Morning came 3 hours later.
I stood from my position and stretched. I had been sitting in the same position since I had woken up to the dream. Nothing much had been happening anyway so I had familiarized myself with the mana around me. I could feel the mana within my body steer with my will but it was hard to control it fully. After all I had never even heard of mana before. It was only through the system that I thought I could control the mana easily. How ever I kept on with my training.
I focused the mana that was already within my mana core to circulate within my body and at a certain point I was surprised that when the mana went through certain organs they could enhance the organ's functionality. For example I had used it on my lungs and the result was that I could take in twice the quantity of air than I usually would have meaning I could hold twice as much of air and have my stamina last twice as long. When I realized this I decided to do something else that was tricky.
I used some of the mana on my brain- I didn't use too much though, didn't want to risk blowing up my brain- and the result was a self-awareness I never knew I had. I felt connected to my body in a way that I never was before. My neurons and receptors were all running at a faster rate than usual and I could feel my thought process had improved by leaps and bounds. I was even aware of the cells that were reproducing within in my body at a rapid pace and I knew that my arm was 90% healed.
'Wow this is amazing. Now lets try something…argh!'
I felt a nail bitting pain split through my head which caused me to disperse
[You are on the verge of making your own breakthrough…]
[Congratulations you have created an incomplete unranked skill 'Charged mind Level 1']
[Charged mind Level 1(Incomplete Unranked): Skill that was created by the user in an attempt to comprehend the mysteries but was unable to complete to missing requirements. Currently the skill only allows the use to speed up their thought process more than usual. Skill lasts for 10 minutes with a cooldown time of 1 minute. Consumes 6 mana per activation.
Requirements to complete skill: Second Star order core(0/1) ]
Sweat poured down my eyebrows but a flash of pleasant surprise was present in my gaze as I read through the system's message.
'I can create my own skills!' this thought would possibly change a lot of things but I had a feeling that creating skills on your own would obviously take much longer than learning skills through a skill scroll. I shook my head at the thought as paid attention to the other message at the end of the system message.
Instead I focused on the requirement to complete my skill.
"Second star order core" I muttered under my breath.
"What was that?" Lydia's voice reached my ears from behind startling me in the process.
"Nothing!" I said louder than usual. I turned to look at her. "It's nothing to worry about I was just thinking out loud"
Lydia looked at me skeptically but before she could say anything else Jordan stirred on the floor
"Oh" he yawned and stretched on the floor before he sat up and rose from the ground. He patted down his pants. "Damn sleeping on the floor sure is uncomfortable"
"It sure is man" I said and pretended not to notice the stares Lydia was giving me.
Jordan still had his gauntlets on. He hadn't taken them off since he first got them but I couldn't blame him. I hadn't parted with Black Salamander since the moment I got it so I wasn't going to say anything about that now.
Rina also got up from her sleeping position. We got another fire going and we roasted some more meat. And ate in silence this time. The meat tasted as good as it always has but I didn't get any more messages about receiving any extra stats. At a certain threshold one could no longer benefit from the same material which meant that as we got stronger getting to the next level would continue to be difficult.
When everyone finished their meal Lydia finally spoke out.
"Alright everyone now that we have rested. We needed to continue our mission" Lydia said her voice soft and delicate.
At that point I remembered that we had already volunteered for this mission to check out how the rest of the town was like currently. So far we had barely only explored part of the Western Sector of York Town. We'd seen the destruction as a result of the apocalypse, met a pack of mutant dogs and even met some gangsters. But we hadn't encountered any ravids, it was strange in a way since even at the beginning of this apocalypse the ravids would have surely outnumbered humans by a large margin.
I shook those thoughts out of my head. We could find out whatever it was later for now we had a job to finish and our objectives didn't change one bit.
"So what's our next move?" Jordan asked.
"I think we should continue with our goal of heading to the supermarket and getting some more supplies" I suggested and everyone sat silently in contemplation.
"The boy is right" a small soft voice came from behind us. We all turned to look in that direction. Candice had just woken up and she looked as pure as she did last night.
