Book 1, Chapter 2: His Fears

[Alen]

Alen stared at the plant with hunger in his eyes. It was a scary look, the one he had. In the pockets of his jacket were the berries that grew on this plant, a marble sized, wrinkly blue fruits that looked like a mix between a date and a blueberry. Though he’d collected most of the berries on the shrub, he stared at the gray leaves and the slight moisture on their surface areas. These shrubs seemed to be the only plants that thrived in this area of dead plant life, but for some reason, even their leaves were gray. Most importantly though, if Alen didn’t see wrong, he saw a small white rodent running away with one of the berries in its mouth when he woke up this morning. Over all, the plant seemed safe to eat from.

He pushed that thought to the back of his mind, however. Alen simply stared at the plant and laid his jacket on the ground, before stripping off his shirt.

He opened up the shirt like a sack and covered the dull gray leaves of the shrub, before tying it tightly. He didn’t have a container, so he couldn’t make full use of what he was making, but it would do for now. The shirt would eventually gather water from the plant’s transpiration, and though it was a small amount, it would give him more time to find a more reliable water source. Alen put his jacket back on and zipped it up, covering himself once again.

Behind him was the little hole he called his temporary home. Alen had used a sharp rock to mark the trees surrounding his home, and he kept in on his person both as a weapon, but mostly as a tool to mark the way back.

The dry wind blew on his back as Alen moved forward carefully, making sure to mark the trees along the way. His nose had somewhat gotten used to the constant smell of decay in the area, but it still made him cringe whenever he left his hole. He tried to stay as alert as possible when he moved forward, not forgetting the sight of the zombies running towards the impossibly terrifying white bear.

Alen tossed one of the berries in his mouth, cringing slightly at the sour flavor. The taste was as bad as sprinkling a small pile of salt onto a lemon before eating it, skin and all. That, mixed with the smell of pungent decay in the air, served only to lessen his appetite. The moisture that spread down his dry throat was very welcome though, and the cool, almost numbing sensation he felt after eating the berries calmed his mind a little. The forest was quiet, which was somewhat disturbing. The day before, the groaning and shambling of the dead were very prominent. The only time the forest was this quiet was when…

…He’d walked into the bear. Shit.

Alen paled and bolted back towards his hideout, panting as he leaned against a tree. He grabbed the sharp stone and furiously marked the trees in the direction he came from. That was his danger zone. The big no-no spot.

“Fuck me… should I just catch one of those rodents or something?” He muttered, scratching his head. He’d read a bit about survival online, but he didn’t know jack-shit about making traps to catch rodents. The ones he saw were larger than normal mice, so he doubted he could make an effective trap. Plus, what was he supposed to do about fire? He knew about the sticks and banging stones together, but fuck, that was easier said than done. Looking at the gray clouds that covered the sky and his relatively bright surroundings, Alen sighed and started walking in the direction opposite to where he suspected the bear was in.

A few minutes passed, and there were a few close calls with the zombies walking around, but they were sparse and dumb enough that Alen hadn’t gotten into any situations that were too dangerous.

On his way, Alen collected a generous amount of the sour wrinkly berries that grew on the strange shrubs. He walked for a while, marking trees along his way, and eventually found what looked to be a small battleground. Littered all over the ground were broken swords and shredded armor. The shields he found were mostly leather, and had claw marks lining most of them. Alen started scavenging for anything useful, trying to ignore the smell that clung to the armor, and the lack of corpses in his surroundings. Either this fight occurred a long time ago, or the corpses had been turned into undead by whatever it was that caused this forest to wilt.

Because of his business, he forgot to even check if his surroundings were safe. A few trees were in the area, but some were snapped in half, making the place more open than it already was. Alen was in the middle of inspecting a broken sword when a low growl made him jump. Immediately afterwards, what looked like a blur crashed into him and sent him to the ground. Alen felt the air in his lungs get knocked out of him as he flailed around and pushed his assailant back. As he thrashed about, he felt his elbow connect with something slimy, and felt something wet squelch onto his face. His attacker howled and allowed him to roll to the side, Alen coughing and gagging as a horrible stench assaulted his brain.

