Chapter Three

'Buzz, buzz.' The right pocket of Jason's jeans vibrated, annoying him to no end. He felt around in his pocket and looked at the time on his phone.

12:00pm

"Shit!" He jumped out of bed. "I overslept!" He quickly picked out an AC DC shirt from his closet and a pair of jeans from his dresser along with socks and his unmentionables.

He ran to his bathroom and started a shower. He quickly undressed and went into the steamy water. Letting it wash over him, he thought back to the odd dream he had. "Time to lay off the roll playing games for a while." He grimaced as he remembered the rabbits tearing into his flesh.

He put his face under the current of hot water and soothed his nerves. Even as he woke up, the sense of panic didn't quite leave him. "It felt so real." He felt his stomach just to be sure. As he rubbed it, he felt something raised. Rubbing his hands over it, he felt a small circle. Looking down, he saw a small bite on his abdomen. "What the hell?" He examined it and remembered the first bite from the rabbit.

"Maybe next time, don't die?" Jason heard a feminine voice from behind the curtain.

"No way!" Jason smacked himself in the face a few times. "This can't be real!"

Selena leaned up against the wall of the bathroom and gave him a friendly wave. Her robes gave her an out of place appearance.

"I-" He started and then felt the raise on his abdomen again. "I really died?"

Selena nodded solemnly. "Hopefully you won't have to get used to it. You really should have checked your inventory before leaving the house."

Getting dressed quickly, Jason grabbed his phone and sure enough, the familiar Mage's Academy notification appeared on his lock screen.

'You have died.'

"No shit, Sherlock." He said annoyed. He then went to the window in the kitchen and noticed the fierce rabbits still grazing on the grass. "You've got to be kidding me." He said as he noticed large lumps of grass had been taken out from his lawn.

"They won't go away until you kill them." Selena walked into the kitchen and looked out the window with him. "You might want to kill them before they eat all of the grass." She was drying her hair as she stared out the window. "Maybe next time you could have your sword ready?" she raised an eyebrow as if to call him an idiot.

Jason took his gaze from the window and gave her an incredulous look. He was about to say something when he noticed her robes. "We should really find you some clothes that work for this reality, don't you think?" He smiled mockingly, happy to gain a small victory in the insult department when he noticed an honest smile on her face.

"You try wearing the same thing for a few thousand years and see if you want to keep wearing it." She said defensively as she tugged at the sleeve of the robe.

"Thousands of years?" He was taken aback. "You were in the darkness for that long?"

Salena nodded her head, but her eyes were vacant.

Jason went to a closet near the entrance of the house. He took out a couple of boxes from the top shelf which was labeled 'lost and found' and rummaged through the contents.

He produced a plain black tank top, a pair of jeans, sandals and underwear. "Here, these should fit you." He eyed her with a measuring look and handed her the clothing.

"Thank you." She kept her head down as she took the clothing from him. Her voice came out little more than a whisper.

He may be giving her a hard time about everything, but Jason didn't know half of what happened to Selena in her previous life, or in the darkness. What was happening was the result of him picking up the book, not through intervention of her own.

"I'm sorry if I've been a bit hard on you." He said as he looked away from her. "All of this is new to me, I'm not sure what to make of it. But I will return your help with whatever I can."

Jason accessed the inventory on Mage's Academy and pressed the Rusty Iron Sword icon in the plain brown parchment screen. A sword appeared in his hand. He appraised it for a moment, taking in the brown blotches of rust along the dull blade. "What a piece of crap." He sighed as he went to the door. "When this is over, me and you are going to have a long talk."

Jason opened the door and stepped through the threshold. The moment his foot met grass, the rabbits looked up from grazing.

He grimaced as he saw the red in their white fur near their mouths. He could feel the scar on his abdomen throbbing slightly. "Time for payback." He said as he charged the first rabbit.

Having never trained in swordplay before, he had seen enough on television and in his games to grasp the general idea.

He felt his legs grow lighter as he sprinted towards the beasts. As the first rabbit jumped to continue its meal that it started the previous night, Jason thrust out the blade as if it were a bat, swinging the sharp end to meet it in the air.

The sword cleaved the first rabbit in half. Jason felt the fine warm spray of blood hitting his face. Adrenaline took over as his mind went into overdrive.

