Splitting Up

I shrugged. "Well since both of you want Mana, there are four Mana stones over there. You both can have two. The only thing that I have to say is that you could turn into a Zombie if you fail the fight that the Stone will wage against you in your very Soul."

Anne's eyes widened. "You can go into your Soul?!"

It was almost like she didn't hear me about the Zombie part. "Yeah, you can transfer your Consciousness down to your Soul once you get to the second tier." 

Without another word, she dashed over to the Mana stone and put her hand over the top of it. As she did, she collapsed onto the dirty ash filled and cratered carpet floor. 

John rushed up to his sister and started to shake her. "Hey are you okay?!"

I walked up behind John. "Hey John, stop. She is going to be fine. Go ahead and touch your own Mana stone. Becoming an Awakener is pretty much the only way to survive in this world."

He turned to me and looked as though he accepted what I said. Sure enough, he walked over to the Mana stone and put his hand on it. The Mana stone disappeared in a flash of energy that traveled up his arm. John fell limp on his back.

I turned away from the two and walked back to the door and I opened it. On the other side of the metal door, Tessa stood guard. "Hey Tessa, have you heard everything they said pretty much?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I wanted to split our group into two or three parties after this because we aren't getting enough effectiveness fighting in a large group as we have been. It's safe, but we split the Mana stones up too much."

She licked her lips. "I agree, but I'm not taking care of those newbies, or Will for that matter."

"Then why don't we do this? You, and Jason in one group. Zane and these two newbies in my group. And lastly Jett and Will."

She nodded. "That sounds good."

"Yeah, whenever these guys wake up, we are gonna explain everything to the others and then split up into those groups."

It took about two minutes for John and Anne to wake up, but they both did at the same time. Thankfully neither of them had glowing green eyes. I was really hoping that Anne wouldn't succumb to the anger, and she had not. 

As Anne stood up though tears fell from her face. "That terrible stone made me see horrid memories! Will this sort of thing keep happening if I want to go down the path of an Awakener?"

"Yes, when you are rising to the next tier, it's going to be even harder."

"I-I'm not sure if I want to keep going on this path then."

"You must. Go touch the other Mana stone that is yours. Otherwise, you will drag us down and we will all die because of you. Do you want to drag your brother down? Do you want to drag us down? Take the stone."

She blinked a few times and then bent down and fell to the ground spasming. She was only like that for a few seconds though. 

Behind Anne, John had also absorbed his own Stone. He had listened to what Anne, and I had said to each other, and he didn't say anything. I half expected him to get mad at me, but I suppose he agreed. I was very glad that he did too because it would have gotten really annoying if he was too much of a Siscon. 

They both stood up and looked in the air. They were definitely looking at their system windows. I cleared my throat abruptly. "Alright, let's head down the stairs now. We are wasting daylight."

As we all walked to the metal door, I quickly introduced them to Tessa, but Tessa was very curt and not very kind to them. That was to be expected though.

Within minutes, we were all at the bottom of the steps and walking out the front door. I introduced John and Anne to them all and then I explained my plan to split our groups up into three separate groups.

"And so after we split up, we are going to meet back here tomorrow morning. We are going to be hunting Zombies all night long. I want to make a goal for everyone. We need to reach level 30 by the morning with at least 1,500 Mana each. Go to the system and sell some of your mana once you reach the Common Shop tier. Buy an experience potion. It will boost experience gain by 20% for 24 hours. Selling one Mana in the shop is worth 100 shop points. The potion just costs 500 points or 5 Mana."

Everyone nodded their heads. And I blinked. "I'm actually at the Rare shop tier, so let me check and see if there's a Rare tier experience potion."

___________________________

Rare tier Shop: [Open Common tier Shop here]

[SELL MANA] → Exchange rate 1 Mana = 100 Shop points.

Rare tier Skill Voucher: 25,000 Shop coins → A random skill sheet of Rare or better quality will be sent through a portal to you. 

Rare tier Item: 5000 Shop Coins → A random item of Rare or better quality will be sent through a portal. Watch your head, it might be big or small!

Rare experience potion: 5000 Shop Coins → Raise the amount of experience you get from killing Beasts, Zombies, and other Awakeners by 50% for 24 hours. 

___________________________

I nodded. "There is a Rare tier experience potion that costs 5000 shop points. We need eight potions. That's gonna come out to be 40,000 shop points or 400 Mana."

Without hesitation I clicked the 'SELL MANA' button and selected 500 Mana. I felt a tremendous amount of Mana flood through my veins. I crumpled to the ground as the skin over my veins burst open. There was pain from all over my body. All of that Mana was being ripped from my body at one. It was the worst feeling I had ever felt. I screamed. "AAHAHHHHHHH FUUUCKK!!!"

When all the liquid blue Mana had been sucked into the open blue Shop window, my skin melted back together. I could still feel sharp cutting pains all over my body where the Mana had burst from. It hurt like hell, and I felt weak as fuck, but it didn't matter. I would make it worth it. 

I stood back up and bought eight Rare potions and two Rare tier items with the extra 100 Mana I had sold. Everything dropped one by one through a white portal after about a pause of five seconds. The two pieces of equipment that came out in the end was a silver compound bow, adorned with jewels, and a two-handed Longsword with a golden straight hand guard. The handle had leather wrapped around it for a better grip. 

Interestingly, the bow increased agility by 5% when touching its user's body. It also had an option for unlimited arrows. There were twenty in the arrow bracket and according to the description, they could be refilled with mana. 

The Longsword increased Strength by 5% when touching its user's body. It also had an option to auto repair any damage or cracks using Mana.

I smiled at the others. "You guys had BETTER take these potions right now. You have no idea how much pain I just went through to get you all these potions."

I handed the potions out to everyone.

Jett drank the whole smallish bottle down in one gulp. "SHEESH! It tastes so good! It was like pure nectar flowing down my throat!"

I drank my own bottle. It had a slightly herbal taste along with a minty feeling of making your whole body a little colder.

I nodded after everyone drank their potions. "Alright everyone. We split up here. If you see another one of the three groups, just ignore them unless they need help. Focus on leveling up to level 30."

The other two groups got together and started to walk away. I needed to get some things straight with my group before we headed out though.