Ryu quickly made his mental selections and then paused a moment before confirming his choices. After rethinking and making sure that he had a build that should be viable he went ahead and confirmed his choices.
"Ding! Player has been granted God's Eyes, Solo Player, Periodic Spell Focus: Spread, Stream of Numbers I, and Stack Attack I."
Ryu felt the surge of strength flow into his body and enjoyed the feeling so similar to a nice hot shower on a cold winter day. When the flow of power was done Ryu noticed that he felt more durable and that anything he focused on with his eyes would now show additional information.
Looking at the sliding glass doors leading to his balcony he could see they were plain triple layer glass with a durability of 25. Taking a glance at the front door of his apartment he could see that the door was a high grade security door with 500 durability. Seeing a poison meatball he saw the system called it a:
"Poisoned Meat Lure - Homemade poison lure that was designed by the player after carefully observing the zombies. This one contains ground up glass to shred the internals of the undead allowing fluids to leak and also allowing the poisons included to more quickly spread and damage the insides of the imbiber. Once consumed does 1-5 HP of damage per minute."
Now Ryu understood that the lures worked and why they worked so very slowly, his most basic starter damage spell will be ten times faster than these meatballs. He decided to test out his new abilities and headed back out onto the balcony, his head still pounding, and quickly used his noise maker to attract as many zombies as he could until he had a small group down below.
Looking at the group Ryu could see a small target bar over each of their heads that included the system assigned monster name, its level, total HP, and any special information about it. Ryu could see all of the zombies were pretty much the same with slight variations. They all had between 75-125 HP, were all level one, and were all listed as "Non-system Zombies".
There were a few that had special information such as a police officer he saw that had "Police Issued 9mm Sidearm, 3 spare magazines, handcuffs, police baton, personally owned ankle gun with holster" which helped him know there was non-system loot to be had down below if he wanted to wade through the corpse pile to get it.
Taking one last look at his status Ryu started with his first experiment and cast just a single Stone Spike onto a zombie in the middle of the crowd and watched as it ticked away. Every time it ticked it would spread to a couple of other nearby zombies, everytime it ticked on them it spread further, and within 10 seconds every zombie in the street below had Stone Spike slowly dropping their health. Then his class showed just how OP it truly was once his Stone Spikes started to stack up.
See when the spell ticked on it's own target it couldn't stack but since spread had a 50% chance of spreading to nearby valid targets, and it acted like a freshly cast spell all the enemies infected started to stack up stone spikes on each other like crazy rapidly reaching his max stacks of 8 before the crowd died out. All of this happened in less than 30 seconds and the system notifications started pouring in!
Over 50 zombies and he had decimated them in less than a minute. Ryu knew that as long as he was careful there was no reason he couldn't just survive but also thrive in this new world. He remembered the strange System announcements on the day this all began talking about how contribution points were the only way someone could save a piece of their planet, their home, which would mostly be taken away by other powers from other areas of the multiverse. Ryu wasn't a genius but he was smart enough to know that without a place to call his own he, and everyone else in the world, would be lost, adrift in the wider worlds that existed and fully at the mercy of others.
Ryu didn't have a plan, not yet, but he knew that if he used his time well and focused on not just survival but growth that he could put forth at least a decent enough showing to at least manage to save a small piece of his home. Or at least that was what he hoped as only time would tell.
He refocused back on the world around him and seeing the streets below were clear of the undead he decided it was time to try and secure his building from the dead trying to infiltrate at street level. Ryu took the precaution of putting on some thicker long sleeved clothing, even though it was hot, as he felt that any small protection added up, while also putting his small pistol into the front pocket of his hoodie along with a handful of spare shells. He didn't plan to use the pistol but having it just in case never hurt either.
He was happy as his improved stats showed through when he easily lifted the once heavy items barricading his front door out of the way so that he could check the peephole. Finding the hallway, from what he could see through the small peep sight, to be clear he quietly and slowly opened the door, ready at any moment to slam the door shut and re-barricade himself if needed.
He waited a minute,listening and sticking his head through the doorway to glance around the hallway, and finding nothing concerning he stepped out into the hallway. He left his door unlocked but pulled it closed to prevent any undead from getting in. He wasn't really worried about anyone alive going in since he was out of food and had nothing else of real value in a survival situation other than copious amounts of water.
He made his way to the stairwell entrance first, found the door was still tightly shut and decided to take care of the elevator first. Ryu pressed the call button for the elevator before stepping back towards his apartment entrance, giving him room to run if needed, but was relieved to find the elevator empty when the door dinged open. Before the door could close he approached and then flipped the emergency stop button which would now lock the elevator in place on the fifth floor so that others couldn't use it for quick access to his floor even if they could get inside.
Now that his floor was mostly secure Ryu turned and headed for the small utility room at the far end of the hall that housed the vending machines, storage areas, and clothes washing machines. Ryu breathed a sigh of relief, feeling much of the tension leaving his body, as he saw the vending machines still fully intact.
Remembering how much his strength had improved Ryu took the pistol from his pocket and after making sure it was unloaded used it like a small improvised hammer to smash out the protective glass fronts of both machines before going back into his apartment for a laundry bag he could use to hold his loot.
He moved much more quickly now, afraid that the noise might attract something, and within a few minutes he had two laundry bags full of all the snacks and drinks the two machines had held and headed right back to his room. He had increased stats but was still feeling weak and with a pounding headache he slammed down several of his favorite caffeinated beverages while tearing into the pile of snacks.
When he finally felt sated, even if the food wasn't the healthiest, Ryu took a couple of headache pills before heading to his bed for a nap. It was still early afternoon and giving his body an hour of sleep to let the medicine and caffeine kick in wouldn't cost him much.
