Fighting with Mana

Rushing to zombies, Dave enhanced his body with mana. He immediately felt how strength surged through his body as he thought, 'It certainly feels different to fight with mana.'

[Mana Enhancement (LVL 2)] had increased his strength and agility by an additional 10% making him stronger and his body sturdier.

With higher physical stats, Dave immediately felt that killing zombies became much easier than before. He felt much less resistance when he cut through their flesh, and it became easier to dodge their attacks.

As Dave beheaded another ordinary zombie, his instincts - continuously honed for 5 years - screamed inside him. Dave used [Flash Step] as he burst forward dodging a sudden attack to his head.

His [Mana Enhancement] increased his strength by another 2 points and his agility by another point, making him invincible even against 2 Hunters. However, their sudden dashes were still dangerous for him.

'I'm able to follow the movements of low-rank Hunters due to my enhanced agility, but I couldn't allow being surrounded by them.' Dave killed another pair of zombies as he distanced himself from others.

Opening a space around him, he baited hunters from the crowd of zombies. As two shadows emerged from the group, he clearly saw 2 Hunters with their sharp claws and black armour covering their bodies.

When both of the shadows rushed at him, Dave formed [Mana Barrier], surrounding his body. When their attacks were blocked, 2 Hunters wanted to swiftly retreat behind other zombies.

However, when one of the Hunters tried to retreat backwards, thin mana threads were wrapped around its legs as it fell on the ground. Following thin blue threads, it can be seen that they were attached to Dave's fingertips. It was his newly acquired skill, [Mana Threads].

Dave quickly rushed towards that Hunter and slashed his head into two halves. Hunter's corpse rested on the ground, and white brain matter was leaking out of its head.

Hunter's corpse shined brightly as a white chest had appeared atop of it. However, Dave didn't have time to feel happy about it as he still needed to deal with another Hunter. However, left only with one Hunter and with a 10% boost from his [Mana Enhancement], Dave swiftly dodged and killed the next Hunter.

[You have reached level 4.]

The system notification had appeared before his eyes.

'Right, it should already be a time to increase my level. I've killed 3 low-rank hunters and dozens of ordinary zombies,' Dave thought inwardly.

Having killed both Hunters and having dealt with half of the ordinary zombies, it was an easy task to slaughter another half. The blood and gore were scattered on the ground as dead bodies of zombies lay on the ground.

Panting lightly, Dave was satisfied with the result. 'Fighting with mana is much convenient. Although my physical condition is quite poor, I'm still able to rival a low rank 1 hunter in agility, using my mana to enhance my body. And the spoils are good too. I increased my level by one level and got 2 white chests.' Indeed, he got 2 Treasure Chests; one from each hunter.

'I'm not sure why, but the drop rates are higher than I've remembered. Maybe, they will get lower in the future. I don't know how high the initial drop rates were in the first year.' Dave was still surprised that evolved zombies had a 100% chance to drop a Treasure Chest. 'All evolved zombies dropped a Treasure Chest. It seems that I should kill more of them before the drop rate is lowered.'

Searching the battleground, he, excluding the 2 white chests he got from killing hunters, collected 37 Survival Coins.

As Brian watched how Dave slaughtered 2 evolved zombies and more than 30 ordinary zombies, he was scared to death. He saw how Dave barged in their ranks and killed all of them.

'Monster! He is a monster.' Brian never saw someone as frightening as Dave. He seemed thin and weak, yet Dave still killed all these zombies by himself. Brian didn't know anyone who was able to do the same.

Dave stood there, among the corpses of zombies, with the bloodstains on his white T-shirt. In addition to everything, he ransacked their corpses, gathering black coins from their bodies.

However, Dave wasn't a bit flustered by how he looked from the outside. He had faced much bloodier battles and knew the true purpose of Survival Coins. In the meantime, he needed to gather as many Survival Coins as he could.

Not waiting for Brian, he quickly opened 2 white chests. As usual, they disappeared from his hands with a light show. Instead of them, the loaf of bread and a small vial of blue liquid appeared on his hands.

[Restoration Bread

Description: Restores stamina of a user in 5 minutes. ]

[Basic Mana Potion

Description: Restores 10 points of mana upon drinking.]

Seeing the items, Dave understood that they were just common items. However, they still had their own uses, so he wasn't disappointed. He was more interested in how much mana he had left after the battle. He had used all his skills in the battle. But before that...'Allocate 2 points in stamina.'

'Status'

[David Murckly

Level: 4

Class: None

Survival coins: 78

Mana: 3/7

Strength: 16

Agility: 10

Stamina: 11

Intelligence: 11

Spirit: 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)]

'I spent 4 mana points in a 5-minute battle. I didn't even use any mana-based offensive skills, only support type and miscellaneous skills. My mana pool is too small for prolonged battles.' Sighing lightly, Dave thought that he still had a long way to his past's state. He was definitely stronger than other survivors. But if he fought with an experienced battle-type Awakener, he would have difficulties winning over him.

"Man, I never saw anything like this. How did you even get that strong? Didn't we start at the same time?" Brian looked paler than usual. Even though he had been killing zombies the past few days, he had never seen so much gore in his life.

Shrugging at his words, Dave pretended to know nothing. He never intended to tell about his innate ability to anyone. Well, he couldn't even do that.

"Let's go inside the building. I doubt that Adam will last any longer." He noticed that Adam was already at his limit. Adam leaned with all his body weight on Brian as he walked weakly. Everything was a blur for him as he was burning from inside.

They quickly found an open room on the first floor and settled inside it. It was a common double dorm room for roommates except for blood splattered on the floor. There was no corpse, so Dave quickly understood that it should have already turned into a zombie.

"Brian, look after Adam. I'll check the upper floors and barricade the entry point." He wanted to check the building for the presence of other zombies. He closed the doors of the dorm and blocked it with a sofa from a lounge hall.

Every floor of the dorm building always had a lounge hall, where students from the same building were able to communicate and gather together. It had several sofas for students to sit and small decorations to make them comfortable, even though it looked like a mess now, blood covering the walls and floor.