Alen stumbled to his feet and looked at the zombie that had caught him by surprise. Its face was swollen and a piece of flesh hung limply by its mouth, yellow pus dripping to the ground. Alen wiped his face with his sleeve, and finally couldn’t hold it back. He keeled over and vomited on the ground. Hitting his chest, he looked up, his sight blurry from the tears as the form of the zombie rushed toward him with a growl.

He dived to the side, coughing as he cringed at the rough ground that met his descent. The zombie tripped on his feet and fell to the floor, scrambling and grabbing his leg. It opened it mouth, about to bite, when Alen desperately drove his foot into its face repeatedly, disgust boiling in his stomach at the wet squelching sounds that came out whenever his foot made contact. The zombie finally let go, allowing Alen to crawl away further.

He got on his feet and started to run, but he didn’t get very far as the zombie tackled him from behind, its sharp nails raking across his back as it drove him against a tree. Alen tasted copper in his mouth.

The zombie pulled at him, but he resisted strongly, causing both bodies to fall to the floor in a mess of flailing limbs and violence. He punched the zombie, his head hit the ground, and he kicked, pushed, and got hurt until he picked up one of the broken swords on the soil, which snapped to a sharp point, and stabbed it into the zombie’s eye. It flailed, the sword threatening to slip off, until the zombie finally stilled, falling limply on top of him. Alen whimpered and shoved it aside in panicked disgust, his ears picking up the noises in the forest around him.

A cold, numbing feeling entered his chest, but Alen paid it no heed as he limped away from the place, not even bothering to pick up the useful items in the ground.

The rest of the way back was a blur. There was a thundering headache beating against his head, the stinging wounds on his back and leg, and the heavy feeling of exertion accompanied him as he avoided undead to the best of his ability. Finally, he made it back to his hole and promptly collapsed, falling into it and grunting painfully as he rolled down into the small crevice he slept in the night before.

His face pressed against the cold stone, and the heaviness in his body caused his eyelids to slowly close…

Alen woke up in the middle of the night as a chilling numbness swept through his whole body. He arched his back as a violent tingling sensation pricked at his skin, leaving him gasping for breath as what felt like the blood in his body roiled inside of him, slowly churning and twisting and condensing somewhere in his stomach. The more it condensed, the more the feelings that rampaged through his body intensified, the numbness robbing him of feeling the cold stone below, and the violent tingling making him feel as if tiny needles were sinking into his skin, his pores expanding and contracting as if breathing in a mess of sensation and nothingness.

He couldn’t even speak, only writhing and twisting on the ground until the feeling of everything and nothing finally died down, leaving him gasping for breath. In front of him, a blue screen blinked into existence.

System Message!

By killing a creature on this plane, you have absorbed the ambient mana within its body! Due to this, your assimilation has been completed three days early, giving you access to this world’s source of energy; mana, and the effects of the type you have developed. Starting from now, whenever a threshold of mana within your body is reached, it will improve your physical and mental abilities by an amount decided by your growth priorities and actions!

Choose 3 growth-priority attributes from your status screen.

Mana Type: Necrotic

Alen stared at the message for a long time. Then, with trembling hands, he slowly waved it away, and looked at his status screen. Most of his stats had increased by 1, and he was soon prompted to choose the three stats he would prioritize over the rest. Alen gave it some thought. For him, it was already long decided he was going with a magic build. In games, he was never a fan of fighting up close, and he usually always took a role associated with attacking from afar.

He also remembered his fight against that zombie. It was already horribly decomposed, which Alen guessed was why it was so disgustingly soft and Alen shuddered to think this, weak.

Its grip wasn’t even as strong as his friends’. Granted, Bernard, James, and Anne were all black belts, but this place was obviously incomparable to the standards of his old world. It was very true though, that that zombie had been relatively weak. Its speed was nothing compared to the ones that attacked the bear Alen saw on his first day, and although it had beaten him around, Alen suspected that was just his crappy physique getting in the way. And even though he had managed to kill it in the end, that was only because he was lucky enough to encounter it in the place he did, allowing him to use a broken sword to end it in a fit of desperation.