He woke up an hour later and after waking up a bit, while downing another soda, he got ready to head down, floor by floor, clearing any zombies in the common areas before making his way to the security office in order to seal the security shutters and barriers across the first two floors of the building. Making his way down floor by floor Ryu saw signs of struggle and blood stains here and there but didn't find any apartments with their doors open or broken down, nor did he see any bodies dead or undead.
Ryu knew most of the people who rented apartments in the building as they were all content creators and had even met up once in a while to collaborate for different content or to celebrate life milestones together so while he didn't know for sure if anyone else in the building had survived the system integration and he was hopeful. He was going to go door to door and check for people, and loot, after the building was secure.
It only took Ryu about ten minutes to work his way down the building to the ground floor and when he got there he knew that having used the noisemakers from his balcony had been a wise decision as the bottom floor was a huge bloody chunked mess. Ryu was quietly observing the first floor lobby and the doors leading to other areas in the building such as the bunker in the basement, the security office, down towards the underground garage, and the main doors leading to the street. From what he could see it looked like several survivors had tried to hide inside his building when everything happened but since the front doors are just a simple glass the dead had managed to shatter them and stream inside.
The security office door was unlocked but he assumed the guard was gone or dead since the security features hadn't been engaged. After carefully observing and listening to the area from the door for several minutes Ryu saw nothing immediately threatening and decided to head for the security office first, once he got the steel shutters down then he could finish clearing the lobby and basement. He quietly and carefully walked towards the security office, slowing down even more after the first time he nearly slipped and fell in the gore covering nearly every surface from the knees down in the lobby, and after opening the door found his day time security guard.
The man was sitting in the office chair, slumped forward, his pistol in his lap, and the remains of the back of his head spread across the wall behind him. He could see a number of bites along his bare arms and suddenly had a bad feeling as this guard was one that he knew fairly well. Barney, the guards name, was also an aspiring content creator who lived and breathed zombie movies, games, books, and comics. It was his passion hobby and he shared it with the world.
Ryu had actually asked the security company to hire him since he was an Army veteran and also a resident of the apartments. Seeing the bites on his arms Ryu could only assume that after being bitten Barney must have assumed these were like traditional zombies and checked out to prevent himself from becoming a threat to others.
Ryu felt a true pang of sadness for the first time since all of this happened. He hadn't really connected the horror the world was going through to anything that personally affected him other than as a challenge to his survival. He had fallen into the trap of treating this new reality like another video game he was challenging for his fans but it wasn't. Real people, even if he had never met them, had died by the millions and were continuing to struggle to survive.
He had a good class with a lot of potential but how can he leverage that into being more than just another survivor struggling to get by? What can he do to help himself, sure, but others as well. Ryu knew he wasn't a leader, he wasn't a smart person with plans and backup plans covering every possible outcome, he wasn't a hero or a fighter, if the world hadn't ended he would be what he has always been a content creator, a story teller, an indirect salesman, and someone who entertained others.
Ryu pondered these questions about his future path while he carefully moved Barney's body to a corner of the office before covering him with his jacket hanging on the wall hook by the door. Barney was someone he knew and got along with even if they weren't super close and Ryu refused to just dump his body somewhere. If he got the chance he would bury him, if that wasn't possible then a bonfire would work, especially since he had a street full of bodies that he would need to deal with eventually to try and prevent himself from living next to a breeding ground for disease.
Looking around the room Ryu found that all the security systems were still working including the cameras, the motion sensors in the common areas, the floodlights on the exterior of the building, and even the interior PA systems each apartment had by their front doors that allowed security to call them and leave messages about visitors and packages being held for the tenants.
First though Ryu focused on getting the security shutters closed and found the wall panel to begin activating it. The sounds of heavy steel rolling down and slamming into place before large bolts locked everything into place securely began to fill the air in the building as panel after panel of steel slammed and locked into place, attracting additional zombie attention outside. The sounds of moans, the shuffle of feet, and eventually the low thudding echo of hundreds of dead fists beating relentlessly and uselessly on steel soon followed.
The steel shutters covered the ground and first floor of the building as well as the street level drive in entrance to the underground parking area and should be more than enough to get non-system enemies out for the moment.
Ryu then focused on using the intercom system, using his personal override code, to page each apartment one after another and then listening in to the interior of each apartment when he received no answer. Several apartments had moans and shuffling that were likely tenants who turned zombie but he heard no response or sounds of survivors.
This was both a good and bad thing to Ryu. Good because it meant that once he cleared the apartments, lobby, and parking garage area the building will be fully secure and all the supplies inside are all his. Bad because he was now truly alone, not alone like before where he preferred his solitude but could still go out shopping or to eat when he wanted to be around other humans.
Feeling the melancholy state of mind starting to affect him, Ryu pushed it all aside and refocused back on the next task. He spent the next couple of hours carefully checking the lobby and the parking garage to find them both clear of any threats before deciding to clear the apartments the next day. Instead he went to the secured stairwell in the parking garage that led to the underground bunker. He was going to return to his apartment but wanted something more than vending machine food before he did. He gathered some canned meats, veggies, and vacuum sealed meals the military often gives to soldiers before heading up the stairs to go home.
He spent the remainder of the night watching the few remaining TV broadcasts and the increasingly scarce new video uploads to WeTube attempting to gather more information and see where different groups were gathering up to pool their resources and efforts. He ate a good meal of meat and canned veggies, took a hot shower, and settled into bed still watching TV when he remembered he had some loot boxes to open in his system inventory.
Mentally opening his inventory he was surprised to see 2 gold boxes, 11 gray boxes, and 2 green boxes all glittering in his inventory waiting for his attention. Ryu selected the boxes in his head before giving the command to open them all at once.
"Ding! Congratulations for opening the loot boxes you have received…"