The novice villages are not part of our reality but are an alternate dimension. They only appear for a limited time (like 24 hours for the other time the MC entered one) and after special circumstances (such as someone reaching level 10 and defeating 5 boss zombies). Until the MC clears the next condition, don't expect another Novice Village.
I was under the impression that the novice village didn't disappear, but was more inaccessible because a zombie horde was released 24 hours after Yue Zhong found it. Given his abilities now, he's probably capable of getting there on his own/bringing a couple of his best Evolvers with him. Also, does anyone else feel that Chi Yang's character(Yue Zhong's best friend/2nd in command) is absurdly under-developed? He has such a weirdly cold and stoic personality, and for being a best friend he seems unreasonably suited to being Yue Zhong's lap dog/support structure. I'm not looking for him to rebel or anything, but it seems like he doesn't really have any of his own ambitions, he just does whatever he's told to do and never seems to express his own opinion. He seems like he should take on more of a confidant/consultant/partner rather than a yes-man subordinate. That said, wtf author. Does Yue Zhong really have to get lost again at this point? And will he end up taking over yet another village and bringing them all back to meet up with his current survivors. Honestly, using this plot device once is one thing; I felt it was really contrived then (I mean how far away could that bird have possibly flown him that he was unable to get back). Can't believe he's using it again and we didn't even have a chance to settle down and relax. Sigh.. well, whatever. I'll still read it.
I feel the same way for both the best friend and the MC getting lost again (I believe this is the third time due to Greenie's mother, the Type 2 Alpha Boar, and now the Type 3 Snake of Death and random teleportation). I almost punched my monitor when the new novel started. I wish the author could think of something better than the MC and wannabe girlfriend getting teleported to a random location to start a new book.
Oh yeah, forgot about the boar. Now it's even worse! In all honesty how the heck did he get lost in that situation? Lost enough that he had to go and conquer an entire other town rather than trying to get back home. I understand he fell down a canyon after running for miles but seriously, climb back up and follow the trail of destruction that was left in your wake. Sigh.. well, suspend the disbelief. There's a lot of frustration that comes with this novel. Apparently conquest is all that Yue Zhong's capable of, time to go expand the harem some more. I wonder how many more actress/models will throw themselves at him during this arc?
Oh man. He ended up in Vietnam? Fantastic, lets just write off the entire rest of the cast because no one cares about any of the other characters, right? Also, anyone else see Americans being portrayed as the devil incarnate here? Every American will be a complete rapist/bully/heathen, I can honestly see it coming. Man... just wait until the author sinks his teeth into the Japanese when somehow Yue Zhong manages to be transported to Tokyo.. this shit's getting a little out of hand.
Assuming the original translation was correct then only the novice villages that were not discovered would disappear. It's a lot more intelligent to bring someone to the novice village and job change them into a job that's able to create System guns and ammo than to capture a city and focus on making mundane weapons. Also if you got a Doctor/Garderner then they could team up and create medicines that could easily restore stats, regrow limbs, etc. If he had a Tailor that could make System armor then the strength of his forces could easily double if all the beast skin armor gave stats. Also why didn't Yue Zhong do the intelligent thing and use his Skill Point to upgrade his Heart of Darkness skill?
You are correct about having people go into these other classes, so you can create "game" items instead of normal items, but at the time Yue Zhong was able to interact with the Novice Village, only his best friend and him were high enough level to choose a class (Solider and Dark Knight receptively). Remember samurai girl was just below the EXP cut off and didn't have enough time or energy to power level before the Novice Village disappeared. Another Novice Village would need to be found in order for anyone else to get a class. Thus the question becomes, work hard so you have the resources to survive or go on a wild goose chase to find a Novice Village for exponential benefits later. As a leader, Yue Zhong, has calculated that the odds for survival are better with the former option, thus finding a Novice Village is not a priority. I believe Yue Zhong never upgraded any of his passive skills (such as Heart of Darkness or Marksmanship) is that he need to make sure he has sufficient power to take down the highest levels or zombies or mutated beasts (such as the Type 3 which have started to appear). In the beginning, White Bones was the MC's greatest weapon and defense against these high level creatures. Later on Yue Zhong focued on Devil Fire in order to have his own method of defeating those creatures. Yue Zhong was warned in the Novice Village about the growth of the hostile creatures in the game world and was trying his best to be above them in strength so he could handle them. Passive skills like Heart of Darkness are cool and give the MC more options, but ultimately don't directly increase his attack strength like those other skills.
