Chapter 17 Spike Fence
Sure enough, by three-thirty it was already dark.
As usual, Qin Zhen stood at the entrance of the Wooden Cabin, holding the Starlight Staff in her left hand and the Lianyue Crossbow in her right.
Poised and ready.
The number of monsters that came today was still four.
However, instead of Frostice Scorpion-tail Rabbits, they were now lions radiating a fiery glow.
[Flame Frenzy Lion: Tier 1 Monster. Attack Power: 40; targets hit have a chance to enter Scorched status, losing 5 HP per second; Defense: 30; HP: 300.]
One Tier 1 Flame Frenzy Lion and three ordinary Flame Frenzy Lions.
"Glacial Ring."
Qin Zhen launched the first strike against the Tier 1 Flame Frenzy Lion, firing three bolts from the Lianyue Crossbow in rapid succession.
The three ordinary Flame Frenzy Lions, seeing their leader frozen solid and unable to move, refused to be outdone and spat fireballs at Qin Zhen.
Qin Zhen didn't dodge. She focused every ounce of her attention on the Tier 1 Flame Frenzy Lion.
The Attack Power of the ordinary Flame Frenzy Lions wasn't worth worrying about — she had to take down the big one first.
After being frozen three times in a row, the Tier 1 Flame Frenzy Lion finally died.
During that time, Qin Zhen had been struck by its fireballs twice, not to mention the fireballs from the ordinary Flame Frenzy Lions.
With her equipment bonuses factored in, Qin Zhen's total HP was 410.
Now she was down to only 80 HP.
And that was only because she had equipped two defensive pieces of gear, which the ordinary Flame Frenzy Lions couldn't penetrate.
"Blessing of Light."
A single Blessing of Light restored her HP to 110.
While healing herself, Qin Zhen split her focus to deal with the three ordinary Flame Frenzy Lions.
Three more Glacial Rings flew out, and the corpses of the three ordinary Flame Frenzy Lions crumpled to the ground.
Qin Zhen let out a sigh of relief.
The Glacial Ring was, after all, a single-target control skill — when the number of monsters increased, she still found herself struggling.
Just fighting four monsters had consumed 270 MP, leaving her with only 70 MP remaining.
She estimated that, at most, she could handle four or five monsters at once right now — any more than that and she'd be in serious trouble.
But Qin Zhen couldn't guarantee that tomorrow's monster count would be the same as today's.
There were two ways to resist a larger monster assault.
The first was to make herself stronger — but that wasn't something she could realistically achieve in a short time.
The second was to upgrade the Shelter.
If she couldn't fight them off, at least she could retreat inside and hide.
With the current Wooden Cabin, there was nowhere to hide at all.
But upgrading the Wooden Cabin into a Stone House required a lot of Stone, and Stone was extremely hard to find in her area.
She wondered whether Players in other locations could find large quantities of Stone.
She could head over to the Trading Market later and see if she could trade for some.
[Tier 1 Flame Frenzy Lion corpse detected. Disassemble?]
[Yes / No]
Qin Zhen selected Yes and received: [Tier 1 Flame Frenzy Lion Meat 1kg ×5, Tier 1 Flame Frenzy Lion Hide ×1, Tier 1 Flame Frenzy Lion Fang ×2, Fire Spirit Bead ×3, Black Iron Chest ×1, EXP +50].
Disassembling the three ordinary Flame Frenzy Lions yielded: [Flame Frenzy Lion Meat 1kg ×10, Flame Frenzy Lion Hide ×3, Flame Frenzy Lion Fang ×6, Fire Spirit Bead ×1, Wooden Chest ×2, EXP +90].
Opening the Wooden Chests yielded: [Mineral Water 500ml ×5, Bread 200g ×5, Nectarine ×3, Refined Iron ×10.]
Opening the Black Iron Chest yielded: [Blueprint ×1, Mana Potion ×3, Attribute Orb ×5, Refined Iron ×30].
[Spike Fence Blueprint: The Spike Fence can resist monster attacks. Required materials: Refined Iron ×30, Stone ×10.]
[Mana Potion: Instantly restores 100 MP when consumed.]
Seeing the Spike Fence Blueprint, the smile on Qin Zhen's face widened. Wonderful — it was as if the universe had delivered exactly what she needed.
As long as she surrounded the Shelter with Spike Fences, she could keep monsters at bay temporarily.
Then she could attack from range from inside the fence.
That way, even if more monsters came, she wouldn't have to fear them.
The only question was how large a single fence panel was, and how many she would need to fully encircle her Shelter.
After returning to the Wooden Cabin, Qin Zhen studied the Spike Fence Blueprint.
Then she took out Refined Iron ×30 and Stone ×10 and began crafting.
Ten minutes later.
When Qin Zhen looked at the freshly crafted Spike Fence, her smile immediately fell.
The Spike Fence certainly lived up to its name — not only were the tops of the fence posts sharpened into spikes, but the outward-facing side was also covered in countless long, slender spikes.
Qin Zhen could already picture what would happen to any monster that charged straight into it at night.
But unfortunately, each fence panel was only one meter in both length and height.
Her Shelter occupied nearly twenty square meters of ground.
That meant she would need at least eighteen Spike Fence panels to fully surround the Shelter.
And she couldn't measure the fence line based on the Shelter's footprint alone — she had to leave some space inside the perimeter for a yard to move around in.
By that reckoning, she'd need roughly thirty Spike Fence panels.
"Ugh."
Qin Zhen groaned in frustration. She didn't have nearly enough Refined Iron — making even one more Spike Fence panel would be a stretch, let alone thirty.
She was also short on Stone.
Upgrading the Shelter required both Stone and Wood as well.
It seemed her goal for the foreseeable future was to gather large quantities of Refined Iron, Stone, and Wood.
[Host, you can think of it this way — monsters can only attack from the front, so you only need to fence off the front of the Shelter.]
"Really?"
Qin Zhen was pleasantly surprised. She thought about it, and it did seem to be true.
Over the past few nights, the monsters had always attacked from the front.
[Of course.]
"In that case, just ten or so Spike Fence panels would be more than enough — and if I have extra materials, I could even expand the yard a bit."
[That's right, Host. However, the System recommends making it a bit larger, because when the Wooden Cabin is upgraded to a Stone House, the Shelter's footprint will also expand. To avoid having to add more fence panels after the upgrade, it's better to build it larger from the start.]
Oh right — Qin Zhen had nearly forgotten about that.
In that case, she'd wait until after the Shelter was upgraded before putting up the Spike Fence.
The Shelter was still a higher priority than the fence.
Qin Zhen poured Rice into the pot to steam, then stir-fried 1kg of bamboo pit viper snake meat.
She contentedly filled her stomach.
Constitution +1.
The Constitution gain from Tier 1 Bamboo Pit Viper meat was decreasing...
She then ate all five Attribute Orbs and received: Constitution +3, Attack +3, Speed +3, Intelligence +3, Intelligence +3.
At this point, aside from her Defense and Speed being slightly on the weaker side, her other stats were looking pretty solid.
Though both Defense and Speed had plenty of equipment bonuses, so no real disadvantage was apparent for now.