Day one of the Apocalypse (3)

"Everyone grab some weapons!" Adrian shouted out, to which many Survivors ran to the kitchen and grabbed knives while others picked up some cutlery off the floor.

As though the zombies had their minds connected through a hive mind, they ran slowly to the restaurant and smashed the windows with their bare hands.

Seemingly impervious to pain, the Zombies began to take down the poorly built barricades with their strangely tremendous strength.

"Ariana, what do your Stats look like?" Adrian immediately asked to investigate a thought he had.

"My Strength is 8. Vitality is 9. Magic is 102. Stamina is 8. Agility is 10. Mana Q is 105, and Mana A is at 112. What about you?" Ariana said cutely, as though she wanted to receive his praise for having Magical abilities more than ten times that of humanity's average.

Adrian felt a sudden hot air in his head. On his exterior, he charmingly smiled as he told her his Stats. Meanwhile, inside, he was filled to the brim with jealousy. Regular Narcissists could never attain such a level of emotional control. Instead, they would show their true selves within moments.

"That's weird- how do you have so much Mana if you have no affinity with it?" Ariana asked inquisitively. Once more, Adrian felt envy. It was as though those words were oil added to his internal fire.

"I know, it makes no sense to me. That's enough about me for now. Let's deal with these Zombies first." Adrian changed the topic with a smiling exterior.

Adrian took a moment to think about something relating to what he had seen on the Status Page when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

"Go help those people over there," Adrian commanded Ariana as she hesitatingly nodded and ran to the side of the door.

Behind the bar were a few Survivors who held knives very close to their bodies as they refused to move.

Amongst those Survivors was a mother who held her crying daughter, a man who looked more like a weasel than a human, and some tourists.

With a glance, it had become clear that these people had been overwhelmed by fear as they refused to move beyond the imaginary safety provided by the bar.

Momentarily ignoring them, Adrian focused on the Zombies that had begun to crawl into the windows. Heading to the window with the largest breakage, Adrian took advantage of the lack of intelligence within the Zombies.

Swinging his axe with a form that could only come from experience, his axe dug into the head of a Zombie as lines of crimson characters formed within his mind's eye. At the same time, he felt something flow into him through the axe handle.

[ Level 1 Zombie Killed - Mana absorbed ]

[ Strength +2 ]

[ You have levelled up! Level 0 -> Level 1 ]

[ Upon Level Up, all Stats remain the same. However, you can assign two Stat Points into any Stat ]

Immediately, Adrian noticed the Zombie's body turning into ash. The sound of something hitting the ground rang out as Adrian saw before him what appeared to be a notebook.

Picking up the notebook, Adrian saw no words on the cover and, when he tried to open it, was met with a restriction.

[ A Soul-Bound Item has been discovered. Will you bind to it? ]

[ The Notebook will unlock once you become a Rank One existence ]

Out of curiosity, Adrian moved back, ignoring everything that happened. Watching the other Survivors try to block off the Zombies, Adrian noticed not a single one of them mustered the courage to try to kill the Zombies like him.

'A Soul-Bound item? I will bind to it then. For now, it seems there is nothing wrong with it.'

Looking at the two free stat points, Adrian immediately attempted to add them to his Magic stat.

Disappointment and rage followed his action as a line of characters once more appeared in his eye.

[ You are unable to raise this stat ]

Trying again as he refused to believe this was the case, he tried again.

[ You are unable to raise this stat ]

[ You are unable to raise this stat ]

[ You are unable to raise this stat ]

[ You are unable to raise this stat ]

That was it. Adrian did not have an explanation. He would never be able to use Magic, it seemed.

Adrian put his anger into his swings as he cleaved apart Zombies' heads from his spot, staining himself with blood and receiving plenty of Stats and absorbing their Mana.

Apart from the Survivors behind the bar, everyone had killed one Zombie, levelling up once and receiving an item. The items received were of varying types, ranging from decent weapons and armour to materials that seemed useless temporarily.

Adrian had a plan in mind for those who refused to move. He had urged them to pick up a weapon to make themselves useful. Adrian had become the de-facto leader of the group. Currently, he was Level 3 and had increased his Stats by quite a bit.

[ Adrian Hale - Human

Class - None

Level - 3

Stats:

(For comparison, the average stats of humans are 10.00032)

< Strength - 15 -> 21 > < Vitality - 12 -> 15 > < Magic - 0 > < Stamina - 12 -> 15 > < Agility - 13 -> 14 > < Mana Q - 146 > < Mana A - 0 > < Perception - 17 > ]

Earlier, there had been a Zombie that had swiped so fast that it was unexpected. And it would have penetrated his skin with its claw-like nails.

[ Level 5 Zombie killed - Mana absorbed ]

'We cannot stay here for too long. Currently, our biggest problem is the number of Zombies out there.'

After asking all of the Survivors about their Stats, Adrian felt gloomy but kept it within him. Adrian felt that way as all of them had Magic and Mana affinity. That greatly disturbed him as he was an anomaly in two ways. First was his immense Mana Quantity that he'd never be able to use as others did. The second was his complete lack of affinity with Mana and Magical ability.

Adrian thought quickly of a way to leave the restaurant and reach a place that would be safe for them. Immediately, the University Campus came to mind.

Not only would there be a large number of people who knew him, but they would also be able to relax- if only a tiny bit.

--

Author's note: If you do like this Novel so far, please leave a comment and vote with your power stones if you haven't already. I would greatly appreciate it. It's free and takes almost no time to do so!