Captain America frowned, searching his memory for the name, but he had no recollection of it.
“Was she also a member of the X-Men?” he asked.
“What are her abilities?”
Professor X nodded.
“Emma is special; she’s a dual-power mutant. She possesses Telepathy on par with my own and can also transform her body into a Diamond form.”
“…Diamond?” Hawkeye looked at Professor X, checking to see if he was joking.
“Actual diamond? The hard kind?”
“Yes.”
“And she can still move? Running around with a body made of diamond?”
Professor X was a bit speechless at his questions.
“…Yes.”
Hawkeye opened his mouth to ask something else, but then closed it.
Captain America let out a long sigh.
“So, Professor,” he turned to look at Professor X, “you’re saying this mutant, who can control minds and turn herself into diamond, is already infected and is right here in New York?”
Professor X didn’t speak; he simply nodded.
An eerie silence fell over the tent.
Now they all understood the purpose of the Zombie horde.
The high-ranking Zombies directing things from behind never expected to take the camp with a mere horde; it was purely a war of attrition.
The final retreat of the horde was also because those high-ranking Zombies realized they couldn’t take down Steve with human-wave tactics alone.
Captain America and Hawkeye knew very well that without Block Hero today, the camp’s ammunition reserves would have barely survived the horde, let alone dealt with those high-ranking Zombies.
If they ran out of bullets, only the two of them and the mage Hassan would be considered combat-ready in the entire camp.
If those Zombie heroes were still human, the three of them might have stood a chance.
But now they were Zombies who felt no pain and only knew how to feed.
In a real fight, the Zombies could make countless mistakes, while the survivors didn’t even have the chance for one.
…
In the center of the camp, people gathered around Steve, lighting a bonfire once again to celebrate today’s victory.
They sang and laughed in hushed tones, afraid that too much noise would attract the Zombies’ attention, but even so, they were very satisfied.
Steve remained in the middle of the crowd, maintaining his blocky-butt-sticking-out posture, seemingly enjoying the festivities with the people, but in reality, his mind had already wandered.
He was scrolling through the list of plugins he had drawn today.
He didn’t know how many Zombies he had killed today, but he had grinded from level 25 all the way to level 45, earning a 20-pull blind box reward for plugins.
Steve only found out today that these plugin blind boxes could actually contain ‘Better Luck Next Time’ results; he got 16 of them in 20 pulls, an 80% failure rate.
Here is the list of plugins drawn today:
[Non-Conflict Keys]
This mod optimizes keybinding conflicts between mods.
For Steve, it was the most useless one; he didn’t need a keyboard to operate now.
[Biomes O’ Plenty]
It adds many naturally generated biomes, but from what he heard from other villagers, every corner of this world was already generated, so it was likely useless.
[Collective (Collective)]
Don’t recognize it.
Skip.
[Citadel (Collective)]
Skip.
He couldn’t list them all, or he’d be accused of padding the word count.
[AttributeFix]
[Advanced X-Ray]
[Timeless and Classics]
[Ice and Fire]
Just these four.
[AttributeFix] can increase the caps of certain attributes, such as armor value, maximum health, movement speed, and so on.
However, Steve was currently wearing vanilla equipment, and all his attributes were within the vanilla caps.
This mod had no use for now, but maybe it would later.
[Advanced X-Ray] allows for see-through mineral searching; its greatness needs no further explanation.
[Timeless and Classics] is even more of a god-tier mod, allowing the creation of firearms and bullets using some simple metal ores.
As for [Ice and Fire]…
This mod seemingly generates many rare and exotic beasts, like Sirens, Gorgons, Cyclopes, Dragons, and such.
The players hadn’t really played this one with Steve much, so he didn’t understand it very well.
But this world was already dangerous enough; if more powerful monsters were generated…
He remembered when the players took him along to play this mod, even with a full set of vanilla end-game gear, they were killed dozens of times by a fire dragon until the players rage-quit.
Then Steve noticed a small circle next to each plugin on the right side of the page.
Steve tried clicking the circle behind [Ice and Fire], and the line for [Ice and Fire] dimmed.
