Doomsday Lord Ch. 9 | Manager Innate Ability

“Knight.” Chéng Yáng announced.

Lǐ Wànshān grinned.

“Good, I’d hoped to become a Knight.”

Lǐ Wànshān approached the Knight Class Statue and initiated his Transcendence Ceremony. A few seconds later he was holding a sword and shield identical to Liú Hào’s.

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Lǐ Wànshān

Phoenix Village Citizen
Class: Knight
Level: Low Grade Apprentice (0%)

Age	39	Life Span	110
HP	52	MP	10
Attack Damage	3	Ability Power	1
Attack Resistance	2	Magic Resistance	2
Attack Speed	1	Movement Speed	1.1

Innate Abilities

• Health is increased by 30%
• Movement speed is increased by 10%
• Efficient Registration: When acting as the Player Resources Manager, a Settlement may register 30% more Players

Skill

Essence Gathering (Core Skill)
Enter a horse stance and draw in worldly energy to recover and advance.

Energy Slash (Low-Grade)
Fill your blade with Mana, then release it in a devastating arc that cuts through enemies.

Damage: 8	Cost: 3 Mana
Range: 3 m	Cooldown: 3 sec

Equipment

Iron Sword (One-Handed)
A crude blade fit for slashing and stabbing.

Damage: 3	Cooldown: 1.5 sec
Range: 1 m

Wooden Heater (One-Handed)
A sturdy and reliable shield. | Attacks that hit the shield have their damage nullified.

Damage: 1.5	Cooldown: 3 sec
Range: 1 m

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Another S-Rank Innate Ability! And it was one that improved Settlement management. It was similar to a Chéng Yáng’s Innate Ability except that Lǐ Wànshān wouldn’t need to become a Lord for its effects to apply. He only needed to be assigned an official management position.

Being able to register more Citizens meant more Players would receive any bonuses that Phoenix Village provided. Although there weren’t enough people to fill each Class Statue’s capacity right now, in the future there would be hundreds or even thousands of unregistered Players living here.

Lǐ Wànshān didn’t have nearly the same reaction upon reading his Innate Ability. He was even disappointed that it didn’t increase two combat related Attributes! His only frame of reference was the other three who had S-Rank Innate Abilities, so he had no clue just how lucky he was.

Although he wasn’t needed anymore, Chéng Yáng joined the others farming monsters on the wall. The faster they gathered Soul Fragments, the faster he could perform additional Transcendence Ceremonies.

In order to make the process more efficient, after transferring his friends and Lǐ Wànshān, Chéng Yáng prioritized people with the potential to be a Ranger or Mage.

Once the final Transcendence Ceremony ended, Phoenix Village had eight Knights, six Mages, six Rangers, and four Druids.

Chéng Yáng was also able to fully verify his theory. Aside from the unlucky cab driver who had B-Rank talent every other person was able to gain an A-Rank Innate Ability. Although it was disappointing that there weren’t any other S-Rank talents, Chéng Yáng was satisfied with having five under his banner.

A-Rank talents were still quite rare, so as long as none of these people left Chéng Yáng for some other faction, the core fighting strength of his Settlement would be astronomical.

Chéng Yáng was confident that everyone would stay by his side. The cruelty and destitution brought upon by the apocalypse was unbearable, so after they went out and saw how others lived they could come to appreciate the advantages a Settlement provided.

The only truly disappointing thing was that no one else had an Innate Ability that affected Settlements or Hidden Attributes.

In total the process had taken an hour. Perhaps if he hadn’t gone to rescue Niú Bīng, Chéng Yáng would have been able to get a few more S-Rank talents. Even so, Chéng Yáng didn’t regret saving his friend in the slightest.

Now it was time to train his forces. Once the monsters surrounding the Settlement had been cleared, Chéng Yáng called everyone down off the walls to have a meeting by the Territory Altar.

“Now that everyone has become a Player its time to learn how to fight as a team. I’m going to open the gates and allow monsters into the village. When they come in, you’ll need to defeat them. Afterwards, we’ll meet again and I’ll give you another task. Phoenix Village has four gates, so we’ll create four groups to defend them.”

Chéng Yáng then turned to Lǐ Wànshān.

