Li Ke couldn't help but stare at the way Tsunade walked, suddenly realizing something he had completely overlooked before!
Her movement speed hadn't dropped in the slightest. Her stride was perfectly normal, showing absolutely no signs of stiffness or discomfort from their intense, wild session last night!
Which meant one thing!
She wasn't feeling any pain!
Then again, she is a ninja. Ninjas are famous for their insane pain tolerance. On top of that, Tsunade is a battle-hardened veteran and a medical ninja. Isn't it only natural that her pain threshold is off the charts?
Yeah, that must be it.
That was the first explanation that popped into Li Ke's head. But then, he remembered the absurdly monstrous physical constitution Tsunade possessed back in the Naruto world.
Granted, she couldn't be compared to Hashirama Senju, whose cells remained freakishly active even decades after his death. However, Tsunade's sheer raw physical stats were genuinely on par with the Raikage, a man who dedicated his entire life to extreme taijutsu training.
The Raikage came from a literal lineage of ultimate meatheads. As a woman, Tsunade should have theoretically been at a physical disadvantage.
Yet, reality defied all logic. Tsunade's baseline physical constitution was actually far superior to the Raikage's; the man simply couldn't compete with her. Furthermore, when it came to regenerative abilities, while she still fell short of Hashirama, she had long since surpassed the realm of ordinary mortals.
Hashirama's healing factor was the kind of ridiculous cheat code where if you slashed him, the wound would close up the very next second. His eventual death was caused by depression after being forced to kill his own best friend, not because his body had been worn out or depleted.
As for anyone claiming his body was drained...
Go take another look at those broken Hashirama cells and say that again with a straight face.
"So... what I felt last night wasn't just her body's natural tightness, but her subconscious strength coupled with her rapid cell regeneration...?"
As this realization dawned on him, Li Ke's expression morphed into utter shock. He had never even considered this angle.
But right after, a terrifying thought struck him!
"No, wait... If her hemophobia and trauma were holding her back... that means Tsunade wasn't flexing her muscles at all last night!"
When he was doing it with her, he already felt like he was being squeezed to death, and his stamina lasted only as long as it took for Tsunade's body to hit its limit. But this new piece of information told him that last night wasn't even close to her actual limit...
It would snap right off, wouldn't it? My faucet...
Or worse, get completely torn apart?
Cold sweat drenched Li Ke's forehead. He was genuinely terrified of such a thing happening.
"The physical differences between worlds are truly terrifying."
Swallowing hard, Li Ke stepped into the Trader's compound. The female Trader who used to stir his hidden desires held zero attraction for him now. After all, Tsunade's charm and physique completely outclassed the woman standing before him. While the Trader's perfectly motionless, frozen demeanor had its own unique, uncanny appeal, there was no contest—when you had a beautiful girl who could actually move, the living, breathing option was always superior.
"Let's see what quests we have today."
Li Ke opened the female Trader's quest menu, only to find that the usual selection of four daily quests was missing one.
Yes, there was one less.
"Wait, so the total number of available quests across the board is fixed?"
Frowning, Li Ke didn't dwell on it too much. He still had plenty of unspent skill points, but he planned to wait until he met up with Tsunade before allocating them. Otherwise, he was afraid he wouldn't be able to handle whatever scaling might happen.
But right at that moment, he noticed something interesting.
At the bottom of the quest UI, a page-turn icon had appeared. He flipped to the next page, and sure enough, he saw a list of quests. Unlike the previous ones, these had a distinct roman numeral 'II' prefixing the quest titles.
The distances were also notably farther.
His previous Tier 1 quests were usually within a range of about a hundred meters, two hundred meters at the absolute maximum. But the new ones generated on this page started at a baseline of two hundred meters away.
"Does this mean the previous ones were all Tier 1 quests? I wonder if I unlocked Tier 2 quest privileges because I've cleared so many of them, or if it's because of the upcoming Blood Moon?"
Li Ke didn't believe for a second that Kiri couldn't see these menus, yet none of these Tier 2 quests were claimed. Based on his understanding of this world, this undoubtedly meant that he was the only one who could officially accept and trigger them.
The quest types themselves hadn't changed at all—they were still the same old categories. However, Li Ke could deduce with his own backside that the difficulty would absolutely be higher than before.
Even so, Li Ke felt bold enough to pick a quest, specifically choosing a "Clear Zombies" objective.
Arriving in front of a completely new set of ruins, Li Ke nodded as he looked at the building, which was visibly much larger than the houses he had raided previously. He initiated the quest marker, reset the POI, and immediately smashed a window open with his iron axe.
As expected, Tier 2 quests were a step up from Tier 1. The zombie count had straight-up doubled. However, with an automatic machine gun in his hands, it wasn't a problem at all. Li Ke only ended up expending about twice as much ammo as usual to easily wrap things up.
