Nick Torres

'Dammit, it was too real!'

Early in the morning, Leo had woken with beads of sweat on his forehead, gasping desperately for air like he was drowning several moments ago. His dream just felt so real for him that he even thought he never had his regression.

With a barely audible sigh, he never imagined he would relive his 5 years of torment in a single dream. It felt like stepping onto a roller coaster, knowing it was all in his mind before the ride even began.

His dream had only made him remember his uselessness in his past life, only further convincing him to not waste his second chance. He didn't have an interesting backstory in his past life, nor did he have any fabulous interactions with other Enhancers nor did he have any vendetta coming with him from the past life.

He literally was just a nobody in his past life! And a world never was kind to such people.

For now, he just wanted to become strong enough to survive future ordeals since, as he had remembered, their city would turn into the place of madness.

Their city, Cosol, was one of the most populated places in Federation, so a lot of danger lurked in the city. Even Leo had previously heard about it only from rumors, yet now he wanted to see it himself... Well, he doubted he had any options to choose.

With a simple goal in his mind, he cast aside other disturbing thoughts and entered a meditative state. Immediately sensing differences between meditation with 2 points in spirit and 5 points in spirit, a smile bloomed on his face.

He felt mana more clearly and sensed how more clusters of mana were drifting towards him than before. Indeed, with a higher spirit stat, mana absorption was much more effective. If mana absorption was imagined as a whirlpool surrounding his body, then spirit stat defined how large was a whirlpool, while an increase in intelligence increased its suction force.

Both stats gave similar effects, yet there was a reason why he was increasing his spirit before intelligence. Intelligence stat was about the brain matter, yet at the same time, it increased the quality of a person's soul. Spirit, on the other hand, increased the size of a soul and provided Enhancer with more soul power to use. Soul power was more like a mental strength or willpower and was easier to increase with meditation than intelligence.

He didn't prioritize intelligence as he lacked applicable skills; moreover, acquiring points for the spirit stat would be more challenging with higher intelligence. The higher the quality of a soul, the more challenging it becomes to enhance it further.

After 2 hours of meditation, he felt himself much better because it did have calming effects on the mind. Then he moved to the next step, or precisely, to the next skill he wanted to learn. However, before it, he wanted to check his progress.

[Leonard Wright]

[Level: 5]

[Class: None]

[Survival coins: 214]

[Mana: 10/10]

[Strength: 16]

[Agility: 12]

[Stamina: 11]

[Intelligence: 11]

[Spirit: 5 (+1)]

[Attribute 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), Reinforced Breathing (LVL 2), Swordsmanship (LVL 5), Battle Focus (LVL 4)]

'2 points increase in mana just in 2 hours! Nice to have high spirits! Also, I had reached 5 points in spirit and already have intelligence high enough to learn a new skill. Ahhh, surely, learning it would be much trickier than other skills.'

He wanted to learn a skill called Mana Sensing which he had previously learned with the help of the system. It was his first and an extremely convenient skill for scouting and detection, which he had bought from the military with his contribution points—a skill with a lower range for detection than Willie's Life Pulse yet still important for him if he wanted to go hunting solo again.

If he had learned it before he had gone hunting solo, he would have easily detected a mutated dog before it even attacked, allowing him to make preliminary plans.

He spread his senses all over his room and, with a higher spirit stat, started sensing changes in the mana surrounding him. He focused on connecting with mana, feeling its presence wash over him and fill the room, but the process was more challenging than he anticipated.

It was like sensing air turbulence and deducing your surroundings solely by it, which was hard by itself. Moreover, his affinity with mana was too low to clearly sense mana surrounding him, making it even more difficult to learn Mana Sensing.

One thing to say about learning skills with the help of the system was that it ignored any other restrictions and helped to reach the instinctual state of learning it. In that way, skills would be just something like a hunch; you knew how to use it on an instinctual level but was ignorant of the process, making the use of a skill unnatural. It took a long time to get adapted to such a feeling.

Normally, ordinary survivors would have never been able to learn Mana Sensing with their own efforts, not because it was impossible but due to poor mana affinity and a bizarre way of learning it, since no one would be able to replicate the notion of spreading your senses outwards, yet Leo had already experienced it before, so he was able to get a grasp of it after half an hour.

Perhaps not clearly as in his past life, but he had sensed blurry shapes of objects in his room. It wasn't perfect, but he was confident that he would get better at it.

[You have learned Mana Sensing]

[Regression is reacting towards your skill]

[Your affinity with mana is too low to further increase its level.]

'Well, I think it's good enough. Several items to increase my mana affinity and training should solve my problem.'

He had also an option to wait till his mana affinity reached the needed level since he was still adapting to mana, yet it would take too much time, so he had discarded it. Usually, people had varied mana affinities based on internal processes, with Awakeners having higher mana affinities than others.

Truly, some people are blessed!

Adding training in Mana Sensing to his daily routine, he tried to expand his senses further outside of his room. After several tries, his senses were able to penetrate the wall, moving further into a corridor; he had sensed someone sitting in the kitchen.

Because of the distance, his senses became blurry, making it difficult to identify the person. However, based on the early waking habits, he suspected it was Charlotte. Already mentally tired from Mana Sensing, he decided to catch a breath and have his own breakfast before others. He was still hiding from others that he was injured yesterday.

Leaving his room, he was moving to greet Charlotte, planning to grab some cans of food and bottles of water, but he noticed that she was pondering about something with deeply furrowed eyebrows.

"What are you thinking so hard about early in the morning?"

Flustered by his question and noticing Leo in the kitchen, she said not to worry about her, so he just shrugged it off.

"Ehm... So how are you feeling today?" Charlotte clearly looked concerned about him.

"I'm feeling better today, so don't worry about it!"

'Well, it is still painful to move, but I can cope with it.'

Saying one thing and thinking another one, he grabbed his share of food and started gulping it down. He needed nutrients to restore his body and was immersed in eating, so he ignored an intense stare that Charlotte was giving him.

"When do you think we would be able to meet our close ones? Are they alive? Can we venture outside the city?"

Overwhelmed by her questions, Leo chose to remain silent, unable to provide her with the reassurance she sought. He couldn't tell her that it was better to imagine others as dead or not to have high hopes for it.

Finally, when she stopped asking him questions, he decided to drop his question.

"Who is it? Family? Best friend? Or someone else? We are all in the same boat."

With his words, Leo sighed, hardly reminiscing about his past life.

When she heard him sighing, Charlotte couldn't help but think about it.

'Why does it seem that he already has deep scars in his heart?'

Tears welled up in Charlotte's eyes, on the brink of spilling over, yet she fought to compose herself. Even though she had watery eyes and wasn't in a mood to speak freely, she still shared with him her circumstances.

"My parents had died several years ago, leaving me with my brother Nicholas to look after. Due to the university attendance, he lived in the dormitory of his high school before everything had happened, so I'm worried about him."

Listening to her narrative, Leo realized that everyone harbors stories about their loved ones, and Charlotte was no exception. Only one thing seemed strange about it: a name Nicholas was oddly familiar to him.

'Nicholas..Nicholas...Nicholas...Nick!'

Recalling a certain name from his past life, he was surprised to hear it now. However, he thought that it might be any other person with the same name since Nicholas was quite common in their city, so he decided to ask more about him.

"Charlotte, can you tell me your surname again?"

"What is it for? My surname is Torres. Charlotte Torres."

Caught off guard by Leo's sudden question, she still answered him.

Hearing her surname, he also found it quite familiar.

'Yep, it's definitely him! Young top-enhancer of the future, Nick Torres, going with the title Slaughterer!'