The World Cataclysm

After Rebecca had contracted her elemental spirit, their hunt went as smooth as possible, killing several evolved zombies. Rebecca's elemental spirit, Star, hadn't shown itself extremely useful just because Rebecca had no mana to summon it or to maintain it summoned any longer.

Even though they were able to kill several evolved zombies, their group noticed that it was harder to find ones than to kill them since it seemed they had already hunted down most of the evolved zombies in their area.

After hours of hunting, they were able to return to their base without any casualties, obtaining several Treasure Chests from evolved zombies. With a recent level up, Adam and Brian were depressed that they were getting fewer Treasure Chests from killed evolved zombies but accepted it as a fact after they noticed that Dave wasn't getting any chests at all.

Since his strength far outstripped the level of evolved zombies, the drop rate of Treasure Chests had been significantly lowered for him, which weren't good news.

After having breakfast, their group hunted zombies, after which Dave taught the trio how to meditate. Rest of his time he spent on meditation, training his Mana sensing and planning their future actions. As for others, they were learning meditation and training what they were lacking.

Learning that Rebecca had a high magic aptitude, Dave decided to give her a Skill Book of Small Fireball, so she would study a spell until she increased her spirit; doing homework before being able to learn the skill.

Adam trained his Telekinesis, while Brian was lazing off before he was caught by Dave and was forced to spar with him. Dave decided to train his will by beating him up since it would be faster that way and he also found it satisfying, playing and beating Brian.

...

Three days had already gone since Rebecca had contracted her elemental spirit, Star.

In three days, they had obtained several Treasure Chests, fewer with every day, so they were forced to go slightly further than before. Most of the time, Treasure Chests had dropped consumable items such as Restoration Bread, Crystal Apple or Basic Mana Potion and unfortunately, they didn't obtain any Skill Books other than a Small Fireball.

Due to the rarity of Skill Books, he wasn't depressed by that fact. There were some skills which couldn't be learned without help from the System, even ordinary skills needed a lot of time to be learnt. They were just lucky that they had 2 people among them with high enough magic aptitude to learn Small Fireball spell without any help.

Other people such as Adam and Dave, who had no aptitude to magic, would never be able to learn it, so sometimes it's better to be selfish and to learn a skill to boost your chances for survival. Even if you had slight compatibility with magic, you might spend several weeks or even a month to learn it by itself, so most of the people didn't care about it and learnt skills with help from the System.

Also, in these three days, Rebecca had reached level 3 day after she contracted her elemental spirit. Even though it was still difficult for her to grasp the chanting of a Small Fireball spell, she wasn't far from learning it.

Finally having 20 points in mana or 2 points in spirit, Rebecca had a chance to test battle prowess of her elemental spirit. She had said that it cost 5 points of mana to summon Star and 1 mana point for every minute after it was summoned.

After numerous attempts, she was able to command her Star to kill an evolved zombie with an ethereal blade condensed from light particles with a help of her elemental spirit. Dave could also recall how happy she was to kill it since she had felt that she got closer to her goal.

Sitting cross-legged on his bed, Dave emptied his mind as he was absorbing mana clusters surrounding him. In three days, he had also made substantial improvement in terms of his mana pool.

'Status'

[David Murckly

Level: 5

Class: None

Survival coins: 214

Mana: 25/25

Strength: 16

Agility: 12

Stamina: 11

Intelligence: 11

Spirit: 5 (+1)

Free points: 0

Innate ability: Regression

Skills: Elementary Cooking (LVL 2), Gaming (LVL 8), Mathematics (LVL 7), Leadership (LVL 1), Meditation (LVL 3), Flash Step (LVL 1), Mana Application (LVL 3), Mana Threads (LVL 3), Mana Barrier (LVL 2), Mana Enhancement (LVL 2), Reinforced Breathing (LVL 2), Swordsmanship (LVL 5), Battle Focus (LVL 4)]

He was able to increase his mana by another 15 points in these three days, allowing his Mana Enhancement to last longer. Now, he could use his other mana skills more often than he did before.