"But man, the loot is still as trash as ever."
Li Ke looked at the few rolls of duct tape and some questionable, potentially expired vitamins he had spent ages rummaging through trash piles to find, letting out a heavy sigh.
Aside from a few brass doorknobs and some canned food, he hadn't found a single high-tier item on this entire run. It was a tragedy among tragedies.
By all rights, a survival game based heavily on rural America shouldn't be this starved for firearms and ammo!
What kind of garbage RNG was this!
Fuming, Li Ke pushed a bicycle out of the building. It looked structurally sound and like it could still be ridden—this was literally the only functional item he had scavenged. He planned to head back and use the Trader's workbench to craft a few parts to repair it. At the very least, it would count as a mechanical upgrade for getting around.
However, just as he was pushing his small bicycle back toward the camp, he spotted Kiri, who was also making her way back.
And...
In her hands was an AK-47.
Li Ke froze. Before he could utter a single word, Kiri cheered and rushed over to him.
"Li Ke! Li Ke! Quick, look! Look what I found!"
Kiri bolted in front of him like a gust of wind, thrusting the AK into his hands without a second thought. Li Ke stared blankly at the assault rifle in his grasp, and before he could process it, Kiri pulled off a literal magic trick—summoning another identical rifle right out of thin air.
He fell into a stunned silence.
But for the sake of his last remaining shred of dignity, he decided to ask anyway.
"Was that a quest reward?"
Li Ke knew that quests could reward weapons. However, his reward options were always garbage like iron arrowheads or painkillers, so he never bothered picking the arrowheads. The absolute best weapon he had ever scored from a quest was a Molotov cocktail, which admittedly had played a massive role earlier.
Kiri offered a beaming smile, shaping her finger into a gun and pointing it playfully at Li Ke. Then, she leaned the AK against her cheek and gave it a loud kiss.
As she lowered her hand, an SMG magically materialized in her previously empty palm.
"One was a quest reward! Remember when I went out to do that quest earlier? The moment I walked through the front door of the building, I spotted a high-tier weapon bag! Inside, there wasn't just an AK, but also an SMG, a shotgun, and a massive sack of shotgun shells! On top of that, when I turned in the quest, the female Trader gave me another AK as a bonus reward!"
As soon as she finished speaking, the MP5 in her hand instantly swapped into a pump-action shotgun. Li Ke stood there, completely flabbergasted.
He went dead silent, burying his face in his hands.
He took a moment to ponder his life choices, then glanced up at the sky.
Finally, he locked his eyes onto Kiri.
"How is any of this logical?!"
He couldn't believe his ears. Kiri had literally gone out on her very first quest and effortlessly scored a mountain of top-tier firearms! Meanwhile, he, Li Ke, had spent ages meticulously looting every single nook and cranny, only to end up with garbage!
Furthermore, why on earth was a Tier 1 quest handing out AKs?!
What kind of trash loot pools have I been getting after doing so many runs?!
Li Ke felt lightheaded from sheer frustration.
Granted, he was the type of guy who never won a "buy one, get one free" cap raffle in his life when buying soda. But did a survival game's engine really have to enforce this level of blatant discrimination?!
Aren't all modern isekai protagonists supposed to have god-tier luck?!
Why was he cursed with the ultimate black-face gacha luck?!
"Maybe you're just not searching carefully enough?" Kiri suggested, shrugging her shoulders. "Tell you what, I'll just tag along with you next time. Otherwise, who knows how many valuable spoils a careless guy like you will completely overlook. By the way, I also noticed the Tier 2 quests and a option to share quests. I've been wanting to test that out."
Li Ke nodded. He actually wanted to verify something himself because when he had opened the quest menu earlier, he had noticed that exact new feature appearing.
The "Share Quest" button.
He wanted to see if sharing a quest meant both players could claim the final rewards upon completion.
With that plan in mind, they headed to the Trader to turn in his current quest. The reward choices this time were painkillers and an insulation clothing mod. Li Ke, true to his usual routine, chose the painkillers.
Unfortunately, even though it was a Tier 2 quest, the reward still only granted a single skill point instead of doubling to two.
Li Ke accepted another Tier 2 quest. The two of them quickly made their way to the entrance of a local police station that needed clearing. They cleared it rapidly, finished it rapidly, and...
Rapidly stared at the completely barren, pathetic loot pool.
"What kind of curse do you actually carry?!"
Kiri stared in sheer disbelief at the police station. There wasn't a single bullet inside. Having ransacked the entire building, the absolute best thing she managed to find was a pair of moldy shamway burgers. She couldn't help but turn her head to glare at Li Ke, who was standing beside her holding nothing but two bottles of murky mineral water.
"Don't ask!"
Li Ke's face was as dark as the bottom of a burnt pot.
Dark in every single sense of the word.