Mana crystal

Alex exits his dorm to Apparate in the second year. With a simple 'revelio', Alex broke into the building by simply creating holes in the roof and corridors. With the boy's key numbers' help, he rapidly enters their room and packs their trunks with packing charms.

Done in less than ten minutes, Alex popped in the third-year-old building, packed Rei and Saeko clothes before jumping to the second years dorms and doing the same for Saya and Naomi. He made sure to summon the essentials they would need as females.

Throwing the trunk in his storage, he popped back into his room bathroom, left the trunk and vanish again, without Shizuka aware until smelling his odour. By the time she did, he was already back on the school building roof, leaving her the task to distribute the trunks to their owners.

Before going out and starting to hunt the undead roaming on the campus, Alex emptied the stack of thirty corpses he had accumulated since the previous day. Taking out a canister containing a bright, artic blue liquid, Alex sprinkles few drops on the corpse.

As the liquid seeps in the wounds, orifices and soft tissues, the corpses rapidly shrivel up and turn into a stack of empty uniform, ashes and buried mithril nuggets.

'As expected, the magic still present in their bodies still allow the venom to turns them.' Nodded Alex, satisfied with his discoveries, before sighing. 'A pity I wasn't able to make more venom before the outbreak.'

-You still have around three other bottles of a litre, the one in your hand and those three canisters on the gate, along with some filling at home. With how much magic is pomped out of the ley lines, the canisters would rapidly fill.-

Alex shooked his head. 'The tree at the gate is not to be touched; it's for the automaton to turn any undead harvested inside. No need to let the world know of the venom, and most importantly, mithril.'

~~~

Sprinkling the venom until all corpses were changed, Alex rapidly stores the new fabric roll before the ashes were collected, and mithril turned in a single ingot.

'There should be around 1.8kg, not bad.' Thought him, already thinking of the much-needed upgrade his weapons need. 'With the 15,000 plus students here, that should be around 900kg that could be made.'

-Do you really need that much, mithril?- Asked CS, a little exasperated with Alex obsession with, say, metal.

'Yes, it will not only help me create better weapons and armour, but I also want to build vehicles too. If I'm able to put my hand on cars, planes, helicopters, tank, and the like, I will craft magical equivalents. With the lack of humans to keep the different plants around the world, electricity, oil, and the like will soon become unavailable, having already working magical equivalent would give us an edge.' Alex words take CS by surprise, but the entity could see the reasons and nod.

-Better turn into an Evans, then, and save on your reserves of venom for later. With the world in the magical slumber, you should be able to clear a good part of the undead in the school.-

Exiting the room, Alex started to walk to the nearest staircase. Along the way, he began to take note of his enhanced physic, think he didn't think possible but was grateful for non the less. Arriving in the first classroom where undead were trapped and some out, Alex was momently surprised.

'There evolved!' Shouted disbelievingly at CS theories becoming right. Unlike the previous day's undead, those had faintly glowing eyes and chest, clearly visible through the thin fabric.

'It like those undead 'Kabane' in the anime. Their eyes are blood red, save for the iris, who kept their original if greyed, colours.'

-The anime during the industrial revolution and train?- Asked CS, having only strips of memories for Alex past.

'The one.' Confirm Alex before taking a deep breath and open the door.

~~~

The sound immediatly attracted the three undead out of their shell. Alex knows something was wrong the second they took a step toward him.

'As expected, we're not the only one to be enhanced after exiting the magical sleep. What grade, CS?'

-That the worrying point. Before, the undead could be said to be between human peak and your base strength, a sort of Level 0 if you will. Now, they have breached Level 1. Even if it's just I rank, it based on your strength, not human. If humans don't receive a boost from their magically induced sleep, they simply have no hope.- Alex tsked at this, he could now officially class the undead as superhuman now, at least speed wise and he knows they had a general enhancement. The situation, not good Alex, if this trend continues, the more time passes and the stronger they will get. It's won't be long until you overpowered, leaving you only magic to fight back.- Worried CS.

Alex blades twirled before three knives were hurled at the undead with too much speed for them to react. With nearly three simultaneous *crack* their skulls were split open and brain-damaged sufficiently to not lets them rise again.

'I know, our plan to stay here won't stand long. Even if I take care of the one here, their hundred thousand outside, and thousands of them would be out the time the others emerge.' Said him while sprinkling the downed undead before turning to the cocoons.

Unlike those englobe humans, those were pitch black with dark blue veins patterns slowly pulsing. Extending his sens, Alex was nearly overwhelmed with the sent of corrupted magic. Like any other, they were secured on the ground with thick, short roots, gathering the surrounding magic.

Taking his precaution, he didn't dare to touch them, not knowing the effect they could have. He was relieved in knowing that their possible influence spread further than their roots. Leaving them on the side, for now, Alex turned back to the stack of ashes.

