“Damn it,” Jack grumbled under his breath with a sullen expression on his face.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked, her eyes undoubtedly focused on the system notification that they’d all likely received.

“That [Talent Detection] thing? Well it costs 500 TP,” his face twitched again with resignation, his newly gained TP taking a hit so soon after amassing it.

“Can’t we just buy it later or something? It would make sense to save up for the limited items?” She offered, her expression ponderous

Jack just wearily shook his head in response, before adding, “I have no idea what [Talents] are, but if Bob from accounting gets lazer eyes…. well, I’d at least like to know what killed me.”

He earned a small chuckle from Sarah for that joke, a major step-up from the downcast expression she’d been wearing on her face since the incident.

“I suppose that’s true,” she conceded, with a hint of hesitation in her voice.

“Perhaps if we just get one….. I wouldn’t mind doing that, but if I get knocked out or incapacitated, you’ll have no way to know their talents,” Jack shot his own idea down after some consternation. He was going to purchase one anyway, since the thought of entrusting his fate in someone else’s hand was still an unfamiliar idea to him, but if Sarah wanted to save some points for her father, it was understandable.

“It’s fine. 500 points isn’t much in the bigger picture,” she politely refused the offer, her expression soft as she gazed at him with a gratuitous expression on her face, before turning away.

“How’s your arm?” Jack asked as he scrolled through the [System Shop], looking for the relevant add on from the list of items. His expression changed when he noticed that a few of the Attunement Stones had already been claimed, each worth a whopping 5000 TP. The number was inconsequential when compared to the quantity, but to think that even a few dozen individuals managed to amass 5000 TP so quickly was slightly surprising. Without the blessing, he had only earned an eighth of that amount— and with it, he had earned close to a third. The only reasonable way that number made sense was either encountering one of those [Hidden Pieces] that deductively should offer more TP than [Blessings] or, well, killing people. He had a feeling that it was the latter.

Sarah reduced her pace to a slow crawl, before stopping entirely. She slowly twisted her arm so that it was visible to Jack, the deep puncture wound still open, but no longer leaking blood anymore.

“You want me to heal it?” He asked her, having told her about the new skill he’d received from the skill crystal earlier.

“It doesn’t hurt as much as it itches,” She shrugged nonchalantly, still trying to keep the ‘tough guy’ act up. “But it is distracting, yes,” she added with a small whimper, making Jack’s heart beat slightly quicker.

‘Cute,’ he thought, unable to deny it. But the wilderness was no place for such emotions, at least not now.

“I have enough Qi reserves to heal you now,” Jack walked over, placing a hand over her open wound but not actually making direct contact.

“Now this shouldn’t hurt, but I’ve never done this before so I have no idea. Brace yourself,” he warned her, and only after receiving her confirmation did he cast [Minor Heal]. His hand was enveloped by a layer of light blue Qi, and a second later the blue aurora started radiating off his hand and landing on Sarah’s arm like the sun’s rays, intangible but corporeal.

Sarah’s wound started scabbing over in real time, and only a few seconds later a patchwork of bright red scabs had covered it entirely. Another few seconds later the scab peeled off and fell to the ground, leaving a patch of slightly reddened, raw skin, but otherwise unharmed.

Minor Heal has reached Lv.1

“Thank you,” she said with a smile, seemingly having felt no pain through the entire process. That was good to know.

“Not a problem. It’s nothing special after all, just got rid of an itch,” he couldn’t miss out on the opportunity to tease her lightly, the blush on her face indicating that it was effective.

“Let’s move,” She replied awkwardly, unable to hide the half-smile on her face.

Jack assented, the moment of levity having passed. The desire for some cover and rest was intensifying, even though he felt no physical fatigue or the slightest wink of sleep.

Another fifteen uneventful minutes passed before Jack and Sarah came upon two twilight boars chewing on a half-mangled corpse that was in too poor condition to identify. Jack and Sarah made quick work of it, taking one boar each; He didn’t even bother to use his Qi this time around, puncturing his sword straight through the creature’s eye and into its brain in a clean ambush. Jack found it surprisingly cathartic to kill the creature so easily, the feeling of a competent for reduced to a breeze in the park.

Sarah too seemed to resonate with his emotions, for the creature was far greater a challenge for her before— yet merely hours later, she stood triumphant over its corpse without even so much as a struggle.

The resultant experience from the kill was 8%, just enough to tip him over to the threshold of level 5. A welcome surprise, but also a conundrum— He wasn’t immediately able to decide what to invest his free points in, continuously deliberating the various possibilities and synergies that would suit his battle side.

“Jack!” Sarah’s shrill voice echoed out, the warning in her words quite evident enough. She immediately pivoted her spear his direction, alarm bells going off in his mind.

‘Was she attacking him? But then why warn him? Was it part of her attempt to misdirect his thoughts?’ Jack just held his blade defensively in front of himself, finding Sarah’s actions too bizarre to make sense— but his instincts didn’t feel the spear point towards any of his vitals. Jack watched as the spear passed by a few inches away from him, thrust forward with a significant amount of force. He couldn’t understand, why was she stabbing at air?

“Quite a vicious young lady you have here, young man,” An amused aged voice came from his immediate right, the timber deep and hearty, but to Jack the voice might be of the devil himself. Chills ran down his spine as he almost froze from the terror. A man had been standing next to him. For how long? How did he not detect his presence?

Panting deeply, Jack pivoted on his foot to face his unfathomable companion. For the first time since the apocalypse had begun, he felt true, unrestrained terror, knowing that he could have died countless times in the past few seconds.