He had always spent his mana sparingly, so he wouldn't run out of the mana during actual fights. He always needed to save it since his mana was too low for prolonged fights. Even now, he couldn't say that he had plenty of mana to use.

He also obtained a new weapon since his Rusty Sword had broken, while his Needle Rapier wasn't effective for killing in one strike. It dropped from one of the Treasure Chests their group had obtained, but everybody already had a weapon, so he took it for himself.

Normally, there was an unspoken rule among other Enhancers that they would have spoils only from monster killed by them. No stealing and no competing over it, but Enhancer could barter it with each other or pass it if they wanted to.

His new weapon was an axe, similar flawed item as his Rusty Sword since it looked like it hasn't been cared for a lot of time as its sharp edge had grown dull.

[Dull Axe

Attack: 7-9

Durability: 12

Description: Axe which was mistreated for several years, worsening its quality even further. It is in poor condition.]

'Today is a big day.'

For all three days, he was having breakfast slightly earlier than others, so he would have an additional hour for meditation and to also hide his injuries. After three days of healing, he was feeling himself much better than he had imagined, even though he still felt slight pain while moving.

Standing up from his bed, he left his room and went to the kitchen, where everybody was finishing their breakfast. Rachel and Kate had grown much calmer than before, though they were bored sitting in the dormitory for all day.

Everybody was chatting with each other freely, joking and laughing with each other, but when they had caught sight of Dave approaching them, they quickly turned silent. The trio who hunted with him kept their silence since they had thought that he had something to declare before everyone, while Rachel and Kate just felt awkward with him around.

"We are already running out of the food, so we need to obtain a source of it before it is finished. Therefore, today we are going to the closest cafeteria to obtain a large number of resources."

Leaning on the table with both of his hands, he shared their destination and raid target. After day or two, he doubted that they would have anything on the table, so better to act today.

"But how are we going to carry it to the dormitory building? We can't just fill our bags with food that is stored in boxes and bags."

As always, Adam thought about their situation and identified the problem in their plan. Well, it was an apparent flaw at first thought.

"There should be small vans parked somewhere nearby at the backside of the cafeteria. Considering that the world had changed in the noon, there should be one or two vans parked there."

"But what if there is none?"

"Then, the difficulty of the raid goes by a level higher. We are going to pick up two cars instead of vans, meaning that we are going to transport fewer resources and we might either leave someone there or get another car to drive.'

Their university was one of the most prestigious institutions around the Federation and it was big enough to be compared to a small town. There were lots of departments, club areas, rented buildings and other districts on the campus as well as a huge number of students studying in it.

Obtaining a means of transport was necessary for their movement around the campus and it was also needed if they wanted to transport something in large numbers, so sooner or not, they needed one or several ways of transport.

Discussing the plan, Adam and Brian had finalized details of it, while everybody else was gazing at them. Brian was too lazy to join them, whilst girls didn't dare to join their conversation. Rachel and Kate had thought that they would be left in a dormitory as always, so they weren't worried about it, but Dave's next words frightened them greatly.

"Everybody is going on the raid, including both of you, Rachel and Kate. We need a workforce to fill vans with food, while some of us would guard vans against zombies which might approach us. Also, with more people, we could finish the work faster, so you are also going outside."

Dave had stated everything as clear as possible, turning the faces of Rachel and Kate paler than usual. Rachel seemed as blood stopped flowing in her body, as her face turned ashen and she chewed her lower lip, though she didn't say anything.

"You can't force me to go outside! Why I should go there with you?!"

However, Kate seemed to actively defy him, as she protested his decision quite aggressively.

"Sorry to wake you up, but if you only want to take and not to give anything, then we're going to stop providing you with a portion of food. I hate slackers and you are in no position to negotiate with me!"

Finishing what he wanted to say, he glanced at her threateningly, silencing her with his words.

"If you want to get something, then you should also prove yourself useful!"