Rabbit after rabbit launched themselves towards him, each one met the end of his sword before taking so much as a nibble from his pants.

Jason ran throughout the yard, each swing ended another of the furry creature's lives. Finally, he brought the sword in a downward arch and ended the last rabbit's life.

Clap clap clap. Jason returned to his senses and turned around. Selena was standing in the doorway applauding him. She looked rather cute in the tank top, but she didn't seem to put the bra on that he gave her. He would have to teach her modesty in the future as he could see a little more than even the skimpiest girl at a frat party. "You did well." She said rather excitedly. "It seems like you understand the fundamentals of battle at least."

Jason kept his eyes above her shirt and smiled. If he wasn't imagining things, he would think that she was disappointed with his aversion. "We should probably get you some actual clothing." He said as he wiped his blade on his shirt.

Buzz. Jason's phone went off with another notification. He took it out and unlocked the screen.

Congratulations!

You have completed the quest: Kill 10 Fierce Rabbits.

Rewards: 500 experience, $500, Rough leather breastplate.

Jason let out a low whistle as he saw the rewards. He then went to his bank account, sure enough his balance had changed.

'Balance: $31,049'

"Don't forget what I said." Selena called over to Jason. "The fierce beasts you kill also give you a small amount of money." She reminded him.

Jason looked over at the rabbits he had killed. Within the meat, he saw a green 10 in each one. "Damn." He breathed.

Picking up each bill within the meat, he noticed that all of the rabbits had chunks of meat already severed and cleaned. "That's convenient." He picked up the meat and noticed that the carcass disappeared the moment the meat left the ground. He lifted each bill and piece of meat to his phone. The screen turned black and a suction force brought each item into it. With each bill he put to the phone, he saw the balance on his account go up. "I just made a hundred dollars doing pretty much nothing!" Jason said to himself excitedly.

Since the fight was over, Jason had also put his sword to the phone and watched it disappear within seconds.

After he was done collecting his prize, he walked back over to Selena while stretching. "I guess I'll need to take a shower yet again after all this." He said with a smile.

"Why?" Selena cocked her head to the side. "I think you look fine."

"Maybe because of all the blood?" Jason showed her his arms which he doused in the blood of the beasts, yet when he saw them, they were as clean as they were before the battle. "What the hell?"

"The world you are walking into isn't the same as the one you were born to." Selena said with a grin. "Their blood was soaked into your skin, which is the experience you've gained. It all adds to your cultivation."

As she spoke, Jason could feel a foreign energy within him. It churned and thrashed like live animals inside his stomach. He clutched his gut in surprise. "They're still alive!" He screamed as he dropped to his knees.

"You need to purify their energy." She sat cross legged at the door. "Sit like me."

Jason didn't waste any time questioning, he sat cross legged on the ground next to her and waited for her to explain.

"I need you to clear your mind of everything but the battle. Immerse yourself in every action you took. Try to remember every beast you killed and how they died."

Jason did as she said to the best of his ability. His mind wandered back to the battle, to each swing of the sword he had made. He felt the end of each of the animals, each slice through them.

Slowly, the animalistic energy within him started to calm. Instead of thrashing, it swayed within him. It eventually settled within him, as if it had always been there.

'Buzz'

Jason checked his phone to see that his stats had changed.

'You have leveled up!'

'Current Level: 2

HP: 55

MP: 55

STM: 55

Armor Rating: 2

Current Skills:

English Scribe: Intermediate

Cooking: Beginner

Cardio: Beginner

Hunter: Beginner

Hand to Hand Combat: Beginner

Sword Skill: Beginner

Spellbook:

Novice Fire: level 0.0

Novice Water: level 0.0

Novice Wind: level 0.0

Novice Earth: level 0.0

Novice Light: level 0.0

Novice Dark: level 0.0

Novice Time: level 0.0

EXP Bonus: 20%

EXP to next Level: 1,300

Spells Unlocked:

Temporal Shift: Mastery: 100%

Arcane Thrust: Mastery: 0.00%

Hurricane Kick: Mastery: 0.00%

Flash Heal: Mastery: 0.00%

Revive: Mastery: 0.00%

Other spells may be unlocked upon experimentation and advancement in rank.

INT:6

STR:6

AGI:6

WIS:6

DEF:6

'You currently have 5 attribute points to distribute.'

Balance: $30,649'