Volume One: The Apocalypse Descends Chapter 44: Choose a Reward, Upgrade a Skill

The militia training camp was truly a natural blessed land. Covering such a vast area, Xiang Chenguang and his two companions did not find a single spatial rift after patrolling the entire perimeter.

Judging from He Shuangjiang's previous accounts, the density of monsters in this vicinity was extremely low. Otherwise, with their half-baked skills, had they dared to use firearms to kill monsters, they would have long been overwhelmed by the tide of insects drawn to the sound.

It remained a mystery what rules governed the generation of spatial rifts connecting to other worlds. For now, it seemed entirely random.

There was no use pondering over these matters too deeply at present; it was enough to know that the militia training camp served as a secure and qualified rear base.

Returning to the camp's parade ground, the migration team had already entered the conference room of the office building under Xiang Dongliang's arrangement. Everyone was gathered to discuss issues closely tied to all of them, such as future material distribution and rules and regulations within the camp.

Xiang Chenguang had no interest in these tedious affairs, so he found a shady spot on the parade ground and sat down.

Ever since the apocalypse began, he had either been busy improving his strength or preparing for the migration plan. Now that the migration plan was complete, they effectively had a stable rear base, and it was time to properly plan his combat style and ability system.

The first issue before him was what skill to choose as the reward for the newly completed "Order Builder" mission.

Opening the mission panel of the Anti-Routine System, the "Order Builder" mission showed as completed. Below it was a long string of selectable skill icons—dozens of them—which made his head spin.

After careful review and filtering, the three abilities he had previously coveted the most ended up on his shortlist: the spatial type, the lightning type, and the metal control type.

After careful consideration, Xiang Chenguang first eliminated the lightning-type ability.

The characteristics of this ability were medium-to-long-range attacks, fast attack speed, and strong explosive power.

However, these traits were somewhat redundant for Xiang Chenguang at present, because he already possessed relatively strong output capabilities, and his medium-to-long-range attack ability was not weak either.

Afterward, he hesitated for a long time between the spatial-type and the metal-type control abilities.

Logically speaking, spatial abilities far surpassed metal control abilities in both practicality and aesthetic appeal.

A three-cubic-meter portable space alone was tempting enough.

However, this was the ability of his mother, He Wan; if he chose to replicate this power as well, their functions would overlap to some extent.

Additionally, his primary combat methods relied on close-combat weapons, and this was unlikely to change in the future.

Therefore, mastering the metal control ability would immediately enhance his combat effectiveness and enrich his combat styles.

Of course, another very important reason was that, judging from the task reward format provided by this Anti-Routine System this time, he would most likely have opportunities to choose other abilities in the future.

Thus, he definitely had to prioritize the metal control ability now.

Deep down, Xiang Chenguang did not trust outsiders much. At least for now, the only people he could truly and completely trust were his parents and his annoying little sister.

Despite how united everyone in the camp seemed at the moment, there was no telling when this faction might fall apart.

If he missed this opportunity, it was hard to say whether he could acquire the metal control ability in the future, but he would certainly have other chances to obtain spatial abilities later.

Weighing all factors, Xiang Chenguang ultimately chose the primary metal control ability.

On the character attribute panel of the Apocalypse Survival System, "Primary Metal Control" was added to the skill column. The skill description was relatively vague: it could control the external form, internal structure, and motion patterns of metal objects within a six-meter radius around the user.

With a thought, five coins that had originally been played with in his palm left his hand and hovered in front of him. Afterward, the five coins slowly melted, turning into five pools of silver-white metallic liquid.

The five pools of liquid merged together, slowly stretching and extending until, under his manipulation, they formed a silver short sword.

Looking at the short sword suspended in front of him, the corners of Xiang Chenguang's mouth could no longer be suppressed from curling up as he shaped his right hand into a sword-finger gesture.

As his fingers moved, the silver short sword began to circle around him, flying up and down like a nimble silver snake.

In truth, his manipulation of the short sword relied purely on his mind; adopting the sword-finger posture was merely to cosplay cultivators wielding flying swords from xianxia tales.

After indulging his fantasy of sword flight, the silver short sword slowly came to a halt, elongated once more, and then truly transformed into a small silver snake that slithered onto Xiang Chenguang's wrist, coiled twice, and finally grew dormant and still.

Glancing at the triangular steel rod tossed aside earlier, Xiang Chenguang attempted to use his metal control ability to make it float as well, but ultimately failed.

It seemed that truly cosplaying a cultivator to fly on swords still had a long way to go.

After selecting the mission reward, there was one more matter to handle: the allocation of evolution points.

Looking at the single golden evolution point on his attribute panel, he suddenly noticed a subtle change in his status: his character contribution, which had previously always displayed as zero, had now become 1/1.

Where had this single point of character contribution come from?

Xiang Chenguang switched the interface of the Apocalypse Survival System to the mission panel; right below the second main quest was a long string of kill notifications.

Although the Apocalypse Survival System could not converse with him directly like the Anti-Routine System, it was quite intelligent.

For prompts like killing monsters, when kills were made continuously, it would no longer prompt him with sound in his mind, but instead display them as text at the bottom of the mission panel.

Xiang Chenguang quickly scrolled up through the previous system prompt records and finally spotted a different notification among hundreds of alien insectoid kill logs.

"Killed a Tier 1 invading creature, Jackal, gained 48 spiritual energy points, 1 point of character contribution."

So killing Tier 1 creatures not only yielded energy crystals and higher spiritual energy points, but also character contribution points?

Yet, what use did this character contribution have? The system provided no relevant hints whatsoever.

Xiang Chenguang temporarily pushed the matter aside and refocused on the distribution of evolution points.

Currently, he had three skills that could be upgraded using evolution points: Primary Psychokinesis, the Innate Art, and Primary Metal Control.

He first attempted to upgrade the Innate Art with an evolution point. The system prompted: "Do you wish to consume one evolution point to upgrade the Innate Art from Novice level to Mastery level?"

Xiang Chenguang quickly selected no.

Upgrading the Innate Art from Novice level upward only required 500 proficiency points, and his current proficiency in the Innate Art had already reached 10/500.

On the road during the migration, because the latter half of the journey required no personal combat participation from him, he sat cross-legged on top of the vehicle and tried practicing the Innate Art.

He discovered that simply guiding the primordial genuine qi to circulate for one full cycle according to the Inner Art's meridian route map would increase his proficiency by one point.

Who knew about the future, but at least for now, the 500 proficiency points required for the Novice level upgrade were quite easy to achieve, so there was no need to waste precious evolution points on it.

Therefore, it was time for a choice between two options once again: should he use the evolution point to upgrade the tier of psychokinesis, or the tier of metal control?