Look at the story quote I posted. The original novice village should still be there because Yue Zhong found it. It's not a matter of finding another one or going on a wild goose chase. It's a matter of taking on or bypassing the zombies in the city he started in. I assume the only novice villages around are those found by players. Otherwise you'd have to go to an Intermediate village or whatever the next level village is. Heart of Darkness is the level 5 passive skill that gives all of his Dark Knight class skills one point in enhancement. When he received the skill it upgraded the Summon Special Skeleton, Devil Flame, Night Enhancement, Tamer Technique, Art of Fear, Shadow Steps, and Encompassing Body Armor skills. So presumably upgrading the Heart of Darkness would upgrade all 7 skills including the Devil Flame but instead he chose to just upgrade the Devil Flame.
Okay, I just re-read those sections and it looks like you are correct about the Novice Village still being there. My only counter now is that the author forgot about the Novice Village and instead focused on evolutions to get a power increase. Also, the original city that contains the Novice Village is another county over from his current territory. Thus going back for the Novice Village would be equivalent to taking over a city larger than SY County (were all the military was) and the MC currently does not have the resources to do that so he doesn't. Spoiler: When they go back to Novice Village I once read a spoiler that the MC does not get back to the Novice Village until chapter 900 or so. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it looks like the author really did forget this part of the story. In terms of Heart of Darkness, we were never told if the skill was upgradeable or not, so I just let author tell us what is possible or not. To be honest, these are two plot holes (Novice Village is major were the Heart of Darkness is minor) which I don't expect to be correct in the near future.
The author forgetting about it just makes the MC look retarded. Also I don't think the novice village is in another county. If I'm right Lei Jiang City should be the main city in the county the MC started in. It should be where the 100,000+ zombie army came from. At the very least it's within 10 days travel so he should conquer it on principle. The MC doesn't necessarily need to take over the entire city. If he kills any Z type zombies then the rest are just an unorganized hoard that couldn't stop him from coming and going. Even if it's not possible it should still be tried and stated by the System that it's not possible. I think all passive skills have been shown to be upgradable so far. So a specific statement would be needed.
I can't believe that he forgot about the Novice village mainly based entirely on the fact that after every battle he collects all those Survivor Coins. After accumulating all this wealth I can't believe he's not thinking "Man.. I should really get around to spending this." With the constant accumulation of survivor coins he must be considering how to spend them. Unfortunately it looks like that aspect of the game isn't going to be touched on for the foreseeable future.
Seriously, his dependence on modern weaponry and completely ignoring system weaponry (aside from drops) is really frustrating. He kills millions of zombies using modern weapons, seems like a complete waste of experience. Granted, the zombies aren't really going to run out so finding farming grounds probably isn't much of an issue. Unfortunately, the MC is very much a "I'll only do this if it helps me" kind of character. There is very little time spent trying to actually help out his teammates, they all pretty much get his cast-offs and he's a complete loot hoarder. The fact that he has upwards of 30 skills at this point, when the average "elite" under him only has 1 or 2 is pretty shitty imo. He probably isn't even thinking about the novice village because he already got the majority of the benefit he was going to get from it. He already swapped his class and picked up all the quests, forget about his teammates, there's not much of a reason for him to go back until he finishes off his quests.
Ah, but I don't think zombies are really a renewable resource. There's a lot of them now but they don't really reproduce. The armies led by the Z types are the only opportunity they get to spread in recaptured land. The mutant beasts seem like the future of leveling as they seem to have and ecosystem going on. I don't really get mad at him loot hoarding if he's only keeping the loot from the stuff he kills. His position is basically the big gun so giving him the ability to fight against what the rest can't makes sense. It's also why I wouldn't complain about him carrying around 20 rocket launchers. I'd be more irritated at him taking the military's drops and using them to power up his harem. Has he gotten the majority of the benefit from the novice village? First off he can buy all of his class skills. The upgrade he was suppose to get for White Bones(but the author forgot about) is probably there along with a bunch of other useful skills. It was also mentioned that there were several areas of the novice village that he couldn't enter because his level is too low. He'd be stupid to write them off. But then again he's stupid for not already going back anyway. The one System gun he has automatically creates bullets why hasn't he tried to raise some Blacksmiths or Gunsmiths or whatever?
