Chapter Eighty-Eight: The World of Plants Versus Zombies

“An ordinary team founded with currency points, and a special team founded with certain rare items...”

Wang Ling fell into thought for a moment. In a mission world, there was no doubt that for dreamers to band together was far stronger than the strength of any one person. The advantage was obvious: the main quest would surely become less difficult, and with more hands available, exploring hidden elements would also be easier.

The drawback was just as clear. Once a team existed, disputes over the division of spoils could easily arise. And most important of all: were the companions in the team truly trustworthy? Sometimes, a hidden knife from behind was far more dangerous than anything an enemy could bring!

“It’s still too early to be thinking about teams...”

Compared with ordinary dreamers, Wang Ling’s fortune was that he had quite a few summoned figures, and powerful ones at that—Wang Long, Peach Immortal, Chen Heng, and Blue Moon: four martial arts masters. In terms of attributes, they should be roughly equivalent to seasoned veterans who had gone through around eight missions. Their skills might be somewhat lacking, but their combat experience was certainly far greater.

By his side, it was as if he had four absolutely loyal veterans!

In addition, there were the three Super Dark Fighters. In single combat, they were probably on par with ordinary dreamers who had completed five main quests. The key point was that none of the three feared death, and at critical moments they could play a tremendous role! And after dying, once the cooldown time had passed, they could be summoned again at the cost of spiritual power.

In this way, Wang Ling by himself was practically a small team. This team had smooth coordination, rich combat experience, and even people who could sacrifice their lives to block bullets when necessary. After obtaining the familiar Mini Miku, her leek song could restore life, increasing the team’s endurance in battle. Compared with ordinary teams, whose cohesion was very low, such a group was much more stable and powerful.

The only flaw was that summoning the story characters from the martial arts cards consumed currency points. Wang Long at level 2 required 200 points, which made Wang Ling worry whether, after reaching the maximum level of 20, it would cost 2,000 currency points.

After some thought, Wang Ling asked Su, “Why haven’t you formed, or joined, a team? I feel like in the beginner zone, you count as one of the more promising people. Even if you can’t bear to pay the 20,000 currency points needed to form a team, surely there must be teams willing to let you join?”

“Because of my innate ability, quite a few teams have actually invited me, but I turned them all down.”

Su smiled and looked at the three monster balls on the table with a fond, indulgent gaze. “I don’t want to join some messy, chaotic team. Even if I ever join one in the future, it would have to be a special team to be reliable. Otherwise, I’d rather go alone. Besides, I have pocket monsters. During the last mission, Koffing evolved into Kadabra, and he’s very dependable. Add in Pichu and Dratini, and with so many companions around me, hehe, I’m just like you.”

“So you really are a pocket monster fan... Oh, right!” Wang Ling suddenly thought of something. “Do you usually keep your familiars in monster balls? What if they want to come out? Would you carry them around everywhere? Especially in the public areas of Dream Space?”

“My familiars are all very well behaved. They like staying in the monster balls and don’t insist on coming out. In my private room, I sometimes let them out on purpose, either to play or to train. As for when I leave the room, I just put them back into the monster balls.”

Wang Ling could only smile wryly. It seemed that little Mini Miku was far too unruly.

After talking a while longer with Su about familiars, he returned to his private room. The moment he took Miku out of the storage bag and held her in his palm, the little thing, not even ten centimeters tall, puffed out her cheeks and glared at him. In a huffy voice she said, “Mii~ I don’t like that empty place with nothing in it. I want to stay by my master’s side!”

“This Mini Miku is just as disobedient as Pikachu...” Wang Ling looked at the little thing with a headache. It was one thing that she drew too much attention outside; her personal attributes were terribly low as well—only 5 points each for life and spirit, and 1 point for all the others. One careless bump or scrape might kill her, and reviving a familiar after death also cost quite a lot.

“My current strength is still not enough. If I were strong enough, I wouldn’t need to keep a low profile at all. Forget taking Mini Miku around—if I wanted to, I could even wander about with a life-sized Miku and not care in the slightest.”

After worrying over it for a while, and thinking of Miku’s skill effects—which in a mission world would definitely be very popular among dreamers—Wang Ling’s furrowed brow relaxed. He smiled, patted Miku’s head, and said, “Fine. From now on you can stay outside, but you have to be obedient. Also, once a battle starts, I’ll have to put you away!”

“Yay!” Miku cheered and bounced around in his palm.

Playing with Miku, the rest of the day passed quickly. When it was time to sleep, Wang Ling made her a little nest on the table. Who would have thought that when he woke the next morning, he would find Miku already asleep on his face? In any case, this little thing was truly lively and clingy, leaving him utterly helpless.

