Chapter 190: Preparing to Grow Stronger

Anyone who had ever played games knew that even games themselves could never achieve perfect class balance.

Some classes were natural counters to others.

In a real world game like the Age of Apocalypse, the imbalance would be even greater.

Some classes would be born to struggle while others would begin their journey already standing at the finish line.

This could already be seen from the Bosses.

Comparing the Level 5 Zombie Spider with the Level 7 Big Belly Zombie, if the benefits the Big Belly Zombie obtained after provoking the "god" were excluded, its basic abilities were clearly inferior to those of the Zombie Spider.

After all, the Zombie Spider excelled in every aspect.

The baby spiders it produced could serve as guards.

Its spider silk allowed it to both attack and escape.

Given enough time, a Boss like the Big Belly Zombie, which fought entirely alone, could hardly compare with a Lord type monster like the Zombie Spider that was born with followers of its own.

Even if the Big Belly Zombie wanted subordinates, it would still have to search for them personally.

Joo Joowon did not believe ordinary zombies possessed any real concept of loyalty.

They were nowhere near as reliable as the Zombie Spider or the Queen Ant, both of which could exercise absolute control over their own forces.

At the moment, the Age of Apocalypse still had no level rankings, equipment rankings or similar leaderboards.

Because of that, Joo Joowon had no way to narrow down the list of people he suspected.

In reality, most games always went through a closed beta period before entering open beta.

They were rarely launched without any prior testing.

However, considering the overwhelming power of the Age of Apocalypse, launching directly into open beta was not strange at all.

There was no reason to become overly suspicious simply because of that one unusual detail.

There was not much time left before the marketplace closed.

Joo Joowon did not want to waste any more time there.

After closing the marketplace, he took out the Physique Enhancement Potion.

Earlier, while he had still been outside, he had not dared use it recklessly.

He had been worried that some uncontrollable reaction might occur, such as excruciating pain spreading throughout his entire body.

Increasing his Physique by 4 points all at once, Joo Joowon felt that it was impossible for his body not to react at all.

Just as raising Mental Power too much at once caused headaches, the other attributes should have similar side effects.

Even so, there was no need to prepare himself mentally.

He simply rolled up his sleeve and injected the potion directly into his arm.

So far, every potion Joo Joowon had used looked almost identical.

They all resembled standard syringes, with only the liquid inside being different.

The Immunity Potion was pink.

The Recovery Potion was blue.

This enhancement potion was green, looking very much like the nutrient fluids often seen in science fiction movies.

The moment the entire liquid entered his body, Joo Joowon immediately felt his body temperature begin rising rapidly.

His palms became burning hot.

It was not exactly painful, but his heartbeat became noticeably faster and his mouth turned dry.

The sensation was very similar to the state after intense physical exercise.

Holding a bottle of saline water in his hand, Joo Joowon took a sip every now and then.

Only after nearly half an hour did he finally feel his body temperature gradually return to normal.

As his Physique increased, the negative effects caused by his excessively high Mental Power also disappeared.

He felt so energetic that, for a brief moment, he even had the illusion that he could instantly kill a Boss.

He knew this was simply because his attributes had increased too much in such a short period of time, causing his understanding of his own strength to lag behind.

Once he became accustomed to his new attributes, that feeling would naturally disappear.

He glanced at his status panel.

As a result of the Physique increase, his physique talent, Borrowed Time, had finally become permanently fixed.

Unlike his mental power talent, Joo Joowon had never once doubted his original choice when it came to Physique.

He had always been extremely satisfied with this talent that could forcibly keep him alive at the brink of death.

With a base Physique of 12 and another 9 points provided by his equipment, his Physique was now only a tiny step away from matching his Mental Power.

Unfortunately, Joo Joowon still lacked sufficient knowledge about the human body itself.

So even though his Physique had reached this level, he could not develop special applications for it the way he had with Mental Power.

At his current level of understanding, Joo Joowon could only imagine that perhaps this increase in Physique would slow the rate at which he became infected if he contracted the zombie virus or even speed up his recovery after being injured.

Joo Joowon glanced at his experience bar.

He still needed another 90 experience points to reach Level 9.

If he went out to hunt zombies now and got lucky, he might even reach the maximum level today.

He was still a little hesitant, so he temporarily set the matter aside and took out the Skill Book • Life Drain.

To Joo Joowon’s surprise, the skill extracted from the card really appeared in the form of an actual book.

It was a standard printed volume that looked as though it could be mass produced.

On the cover, the words Life Drain were printed in it.

The background image was a photograph of a dodder vine, giving the entire cover a rather artistic appearance.

"So it’s really a textbook that teaches Life Drain?"

Joo Joowon could not help muttering to himself as he tried opening it.

Since the skill book is giving old vibes, surely the contents would not be some incomprehensible ancient script?

Fortunately, the system was not quite that unreasonable.

Every word inside was one he recognized.