Chapter 51: Chapter 46 Riding
The dust of the Gobi sprinkled down upon the highway, and roads that had not seen a vehicle pass for a long time had grown somewhat grey and murky. Tao Yu could leave footprints just by stepping on them.
Following the highway towards the direction of the city, one could see several gaunt zombies in the middle of the road.
The handful of zombies wandered the highway at a considerably slow pace.
“Still able to move after seven months without food, what kind of version is this?”
After strapping the assault rifle on his back, holding the MP5-style gun at his waist with his left hand, Tao Yu’s right hand was already gripping the crook-bladed knife.
As he drew closer, one of the withered zombies seemed to have noticed Tao Yu, sniffing the air and heading in his direction.
“Smell?”
Tao Yu raised an eyebrow and casually slapped the abandoned sedan next to him with the crook-bladed knife, producing a clang.
The next moment, several nearby zombies surged towards the sound. Their speed was faster than an ordinary human walk but slower than a jog.
Whoosh~
With a swift motion of the hand, the blade fell, and the first zombie to approach was decapitated without the slightest hitch. Meanwhile, Tao Yu moved through the zombies with leisurely Crane steps, smoothly taking care of them all.
Five-Form Boxing was not just about practice; the movements and techniques of some of the forms, when broken down, were also very practical.
It wasn’t about sticking to bare hands. With Basic Blade – Modified lv2 at hand, once the techniques for exerting force were in place, mastery and integration came naturally.
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A flick of the wrist was enough to unleash full power with ease.
The plasma was in a semi-coagulated state, so there wasn’t much bleeding.
Tao Yu looked down at his crook-bladed knife. Although he had beheaded a zombie, it had only left a tiny, inconspicuous nick, as if the bones were more fragile than normal.
He wasn’t sure if it was due to weathering or virus erosion.
Approaching the corpse of a zombie, Tao Yu crouched down and waited for the Yuan Force to condense.
“Teeth again, and it’s a molar…”
He tapped the ground with the tip of his knife in resignation, as if he was performing a wisdom tooth extraction.
With a slap on the flat of the blade and a slight shake to channel his internal force, the zombie’s decayed tooth was knocked out, followed by the removal of the Yuan Force tooth. He processed the other zombies in the same manner and absorbed their essence.
Great, less than one unit of Yuan Force, and all it contained was some minute, chaotic information with no hint of a Skill.
“Confirmed, it’s not worth wasting time extracting teeth.”
Tao Yu sniffed. Perhaps due to the quick drying, aside from the foul stench that burst out when killing them, the overall smell was somewhat better than he had expected.
Having endured the harsh environment of the Outsider City, he could easily adapt.
Having initially faced Pythons and Aliens, zombies posed no threat now that his strength had increased.
“However, this is because there are fewer of them outside the city, inside, it must be quite a mess.”
The most troublesome thing about zombies was always their numbers!
Clang clang~
The sound of impact rang out. Tao Yu saw a zombie, strapped in with a seatbelt inside an abandoned pickup truck. It seemed to be struggling to get out due to the noise outside and appeared gaunt, obviously unable to free itself.
Uninterested in bothering with it, Tao Yu continued walking on. He had spotted an overturned motorbike further ahead from his vantage point on the prairie.
Given the road conditions, something on two wheels was more convenient.
Reaching the downed heavy-duty motorcycle, Tao Yu picked it up. The brand was unfamiliar, with a scarce logo but with ‘Kawasaki’ written in English letters below. After a successful start following an attempt, the engine roared to life.
Checking the fuel gauge, there was more than half a tank left, which should suffice.
Tao Yu didn’t ride motorcycles, but he had ridden motorbikes before. Relying on his current physical condition, becoming proficient was simple.
After briefly getting accustomed, he twisted the throttle and instantly sped off.
The roar of the motorcycle drew the attention of the nearby zombies, but by the time they reacted, Tao Yu was already serpentining through the deserted vehicles, racing towards the city.
“The noise is a bit loud, I still need an electric one, but the feeling of power is truly exhilarating…”
Tao Yu understood why there were ghost riders—it was indeed thrilling as the speed ramped up.
His body now surpassed human limits, yet even running at full throttle, he was easily left behind by the bike, a simple twist of the throttle away.
Unexpectedly, as he snaked through traffic on the bike, approaching the city district, a Skill orb slowly emerged.
Riding lv1: The ability to drive a motorcycle.
What struck Tao Yu as odd was that this freely given Auxiliary Ability also required a hundred points of Yuan Force to enhance.
Even though only three hundred Yuan Force points remained after purchasing Qi Replenishing Pills, Tao Yu still went ahead and completed the enhancement.
