“Well, now that you have recovered from the diseased debuff. Let me wrap up that wrist; I’ll give you your share of the pitiful loot from those mobs, and then we need to get out of here. That blood will attract scavengers.” I said as I kneeled next to Rowan.

I pulled out my bandaging materials, spread some iodine ointment over the bite wound, and wrapped it up. There was no bleed debuff, but it was still seeping blood, and my first aid skill would increase his health regen by twelve percent. Not much but with all the heals Cody had used up, a small bite wasn’t worth using a healing potion. It was better to just let a small wound like this naturally heal.

“Thanks,” Rowan said quietly while looking down and away.

“We each got a hundred forty-four credits, and each one had a level four magic beast core. So that’s four each with two leftover. Is there anything you can do with them, Rowan?” I asked. “I know spirit beasts can consume spirit and demon beast cores, and they can be used in crafting Ki Artifacts.”

“I can pull mana from them, kind of like with a mana potion. They also hold part of the experience points the creature had. So I can draw in the XP and use it to help level myself. They can probably be used in crafting, but I don’t know how yet.” Rowan answered, still not making eye contact.

I transferred his share of the credits while Magnus took care of Cody’s share of the loot. I looked at Magnus and then Cody. “Any issues giving Rowan the extra two magic cores? Since he can help level himself with them?” I asked.

After a chorus of agreement, I gave Rowan six magic beast cores. “Your defense is still meager, and aside from your leather armor, you don’t have anything to boost it.” I pulled off the formerly soul-bound amulet of protection from around my neck and handed it to Rowan. “This was made for a mage anyways. If we can find a way to soul-bind it to you, it can increase in its effectiveness once you are higher level than the previous owner.”

Rowan actually looked me in the eyes this time. “But what about Cody? I can’t take this. He should have it.” Rowan looked at his brother, worry on his face.

“Come on, bro, I used my Perk on this mace. It now gives me a suit of armor that will just get stronger over time. It’s totally lit, and it gives me an extra four points to my strength. Take the amulet. My armor gives me more protection than that does.” Cody said, working hard to convince his more vulnerable brother to take the protection.

Rowan looked at Cody and at the amulet that still hung from my hand. Then, finally, Rowan looked back at me before saying, “But you are always upfront fighting, don’t you need it?”

“Even without this,” I said, shaking the amulet a bit. “I think I have the highest defense out of everyone here, even Magnus.” I used Identify on everyone to assess their current defense.

Cody Jessup

Faithfull of God FR 2

HP: 119/119

Stamina: 238/238

Defense 12

Magnus Thomson

Cultivation: Body Rank 4

HP: 105/105

Stamina: 156/156

Ki: 76/125

Defense: 36/29

Rowan Jessup

Mage: Level 5

HP: 60/65

Stamina: 124/140

Mana: 216/252

Defense: 12

Rukia

Cultivation Rank 4

HP: 75/75

Stamina: 180/180

Ki: 105/167

Defense: 10

“Ok, Magnus and I are tied without the amulet, you and your brother have only twelve points of defense each, but he has that suit of armor that gives him an extra twenty, plus his shield bonus. Rukia may only have ten points, but it boosts up with her Arctic Flow technique. So you are currently the weakest link in the party when it comes to defense. Just take it,” I said the last bit with an encouraging smile. I didn’t want to lose anyone on the way home.

Rowan took the amulet from my hand and placed it around his neck with a nod and a half shrug. It increased his personal defense by sixteen, giving him a total of twenty-eight defense. Not a glass cannon any longer.

With that all settled, we gathered up all our things. Magnus included the weights earlier in his inventory, and I closed up my portable workshop. I needed to finish healing my damaged meridians tonight and get that mind meridian opened. If I could do that, then everyone’s armor could get an upgrade, and I can get some practice in before putting a formation into my Razor Spine spear. I pulled up the stats for it from in my inventory.

Razor Spine Spear

Quality: Exceptional

Rarity: Rare

Durability: 180/180

Damage: 44

Weight: 6lbs

Traits: Razor spine material bonus - +24dmg, +40% Ki conductivity, +1 Binding slot

Iron Oak material bonus +100 durability.

Binding slots: 5

Ki/Magic effects: n/a

This spear was absolutely amazing. The damage and durability potential alone could slaughter most creatures we came across, plus my strength and skill bonuses; I could deal out sixty damage on each hit, not to mention any critical hits I deal out. Add in five binding slots and increased Ki conductivity. I just couldn’t express how epic this spear would be once I was done with it.

The potential was so high that I didn’t even want to touch it until ready. However, my steel spear is effective enough, and with some practice with Ki bindings and making Formations, it would be pretty good.

