While the ladies were taking their baths, Li Ke was also keeping busy.
He had gone ahead and maxed out his Stamina attribute to the absolute limit.
The very instant his Stamina hit the max level, he felt his physical body undergo a total, ground-up transformation. The sensation of swinging his fists was completely different now! It felt as though every single action he performed no longer consumed any energy at all. Even if he tried his absolute best to fully drain his energy, he could still feel that as long as he willed it, he could keep going indefinitely!
Even when he threw a punch with every ounce of his might and felt a slight dip in his energy, his body would instantly bounce back, fully replenishing his vigor a split second later.
It was safe to say he had completely surpassed the limits of humanity!
"Truly unbelievable," Li Ke murmured in admiration.
His hands rested firmly on the female merchant's plump, rounded backside as he savored the feeling of his own body — still energetic, still incredibly vigorous. He couldn't help but praise the changes.
It wasn't just the improved endurance and hardness. Even the volume had increased dramatically. What used to require three full releases to fill her completely could now be accomplished in just one powerful climax.
The sensation of her soft, warm flesh yielding under his palms while her body still held him so tightly inside made the moment feel deeply satisfying.
On top of that, his recovery speed was absurdly fast. He only needed a mere minute or two before he was completely reloaded and ready to fire again!
However, there was just one catch...
"Man, this really drains my nutrients..."
Feeling his stomach suddenly begin to growl with intense hunger, Li Ke instantly realized that this overwhelming power didn't come without a price. The cost was the rapid consumption of nutrients, proteins, and water inside his body.
But then again, this was perfectly normal. It would actually be weirder if a superpower like this consumed absolutely nothing. It was just that his food intake had already skyrocketed due to his increased physical labor lately. He had only been able to sustain himself because he had been gorging on high-fat, high-calorie canned food and meat over the past few days. If he continued to squander his nutrients so recklessly without any restraint...
"Would I actually starve myself to death?"
Feeling his little brother automatically power down due to the severe lack of nutrients in his system, Li Ke nodded to himself.
Well, that was highly scientific.
Still, he knew one thing for certain: if he ever ate his fill, drank to his heart's content, and allowed his desires to flare up, that little brother of his was going to become an absolute, tormenting beast to deal with.
"I seriously need to hurry up and find some clean, soft fabric to make some underwear. Damn it, how come I never realized what a magnificent invention underwear was before this?"
Because Li Ke hated feeling constricted, he usually slept naked, and sometimes he'd even skip putting on underwear altogether when he was rushing to work. He used to think nothing of it, but now he was acutely aware of just how inconvenient it was to go commando.
With one final, appreciative squeeze of her breasts — so incredibly soft like warm water yet remarkably firm and perky — Li Ke mentally pressed the "E" key once more.
The familiar interface of the female merchant's shop opened before him, and Li Ke began scrolling through the various available items.
That was when he noticed that the trader's inventory had actually refreshed!
Not only did she have dozens of new pieces of meat this time, but she had also restocked a bunch of useful gear. Li Ke scanned the inventory to see what new additions had popped up.
The trader's shop now featured seed options that had never appeared before, and she was even selling rotting flesh—an item Li Ke truly hadn't seen in her stock until now.
However, none of these were immediate necessities, so he scrolled straight down to the weapons section.
The 15-round magazine capacity of his Pipe Machine Gun was just too low. No matter how fast he could reload, there was still a dangerous window of vulnerability. Unfortunately, the trader's firearms were still ridiculously expensive, costing several thousand Duke's Casino Tokens a piece. Although Li Ke had managed to hoard over ten thousand Casino Tokens through his quests and trades over the past few days, he wasn't about to squander them recklessly like that.
Moreover...
"She's actually selling a Forge and a Chemistry Station this time?"
Li Ke stared at the Chemistry Station in the trader's inventory while falling deep into thought.
Gunpowder wasn't an issue at all right now. Even though crafting it manually was slow, he didn't have to worry about the raw output because the team's mining efficiency guaranteed they would never run out of materials.
Even so, Li Ke went ahead and purchased both the Chemistry Station and the Forge anyway. He wanted to ensure that the group would be able to ramp up their offensive capabilities and utility quickly.
After giving them a final glance, Li Ke set those thoughts aside and continued flipping through the trader's stock.
In the end, though, he only bought some medical supplies, food, the Forge, the Chemistry Station, 40 Molotov Cocktails, and all of her gasoline. He left everything else behind, leaving himself a solid balance of five thousand Duke's Casino Tokens in his inventory.
"I'll give these to the others later to see what they need."
Another half hour passed before Li Ke finally stepped out of the trader's cabin. His stomach was growling fiercely, but he still walked over to check the crafting menu on his Workbench to see what he could make, and an item immediately caught his eye.
"Steel Frames..."
Li Ke pondered for a moment and directly queued up 300 Steel Frames. According to the item description, these things boasted a massive 10,000 hit points each.
Besides, no matter how you looked at it, a Steel Frame was bound to have a way higher defense rating than a wooden block, right?
The only downside was that the crafting time was incredibly long. It took a whopping two and a half minutes just to forge a single frame. By the time this entire batch of Steel Frames finished crafting, it would easily be tomorrow morning.
"I'll just queue up a few to see how they look first," Li Ke muttered to himself. "After all, Kiri mentioned she could fix that Cement Mixer. If the defensive rating of reinforced concrete turns out to be higher than a Steel Frame, I won't have to waste resources crafting too many of these."
Li Ke paused to think, then pulled open his Forge menu. He instantly discovered that the number of forged steel ingots inside had already surpassed ten thousand. On top of that, the input slots of the Forge were still completely crammed with raw iron ore, constantly smelting away.
"Tsunade's mining speed is just out of this world..."
Li Ke couldn't help but crack a joke at the sheer absurdity of it. It was honestly terrifying how fast she could clear a vein. He had actually been forced to craft dozens of storage chests just to house the massive mountain of raw ore Tsunade brought back. The processing speed of the Forge couldn't even begin to compete with her blinding mining efficiency.
Shaking his head, he immediately pulled a stack of forged steel ingots out of the Forge, threw them into the Workbench to start the Steel Frame production, and swept all the crafted ammunition into his personal inventory.
"This should be enough ammo, right?"
Staring at the stack of over ten thousand bullets filling his inventory slots, Li Ke felt a wave of uncertainty. He honestly had no clue if this would be enough to hold the line, especially considering the terrifying numbers the zombies could reach.
He still remembered that feeling of absolute despair with vivid clarity—that suffocating, tightly packed, seemingly infinite sea of the undead.
"I really hope it's enough."
Taking a deep, stabilizing breath, Li Ke headed back to their main campsite. He met up with the two ladies to swap out some inventory items, distributing a portion of the food and ammunition to them. Once that was done, he headed straight over to wash up.
Dinner went by without any unexpected drama. The entire perimeter around the trader's compound had already been completely hollowed out by their digging. They had left only a single, narrow dirt path for entering and exiting the base. Thanks to this moat-like design, they didn't have to constantly worry about rogue zombies wandering in.
However...
It wasn't until Li Ke finally crawled into bed to sleep that a sudden realization hit him.
He had completely forgotten to build a new house and craft a proper bed again.