Had he met that zombie in the forest…

Alen paled. Breathing slowly, he calmed himself. No use thinking about things that didn’t happen, he told himself, looking back at his screen as a distraction.

Now where was he? Yes. Stats. The stats. His mana type was necrotic, and he suspected this was going to affect how easy it was for him to cast spells of different types, if he was able to at all. As the system said, his mana was influenced by the ambient mana. He recalled seeing it on his status screen the other day, set as: Type: Forming – 13%. It looked like his type was already manifesting the day before he even killed the zombie. If he hadn’t killed the zombie, would he have ended up with a different type? Possibly not, because the entire forest surrounding him was dead, which would’ve probably still given him some form of death-type mana considering how the message said he was basically absorbing the mana in his surroundings passively. How about now though? If he killed a fire elemental, would his mana type change again? Or was it set to Necrotic forever?

He frowned. This system was getting complicated. Would it have hurt to have given them a fucking tutorial? Alen shook his head and focused back on the stats.

Necrotic. This’d usually give me crap like Ray of Sickness and Raise Undead. So if my mana is set to this type, it’s probably best for me to go with one of my favorite schools of magic. Necromancy, Alen thought to himself, a small smile on his tired face.

He figured that since he was going for a magic build, he might as well set the priorities to the bottom row of his stats, the ones that seemed to be related to magic. Control, Intelligence, and Wisdom, the priorities in decreasing order. Satisfied, he looked at his status screen again.

Status:

Name: Alen

Race: Human

Type: Necrotic

Health: 43%

Stamina: 71%

Mana: 100%

Strength: 9

Dexterity: 11

Agility: 8

Constitution: 9

Vitality: 10

Resistance: 8

Intelligence: 12 (++)

Wisdom: 11 (+)

Control: 13 (+++)

Skills:

None

This probably meant that Control would get the most growth, while Wisdom would get the least out of the three. As for his reasoning for choosing what he did, in his experience in games and MMOs, Intelligence would usually increase the raw power of spells, Wisdom would increase the mana pool and regen rate, while Control would reduce things like cast-time and increase CC effects by a small amount. Since he was going necromancy, it might even let him control his undead better.

He could be wrong, and might be messing up his build by choosing them like this haphazardly, but this was the most he could do. Better to have priorities than none at all. Alen nodded, this was good enough. Now, with access to mana, getting out of this forest was going to be much easier. His stats would grow and he would—

Alen stopped, the satisfied look turning into a look of horror.

“No. No, no. Nonono,” He opened up his status screen again in a hurry and looked at the bottom. Skills: None. He paled, pressing at the blue screen and trying to change his priority stats.

Priority Attributes may only be changed after hitting the next mana threshold.

“Fuck!” He covered his face with his hands and screamed. “I’m a fucking dumbass! Shit!”

Alen had realized one thing. He didn’t know any magic.

In front of Alen was a small black cloud. It had a greenish tint to it, and the fist-sized sample lightly rested atop his palm. It churned a little, twisting and moving in place, but overall staying the same shape. Suddenly, Alen let out a breath and the cloud faded away. The concentrated look on his face disappeared as he sighed and leaned against the wall. He’d been messing around with magic for a while now, and he’d managed to accomplish making his mana visible, having it condense, expand, or move in a line, while also compiling what he had gathered about the system in his note pad.

So far, he’d gathered these things:

One, the mana threshold thing was basically a glorified EXP-leveling system. Kill shit, absorb its mana, level up. Except, there were no levels, and passing the threshold would instead increase his stats, with his three priority attributes increasing the most.

Two, regeneration had been sped up by a large amount. Though it wasn’t as powerful as regenerating a grave wound within an hour. The wounds he’d gotten from that zombie, which were admittedly light, were already in the late stages of scabbing. He suspected that he’d be fully healed by tomorrow, or by the day after at the very most.

Three, magic was hard as shit. Either he didn’t have the talent for it, or he was going about it the wrong way. He could feel the mana in his body, it was gathered in a place near his stomach, and it would periodically pulse, traveling throughout his body. When he used magic to manifest his little necrotic mana cloud, the magic in his stomach was tugged at, before gathering where he wanted it to gather.

