And so it began. My life, my nightmare, my monotonous spiral into madness. Day after day, I fought against the Revenants and against myself, trying to stay sane in a world that had no room for it. It started simply enough: five days of training and fighting. Rinse. Repeat. Survive. That was my life now. Not much of a purpose, but purpose nonetheless.
The first few weeks were a haze of desperation. The Revenants came like clockwork, relentless and predictable, their hunger for human flesh a grim certainty. Every fifth day, they reset. Every fifth day, I killed or got killed trying. If I wanted to live longer than that, I needed to adapt.
The spear became my only companion, the weight of its wooden shaft both a comfort and a burden. I trained with it relentlessly, sharpening my skills while realizing something obvious but profound: the stronger my body became, the easier it was to wield the spear, to execute precise thrusts, and to cut through the Revenants like they were paper. Strength and mastery fed into each other—a cycle I exploited like a madman clutching at straws.
I started small. Push-ups, sit-ups, squats—basic exercises to build a foundation. For a while, I trained on an empty street near an abandoned gym I stumbled across. The place was a relic of the past, machines rusted and coated with dust, but functional enough. I'd press weights, lift barbells, and push myself until my muscles screamed. A month in, I realized the old limitations of human strength didn't apply anymore. The System had lifted those barriers.
Imagine a scrawny guy benching weights that would make a bodybuilder cry. That was me. My once-lean arms began bulging, veins visible under my skin like rivers on a map. I didn't look the part yet—still too wiry—but the power was undeniable. I could feel it every time I swung my spear or crushed a Revenant's skull.
Learning the spear wasn't exactly intuitive. There weren't any YouTube tutorials or sparring partners to rely on. Instead, I had to get creative. I carved marks into tree bark, practicing my thrusts until my hands blistered. I hung fruits—melons, coconuts—from wires and stabbed at them as they swayed in the wind, mimicking the unpredictable movements of enemies.
The first time I skewered a swinging apple, I almost celebrated—then remembered I was the last human alive
When that got too easy, I shaped mud and clay into crude human forms. They didn't last long under the spear's edge, but they were enough to simulate combat. I practiced precise strikes—eye level, chest, throat, heart—until I could hit my marks without thinking.
Training became my religion. Five days of it, followed by one day of hunting Revenants. Rinse and repeat. The days blurred together until half a year had passed. My muscles began to take shape, subtle at first but undeniable. Survival became routine.
By the end of the first year, I wasn't just stronger—I was lonelier. The silence weighed heavy. I started hearing voices—my friends, my family, even strangers I'd passed on the street before the world ended. I talked back sometimes, just to keep myself sane. When that didn't work, I dressed mannequins in scavenged clothes and gave them names. Gerald, the sarcastic one. Mary, the kind one. They didn't talk back, but I could swear they sometimes shifted when I wasn't looking.
To keep my sanity, I kept a journal. A simple pencil and notebook I found while scavenging became my anchor. I logged every day, every bit of progress. It wasn't much, but it gave me a sense of time—something solid to cling to.
My daily routine had expanded:
Morning: Strength training with heavy rocks and weighted spear drills.
Midday: Hunting for supplies, avoiding Revenants.
Evening: Precision training with makeshift targets.
Night: Writing in my logbook, marking the days.
The logbook became my anchor. Each page was a record of my progress, a testament to my survival. "Day 1,827: Flung a car today. Accidentally crushed a tree with it. Need to be more careful."
Two years passed, and I saw real changes. My old spear, worn and splintered, had to be replaced. I scavenged materials—oak wood for the shaft, iron for the tip—and crafted something stronger, something that could endure the routine I'd beaten into myself.
By this point, Revenants were little more than training dummies. Their sluggish movements and predictable attacks posed no real threat. I dispatched them with ease, logging their deaths in my journal alongside my progress. My physical strength had reached absurd levels. I could lift boulders, and crush steel with my bare hands.
Five years in, my body was a machine, but my mind? That was a different story. The isolation gnawed at me, a constant, unrelenting hunger. I started seeing things—figures in the corner of my vision, faces in the shadows. To cope, I scavenged even more mannequins...
I'd dressed them in clothes, and build elaborate backstories for them, even held mock conversations.
"Morning, Steve," I'd say to a headless mannequin in a suit. "You look dashing today."
I laughed at my own jokes, but it wasn't humor—it was survival. Sometimes, the mannequins laughed back.
A decade passed, and my body underwent changes I couldn't explain. I wasn't just stronger—I was taller, broader, more defined. My face, once boyish and lean, had sharpened into something unrecognizable. Puberty 2.0, courtesy of the System.
The Revenants, however, weren't stagnant. They came in waves, larger and more aggressive, as if the System itself was trying to match my growth. I fought them off, day after day, wondering if the nightmare would ever end.
By the twentieth year, the truth became undeniable: the System was prolonging my life. Despite my age—mid-forties, by all rights—I hadn't aged a day. My hair was still dark, my body still youthful. It wasn't a gift. It was a curse.
The Revenants were laughable now. I didn't even need to fight them seriously—just enough to farm mastery points. My physical strength bordered on ridiculous. St this point training was no longer necessary, it just cured my boredom. I could uprooted trees like weeds and even carry heavy boulders the size of a small house. My journal entries reflected my disbelief, a mix of frustration and grim humor.
My spear mastery reached absurd levels. There were no more targets durable enough to train me, so I improvised. Weighted spears became my go-to. I tied stones to the shaft, practicing with them until my arms burned. Shadow spearing became a daily ritual—a dance of thrusts and spins against an invisible enemy.
I invented new drills, like holding the spear fully extended for as long as possible, pushing my endurance to its limits. Every movement, every technique, was refined until it became second nature.
[Spear Mastery: LvL 30]
Twenty years of hell, and this is what I had to show for it: strength beyond human limits, skill that bordered on godlike, and a mind teetering on the edge of sanity. The System had made me something more—and something less.