However, my thoughts weren't on that though. They were focused on something else entirely.
'Boy?' I screamed internally. 'Did she just call this daddy a boy!'
I somehow felt like my pride had taken a fatal shot. I heard someone snicker beside me and when I looked I wasn't all that surprised to see Jordan trying to hold back his laugh as he covered his mouth. But the way his shoulders kept shaking told me he was having trouble doing just that.
"You wanna die huh?" I raised my fist in his direction in an attempt to scare him. Instead all it did was make him laugh even harder.
"Boys!" Lydia shouted. "Focus please"
We both shut up at that point. All the ladies had their eyes on us and I couldn't help but fake cough in embarrassment.
"Go on" I urged.
"Currently I think it would be best to gather some supplies as well. It could also be possible that we can meet other people who have survived this far and maybe even find a way to call for help" Candice said.
"Mmh yeah I think it would be best to do that for now" Jordan agreed
"Alright then its decided. We'll head out in twenty minutes" I said and stood up.
"Why twenty minutes though?" Lydia asked
"I got to take a shit first" I said and walked all the way to the back of the store. I walked past the shelves. At the back of the store was a row of changing stalls where I assumed Candice had hidden for a while before meeting us. Beyond the stalls were two doors. One led to the men's room and the other led to the women's room.
Naturally I entered the men's room before entering one of the stores. I took down the toilet seat and…well I don't have to explain after that now do I?
…
Back in the main lobby of the store the others were standing. A minute had already passed but Huey wasn't coming down. It was obvious that he was going to take a while.
"Hey how strong is your friend?" Candice suddenly asked.
"He's strong I guess he's basically the strongest of us all as we currently are" Lydia said
"Hey little boy you better not by jerking off in there!" Jordan suddenly shouted, his voiced boomed throughout the entire store.
The girls looked at him and were about to scold him when an equally loud
"FUCK YOU!" came from the area where Huey had gone off to.
Jordan chuckled before looking at the girls. "He's going to take a while"
"We can't just stand still" Candice said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jordan immediately went on the defensive. If they were planning on abandoning his friend then he would rather kick her ass than let that happen.
"Relax" Candice said. She felt that Jordan had misunderstood and she immediately went to explain herself. "I think we should leave some one behind to wait for him. While three of us move on to the store. You said your friend was strong right?"
Jordan nodded.
"Then that shouldn't be a problem then right?"
The other two girls had been silent through out and honestly they didn't think it was a bad idea but if Jordan was against it then they wouldn't do it that way either after all they had known each for much longer than they had known Candice.
Candice seemed to have caught on to what the girls were doing but she didn't say anything. It really wasn't her place to say anything. So it all depended on Jordan's word.
Jordan was silent for a while. Seconds passed before he finally opened his mouth and naturally everyone thought he was going to speak but…
"HEY HUEY YOU THINK YOUR STRONG ENOUGH TO SURVIVE WITHOUT ME WATCHING YOUR BACK?" Jordan shouted once again.
"SINCE WHEN DID I EVER NEED YOU?" Huey shouted back. He wasn't that worried about his friends after all they were strong in their own way.
"Geez now you're just hurting my feelings man" Jordan said. "Alright so who's staying behind?"
After some discussions in it was decided that Lydia was the one to stay behind. Jordan, Candice and Rina would head out first. They said some temporary goodbyes to Lydia before they headed out the front door of the store and stepped out into the street. Jordan looked around the street for a minute. There was nothing but broken cars. He didn't see anything.
"Come on lets head out" Jordan said and the two women followed behind him.
Unbeknownst to the team as soon as they left a figure began to materialize and slowly form as if from thin air. Across the street a man's figure formed. A man with pale skin and a tall stature, he had a smooth face with no trace of a beard and his blue eyes matched his dirty blonde hair. There was also a distinct feature on the side of his neck and it was a tattoo of a tiger head.
The man smiled.
"Ho ho ho. So they split up huh?" the man brought a short dagger to his mouth before he ran his tongue on the flat edge of its blade. "This is getting exciting"