He could accomplish this easy enough, but making that mana into a spell? He had no idea how to do it. He could make the cloud do simple things, sure. But what about making it into an offensive attack? A debuff? Hell, how was he going to raise the dead?

Alen opened up the message box and typed in a message.

Messages

Neil: I talked to some people that looked like merchants a while ago. They said this continent’s named Redaria. I got a few weird looks thrown my way when I asked what this planet was called.

Gavin: hey Neil, are you anywhere near the sea? i’m staying at some fisherman’s home, but i need some help getting out of here so i can find my friend Lisa. these fuckin crabs are assaulting the village and i can’t leave because no one will help me.

Camila: I just want to get out of here, but that doesn’t look to be possible. I’ll ask around about a way to get back to our homes.

Neil: I’ll do the same. I have a little brother back home to take care of.

Alen: So uh, anyone know how to use magic?

Alen left the message there. He’d check again in a few minutes to see if anyone answered. He waved the message box away, satisfied with its new look. It even displayed how many messages he’d missed at the top left of the icon. He’d tweaked with it a while ago, changing the HTML-ish program he’d used to make it look better. Still, to think that even summoning up the screen used mana… How did he know this? There was a small tug at his stomach whenever he tried to summon it, the same tug he felt when he used his mana. Though the mana used was so miniscule that his mana didn’t even go below 100%. Now, back to fucking with magic—

Alen paused.

“Don’t tell me…” He summoned up a ball of black mana, and started writing up a ‘program’ for it in the same way he fiddled with his blue screens’ format. He didn’t use anything like an HTML or JavaScript format though, it was more like lines of information that dictated how the ball would behave, and the kind of things it shouldn’t do.

“Expand and contract… something like a do-while loop to repeat the action… Then, it moves forward, and when it touches a surface, it’ll dissipate… There we go,” Alen let the ball loose, and as ‘programmed’, it began to expand and contract from the size of a fist to a basketball repeatedly until it touched the cave wall on the other side of the room. The ball of black-green mana slowly spread outwards, before completely dissipating.

When he checked his status, the spell had depleted about 2% of his mana.

Alen stared at the wall with a complicated look. He really was a dumbass. It was a good thing he opened up that message box. Speaking of which…

Messages

Neil: Magic exists? I was thinking about that too, but I didn’t have any way to confirm it. This really is a fantasy world, huh?

Jasmine: what, have you like, picked up how to use magic??

Derek: So I reached that city I was talking about, But some guards won’t let me in. something about Identification.

Derek: oh Wait. They found out that I just got here from my clothes. called me a ‘new arrival’ and let me in. something about giving me work to do.

Sam: Alen, wait a sec.

Alen: I haven’t picked up magic yet, no. I really want a magic build though. And what was that Sam?

Sam: Ooooh my goodness, I said wait.

Neil: Make sure you keep us updated Derek.

Jasmine: i’d rather have directions to the closest town…

Alen didn’t want to disclose that he could somewhat use magic and closed the chat. Not to mention the fact that he barely knew what he was doing with his own magic, he was not going to waste his time answering questions about something he knew next to nothing about when he was still stuck in this god forsaken forest. And what the hell was Sam doing? Alen talked to the guys in the chat a bit more before a new screen appeared over the message window.

Initializing…

You have received a Chat Room invite from Sam#2574

Accept

Refuse

Alen blinked. Huh, looks like he wasn’t the first to start fucking around with mana. That, or Sam was doing it without realizing that he was using magic the whole time. Alen pressed accept almost hesitantly.

Egg Chat Room

Alen has joined the room.

Bernard: hey alen

Alen: What.

Bernard: 8=====D~~~

Anne: 8=========D~~~~

Adam: 8=D~~~

James: C====8~~~~

Sam: Ooooh my goodness guys, what the hell.

Adam: its all ‘cause you failed the voice call option sam

Anne: Yeah Sam, maybe if you weren’t so gay, we’d actually be in a call right now.