After I cleared the Identify prompt for my spear, I saw Cody hand his four magic beast cores over to Rowan. After the brothers hugged, Rowan held each stone in hand, one at a time. Then, with eyes closed and a look of concentration on his face, each stone broke down, and a silver vapor rose out of it and flowed into Rowan’s Chest. I watched him do this ten times.

A silver light rippled over Rowan on the eighth or ninth stone, and he smiled. “Ding,” Rowan said after consuming the last of the beast cores. “Level six, only four more levels till I get my advanced class. This is so lit. I’ve doubled my level since leaving that shitty place. Oh, I still need to pick my Medium Perk too.”

We all congratulated Rowan on leveling again. Every attribute point he gets improves his survivability.

“I got another divine favor point too. It said it’s for the virtue of selflessness and generosity. I got it when I handed over those cores to Rowan. Isn’t that fire? I only need one more to reach the third faith rank.” Cody added in excitement. “Apparently, the early points are easy to get, but after the third rank, it gets a lot harder to advance. Each rank requires a lot more points to reach it.”

“Congratulations the both of you. Rowan, why don’t we wait to pick your perk until we move from here. I don’t know if more of those Ratlings will come out of that hole, and other scavengers might come around from all the blood splattered everywhere.”

“Just a sec, just let me spend my attribute points real quick, and I’ll be fit to roll,” and suiting actions to words, Rowan spent his points and was ready to go.

It was dark once we went outside. We carefully made our way down the road, looking for a suitable place to make camp. A lot of the houses around here were damaged. They looked like they had been abandoned for over a year instead of up to a week. I wondered about that as I kept pulsing my Spiritual Sense. I recalled that in some post-apocalyptic litrpgs, human-made structures outside of a safe zone would degrade faster than they would naturally. That was on top of the damage caused by the new monsters roaming the world.

I froze for a moment, causing the others to stop as well. A new window popped up in my vision. It wasn’t the usual pale blue of the system notifications.

Magnus: Dude, I just figured out one of those new features the system prompt mentioned about the UI. Our communication watches are now linked to our interfaces. You can mentally send text messages to anyone in your contacts list if they’re in range.

Reply Y/N

I clicked the reply option while glaring at Magnus.

John: Dude, the fuck, man. You nearly gave me a heart attack. Give a man some warning next time.

I started moving again, and everyone followed, unsure why I stopped but not willing to make more noise in the dark than necessary. I would explain once we set up our camp.

Magnus: Sorry, bro, I just found it and wanted to let you know we now had a means of communicating silently, but I didn’t want to make a lot of noise while walking in the dark.

John: It’s okay. Just next time, wait until we are safe, then tell me. I’m sensing a lot of stronger things out here. Stronger than during the day. We need to camp, even if it’s just in one of these overgrown yards. Once we find one without mobs, we can deploy our camp measures and be reasonably safe.

Magnus: 10-4, and I feel them too.

Reply Y/N

I chose to not reply to the last one and kept moving. Rukia stayed close to my side, Rowan and Cody were behind me, and Magnus brought up the rear in our little formation. At least Magnus had night vision built into his helm. So he was able to keep an eye on all of us and our surroundings.

It took another ten minutes of quietly moving down the sidewalk, hearing various noises of beasts growling, fighting, and worse… eating all around us before we found a suitable place to make camp.

It was a larger-than-average house that mostly was collapsed. What helped us were the bushes lining the front yard, trees overhead, and most importantly, I couldn’t feel anything other than tiny creatures like bugs in the yard.

Once we were in the middle of the yard, Magnus pulled out the Ki Tent for the first time, and I set up the Magic-based one. They were both folded down into one-foot cubes with a button on the top. Set up was as easy as ever as the tents unfolded and set themselves up. But, first, I Identified the Ki-based tent.

Tent of Seclusion

Quality: above average

Rarity: common

Durability: 33/33

Weight: 10lbs

Traits: Sleeps 4 medium sized material entities.

KI effects: creates a 20ft radius field that prevents detection form extra sensory abilities. Cost 10 Ki per hour

Ki pool: 100

I pulled up the stats on my tent.

Quiet Night Camp Tent

Type: Enchanted

Quality: Common

Rarity: Common

Durability: 30/30

Charges: 21/24

Effect: activate enchantment to cast Unnoticed. Unnoticed causes a 20ft radius from tent to remain unnoticed from bests and monsters as long as they are not driven into the area or resident does not attract notice. Enchantment consumes 1 charge per hour in effect.

Rechargeable, 50 mana per charge.