Still, there were benefits to spending time with Miku. At the very least, her intimacy had already risen to 28 points. Wang Ling remembered that every 100 points of intimacy would raise Miku by one level, and by then, who knew what kind of support songs might appear.

The seven-day rest period was about to end, and Wang Ling began organizing his items while preparing for the next world’s adventure.

He now had more than 9,200 currency points, 4 attribute points, 3 skill points, and 3 dream skill points. He kept the attribute points and skill points for emergencies. As for the currency points, after some thought he felt that the storage bag’s 10 slots were simply too few, so he spent 7,000 points to expand it by 7 new slots, and 1,000 points to buy 2 small life potions. In the end, he was left with just a little over 1,200 points.

The Heart of Peach and Linda’s badge were equipped on his person. The white iron flintlock, the meteor iron spearhead, and the golden-red mask were placed in the storage bag, along with 3 small life potions, 2 small spirit potions, 1 medium life potion, 2 gliding turtle shells, 1 tracking turtle shell, a helicopter mold, and the martial arts summon card, filling all 10 slots in total.

As for the Tiger-Faced Fighter’s challenge letter, the three kinds of mushroom coins, the mushroom pouch, and the tentacle whip, he left those in the private room, since he had to consider the items he might acquire in the mission world and these space-consuming but unnecessary objects were not needed.

After all preparations were complete, and after waiting another two hours, the Dream Badge finally sent a prompt:

“Your rest period has ended. You will now begin a new main quest. Please reach the Main Brain Substation within thirty minutes. The world you are entering is: Plants Versus Zombies.”

Because Wang Ling was already in the private room, the Main Brain Substation, in the form of a glowing sphere hovering overhead, shot out a beam of light. Once he was enveloped by it, his figure vanished, and in the next second he appeared on a hillside.

“Plant Town was originally a peaceful and tranquil place, but one day, misfortune came.

“The Zombie Professor George Edgar, a master of death studies, set his sights on this beautiful little town.

“He brought with him a terrifying army of zombies, preparing to seize the place. A dreadful disaster spread, and the townspeople fled in panic.

“But within the town, there were still brave plants.

“We will never submit!

“The plants are preparing to hold the town. Can their fragile bodies withstand the terrifying zombie army?”

Wang Ling’s mouth twitched several times. “Plants Versus Zombies!”

After giving a brief introduction to the world, the Dream Badge continued with the prompt:

“This world’s setting is: Plants Versus Zombies on the Android system. Difficulty: E.”

“Scene difficulty does not equal world difficulty. There are two different factions in this scene: the Zombie Professor’s side and Plant Town’s side. You are among the first dreamers to enter this mission world, and will be assigned to Plant Town’s side. There are a total of nine dreamers belonging to Plant Town, and they will arrive one after another within half an hour. All of them will descend on a hillside outside Plant Town. Everyone’s identity is that of a neighbor of the only remaining human in Plant Town: the ‘Crazy Dave.’”

“There are a total of nine dreamers assigned to the Zombie Professor’s side. They will descend into this world one day later.”

“This is a peaceful scene. When fighting dreamers on the same faction, damage is reduced to one-tenth of normal. When fighting dreamers of the enemy faction, no weakening applies.”

“Main Quest 1: Break through the zombie blockade around the hillside, return to Plant Town five kilometers away, reach your room base, and then meet your neighbor, Crazy Dave.”

“Subsequent main quests will be issued after Main Quest 1 is completed. Please complete Main Quest 1 within three hours. Failure to do so will result in eradication.”

After all the prompts from the Dream Badge ended, Wang Ling slightly knitted his brows. Although the world’s difficulty was still rated E, even with his knees he could guess that the Zombie Professor’s army was definitely far more terrifying than the Dark Fighter faction from Double Dragon.

If the scene difficulty of Mario 1 was E minus, and Double Dragon 2 could be said to be E, then the Plants Versus Zombies scene was absolutely in the class of E plus!

This world’s scene contained a vast variety of zombies: football zombies, clown zombies, giant zombies, and even Professor Edgar himself as the final world boss, driving a giant zombie robot... This world was at least not weaker than the zombie world of Resident Evil. Even tyrants and stalkers might not necessarily be stronger than a zombie robot!

“The main quest only gave the first step. I don’t know what the later quests will be, but I have a bad feeling about this.” Wang Ling felt a trace of unease. He took a deep breath and looked around at the environment.

All right, everyone guessed right—it really is the Plants Versus Zombies world. You win!

Also, I recommend two super cute videos: try the feeling of staring at Miku, and Miku versus the squid girl.