Sam: WHAT DO YOU EVEN MEAN

Bernard: look at him. Don’t worry Sam, i’ll pray for you

Alen closed the chat room wordlessly and set it as an icon beside his note pad. He’d check on the place later. His friends were most likely passing the time as they walked. Good for them, he thought. He was in a forest full of undead that wanted to tear him apart. He sighed and looked outside his little cubby hole, the moon was high up, but he couldn’t fall asleep. Alen decided to just use up the time creating spells and occasionally talk to his friends if he managed to deplete his mana.

He spent the whole night devising a few spells, but most of them were relatively useless. The only spell he was able to make that was offensive in nature cost 30% of his total mana and it was pretty weak. He had to adjust the power and mana efficiency still, too much was being used forming the spell instead of powering it. Mid-way through his experiments, another system message popped into existence in front of him and caused a grin to break out on his face.

System Message!

Congratulations! You have created the skill Mana Programming! Due to the nature of the skill, skill trees are unavailable, and the skill cannot be improved by the system.

Alen gaped and continued experimenting.

With the skill, creating his spells became much easier. He found himself making less errors, and soon, he was able to improve the efficiency of several of his experimental spells, creating a greater effect.

Seeing that he was already somewhat proficient with the new system, he finally started the creation of the spell he wanted to create. Due to not knowing how corpses were animated, Alen had no hope of copying the way the corpses were raised. Not until he could examine an actual animated specimen. He was, however, definitely not risking trying to capture a zombie just to examine it. He was a little less stupid than that.

He looked at the rays of sunlight shining down from above his hole and grinned.

Maybe he really could get out of here safely.

Alen stood in front of the exit of his cave for a long time. Where did his motivation go? What would happen once he left? He only had a single spell to put his faith in. Should he really go out? It was too dangerous. Yes, that was it. Alen didn’t think he should go out with just this spell. He should spend more time in here using his Mana Programming skill to make better spells. Some that could protect himself. He was going to make more spells, and he was going to continue with his plan, and he was getting out of this forest. Alen knew he could only get so far without testing his spells, but he disregarded that thought. Outside was dangerous. Outside was painful. Outside was going to kill him. He wiped the cold sweat that had gathered on his forehead.

Huh? He was sweating? Alen frowned at the heavy feeling in his chest. What was happening?

He looked at the exit once again, the light that come from above. Outside. Alen looked at it for a long time. He slowly turned around, walking to the corner of the small hole he called home and began to experiment on his magic once again. This was the way. He would go outside eventually. Alen repeated this to himself, as if to prove something.

Eventually, the berries that he had gathered from yesterday had begun to slowly dwindle in supply. It had covered as his food, and the juices had kept him hydrated, but he was running out. He would collect more later. When he had even better magic. Better than the ones he had already improved.

Hours passed. Alen was still experimenting. He was getting thirsty. Alen remembered his shirt that was wrapped around a bush right outside. He should probably collect the water from there. There should be a lot gathered in the cloth by now. He could sate his thirst with that. Alen looked at the exit once again. Outside. He continued to stare, his throat dry, and cold sweat on his back. Outside was dangerous. Outside was painful. He would stay here, and make his spells. Yes. That’s what he would do. His thirst could wait.

Eventually, the glow of the sun disappeared. Alen had created a few more experimental spells. His offensive ones seemed strong to him now. He wasn’t happy though. Alen had a blank expression on his face as he stared at the cave exit with bloodshot eyes. Were his spells strong enough to go outside?

“No.” Alen murmured, pulling at his hair as he groaned. Outside. He needed to go outside. He needed food. He needed water. He needed to get out of this forest. But outside… the world outside was painful. It was dangerous. He wouldn’t survive. He’d be discovered by another zombie and…

He’d die.

Alen looked weakly at the now dark exit.

He’d be torn to shreds. Eaten. A single bite at a time, and those sharp, rotting, claws would rip his flesh one strip at a time. Outside was painful. Dangerous. Outside was going to kill him. Outside was terrifying.

Alen noticed his trembling. The sweat that rolled down his back, and recalled the feeling of being unable to take a step forward as he stood in front of the exit this morning. Then, he realized something that he had been desperately denying as his eyes started to close from stress.

He was in denial—he wasn’t staying in here to improve and create new spells…

Alen was just afraid.