Riding – Modified lv1: Improves your adaptability to mounts; when you hold the reins of any mount, you’ll intuitively know how to control it, able to sync intentions with any tamed beastly mounts.
Meanwhile, Tao Yu also felt a different sensation from the motorcycle beneath him, as if controlling it became as easy as moving his own hands and feet, like an extension of his body.
As long as it didn’t defy the laws of physics, it seemed he could control the bike to do anything!
Man, this was no ordinary Riding Skill.
Those hundred points were well spent.
As Tao Yu’s will changed, the name of the Skill also changed, directly becoming Riding.
“Oh snap~”
After whooping with excitement, Tao Yu lifted the front wheel, balancing solely on the rear wheel, enjoying the fun of being a reckless rider.
Then, relying on his excellent physical fitness, he forcibly pulled and maneuvered the motorcycle to ride over a car.
It was incredibly smooth.
The abandoned cars on the road seemed like mere ‘mounds’ that Tao Yu occasionally played with as he passed.
This mount, he definitely needed to get one…
Tao Yu even thought about riding back to the grasslands to catch an Alien and see if it could serve as a mount.
But then he thought, although he was physically strong and had surpassed human limits, and the Alien looked relatively slender.
The strength of such Yuan Force creatures was naturally far superior to that of humans, subduing one through violence seemed impossible, let alone alive.
Moreover, Aliens usually moved in groups, and he didn’t have enough Yuan Force left to recover, so he decided not to take the risk for the time being and to save more money before considering…
“It would be best to find a horse or something, see if I can develop some Taming Technique to go with Riding.”
Although Tao Yu was engrossed in his new toy, he wouldn’t recklessly charge into the city.
If he got surrounded by a horde of zombies, even the current Tao Yu would only consider escaping into the shadows, and if the horde was too large, he might not have the stamina to make it out.
“These crappy, disgusting zombies, better to avoid them if I can instead of wasting time on them.”
Having had his fill of fun, Tao Yu slowed down the motorcycle, and the roaring noise reduced significantly.
Even so, as he playfully drove the motorcycle onto the roof of a pickup truck, he saw a zombie horde slowly moving in his direction from the city, clearly awakened by the previous noise.
A vast, dark mass, the number was shockingly large.
“It’s just too much trouble picking up teeth, otherwise using fire seems like a good idea.”
Tao Yu coldly observed the zombie horde while his keen vision also noticed someone peeking through the curtains at the end of the street. It was probably a human, aside from the possibility of an intelligent zombie being born.
It was just unclear if it was a Pioneer or one of the original inhabitants of the world fragment.
“Still, it would be better to have a newspaper or find an original inhabitant to ask.”
If he could get sufficient information from the locals about the initial outbreak, he might be able to confirm whether it was a biochemical crisis or not.
If it wasn’t biochemically related, a typical zombie world would indeed be quite barren…
Tao Yu casually parked the motorcycle on top of the pickup and yanked out the keys before jumping off the highway and sneaking into the city at a diagonal approach.
“With no landmarks, it’s probably not a famous city, and seven months have passed, so it’s unlikely to have been bombed.”
In a zombie world, the greatest risk might actually come from ‘disinfection.’
But this world seemed safe for now.
Watching the zombie horde slowly move along the highway towards the noise source, Tao Yu, who walked past them without bother, didn’t even bother to knock down a few stray zombies with his blade. Any wear and tear was still damage, and it was easier to walk around.
“If an ordinary person were dropped here on Awakening Day, the risk wouldn’t be small, considering the random range of the drop zones, some might indeed be unlucky.”
There were Pythons in the Rainforest, and now Aliens, although they were relatively sparse, being dropped inside the city among zombies would be quite unfriendly for newbies who had to stay for fifteen days.
On the other hand, if it was a second entry choosing this place, it would be relatively safer, second only to the new world where one only needed to stay warm.
Tao Yu sidestepped a zombie, incidentally tripping it, causing the skinny creature to faceplant, while numerous thoughts flashed through his mind.
There must have been plenty of Pioneers entering this area, and due to the way intelligence was described in reports, some may have even entered this city.
He had learned Skills for half a month before coming back, and some of the more daring ones, or those who woke up here on Awakening Day, might have already started delving deeper.
But considering the general abilities of Outsiders, entering a city full of zombies was at best enough for self-preservation, mapping, and scavenging resources, and stirring up any significant reaction was difficult.
Let alone ordinary Outsiders, Tao Yu himself also found it difficult to make any real waves, there were just too many zombies.
His strong bursts were great for beheading, but his endurance was indeed lacking.
As for the Inner City people, who knows how many would be interested in the mission rewards here…