"Whoosh!"
The arrow shot out swiftly, hitting the zombie's forehead more than ten meters away.
The zombie toppled backward under the arrow's impact, remaining motionless.
"Hoo!"
Qin Shilei secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Although he didn't hit the intended eye, hitting the forehead wasn't a disgrace.
He had shot two to thirty thousand arrows with his shortbow.
Through this terrifying training regimen, he had long since developed excellent archery instincts.
Now, shooting a zombie more than ten meters away was naturally not a problem.
An Qian shot the remaining four or five zombies with her shortbow.
She turned and looked at Qin Shilei with suspicion.
"Well, perhaps the dark attribute of this shortbow increased the hit rate a little bit," Qin Shilei explained, as if forced.
"Your 'little bit' is truly an 'enormous bit'."
An Qian said with a smile, "This shortbow is temporarily requisitioned. I want to experience the joy of a master archer too."
Qin Shilei waved his hand generously, "Use it as you please."
Zhang Xiaoli walked over to An Qian, "An Qian, you can't hog it all, I want some too."
An Qian nodded, "Let someone witness the might of us two female archery goddesses."
This time, it was Qin Shilei's turn to do the tedious work of extracting crystal cores. After the two women shot down the zombies, he eagerly ran over to dig out the crystal cores.
Soon, the three of them arrived in front of a large shopping mall.
There were more than ten zombies wandering around the mall entrance.
Through the mall doors, they could see dozens of zombies in the first-floor lobby, and likely many more in unseen areas.
"Brother Qin, should we lure the zombies out and kill them one by one?" Zhang Xiaoli asked.
"Today, I'll show you how a fisherman fishes for zombies," Qin Shilei said mysteriously.
After Zhang Xiaoli shot the zombies outside the main entrance, Qin Shilei crept towards the mall doors.
With a running start, he jumped onto the protruding sign above the mall entrance.
Then, he took out a fishing rod over seven meters long from his spatial ring and secured it on the sign.
Next, he took out a clump of purple-black flesh, Zombie King meat, and hung it on the fishhook.
He cast the hook and then quickly ran back to An Qian and the others.
"Thump thump thump!"
Countless footsteps sounded from behind them.
The grotesque zombies rushed out of the mall one after another.
The zombies arrived below the Zombie King meat, all looking up and reaching with their hands.
Their frenzied appearance was even more exaggerated than seeing bleeding humans.
"Done. Now we can focus on practicing our archery," Qin Shilei said, taking out a bottle of mineral water to wash his hands.
"What is this thing? It's too effective," Zhang Xiaoli asked, her face full of surprise.
"Zombie King meat," An Qian replied.
At this moment, the area below the fishing rod at the mall entrance was already packed with zombies.
Zombies from inside the mall continued to swarm towards the Zombie King meat.
Unfortunately, the Zombie King meat on the hook was five to six meters above the ground, and the zombies couldn't reach it.
"Let's shoot quickly, or the zombies won't be able to get out," Qin Shilei urged.
He then took out a compound bow and started shooting.
Zhang Xiaoli also picked up her shortbow and shot rapidly.
An Qian, meanwhile, took out her compound bow to practice her archery.
The zombies paid no attention to Qin Shilei's attacks.
Their eyes were solely fixed on the Zombie King meat hanging in the air.
They became mere stationary targets for Qin Shilei and the others.
Qin Shilei suddenly warned, "That zombie on all fours is a Licker, shoot it."
The zombie took a running start, then pushed off the ground, its left hand almost reaching the Zombie King meat.
Qin Shilei, holding a compound bow, found his accuracy on such a fast-moving target to be rather... disheartening.
Four out of five arrows missed.
The only hit was on the zombie's shoulder, which had a negligible effect.
Fortunately, at this moment, Zhang Xiaoli's arrow accurately hit the mutated zombie's eye, bringing it down.
The mutated zombie quickly got back up and started running again, its target still the Zombie King meat.
Although the exquisite shortbow had a "100% hit rate" enchantment and decent attack speed, its damage output was somewhat lacking.
A single arrow was no longer enough to kill a mutated zombie.
"Whoosh whoosh!"
Zhang Xiaoli rapidly fired three more arrows, finally taking down the mutated zombie.
An Qian and Zhang Xiaoli took turns shooting with the shortbow.
Soon, a wall of corpses two to three meters high was piled up at the mall entrance, including seven or eight mutated zombies of various types.
"We need to find a way to clear the zombies at the entrance, or the mutated zombies will just jump on the corpses and take the Zombie King meat," Qin Shilei said with a frown.
"While Flame Star has an explosive effect, I'm afraid it might ignite the fishing line or the Zombie King meat," An Qian said with some regret.
"How about we use rockets? Let's not worry about attracting zombies from further away," Zhang Xiaoli suggested.
"Alright." Qin Shilei took out a rocket launcher and fired a shot at the zombie pile.
"Boom!"
With a massive roar, countless dismembered limbs flew through the air.
A gap was blown into the pile of corpses.
"Boom boom boom!"
Qin Shilei fired three more consecutive shots, finally scattering the corpse pile completely.
The flying limbs bumped the Zombie King meat, causing it to sway, but fortunately, it didn't fall.
After scattering the corpse pile, Qin Shilei put away the rocket launcher.
Now, rocket launchers were not only too noisy, but their power had also significantly weakened.
A single shot could only kill three to four zombies, and it took two seconds to fire a shell.
In terms of killing efficiency, it was much worse than the shortbow.
Therefore, Qin Shilei tried to avoid using the rocket launcher.
Then, everyone resumed their archery practice, shooting down zombies in a monotonous yet exciting manner.
This mall contained seven to eight hundred zombies, and it took them nearly an hour to kill them all.
Then, they spent another half hour digging crystal cores from a pile of bloody zombie corpses.
Thus, Qin Shilei and the two women swept through the surrounding areas, clearing out zombies.
For places with many zombies, like malls, they used Zombie King meat to lure them.
Under normal circumstances, they would simply push through.
Three days passed quickly.
Except for Zhang Xiaoli's parents, who still lacked some experience, An Qian and the others had accumulated enough crystal cores to advance to the Black Iron realm.
Villa Number Five.
Qin Shilei sat on the sofa, "You can proceed with your advancement in turns. I will guard you."
The first to advance was Zhang Qiang.
Through absorbing crystal cores over the past few days, his experience had reached 9-star 1000-1000.
He took out several mutated zombie crystal cores.
Unfortunately, after absorbing these crystal cores, he still couldn't advance.
These ordinary mutated zombie crystal cores didn't provide enough energy for advancement.
He had to continue digging out mutated zombie crystal cores until he had absorbed eighteen of them to successfully advance.
After advancing, he utilized the energy within his body to unleash his combat skill, Immovable Mountain, making its power even stronger.
Qin Shilei, without unleashing his combat skill, couldn't push him back even with five-tenths of his strength.
Next, Xie Haimei and the others advanced successfully in turns.
The only unexpected event was that Zhang Xiaoli directly advanced into a pure esper.
Instead of forming an energy space in her dantian, she opened a spiritual crystal in her glabella.
After advancing to the Black Iron realm, Zhang Xiaoli's Thousand Vines technique not only increased to five vines but also had more than triple the entanglement strength and resilience compared to before.
After An Qian's advancement, she subtly posed a threat to Qin Shilei, indicating a significant increase in her strength.