As far as zombie reproduction goes, they definitely don't. But they're more or less an endless resource given the population density of China. Just go to the neighboring town/city and you can find another 5-10 million zombies. The conquest nature of the quests he was given to recapture the various metropolises scattered throughout China means he will pretty much always have zombies to kill. I'm also in complete agreement that his biggest priority should be gaining access to the Novice Village. The fact that he's pretty much ignoring the absurdly OP nature of the system by not doing everything he can to abuse that Novice Village is probably my biggest gripe with this story. That's basically where the entire upgrade system for the "game" aspect is, it's like if you were playing any MMO and you never returned to town. Just kept farming and only used whatever drops you gained, you never went back to level up skills, sell gear, shop for items, pick up new quests, or find new opportunities. He's basically gimping himself by not returning to town. This is completely ignoring the fact that he must have upwards of 200 enhancers over lvl 10 and capable of a class change (probably many more actually, his elite group of lvl 30+ is around 50). What's such bullshit is that because he isn't allowing his group to change their class, he's basically crippling them since they don't have access to the added leveling bonus/skills that changing your class offers you. I can't believe this has never even been brought up, this is why I feel he's so god-damned selfish and only out for number 1; since this is far and away the biggest advantage he could give his troops. His selfishness is only exacerbated by his loot hoarding and skill monopolizing.
They're renewable when they evolve and swarm a survivor city, yes the numbers diminish but weak zombies are becoming more irrelevant in this evolving world
wow only 3 pages but so many reviews, somehow I missed this thread a while back and created a new one so here's a bit of a copy paste : the S2s were simply too fast, from time to time, there would be some soldiers who had their Mutant Boar hides slashed through, and being injured as a result. plot hole? s2's are weak.. So everyone here is thrashing the novel while still reading it XD well let me thrash it too...dat Novice Village I thought it had disappeared as well, I was thinking that the author was just taking way too long to get to the next village...and getting sidetracked in Vietnam again ffs here we go racism and some more chauvinism (just found out chauvinism firstly refered to nationalism :O). these Qidian authors should really take the advice from readers to improve their novels. Just imagine, not so much harem or getting sidetracked, characters being developed--that Chi Yang,it's a wonder I can even recall his name, and more Villages
Well, I was more thinking about for other people when talking about zombies as resources. Kids being born into the world for example and people who have yet to start leveling. Obviously normal zombies are pretty useless to people over 10 unless you got a System artillery weapon and could kill hundreds at a time.
Holy rape Batman! I honestly hope the author dials it back a little, the rape and racism levels are getting a little too high for my taste. I want to think that the Vietnamese wouldn't devolve into racist torture-hungry rapists come the fall of the apocalypse. The fact that so far we haven't seen a single power figure who has any redeemable features feels ridiculous to me. They're all racist, raping perverts, I get that people devolve to their baser instincts during a crisis but come on... it's getting a little excessive at this point. Yue Zhong can't be only "good" (and I use good very loosely when describing him) person of power in the entire apocalypse.
I also agree that at this point, there would naturally be more nominal good (similar to Yue Zhong) tyrant somewhere and can actually govern their territory and population in a meaningful way. I don't think the nations of our world would have formed without at least some of the leaders that not focusing on raping and abusing their population.
There's that but then there's also the Genghis Khan precedent, who not only had the largest empire in history but also committed the largest genocide. A tyrant of tyrants, he made the holocaust look like a picnic. The rape and pillage mentality does have its place, but at the same time it's been what.. not even a year since the end of the apocalypse? I find it hard to believe people could suddenly overcome a lifetime of civility to devolve into rape machines. I dunno, so far I'm not overly impressed.