There were Thirty small Mana stones in all. I nodded. "Y'all four split the stones up between yourselves and give Will one."
Zane nodded, and Jason looked me in the eyes. "That sounds good."
I stuck my hand in my shirt and grabbed the stone. I brought it over to Will and set it at his feet.
I stood back up and looked into Will's eyes seriously. "Alright, whenever you consume this Mana stone, there is going to be a great flood of anger and it will try to take over your soul. You have to conquer the anger by using another more overpowering emotion. Focus is what I used with an underlying reason in my life as to why it was important for me. What emotion are you going to use?"
"I will use discipline. I guess that's pretty much the same thing as focus, but whatever. As for the reason, it is what has made me successful."
"Do you have women problems or any other sort of regrets?"
"Not really."
"You should be good then. Grab that stone."
He bent down and grabbed the stone. As he did, his body fell limp on the ground and he started spazzing out. I sighed and just waited for him to wake up with my sword at the ready.
Behind me, I heard one of the others yelling. "Hey, Jason and Tessa are both unconscious, and they won't wake up!"
It was Zane. I whirled around, sure enough I could feel mana swirling around in their souls combatively. They were all rising to the next tier, and I had forgotten to tell them how it worked.
'Well, they should be fine. It was honestly easier to rise to the next tier than to awaken. Speaking of…'
I heard Will stand up behind me. I whirled around with my sword at the ready. He smiled at me. "I did it!"
I grinned. "Nice job! You just surprised me a bit. I almost thought you failed and turned into a zombie."
His face paled. "Wait, that was a risk?"
"Uh yeah?"
"I didn't know that."
I turned away from Will, and I walked towards Zane. "How much Mana do you have, by the way?"
"89 now."
"Oh, at 100 Mana, you should go through the same thing that's happening to them."
"That's good to know."
"Yeah let me go tell Jett as well, so I don't forget."
I whipped around towards Jett, but Will was making small talk to him. I walked up to Jett and interrupted them. "Hey Jett, just to let you know because I forgot with the others, when you get to 100 Mana, you will go through the same thing that's happening to them."
He nodded slowly. "Alright cool, I'm almost there then."
Five minutes passed before the two of them got up from the ground at almost the same exact time. Neither Jason nor Tessa had turned into a Zombie. I nodded towards them both. "Hey guys, I'm glad to see that neither of you has turned into a Zombie, how was the experience?"
Tessa frowned at me. "I saw the Creator and then my mana turned Yellow after my attribute turned to Pride. I just wish that you had told me about this earlier."
I nodded. "Yeah, my bad."
I met Jason's eyes and he sighed. "Man Travis! I think the same thing. That really sucked and it hurt so much! It probably would have helped if I had mentally prepared myself."
"Yeah, my bad. What emotion did your Mana turn to?"
"It turned to Indigo for patience."
"Interesting."
I turned back to Tessa. "I'm surprised that you awakened Pride. What do you pride yourself in? What makes you feel Pride?"
She jutted her upper lip towards the sky. "I'm a badass woman. I traveled miles to your bunker alone. I've always been a lone wolf and I Pride myself on being someone who is helping this group and not dragging it down in the slightest."
I grinned. "Damn, that is true. Alright, I respect that. Anyways, you guys wanna go and watch me kill all of the Zombies over there. I bet you guys that I can kill them all before the first even explodes."
Jason nodded. "Go for it, man."
I took off at a run towards the Zombies that had been grouping up around something. Maybe it was somebody inside the building, but I didn't really care.
I amped the mana in my body to crescendo, my sword flicked left and right slicing through hard Zombie skulls and withered necks like pure margarine. I moved so fast that the world seemed to slow down in front of me. I smiled as my body worked.
'This is the power of 1000 Mana flowing through my veins.'
I cut through forty zombie skulls and necks within a very short span. Then I jumped up against the wall of the building, pressed my feet hard down against it, and did a flip as I pushed off away from the zombies.
As I landed in a kneeling position with my sword dug into the ruined concrete, I closed my eyes. The world behind me lit up in a series of explosions that hurt my ears. ZZZZZZTT. BAM. CRASH.
Rocks, gravel, and dust washed over me as if flung by a tornado, but I did not mind, even when they cut through my flesh. As I stood up, there was a deafening silence. The back of my shirt was shredded and bleeding, but the wounds on my back were quickly healing.
A blue window opened up in front of me as pain assaulted my back.
___________________________
You have killed 40 Initiation tier zombies and have leveled up 8 times.
Travis Scott: Level 19. Transformation tier Awakener.
SYSTEM → [Input Command/Open Store]
Vitality → 180 // Strength → 180 // Agility → 180 // Stamina → 180 // Mana → 1000
___________________________
I grinned as the levels registered. My veins that had seemed to be on fire were easing up. The heat was disappearing. I could feel every sense of mine being amplified like crazy.
'Easy!'