Alex was surprised to found something else along the mithril and knives after banishing the ashes in a crate.

~~~

As Alex took hold of the thumb-sized dark blue crystal, his question was immediatly answered as a prompt of the system appears.

{[I Rank Mana crystal detected, do you wish to absorb it? Y/N]}

'What do you think?' asked Alex to CS; even if he knew that the system wouldn't ask for any harmful substance, it was still an undead by-product.

-I think you should. The system wouldn't actively participate in harming or maiming you. It is also an unknown resource that the world will soon have in profusion, the earlier you learn its use, the better we could use it to our benefit.- Earing CS similar thought, Alex accepted.

The crystal in his hand melted on his skin, seeping into his system. He could even follow its progression through naked eyes as it coloured his veins. After a few second, he felt the liquid invade his heart and rapidly spread to the rest of his body. Deeply aware of his constitution, Alex felt the slight change it brought, along the faint left-over soon rapidly absorbed. Focusing, he could felt a small amount linger and poison his body. Thank his absurd stats, his body rapidly flush the poison, but it gives him a good idea of what happened.

Alex, wanting to make sure of what he felt was real, brought back his status plate to observe if any change had happened.

{[Name: Alexander Dòmaldr Evans]}

{[Age: 12]}

{[Race: Evans]}

{[Rank: Level 1]}

[STR: E426 -> E436]

[DEF: E486 -> E496]

[DEX: D556 -> D566]

[AGI: D579 -> D589]

[VIT: A898 -> S908]

[END: D536 -> D546]

[STA: D586 -> D596]

[ERG: C697 -> B707]

[MAG: C673 -> C683]

{[Abilities]}

[Hammerspace]-[Frost]-[Parseltougue]-[Craft magic]-[Evans]-[Venom]

~~~

-All your stats receive a boost of 10 units. If I were to guess, the I rank crystal contains 100 units. It is easy to guess where came from the small amount of poison, the remaining 10 unit. With your body unable to house it, it turned into an armful substance. If that the case, each increasing rank would have a similar reward system and a more significant amount of poison.-

'I think too. The higher the rank we absorb, the higher the poisoning became. If too much is absorbed in a short time, it could mean, at the very least, poisoning. If it doesn't kill its host, it will congest his body and prevent it further. I think it would be best to not absorb crystal from a higher ranking undead or with too much difference.'

-This will need further study, but you mostly right. With your stat way higher than the absorbed Mana crystal, you don't have difficulty absorbing it, but it didn't mean that would be the same for others.- Nodded CS, happy that Alex wasn't some short-sighted individual that would seek short-time, harming improvement again safe, slower one.-Now, all that left is to know if, and how you can raise those stats without the input of the Mana crystal.-

'True.' Alex took the remaining crystal from the ground and rapidly absorbate them, giving him an additional boost of 20 units in each of his stats. This time, the poisons took longer to be washed out of his system, confirming CS fear as of their nature.

Turning back to the eggs in the room, Alex struck one with his magic steel blade but met an unforeseen resistance. Not even a white mark was left on the shell, and thankfully his sword wasn't damaged, but he knows that he wouldn't be able to take care of them that way.

His second attempts at removing them were met with another failure. No matter how much he tried to dig the roots out, he wasn't successful and only made them spread further. Unwilling to risk and hasten the hatching, he left them as they were and turn toward hunting the birth Level 1 undead but not before taking the broken shell with him to study.

~~~

The first part of his plan was simple. He made short work on them with the trapped undead in class, gathering all materials left behind before processing further in the school building. During his travel, Alex discovers several groups of white eggs. Knowing there were human inside, he made a mental note of the room, secured it, and continued.

Twenty minutes later, Alex had gathered another 86 mana crystal from his initial three and cleaned all hatched undead in the building, leaving those outsides. The small amount of hatched undead was a subject of worry and joy for the duo. Joy, because they were only a small number, worried because any other remaining would be stronger.

The following three hours, Alex walked through the campus and visited each entrance on the school ground, making sure they were close and secure. As he thought, most of the gates were closed, as they should during the day. The only one that wasn't was the damaged grid in the parking lot for teachers.

-Did they abandon the students and flee?!- Asked disbelievingly Cs at the sight of the tore apart, not understanding how human can abandon their kin when chaos erupted.

'It's human nature, CS.' Once again, Sigh Alex recalled to his friend that humans weren't generally thinking about their kins, other than family, when disaster struck. 'Human is selfish by nature, and few would lend a hand in a similar situation.'

-I know, alright! But still...!- Bites CS defensively.

'Yes, I know.' Sigh, Alex, knowing that CS wasn't angry at him.

Putting a hand on the damaged metal grid, Alex closed the entrance back, securing the Campus for the remaining 265 survivors, other than his group. Done with the threat, Alex returned to the dorm. In the last four hours, Alex hunted down 559 hatched undeads. With them and the survivor left, Alex despair at the still 13,867 students and teachers, now undeads.