Chapter 9-Training

Before stepping outside Eric realizes something very important.

“I forgot my pants.” Heading back to the break room Eric grabs his pants, happy that they are mostly dry from the earlier accident, now that he has pockets Eric decides to bring his mana and health crystals. Now fully prepared he heads out.

The bodies are still at the door and smell horrible, which he figures is good in this case so no animals approach. He decides that he might as well scout ahead for when he heads to the town he goes heads in the direction of the closest town along the road.

After about 1 hour of not seeing or hearing anything, Eric decides to enter the forest.

‘It seems even the monsters avoid the road. Entering the forest Eric immediately is put on edge. Simply thinking of what could be lurking behind every tree, under a leaf on the floor or up in the canopy. To top it off the forest seemed different than the night before. While he could have missed it the previous night due to the darkness, but the forest seemed to be teeming with life, specifically plant life. Eric is no expert when it comes to plant life in forests but there seem to be plants growing everywhere, on the ground, on the trees, and in some cases, they also are growing out of each other. Their coloring seems to be odd, some plants have stripes of colors such as blue, red, yellow, and in one case black. Overall the forest didn’t look like a normal forest does.

Realizing that this is a perfect moment to find out new information he uses analyze on some of them.

Plant-jfue2946x -Transition This is a plant from the world earth, it is still changing due to the mana, so it is in a transition state.

All plants give him a similar result. If it were useful he might pick them but without knowing what is poisonous or in another way dangerous, and with it still changing he won’t know until it is too late.

After about 15 minutes off carefully looking around he finally found something, another zombie. The zombie hasn’t seen him yet, so Eric analyzes it.

Name - Level 1 Race basic Zombie (Human) HP 100/100 Description: Zombies are undead beings that can turn other creatures into zombies upon their death. This one is a Basic Zombie, meaning that it doesn’t have any conscious thoughts and acts purely on instinct.

‘Ok, so it is level 1, has 100 health, and the human part of the race means its original species is a human. It also confirms that one can be infected and become a zombie, luckily I am a ranged fighter and can kill it before it gets to me, hopefully.’

The monster is dressed in rags and has gray skin, rotting skin. It is not moving around and seems to be staring into the sky for no reason with its mouth hanging open, and Eric can see that there are many missing teeth, not that he has any plans to get bitten either way. This zombie looks exactly how one would imagine a zombie looking like from movies.

Standing about 20 meters away from it Eric takes a deep breath to calm himself and takes aim.

“Shadow Ball”

With that, a ball of darkness emerges from the staff and launches at the zombie. In just a moment the spell hits its target right on the back of his head. The zombie lurches forward, tripping on something on the ground hitting his head on a protruding root of a nearby tree. Eric is about to cast the spell again when he notices that the zombie isn’t moving. Using another analyze on tells Eric why.

Name - Level 1 Race basic Zombie (Human) HP 0/100 (Dead) Description: Zombies are undead beings that can turn other creatures into zombies upon their death. This one is a Basic Zombie, meaning that it doesn’t have any conscious thoughts and acts purely on instinct.

One shot and the zombie died. Eric hopes that it was all his spell but suspects that there was more involved. Firstly, it was a headshot so maybe there was some critical hit at work and the zombie hit it’s head on the root so again a critical hit. This experience tells Eric that his spell can probably kill a zombie in 1-4 shots, a manageable amount in Eric’s opinion.

Leaving the body there Eric looks around for more things to kill. After about 10 minutes he finds another zombie and analyzes it immediately, giving the same information as the previous one. The only difference being that the zombie and Eric see each other simultaneously.

The zombie is already shambling towards Eric when he starts to cast his spell.

“Shadow Ball”

The spell hits the zombie right in the chest when it is about 3 meters away, causing it to stumble backward, Eric simultaneously starts casting his spell again and moves backward at the same time in the hope of hitting it again before the zombie is too close, but Eric isn’t that lucky this time.

The zombie is within striking distance when it lunges, Eric shoves his staff in the way and somehow manages to continue casting the spell.

“Shadow Ball”

“AHHHHHHHH!”

Right when Eric finishes the spell, the zombie bites him on his arm. From the force of the spell and the strong jaw of the zombie, a small piece of Eric’s arm is ripped off when the zombie is knocked back.

Luckily for Eric, the zombie dies at this moment, but now Eric doesn’t celebrate, he is in too much pain, the hole in his arm has blood practically pouring out of it. After a few moments, Eric gains enough control to stop screaming and pull up his status.

Status Screen

Name Eric King Level 2 Age 19 Stength 9(0) Gender Male Constitution 9(0) Race Human Dexterity 12(0) Class Warlock Agility 12(0) Profession - Intelligence 19(2) HP 33/90 Wisdom 16(2) Mana 119/196 Charisma 9(0) Debuffs Undead Resurrection If you die within the next 6 hours, then you will be resurrected as an undead. Crippling Wound Your arm is injured to the point where you are unable to use it at 100% efficiency. Bleeding -3HP per second

“Fuck.” Seeing the debuffs Eric got from one attack and how close to death he is Eric cannot help but curse. He quickly grabs the health crystal with his other hand and throws it into his mouth without hesitation.

The health crystal tastes and feels like the hard candy that old people carry around and give to kids. Remembering that he must eat the crystal Eric bites into it. The crystal shatters in his mouth with the barest of pressure from him. The only word that Eric can think of how to describe the feeling in his mouth is “sparkly”. The sensation then moves to his entire body and then congregates on the hole in his arm. Within seconds Eric observes how the missing piece regrows, leaving behind new unblemished skin.

Looking back at his status Eric sees that his stats have changed.

Status Screen

Name Eric King Level 2 Age 19 Stength 9(0) Gender Male Constitution 9(0) Race Human Dexterity 12(0) Class Warlock Agility 12(0) Profession - Intelligence 19(2) HP 80/90 Wisdom 16(2) Mana 120/196 Charisma 9(0) Debuffs Undead Resurrection If you die within the next 6 hours, then you will be resurrected as an undead.

It turns out the crystal doesn’t only restore health, it also heals injuries, which in this case also removed the bleeding debuff, but left the Undead Resurrection debuff. With his injury healed the pain disappears giving Eric time to catch his breath.

‘Note to self, getting bit hurts. Kill zombies before they get close. For a spellcaster this is obvious but getting hit hurts a lot, in video games that doesn’t matter, and the only important thing is that you still have health, but here I might have messed up the spell, surely leading to my death afterward.’

Having used his only health crystal Eric doesn’t feel optimistic about continuing his “training” (he doesn’t have a better word for it) safely. Never the less Eric gets up and continues his “training”.

Eric's Status Screen

Status Screen

Name Eric King Level 2 Age 19 Stength 9(0) Gender Male Constitution 9(0) Race Human Dexterity 12(0) Class Warlock Agility 12(0) Profession - Intelligence 19(2) HP 80/90 Wisdom 16(2) Mana 130/196 Charisma 9(0)