The wind whistled past Arthur’s face as he raced through the car-clogged roads on his newly liberated motorbike, cursing when he had to dismount for the fifth time in as many minutes to get past a particularly nasty car crash.

The city, Arthur had come to learn, had been completely wrecked in the wake of the system's arrival. The roads were almost unusable and Arthur could spot smoke on the horizon from where numerous fires had broken out. It made Arthur wonder how the rest of the world was doing. I mean, what about all the nuclear plants that have been left unmanned. Arthur worried to himself. What would happen if humanity returned to a radiation filled wasteland? How could they cope?

Those places have hundreds of failsafes. Arthur tried to reassure himself. Humanity would have killed themselves by now if they didn't. Besides, they'll all probably come back from the tutorial with some absurdly broken abilities. Frustrated once again with his terrible luck, Arthur tried to shoot down that line of thinking but wasn't altogether successful.

The sound of dogs barking, however, proved far more successful and brought Arthur out of his inner turmoil and he quickly switched off his motorbike to not draw attention to himself. Dismounting carefully Arthur slowly made his way towards the direction the sound came from, Katana unsheathed and held out in front of him, more a show of bravado than an actual threat as he had no idea how to use it. He'd only just sharpened it that morning and he hoped it would make up for his lack of ability.

Upon coming closer to the sound, he realised it sounded more like a piteous cry than the usual barks he’d come to expect from dogs. When he finally arrived at the scene, he realised why. A gory, crimson mess greeted him as the pungent smell of blood and excrement invaded his nostrils. That's...that's a fucking intestine, isn't it? He turned around and threw up, retching up the breakfast he’d managed to scavenge. He heard the sad whine again. Turning around, Arthur saw it came from the single living thing in the multitude of dead bodies on the ground. He’d missed it initially as it looked like any of the other dead canines lying there, but on closer inspection, he saw that its chest was still rising and falling, albeit very weakly. Its entire left side had been eviscerated and its insides were lying on the ground beneath it. It was honestly a miracle it was still alive.

Identifying it, Arthur saw it was a lower level than the cat he had killed. That little shit, after all, had reached its level rapidly by gorging itself on Arthur's ether rich blood post-revival. As far as he knew, there wasn't much of that going around. At least he hoped so; unless he’d bled out somewhere else too.

Doberman level 3 (Dying) - An indigenous species of Earth, this dog is about to meet its end from injuries inflicted by an alpha wolf.

Ether- 70.

Arthur gulped. So that was what all the howling was about last night. That wolf had probably been busy murdering this dog pack. He didn't want to meet the monster that killed all these animals, not now and hopefully never if he had his way.

“I'm sorry buddy,” Arthur said walking up to it, “ I can't help you right now and you're going to die anyway.”

Steeling himself, he sliced his sword into its throat trying to make its death as painless and quick as possible. His efforts were rewarded with the number on his ether quest rising.

Current progression 340/42,000

But it left a bad taste in his mouth. Killing a dying dog just didn't sit right with him, especially when he might have been able to save it with his rare blood gel, but he wasn't about to waste a precious resource or something that might fail. Especially when the last animal that had consumed it had tried to kill him straight after.

Looking at his progress bar, Arthur saw that once again he had absorbed more ether than the system had told him the animal held. So it wasn't just a one-time thing. It raised a lot of questions, but it didn't really concern him, right now. He was simply just happy that his quest would be easier to complete. Making his way quietly back to the motorbike, he restarted his trip to the zoo after pulling the vehicle along a few blocks away from the dead mutts. He didn’t want that wolf coming after him by making too much noise, even if they were supposed to be nocturnal animals.

A 20-minute journey filled with car blockades later, Arthur arrived at his destination. Looking up at the old sign ‘Benny’s Great Zoo,’ he felt a twinge of nostalgia. His sister had always loved coming here, as she had annoyingly reminded him every time it was her birthday. It was also the last place their parents had taken them on a family trip before they had passed away in a car crash nine years ago. He was now nineteen years old and had returned alone, all his family, at least the ones who had treated him as such, dead and gone.

Sighing wearily, Arthur tried to perk himself back up and slip out of his melancholic memories.

Only partially successful, he put on a mask he’d found and walked inside the zoo. The animals he had come to hunt might have broken out of their enclosures, but he was pretty sure they hadn’t managed that particular feat in just a single day. After all, many of these animals had been born and raised here and they wouldn't leave their established territories just because their daily food arrived a little late. At least he hoped so, or he would quickly become their next meal.

The system's arrival could have also changed them completely like it had the bobcat but Arthur doubted that it would have done much yet judging by the low-level Doberman he’d killed on his way here. After all, no animal had easy access to ether rich blood to power level like the house cat had. Shaking his head, Arthur tried to focus himself on the task that lay before him. Animal activists would probably lose their shit if they ever found out that he was going to go and kill a bunch of caged, defenceless animals, but Arthur wasn’t sure that they would remain that way for long. With every animal now able to grow and evolve with ether, it was only a matter of time before humanity couldn’t deal with them anymore and become their prey. I mean, if that cat managed to reach level 20, I don't think that even a gun would be able to get through its defensive skin. Maybe a sniper rifle, but certainly no ordinary rounds.