What does this mean?
Is this mod disabled?
He spent a long time studying it without reaching a conclusion, so he just assumed it was disabled.
If he really ran into a dragon, he’d deal with it then…
It might not necessarily be a bad thing.
“Hey Block Hero,” Alan suddenly threw an arm around Steve’s shoulder, interrupting his thoughts.
“By the way, besides bread, what else can you make?”
Steve: ◨▂◧ Huh?
This question instantly drew the attention of those around them.
“Yeah, yeah, can you make something else? We can’t just eat bread three times a day from now on, can we?”
“You bastard, you’re lucky to have bread to eat, and now you’re being picky?!”
“But… I didn’t mean it like that!”
“Friends, I’m just saying maybe… possibly… perhaps… Block Hero knows some other recipes?”
Facing the expectant eyes of the people, Steve started to sweat a bit.
“Currently, I can only make bread.”
As soon as he said this, the people could not hide the disappointment on their faces.
Steve had a bit of a headache.
These villagers were quite picky; what was wrong with eating bread every day?
In one save file, the player had him start by digging up a bunch of hay blocks, and they spent a total of 66 days eating nothing but bread.
Did he complain?
The current situation made him feel a faint discomfort somewhere in his chest, but he couldn’t describe the feeling.
He felt uneasy whether standing or sitting.
Hmm… he kind of felt like hacking some Zombies.
However, the disappointment on the people’s faces didn’t last long.
Everyone knew Block Hero had already done more than enough, and the atmosphere soon became lively again.
Steve’s feeling of discomfort quickly dissipated.
It was just that the feeling from a moment ago was something Steve had never experienced since he gained consciousness.
What exactly… was that?
Before he could think further, Alan patted Steve’s shoulder again: “Besides food, can you make other things? I see the tools and weapons you use are very special; did you make them yourself?”
Steve nodded his blocky head.
A young man wearing glasses suddenly leaned in front of Steve: “You can make your own weapons? Can you make bullets?!”
Steve blanked for a moment.
He was about to shake his head when he suddenly remembered—hadn’t he just unlocked [Timeless and Classics]?
So, he nodded.
The blue eyes behind the glasses-man’s lenses visibly lit up!
“That’s fantastic! Can you help make some ammunition?! The camp’s reserves are getting lower and lower. Our Logistics Group is very anxious every day…”
Steve was about to agree when he suddenly thought of a big problem—a huge problem.
He didn’t know the Crafting Recipes.
He only remembered that in [Timeless and Classics], to make guns and ammo, you first needed to make a Gun Workbench, and then you needed lots and lots of minerals and gunpowder…
Now that he had [Advanced X-Ray], he should be able to find the raw materials eventually, but he didn’t remember the Crafting Recipe for the Gun Workbench.
What was he supposed to do?
Steve was silent for a long time before he had to change his answer: “I can make them, but not right now.”
The glasses-man hurriedly pressed: “Why?!”
“I don’t know the Crafting Recipes,” Steve said honestly.
The glasses-man didn’t understand what a “Crafting Recipe” was at all.
He froze for a second before continuing to press: “Is there a solution?! Everyone in our Logistics Group can cooperate with you! As long as we can make ammunition!!”
Alan also quickly added: “The Security Team can also spare a few people to help.”
Steve slowly shook his head.
The light in the glasses-man’s eyes went out, and he silently stood up and walked away.
Steve stared at his dejected back, and that faint feeling of discomfort returned.
Suddenly, he had a bright idea.
“Wait.”
The glasses-man stopped in his tracks.
“Do you have any pumpkins?”
The glasses-man turned around, looking bewildered.
“…Pumpkins?”
Steve nodded expressionlessly.
Another member of the Logistics Group nearby chimed in: “The Halloween pumpkins from the year before last were all eaten. We only have some dried pumpkin seeds left…”
Steve stood up.
“Let me see them.”
The glasses-man was full of question marks but still led Steve toward the food storage room in the apartment building.
“What do you want pumpkin seeds for?”
“To protect you.”
Glasses-man:???
Pumpkin seeds??