Between the two effects of each tent, unless a human sees us, we should be the next thing to invisible. We activated the tent’s abilities, and the palpable sense of danger and fear eased. I took a deep breath and quietly told everyone, “Ok, we should be reasonably safe now. I wouldn’t make any loud noises, but we can talk quietly, and we shouldn’t be noticed.” I pulled out the four camp chairs and table. I even pulled out four bottles of cold mountain dew and filled Rukia’s water bowl so she could have a drink too.

We all settled down in our seats. I took a sip of the liquid gold with a sigh of pleasure. It would be a sad day indeed when the world’s mountain dew supply ran out. I really needed to maximize my stock at each convenience store we go by.

“So, Rowan. Have you considered what medium perk you are going with? I selected a Ki smithy, Magnus chose the bloodline thing, and your brother Cody got himself an improved soul-bound weapon.” I said to start things off.

Rowan made a few gestures in the air as she manipulated her user interface. “There are a lot of good options. I leaned towards the personal vehicle or the Magic power armor, but the vehicle only carries one person. It looks like it’s some kind of Quad or motorcycle. It’s not too clear on the design and specs, just that it would be suitable for the environment it is chosen in.

“The power armor would be nice, but with the amulet you gave me, I have some pretty solid protection. And that’s what I wanted it for in the first place. Instead, you know,” Rowan’s eyes teared up as he tried to contain his emotions. “I would really like to get what all this magic stuff really is. How do spells work? What can mana do besides power spells?

“One of my options, if I pick Archetype Tome, is Arcane Researcher. It gives three apprentice tier skills. They include the Arcane Magic spell school, Enchanting, and Knowledge Arcana. This will give me a third spell school I can cast form, I can learn to enchant things like your tent, and I’ll gain actual knowledge about how this all works.”

Rowan sat looking pensive after that long explanation. Well, long for him. It was like he was waiting for us to shoot down his preference for selecting his perk. But, after a moment of thought, that’s probably exactly what happened when he chose to have a familiar for his minor perk instead of using it to add to the settlement.

Magnus spoke up before I could. “Dude, that would be awesome. Imagine the things you could make. I mean, it’s literally enchanting things. Who didn’t want to have magic items when they were kids or even an adult. And as for understanding your magic abilities, John and I are lucky that we bought guides on the basics. But, unfortunately, we don’t have anything like that for you. So go for it, man. It’s a good pick.”

“Magnus is right. Knowledge is power, and having any skill at the apprentice tier would be OP right now. My highest skill,” I paused to check my character sheet, “Is my Identify, and it’s only at rank 7. My nest highest skills are only at 6. If I remember from the beginner’s guide to all this, the apprentice tier starts at skill rank 21. And you get an apprentice skill perk too. So do it.”

Rowan straightened up in his chair more, a bit of shock and surprise on his face as we approved of his decision instead of shutting him down for it. Cody grinned next to him. Then, after a few moments of looking between Magnus and myself, Rowan thrust his finger into the screen only he could see, and a thick tome manifested on the table. It was as thick as an encyclopedia, and not one of those smaller ones like X, Y, Z. but thick like N.

“Brace yourself. It's liable to hurt. Just absorbing the information on my combat art hurt like hell. I wasn’t expecting it.”

He nodded and opened the book. Silvery light shone out of it, lighting up his face. Motes of silver dust spiraled up in a small cloud-like river and flowed into Rowan’s eyes, turning them a metallic silver.

These dust motes spiraled up into his eyes for at least ten solid minutes. Once the last speck lifted out of the book and entered his eyes, the tome crumbled to dust before being whisked away by an unfelt wind, and it was utterly gone like it never existed.

Rowan shuddered hard, then fell sideways from his chair. By the time he thumped on the grass, he was out cold. I pulled up his info with my Identify skill.

Rowan Jessup

Mage: Level 5

HP: 60/65

Stamina: 0/140

Mana: 0/252

Defense: 12

That explained it. Taking in all three skills at once and all the way to rank twenty-one drained him of all his stamina and his mana. There were no debuffs or anything. It looks like he just passed out from the overload. He will probably have a massive headache when he wakes up.

Magnus and I pulled out some sleeping equipment, including the cots we got from the sporting goods store, and set him up in my enchanted tent. We left bedding there for Cody before setting up the Ki tent with our stuff. Next chance we get, I wanted to get more tents, even if mundane, so everyone can have their own. I liked my space.

“Get some sleep, Cody,” Magnus said. “I’ve got first watch. You cool with that, bro?” he added when he looked at me.

“Yeah, that’s fine. I need to finish healing my meridian and get to work on opening my mind meridian anyways. So come get me when you are ready to turn in.”