8 Stat Points And The Poisonous Mist

"A magic stone… Two monster orbs… One fully loaded energy ammo, 780 Nova plus fifteen from me and two energy knives… And an energy pistol." He muttered as he stood on the entrance

He had acquired two hundred more nova from the other corpse, another energy knife and an energy pistol.

'Isn't this too much…?' He wondered as he looked at his baggy pants pockets, and pouches.

He now had two pouches instead of one, to split the money and monster orbs. He stole the other pouch from the other corpse.

The pistol was attached to the belt he took and was now using, just in case.

"Well then… Time to get going…" He muttered after making sure his shoes were still in decent condition.

His hair, clothes and smell was all over the place. The thing he wanted to do the most right now was get home and rest. For some reason, his hunger wasn't bothering him.

He took a step outside, and got a good look of the scenery. Broken down buildings and rundown streets. It was a wasteland.

Monsters would usually hide in the morning, and come out at night, but the stronger ones didn't care. Nonetheless, it was a big city, they were still in the outskirts.

Going deeper into the city was more dangerous. Anywhere closer to the city of Zalpha was a better choice regardless, or any other fully operating city which was probably tens or hundreds of miles away.

He began his move and started to jog as evenly as he could so nothing would fall out place.

*BOOM* *BRR* *BRR* *BRR*

The sound of explosion followed up by a sound of gunshots resounded from deeper into the city. Open vehicles which seemed like the ones you'd see in vehicles passed by the streets.

'Shit-'

The young man quickly ran and avoided the sights of the cars by hiding behind one of the buildings.

'It'd be unusual to see me walking around here… Not trying to catch any hunter's attention…'He thought to himself as he increased his jogging speed.

"All this noise… Are they cra-"

*BOOOOOOM!*

A loud explosion came off from behind the young man. When he glanced back to see what it was, his eyes widened.

A large, no, huge monster, the size of one of the bigger buildings, came crashing right through it.

This sent debris and building pieces heading straight towards the vehicles. Naturally, most weren't able to avoid it.

A dust cloud, mist and small shock-wave was also directed towards the young man.

'That's bad!-'

The last thing he wanted was to get hit or trapped inside that cloud with the mist. So he ran, he started to run as fast as he could, all so he could get away from the obvious approaching battlefield.

'Can't I run any faster!?' He shouted in his mind.

In that instant, a voice played inside his head.

'Huh?-'

The young man nearly tripped from hearing the voice, but was able to catch himself in time. He was holding tightly to as many pockets as he could, including the pouches. A strange running stance which resembled that of a chicken.

The cloud and mist was catching up, he was running out of options. He absolutely couldn't afford for it to catch up. He didn't have the necessary gear after all.

It wasn't a regular mist. It was definitely monster mist. The effects of it were unknown, but without a gas-mask inhaling it would be one of the worst experiences. Only high ranking monsters could produce it.

Usually, in situations like this, it should be announced in case any other hunters were in the area, but these hunters didn't seem to care about that rule.

'FINE! CONFIRM!' He shouted in his mind

<Confirmed. Five points applied to agility>

In that moment, the young man's eyes widened. His whole body, he felt lighter. His speed felt faster, he felt unstoppable.

'This… This is ama-'

The young man was interrupted as the cloud suddenly caught up to him and past him, trapping him inside.

He tried holding his breath and running faster, but he was already out of breath from all the running. His body began screaming for air, making it harder to concentrate, he had no choice.

*Inhale*

*Thud*

A single inhale, caused him to drop and slide across the ground, his entire body stopped responding.

He laid motionlessly on the ground. His muscles trembling, his body paralyzed.

"Mphm…"

'I hate them.' He thought to himself.

Now he was going to have to wait for the cloud to disappear, and pray that his body wouldn't suffer any horrible effects.

<Adapting…>

Two voices played inside of his mind, as he laid completely still in the ground. It was the voice again, maybe it was going to help him again. But just as he thought that-

"AAARGH!"

A surge of unbearable pain flowed through his body. Then it stopped. Then it flowed again.

"ARGH!"

Then stopped. Then again.

The voices played inside of his mind, one after another.

In that instant, the unbearable surge of pain stopped. The young man pushed himself off the ground with both hands before getting gyp.

"So I can adapt to this, too…? Is all of this thanks to this artifact?" He questioned as he looked down

'Something like this which let's me adapt to anything… Just how much would it be worth? How does it work? What else is there to know about it, and what was that thing about leveling up?'

As he thought about these things, he quickly remembered what the voice had said.

'Temporarily adapted…'

The moment he recalled those words, he grabbed his pouch which had fallen off and made sure he had everything before continuing his run.

'I'm not sure how long this effect will last but I don't want to be here to find out.'

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