Naked Encounter

"So... you're the guy from the CCTV." Liz spoke.

"And you're the ungrateful woman who ran away, without so much of a 'thank you'."

"Well, can you blame me? Some crazy people suddenly runs towards me. Attacks me without rhyme or reason. I'm not a fighter and I was scared so I ran away."

Alex didn't say anything and just stared at her.

"Alright, I get it. I'm really sorry for not saying 'thank you' back then. I don't even know where you were at that time. Were you here the whole time?"

"Yeah, I was in my apartment the whole time. Just like any other day. I was just lucky to survive the zombies, nothing special."

"I see."

Liz was thinking hard, Alex can see it on her face. He finally believes her a little bit and finally lowered his gun.

"Alright, fine. Since you're sorry for attacking me, then I forgive you. As for staying here, I can't allow you to do that. You can go back to your apartment downstairs if you want."

"That's fair I guess. Talk to you later, I'll get going now. I don't want you to catch a cold because of me."

Liz smiled sheepishly and strode towards the door. She took one last peek at Alex as she closed the door.

The suddenness of the event left Alex speechless. His cheeks flushed red and he suddenly had the urge to cover his private parts.

The moment was fleeting, but the embarrassment lingered. It was the first time someone had seen him naked and he felt like running away.

But Alex couldn't move.

He just stood there, staring as Liz left the room.

Not even five seconds passed and someone knocked on the door.

Liz's voice came from the other side. "Hey, Alex. I forgot my things in the bedroom. Can I come in or should I just come back some other time?"

Alex got flustered and he hurriedly ran to his bedroom.

"Just wait outside! I'll bring your things out in a minute."

He didn't know if he's ears were playing with him but he swears he could hear soft giggles from the outside.

Alex got dressed and picked up Liz's belongings next to the bedside drawer.

"Here are your things. Don't forget them next time. And don't break into other people's homes without permission."

"You got it. I won't break into other people's homes anymore, not after you almost shot me. That was close."

Alex didn't say anything. He just stared at her.

She responded with a smile and he just nodded back and closed the door.

He didn't know if he was being shy or what but he really didn't know what to do.

"I don't have the energy for this."

Alex shook his head and sighed. He wanted to rest and forget about the event.

It's been a tiring day, and the encounter with Liz sapped his energy.

After locking the door, he placed his laptop on the living room table and connected to the internet.

He opened the building's security system using his hacking program and checked the perimeter.

No movement aside from Liz who's on the way to her apartment with her backpack and modified baseball bat.

After seeing her enter the apartment without incident, he closed the program.

Next thing on his agenda is the traffic management system. He wanted to try one more time just in case he was just having some problem with his internet before.

No luck.

Alex sighed and moved on. He learned one thing from this experience. Once he successfully hacks into a system, he needs to leave some backdoor in case he gets kick out. Also, he needs to be more stealthy and leave no traces when accessing files.

With nothing else to do, he went online on social media platforms to see what's new.

As expected, most posts were about the end of the world and asking for help.

People were begging for help, while others were spreading propaganda and fake news.

"These people need to chill. They're panicking. No wonder so many people are dying and it's not even the first week."

Alex scrolled through the post. He also wanted to share his own experiences but he thought that he wasn't interesting enough.

After browsing on social media platforms, he went to online forums to check if there's anything interesting.

On the forums that he visited frequently, he saw a strange situation.

His post about the Breathing Technique were pinned on the top of the discussion boards followed by another post that thanks the Breathing Technique for allowing the person to cultivate.

He clicked on the post and the first thing he saw was a screenshot of the Breathing Technique manual.

"This is the manual of the Breathing Technique, right?"

It was. It was the same thing that he posted a few days ago. The screenshot was clear and it was easy to read.

Alex read the post.

The post was made a day after his post and has thousands of replies.

Looking at the username, @Nurse Angel, it was the same person who said they'll try the Breathing Technique because it looked promising.

He noticed that a lot of users sent him private messages thanking him for posting the Breathing Technique.

@Nurse Angel's post can be summarized into three parts.

1. Verifying that the Breathing Technique works.

2. Explaining the process of learning and the benefits learning the technique.

3. Teaching how to learn skills.

Alex easily read through the first and second part but he had to focus on the last part.

Most of the information on the first and second parts was the same from what he already know.

As for learning skills, he became interested since it was the first time someone talked about it on the internet.

To learn skills, someone needs three things: learn the breathing technique, be able to sense energy and be able to control energy.

Alex nodded his head. Since he already created a bunch of skills for his own use, he can verify that you need those three things to be able to develop a skill.

There's only one thing that shocked him.

On @Nurse Angel's post, she shares how she discovered she had a healing skill, which she called First Aid.

First Aid is a minor healing skill that can stop bleeding and close external wounds.

@Nurse Angel is part of a small group with five survivors. Their group followed the same method but got different types of skills.

With five people on the group, they got a bunch of information to share.

There are different types of skills with multiple methods of activation.

There are two known skill categories right now: defensive skills and support skills.

Most defensive skills uses energy as a barrier or cushion to soften blows while support skills enhances an individual or a group's survivability.

As for offensive skills, no one got anything close to it as they mostly got skills to increase individual strength or defense.

There may be other skills in the future as more people learn the Breathing Technique but for now, no one knows if someone can get an offensive skills or they have to develop one from scratch.

As for skill activation, it's quite easy. Defensive and support skills both need you to gather energy on where you want to use it but has different activation methods.

Defensive skills need you to trap the energy on the same place and constantly supply energy for the skill to keep working.

Support skills need you to transfer the energy to the target and it can be active for as long as you have energy to send out.

With the addition of defensive and support skills, @Nurse Angel's group had an easier time fighting zombies. Not every battle became life and death as they have healing to rely into.

They started to go and scavenge places they would have never went to otherwise.

At the end of the post, @Nurse Angel didn't forget to thank Alex as a benefactor and vouched for the Breathing Technique.

Alex nodded after reading the post.

"Alright, I'm either bad at doing research or having more people is better when doing research."