'Every time I think of the moment the world was destroyed, countless images of families and friends turning into ashes by the hands of the Gods, flash before my eyes.' Even having had time to come to terms with what had happened to the previous world, Bruce was still taunted by the disturbing memories.
Since he was now stuck in the Second World, he needed to accept the way of life here. He had become a skeleton and it was important that he now learned to live and thrive with his new identity.
Ten years on in this life, would the real world be like what it was before he teleported? Would it merge with the game and be destroyed by the gods?
Bruce was't sure, but he knew his biggest crisis right now was preparing for the arrival of the players in three months!
'The Fourth Disaster' was not an empty title!
When the players arrived, all the monsters would become the targets of the players.
Not to mention that he was just a small, low-level skeleton; the bottom of the undead race.
Even the high-level undead like Skeleton King, Death Knight Earth, Lich, and Ghost Queen would not be able to withstand the onslaught from thousands or tens of thousands of players!
Level Up!
Evolve!
He would only survive if he used these next three months to become strong enough to fight against the Gods. Only then would he be qualified to consider the catastrophe ten years later!
From a small skeleton at the bottom level of the undead race, to a level where he would be fearless of the arrival of players, was an almost impossible challenge for Bruce, even with his ten years of gaming experience.
From the first time he had checked his attributes panel, he'd noticed an advantage.
The talents players had in the Second World are relevant to their race. For example, Elves had the talent of being friendly with plants, which allowed them to easily communicate with plant life and hide within the depths of the forest. Dwarves had the talent of forging, which allowed them to forge higher quality equipment more easily. Orcs had the talent to go berserk, which they achieved after reaching a certain level, and allowed them to kill monsters. And so on and so forth...
It was not uncommon for such a talent to exist in a race.
Apart from humans and the undead, most of the races in the Second World had their own specific talents, individual to them.
Other than some extremely pitiful talents, the vast majority of them proved that an individual had the potential to be great!
And whether this individual could turn that potential into pure strength and truly grow, depended on how well he could utilise his talent!
[ Devour! ]
Bruce did not know where this talent of his came from.
Perhaps it was because he had turned from a player into a monster, and his soul had mutated. It's possible it was because he had returned from the future, and the world had rewarded him. All he knew was that this talent was the only hope for him to become stronger!
'Unfortunately...' he thought, 'the attribute panel didn't give a description of the talent. The [ Devour ] talent could only be fully understood if I explored it slowly by myself.'
Sighing to himself, Bruce lifted his head and looked into the distance.
This was the boneyard.
Known as the gathering place of the skeleton race, it was naturally impossible for him to be the only skeleton there.
He was reborn at the edge of the boneyard, which was also where all the weak skeletons, like him, lived.
Deeper into the depths of the boneyard, there was a denser aura of death, which also gave birth to even more powerful undead creatures.
In the main center of the boneyard, there were hundreds of skeleton warriors, terrifying mages, skeleton knights, death knights, and other middle or even high-level undead.
This was just the starting point.
Crack.
Crack.
The quiet sound of bones shaking could be heard.
Bruce began to move.
Considering he had changed from a player in the real world, to a skeleton in the game world, he didn't feel any discomfort, apart from feeling lighter when he walked.
Even his field of vision was not much different from when he was a player.
After taking a few steps and getting used to his current body, Bruce picked up a thigh bone from the piles on the ground and walked towards a skeleton not far away from him.
He was hunting.
If he wanted to evolve from a skeleton, to an intermediate or even high-tier undead, hunting was essential. In this boneyard, there were countless skeletons that were perfect for use as hunting targets.
Bruce approached slowly.
The skeleton he had chosen to target was still standing there blankly.
As one of the lowest level skeletons, it had no memory, nor did it have consciousness. It would instinctively enter into combat when attacked, other than when it sensed the aura of the living.
This made it even more convenient for Bruce to hunt.
One step at a time.
Five meters.
Three meters.
Two meters.
When he was only half a meter away from the skeleton, Bruce raised the thigh bone in his hand and used all his strength to smash the skull of the skeleton!
Crack!
He heard a crunching sound!
"Ding, congratulations on killing a 'weak skeleton'!"
"You have gained 10 experience points."
As the skeleton fell to the ground, two pieces of information appeared on Bruce's status panel.
Thanks to the monster template, after killing the skeleton, Bruce did not have to personally devour the soul fire that was the skeleton's origin. The soul fire that was killed by the skeleton would turn into experience points and automatically fuse into Bruce's body.
'Killing a low level skeleton will give me 10 experience points.' Bruce thought to himself. 'As long as I kill nine more skeletons, I can level up to level 2, that's not too bad!'
However, after looking at the information that appeared on the status panel, Bruce's mood changed.
After killing that skeleton, he could clearly feel that the body left behind, which was now a pile of bones, was attracting him!
What was going on?
'Could it be that when I was reborn as a skeleton, I'd got infected with some strange hobby?' He thought long and hard about this.
In the end, he could not hold back, and squatted down gently.