5 Chapter 5: Improvement
Madison wasn't given a moment to rest as just as soon as she finished the first wolf the other two wolves began charging at her at full speed. As they were approaching she noticed that one wolf was a bit behind the other and made a quick plan of action for herself.
As the first wolf reached her she quickly dodged to the left and swung her sword towards the 2nd wolf as the 1st wolf flew past her. The sword connected and left a large wound on the second wolf but did not kill it, though that didn't mean the wolf was in fighting condition as the 2nd wolf immediately retreated back into the alleyway slowly limping.
Madison saw this and quickly switched back to the 1st wolf just in time to raise her sword sideways and lodged it into the 1st wolf's mouth to block it. She shoved the wolf to her left before swinging her sword down at the wolf's neck severing it from its body.
[Experience gained.]
"One more to go. *pant* *pant*" Madison was out of breath from how quickly she had to react to the wolf that lunged at her. She approached the last wolf to see it lying near the carcass at the end of the alleyway barely breathing due to the wound on its side.
*Shick*
[Experience gained, Leveled up.]
"Finally." said Madison as she finally could take a break from the fight. She leaned her back against the ruined wall next to her for a few minutes before heading back home. Since she had the map from the system menu, it was easy to get back home.
=====15 minutes later=====
"Now that I can rest, let's see what we got from all that chaos." said Madison as she pulled up the menu and brought up her status page.
[Name: Madison Kondark
Race: Human (Unevolved)
Titles: None
HP: 30/30
MP 40/40
Level: 3
STR: 9
AGI: 10
INT: 9
Class: None
Skills: Fear Resistance Level 1
Money: $60]
"A little bit better than before. Tomorrow I will try to get to Level 5." said Madison as she then switched to her inventory to see if killing the monsters gave her anything like she's seen in video games from the Old Earth.
[Inventory]
[Midnight Wolf Fang x3][Midnight Wolf's Heart]
When Madison saw the fangs she realized that she seems to have gotten one fang for each wolf but what made her curious was the Wolf's Heart. "Hey Aiko, what's with this item called Midnight Wolf's Heart?"
[It is considered as what you would call a rare drop. It is worth more if you sell it at a shop than what a regular drop would be worth. It is roughly 3x the value of each fang.]
"Interesting." said Madison as she closed her menu before going to her room for the night. She was exhausted from the fight earlier today and wasn't planning on going back outside for the rest of the day. She brought out some of the bread she had along with going downstairs for some water. She was thankful that her family had bought bottled water before the world changed otherwise she would have had to go foraging. There were plenty of water bottles that she stored in her inventory before going back to her room to sleep.
=====Next Morning=====
Madison woke up feeling re energized from yesterdays fight. She was excited to go back outside hunting as she wanted to try a few things along with hunting for more monsters. But first...clothes. She was still in her pajamas and needed to change into better clothes. She founds a pair of jeans along with a long-sleeve shirt that her mom had gotten her to wear as casual clothing. She then put her armor on top of that and equipped her sword but realized it would be kind of awkward to carry it in-hand for the entire time. So she went to the system's store for the first time.
[Store]
[Skills][Items]
[Items]
She scrolled through all of the equipment and noticed that there was just too many to find so she tried to focus her thoughts on a sheath for a short-sword. As she did that the list of items disappeared for a brief moment before reappearing with 5 short-sword sheaths, all with increasing durability.
[Leather Sheath: $10]
[Copper Sheath: $25]
[Iron Sheath: $50]
[Titanium Sheath: $500
[Draconium Sheath: $2000]
[Nano Sheath: $10000]
Madison bought the Leather Sheath as she wanted to get some skills from the store along with the sheath, so now she had $50 left. She then opened the Skills store.
[Shop]
[Skills]
[The skills store is arranged based on what your current level is, more skills will become available in the future.]
"Well that's convenient."
[Swordsmanship: $15]
[Martial Arts: $15]
[Small Arms: $25]
[Magic Aptitude: $15]
"Well I should go with Swordsmanship as I already have a short-sword to use, but I should also get something else to go along with it. Let's try Magic Aptitude and see where we can go from there." said Madison as she selected both Swordsmanship then Magic Aptitude.
[Bought Swordsmanship and Magic Aptitude.]
[Learned Basic Swordsmanship Level 1, Mana Sense Level 1]
"Huh, seems like those skills were actually more like skill lines. That makes this process a whole lot better." said Madison before checking her status window again.
[Name: Madison Kondark
Race: Human (Unevolved)
Titles: None
HP: 30/30
MP 40/40
Level: 3
STR: 9
AGI: 10
INT: 9
Class: None
Skills: Fear Resistance Level 1, Basic Swordsmanship Level 1, Mana Sense(Passive)
Money: $20]
As she pulled up her status window. Madison could feel a sort of energy around her which she knew she couldn't tell was ever there before. She realized this as her Mana Sense skill and decided to ignore it for now.
"Okay, I think I am ready to go hunting again." Madison said as she was fully prepared and headed outside. As she got outside it was still as eerily quiet as yesterday however today she was less afraid than when this all started.
For the next hour she walked around outside searching for any more monsters that were nearby and found some more Midnight Wolves spread out around the ruined house. When she had killed her 5th wolf she got another notification indicating that she had finally reached level 5.
[Experience gained, Leveled Up]
[Does user Madison Kondark wish to evolve?]
"Not yet, let me get home first. *sigh*" Madison had just finished beheading a wolf as the notification had alerted her to her leveling up which annoyed her a bit because it sounded more like the system was nagging her to hurry up.
=====10 minutes later=====
Madison had gotten home quicker since she was on her way back home when she found the last wolf that leveled her up.
"Okay, now I will evolve Aiko." said Madison sitting on the side of her bed waiting for Aiko to chime in.
[User Madison Kondark will now evolve. Please select a new race.]
[Human, Elf, Demi-human, Demon, Monster, Angel, Dwarf, Undead, Machina]
"Hmm this is odd, Most of these are your usual game races but some are different, and some are your usual villain races too like demon and undead. Though since I have already known about the usual races like elves, demi-humans which are basically part human and part animal, and dwarf, i'd rather choosing something unique. I think I will go with Machina as the others seem like they will have the stereotypical weaknesses that you hear about all the time in games."
After what felt like half an hour of thinking through the options, Madison decided to choose Machina as her new race. Once she made her decision she heard the usual chime of the system in her ears.
[New race selected: Machina.]
[User must go to sleep in order to evolve.]
"So just like what happened after changing my name to Madison huh?" said Madison as she sighed and changed out of her gear and clothes and into her pajamas before getting some more bread and water and then went to bed.
