly delay the zombies from breaching directly into their faces.
Noticing Li Ke's arrival, Tsunade paused her work and leaped down to land lightly beside him. She pointed toward the nearby Trader's protected boundary—a safe zone where system blocks were fundamentally forbidden from being placed—and opened her mouth to explain her blueprint.
"My plan is to use my Chakra Enhanced Strength to manually drive a series of heavy steel plates directly into the terrain, bridging the gap all the way to the Trader's boundary line. From there, I'll build a massive overhang right above us. That way, the horde won't be able to pile up directly on top of our suspended house during the next blood moon. It'll take a massive amount of psychological pressure off everyone, and the defensive line will be infinitely more stable since we won't have to worry about vertical breaches from above."
Tsunade sighed softly, looking back at the structure. Just a few days ago, she had been absolutely terrified that this floating house would collapse and fall out of the sky. In reality, Li Ke and the others had shared that exact same fear. Because of that, Tsunade had taken it upon herself to eliminate the structural flaw entirely.
She had already completely repaired the subterranean bunker tunnels that the zombies had dug out during the previous attack, sealing them off with heavy-duty reinforcements.
According to her new architectural layout, the undead would now have to chew through three separate layers of solid steel plating before they could even scratch their suspended house or threaten her newly excavated underground defenses.
"Yeah, thank you. This is a massive help," Li Ke nodded in genuine appreciation as he inspected the reinforced foundations she had laid down. "After all, none of us can predict what kind of horrors we're going to face during the next wave."
Li Ke opened his mouth to discuss the layout further. However, before he could utter another word, a brand-new sensation—one he had never experienced in his life—suddenly locked onto his entire body, causing a cold realization to instantly flash through his mind.
Danger!
Li Ke reacted instantly, snapping his gaze toward the exact point of threat his new sense had detected. In the next heartbeat, a gruesome vulture—completely devoid of feathers and skin—dived straight at him, its razor-sharp talons tearing toward his eyes!
Acting entirely on pure instinct, Li Ke pulled his machine gun from his inventory. A single, frantic burst of gunfire instantly shredded the mutated vulture into a slurry of meat.
But this was far from over. Looking out into the distance, Li Ke could clearly see a massive, looming shadow rising directly from the depths of the forest, rapidly drifting in their direction!
To make matters worse, even the storm clouds gathering on the horizon looked unnaturally distorted!
First a zombie horde, and now a goddamn army of vultures?!
Without a second thought, Li Ke scooped up Tsunade—who was still physically spent and weak in the knees from their earlier sessions—and threw her over his back. He spun around and screamed toward the clearing.
"Kiri, get back here right now! Enemy raid!"
The moment the warning left his lips, Li Ke bolted toward the entrance of their suspended house with Tsunade slung over his shoulder. He planned to drop her off safely inside before turning back to cover Kiri's retreat. However, before he could even take three steps, the roaring thrum of a high-powered engine suddenly exploded from right behind him.
Before he could even process the sound, Kiri went flying past his face on a motorcycle!
Yes! A motorcycle!
Li Ke saw it with crystal-clear clarity. It was a rugged, heavily reinforced, post-apocalyptic chopper!
Are you serious?! You literally just pulled a functional vehicle out of those drops and started riding it?!
Li Ke's jaw dropped in absolute disbelief.
Slamming her brakes to slide to a halt right in front of him, Kiri whipped out a pair of machine guns. She aimed them right past Li Ke's shoulders and unleashed a torrential wall of lead. Li Ke didn't even need to turn around to know that a bloodthirsty swarm of vultures had been closing in on his blind spot!
"Get inside! Move!" Kiri barked over the gunfire.
Covered by Kiri's dual-wielding suppression fire, Li Ke successfully rushed Tsunade into the fortress. They slammed the heavy door shut. The moment Li Ke set Tsunade down, he scrambled toward the nearest defensive arrow slit to secure their firing lines.
But as he peered outside, his vision locked onto a striking visual.
A vibrant, crimson meteor was hurtling downward, crashing violently into the terrain not too far from their base. As the magical light dissipated, it revealed an exhausted, heavily panting Rias alongside a completely bewildered Lux.
And closing in right behind them was a literal ocean of mutated zombie birds.
It was blindingly obvious now—Rias had run out of options, and she had brought the disaster right back to their doorstep for help.