“Old Lǐ pick a Knight and a Mage to defend the south gate with me. The leaders for the teams defending the other gates will be my friends Liú Hào, Niú Bīng, and Yú Kǎi. Split the remaining Players evenly between those groups, but make sure to have at least one member of every Class in a group. If you absolutely can’t hold on, call out to me and I’ll close the gate you’re protecting. I don’t want any of you to die.”

Finally he turned to Páng Shān.

“You’ll follow me to the south gate but keep a healthy distance.”

Lǐ Wànshān had an uncomfortable look on his face. His experience as a businessman told him that Chéng Yáng was trying to weaken his influence. Obviously Chéng Yáng didn’t trust him and had separated him from most of his employees in order to control them better. Although those men hadn’t pledged their loyalty to Lǐ Wànshān, their close relationship meant his words held a lot of weight to for them.

Even though he had realized this, Lǐ Wànshān refused to let it bother him. He wasn’t interested in authority. All he wanted was to survive and then return to Xiāngyáng to save his family. Right now, only Chéng Yáng could provide him with an opportunity to do that, so how could he dissent?

Lǐ Wànshān wasn’t wrong. Chang Yang had indeed arranged the teams with the goal of weakening the influence of Lǐ Wànshān’s faction. It also allowed him to intimidate Lǐ Wànshān with a show of force.

If Lǐ Wànshān’s former employees continued to obey him, it would be a problem if the man tried to stir up trouble for Chéng Yáng later. Of course, Chéng Yáng could force them to obey using the authority granted to him as a Lord. However, that kind of tyranny would instill hatred and obedience in equal parts.

After the groups were arranged, Chéng Yáng drilled everyone on the tactics necessary to get the most out of their Skills and optimize their synergy. He also detailed the various strengths and weaknesses of the monsters commonly found in the area.

Most of his advice was simple, but it wasn’t intuitive. Like how an Energy Slash could pass through multiple targets, or that a Reinforced Arrow could be partially controlled after firing, or the importance of avoiding friendly fire. Countless people had died in his previous life because they hadn’t realized simple things like these. The information about the monsters’ abilities was even more valuable. When people encountered a new monster with unknown abilities, casualties were inevitable. Every sliver of information had been paid for in blood.

Once he was done, Chéng Yáng sent the groups to their respective gates and opened them.

Less than a minute after they started, a curtain out light appeared outside the south gate. When it disappeared, an odd creature stood in its place. The monster was bipedal and looked similar to an ape except that it was covered in green feathers and its entire head was taken up by a segmented mouth that looked like a blooming lotus. It was only a meter tall but no one dared to underestimate it after seeing the jagged pitchfork held in its hand.

“I’ll handle the first one, so watch me.” Chéng Yáng said, striding to the front of the group. “This is a Low-Grade Immature Graveseeker. It has thirty Health and can deal up to seven damage when using its pitchfork.”

Lǐ Wànshān had just seen Chéng Yáng and the others kill dozens of monsters while they were on the walls, but it was an entirely different feeling when the monster was right in front of him.

Once the monster got close to entering his range, Chéng Yáng raised his stave and fired off a Magic Missile. Right as the Graveseeker passed the thirty meter mark, the Skill slammed into its chest scattering blue blood and green feathers everywhere. A perfectly timed shot!

The monster let out a shrill cry which was similar to the wailing of a baby as it continued its charge towards Chéng Yáng who’d taken the opportunity to put some distance between them using his superior Movement Speed.

This process repeated once more as the monster helplessly tried to chase Chéng Yáng around.

When the third Magic Missile connected, the monster collapsed to the ground.

At the same time weak and indistinct light escaped its body and integrated with Chéng Yáng’s.

“Wow…” Lǐ Wànshān breathed.

Although he’d been scared before, watching the monster fall to the ground without so much as scratching Chéng Yáng completely erased the tense atmosphere.

Lǐ Wànshān did some quick math in his head. Since the monster had thirty health, that meant Chéng Yáng’s attacks dealt at least ten damage. This was considerably more than the three he dealt as a Low-Grade Apprentice Knight.

Lǐ Wànshān knew from his employees that Low-Grade Apprentice Mages only dealt five damage, which meant that Chéng Yáng was at least one level higher than the rest of them!

Faced with this fact, Lǐ Wànshān only felt relief. There wasn’t a hint of jealousy in his heart. Chéng Yáng was his ally, so the more powerful Chéng Yáng was, the safer he would be, and the higher the chance he would be able to rescue his family!

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