Jacob and Francis had been walking for a few minutes, but one of them was already tired.

Useless body, Jacob thought.

“So, care to explain?”

Francis was getting more and more fidgety. Something smelled fishy to him, and he had never seen meek little Jacob behave like that.

“We are on the brink of extinction, or at least we will be by the end of the day,” Jacob said, dead serious.

Francis took in his words and looked around as if something in the scenery might have revealed more to him.

“So, where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

Jacob could feel that, for the most part, Francis didn’t believe him. The ruckus in the high school hadn’t been enough. Nevertheless, Jacob didn’t care: in a matter of minutes, they would meet their quarry.

The main problem was how to slay the monster. That would be quite the fight, for sure. Or rather, it might have been a problem if Jacob did not have the knowledge of his past life.

Demonic Wolves were quicker compared to their non-demonic kins. The main problem was their teeth. The beasts had two massive canines that sprouted from their maw, so sharp they were prime material for low-level spears.

However, their resilience was nothing much. The wolves weren’t sturdy nor particularly dangerous once you kept away from their bites.

The change had begun, but it would last for decades. Then, slowly, the normal flora and fauna would evolve. Some trees, however, have already evolved. No one knew why this happened.

Jacob finally found what he was looking for. A majestic tree stood in the clear, undisturbed by other weaker woods. Its foliage was grey with thin and bloody veins of red.

“Wow, I have never seen this tree before…” Francis muttered, more and more fidgety by the minute.

“It’s a Steelbark Bloody Tree. They are very rare and precious. Most notably, however, their branches are coated in a thick layer of a steel-like substance. They make for excellent makeshift maces. Their leaves are very sharp—”

Francis tried to grab a leaf and immediately pulled his hand back with a thin but bloody gash on it.

“You are really freaking me out, man,” his friend said, hissing and nursing his hand.

It was only expected. No one had been ready for what was going to transpire soon. Humanity had to learn how to use magic and qi from scratches. It took decades before they perfected their techniques. Mostly, they had survived and become more robust thanks to some mysterious ruins that appeared all over the world.

Many had died paralyzed by terror in front of inferior beasts.

“Look for branches with cracked bark all around. We are going to need weapons for the wolves.”

“Wolves? What wolves?” Francis's eyes went wide.

“Crack the branches. We don’t have much time. Soon people will start dying if we do not act swiftly”, Jacob said.

He knew from experience that giving others things to fear and complain about was the wrong way to go. His friend needed orders right now. If they wasted even a minute, someone’s blood would be on their hands.

Francis started looking, and soon he was climbing and kicking hard on some branches with cracked bark around their base to have them drop on the ground.

In the meanwhile, Jacob sat on the ground, catching his breath.

This useless body is going to be a huge problem. I can feel magic, but my newborn pathways can barely handle a trickle of Qi. Time magic is unknown to humanity and extremely taxing on the body. I could barely affect dust with my current Qi.

Magic and Qi went hand in hand. They were not exclusive. Some people just decided to focus on one. Only great geniuses were able to wield both at the same time effectively.

Jacob scratched his nose.

Well, great geniuses and lucky cockroaches who found a Great Relic.

Cultivation of the body had ten levels, or realms, with the same names of talent levels. They were further split into ten sub-levels and three great stages for level. Once one ignored the stupid names people had come up with, it was straightforward.

Three levels would make a great stage. One to three constituted the Inferior stage, four to six made the Intermediate stage, seven to nine represented the Advanced stage. The last level was the apex of a level, and it was called as such.

One would need to raise the cultivation both in Qi and Magic, as they had distinct levels. Some were more talented in one of the two. Others, like Jacob, sucked in both.

In any case, our guy took in his hand one branch while his friend wielded the other.

The branches were considerably heavy and quite hard to maneuver for Jacob. Francis was faring a bit better, but it still felt uncomfortable for him to brandish a stick coated in metal and with razor-sharp leaves.

Thankfully, Jacob had remembered the presence of those trees near St. peter. Otherwise, they would have had to fight bare-handed.

Giving it a couple of swings, Jacob already felt tired. He had evolved and brought his body to be as resistant as a Golden Dragon in his past life. Now, he was back to being a squishy bug.

“Are you sure we got this?” his friend asked.

“All peachy,” Jacob answered.

Truth to be told, it was not peachy at all. They were two teenagers who were going to fight a Demonic Beast. If Jacob could have chosen, he would have brought some adults. However, he was sure no one would have believed him; since he could not afford that, he put his trust in his long-time friend.

If I could only have a couple of days more to cultivate my qi...

With his pitiful talent, it would take him many days to reach the first stage of the Cockroach realm. However, considering his weak body, even that would have been a major change for him. For starters, jogging for one minute without wheezing right after would have been nice.

“Jacob, would you tell me what’s going on, for real?”

Jacob had started walking with a resolute frown on his face, ready to fight to the death. Francis, on his side, was not as steady.

“World’s changed. Demonic Beasts roam free. Three relatively weak Demonic Beasts – wolves, to be precise – roam the outskirt of the village. If we miss them, they will slowly move in until they find someone to tear apart. No one would believe me, but I’m sure of this. Adults would never trust my words. Internet is down—you can at least check that.”

Francis whipped out his phone in a second and looked at it.

No signal.

No internet.

“What the hell?” he muttered.

“How do you know all this?” Francis asked right after.

“Uhm… I had a vision, kind of. Let’s say somehow I saw the future, and I know some useful stuff. If you tell anyone, we both get killed by greedy monsters, by the way. So, don’t say a word to the others about my… visions.”

Francis scratched his head and sighed.

“Well, let’s go, then. If I die, I will haunt your fuck*** dreams, pal, count on it.”

His friend was nervous and tried to show off some bravado. Jacob knew he could only go along with it: it would make no sense for him to bring his friend down and make him more hesitant than he already was.

“I’d expect nothing less.”

All they had left to do now was to kill a ferocious, deadly beast while not having any qi nor magic at all.