4 Zombies

I wave to Mr. Argent, which he responds back in kind. I then make my way home.

The walk felt longer than usual.

When I made it back home, I begin my training. I jog into the woods near my house and start training my mana skills while running. I want to get all of my active mana skills to at least level 10. So far, I believe that when any skill reaches level 10, they undergo a qualitative change. I make my way back home just before dinner.

Soon after I made it back home, we all eat dinner together, but as usual my dad was called in earlier to work, so he's not home. As we eat, I talk to mom and Jane to see how they've been because of my training. My mom is happy for me because I'm being more social and even working out, but I can tell my sister is feeling a little lonely. She doesn't have many friends either because any boys that approach have crushes on her, and all of the girls are jealous of her beauty and brains. That's the main reason why we're really close.

After dinner, I finished my chores, including clearing the table, and finally leveled up.

Almost immediately after, as if on cue, I get a text from Allison saying Scott hit Jackson so hard he separated his shoulder. I laughed really hard when I found out. I mean, that jerk had it coming. I reply:

[LOL. He had it coming, but I do hope he's alright for the game tomorrow]

I put my phone away and walk back to the woods to continue my training. While walking, I open up my status to see what happens when I level up because I just leveled up from my missions I get from mom:

[Name: William Steel

Occupation: The Gamer

Level: 6

HP: 220/220

MP: 140/140

Strength: 12

Dexterity: 10

Vitality: 12

Intelligence: 14

Wisdom: 24

Luck: 5

Point: 5

Cash: $60]

My training has brought up my stats a bit. This truly is like a game. Wait, If that's true, then there have to be settings. Then a message pops up as I think the word 'settings':

[Notifications – [On]/Off

Notification sound – [100]%

Sleep Training – On/[Off]]

I immediately turn the sound down to 0% because the ding is starting to annoy me. Then I start wondering what 'Sleep Training" is. I turn it on, because my gut is telling me to. No other reason, I just feel like it'll help me a lot. Then I close the window.

I make it pretty deep into the woods before I start my training. The first thing I do is try to make a search or detection skill. I take some mana and bring outside of my body and spread it out in very thin and slow waves. I'm trying to emulate how bats use echolocation, but with mana. Then, a window appears:

[[Map] function unlocked.]

I bring my mana back in, and say, "Map." As I do, another window appears. This window is just a large square with a large circle in the middle surrounded by grey. In the middle of this circle is a small blue dot. I think that's me.

I take a few steps and the map begins to move and the area of the circle expands and turns into an oval. I close it and begin training. I'll look more into it some other time.

I finish my training and run back home just after dark.

I immediately go to my bathroom and shower. I smelled horrible.

After finishing my shower, I start working on a paper we were assigned in English and it's due in a week. It's on 'Lord of the Flies' which is my all-time favorite book.

I lost track of time and when I finished, it was 2 hours later and the essay is 5 pages long. I might've gotten a bit carried away. I did manage to increase my intelligence by 2 with it though, so that's good.

It's about 9, so I go to see what Jane is doing. We start a movie and talk, mainly talk. Apparently, she's made a friend named Hayden. Apparently, this Hayden girl had seen some girls try to put some notes in Jane's locker and stopped them. When Hayden saw that the notes were filled with stuff like "Die bitch" and "A slut like you should just end it all", Hayden lost it and attacked them. I already like her. I'm also really bitter. I know Jane gets these kind of notes, and I can't do anything about it. Mom and dad have gone to the school and had several yelling matches with the principal, but they don't have cameras and they can't always prevent. The school does stop it and suspend the students when they catch them though, so they're not completely ignoring it.

Then Jane told me the reason she wanted to start making friends was because she saw that I was making friends and felt like she should too.

I tell her about Allison first, then Scott and Stiles, and then about Danny who I just met, but how I think we'll be pretty good friends.

Jane: "I want to meet them."

Will: "Why? You probably will eventually."

Jane: "There's a lacrosse game in two days and most of them are on the team, right? We can go together."

I sigh and concede.

Will: "Sure. Just don't make me look bad." I say with a smirk.

Jane rolls her eyes

Jane: "I'm the one who should be saying that. Good night." She says as she gets up and goes to her room.

I turn off the TV and head to my room. I go to sleep excited to find out what 'Sleep Training' is.

I wake up in a large white expanse. There's a window open as well:

[Type: [None]

Zombies

Time: [1:1]

2:1]

It seems like, if I'm right, I can make the time faster in here as well as have opponents to fight. I quickly choose the 2:1 time option and then the zombies type. As soon as I change it to zombies, a few walking rotting corpses start appearing from particles as if I was in a game. The first thing that hit me was a heavy smell of decay they produce. I immediately put up a mana shield to block out the smell, which works. Then I get to work with my mana wires.

I'm beheading zombies left and right and I keep leveling up. The zombies are levels 7-10, but they're so slow I can easily massacre them. I realize that after I kill them, they turn into smoke and leave behind stuff. I look at the item on the ground that look like a crystal. I use observation on it:

[[Pure Mana Crystal] A crystal of condensed and pure mana. This item can be used in many crafting recipes or can be directly absorbed to increases mana capacity by 1.]

I completely forgot about items. I need to find a way to get an item creation skill. For now, I am going to absorb any crystals I get.

I try to absorb the crystal like I do with my mana strings and it quickly becomes a mist and enters my body. I then continue the onslaught.

This goes on for a long time, before I start feeling tired. I change the Type back to normal, and as I'd hoped, the zombies disappeared all at once. I took my time to rest and when I felt rested, I started the massacre back up again. After I knew 12 hours had gone by, I was convinced that time really moved faster in here. This realization came with a surge of energy that I used to continue the slaughter fest.

I was getting a bit bored before a giant zombie appeared. It was level 30 and was about 30 feet tall. Strangely though, I didn't feel any fear, I only felt excited. I think I may be getting addicted to fighting.

I quickly open my status and put 5 points immediately into luck. Then close it and start attacking. I cast mana spear and 12 of them appear. I leave them where I am and fire 2 at the zombies' eyes, every time it tries to bring it arm down, I send another one at each eye. While its blinded, I run around behind the giant zombie and wrap my mana wires around its neck. It tries to grab them, but they're too thin and too tightly wrapped its neck before it can move its slow hand to intercept. I then pull as tightly as I can while also sending a large barrage of mana spears at its head. Many critical hit messages pop up as I do this, it seems that targeting vital spots or weak points increases the damage I can deal.

It soon turns to smoke and I level up multiple times. I walk over to the items that dropped. There is a Blue crystal, about $1,000, and a book. Why did it drop a book?