That fact justified what Arthur was about to do, at least to himself. Besides, there was little else he could do to fulfil his system quest unless he was willing to brave the wilderness to go and hunt, which he most definitely was not. Walking towards the security area, Arthur finally managed to firm his resolve. If this was what he’d have to do to unlock his system and bring his sister back he wouldn’t hesitate.

Breaking into the security facility proved to be far more difficult than his recent burglary escapades and it took him three minutes of ineffectually trying to smash the door in before he decided it would probably be best to search the building for a key. A minute later, he stood in front of an open door, said key in hand and mentally chastised himself to not be so stupid in the future. Come on Arthur, you're supposed to be smart. Maybe look for a key next time before trying to break in somewhere.

Entering the darkroom, Arthur fumbled for a light switch, knocking over a stack of boxes in the process, until his fingers finally hit something that felt like what he was looking for. Looking into the now brightly lit room, he tried to locate what he was searching for. It wouldn't be hard. After all, if this was a properly organised room, the most important item for zoo security would easily be located.

Aha, there it is.

Arthur smiled when he found the thing he was searching for. As had become his habit now whenever he found a potential weapon, he identified the tool.

The silent tranquillizer level 6- A gun mass-produced for the sole purpose of putting animals to sleep, this gun is deadly efficient in fulfilling its purpose. Ammunition 9/10.

Judging by the lacking bullet, the weapon looked like it had seen some use recently, perhaps the day the system arrived. That was a worrying thought. Arthur didn’t want to come across any animal that had needed to be sedated by this tranquillizer. ‘And what if the beast’s not in its enclosure.’ Arthur's mind came up with all sorts of terrifying scenarios; most of them ending up with him being killed in various gruesome ways before he managed to push his worries aside. They wouldn’t get him anywhere. Holding the tranquillizer made him feel nauseous, but he squashed it down. Stop being a little bitch.

His therapist would no doubt cringe at his coping mechanism, but self-destructive as it was, it worked. He'd deal with his declining mental health when he no longer had to worry about his physical wellbeing.

Walking back outside, he tried to decide which animals to start with. The biggest, the smallest, or the most dangerous. In the end, he chose to go with the first option. Heading towards the elephant enclosure, he checked and rechecked the tranquillizer to see if everything was working properly. Whilst he had never seen its type before, he had worked a long time with guns and had extensive knowledge regarding them. Just not how to use one properly, sadly. He did however know that, although the one in his hands was old, it was still as serviceable as the day it was made. Less than a hundred darts. More than fifty. Probably not enough.

If Arthur remembered correctly, the zoo's elephant enclosure had space for only ten of the large beasts, unless things had changed recently, which he saw little reason for. Elephants lived for a long time and unless they all decided to just die, the zoo would have no reason to move them for their spacious enclosure. Arriving Arthur smiled when he realised his memory hadn't failed him. It rarely did. Standing in a small field in front of him were the same eight elephants he remembered seeing when he was a child. They stumbled along the ground, doing little besides eating whenever the fancy struck them.

One of them, the eldest if Arthur could be called a judge in animal biology, which he could, was asleep in a patch of shade beneath a large tree, leafless from the elephants eating spree post-human disappearance. After a few minutes of observing them, Arthur steeled his resolve. Getting ready for his dirty work, Arthur identified the eldest sleeping grey giant.

Iron tusk level 6 - This large beast is an evolved variant of the elephant, an indigenous animal of Earth. This beast possesses great strength and endurance but lacks speed.

Ether 220.

It was the highest level elephant in the enclosure, the only evolved version by the looks of it, as well as the highest level animal he'd seen so far. Probably the most dangerous too, if its description was anything to go by.

Arthur could only hope that the fact that the elephants were herbivores would make them less aggressive. Taking careful aim, Arthur decided to first shoot the evolved variant as he deemed it the largest threat. He didn't want it acting up when it realised all its brethren were strangely beginning to fall asleep. Letting his breath out slowly, he squeezed the trigger. The anaesthetic bullet easily pierced into its thick, leathery skin. If the great animal felt anything, it didn't show; its continued slumber was a good sign of success.

None of the animals realised anything was wrong, as the tranquillizer lived up to its name and was deadly silent. Slowly, Arthur once again aimed with the gun and pressed the trigger. Each of his shots was on target- he could hardly miss with the size of his prey- with less time taken between them as Arthur got a better feel with the weapon. The anaesthetic was fast-acting, and the elephants were all fast asleep within a minute. Deciding to be on the safe side, he shot his last bullet once again into the Iron tusk, which he deemed the largest possible point of failure. He didn't want it to start waking up as soon as he got into their enclosure.

Pushing his sword through the wire mesh fence, he quickly followed it by climbing over into the elephant's territory. Cautiously approaching the eldest animal, he quickly arrived at its giant shoulder. Looking at its massive head, Arthur thought about how best to go about this execution. In the end, he decided its neck was the most vulnerable spot, its skull probably being too thick for the katana to do adequate damage. Holding the Japanese sword like one would an axe, his form most certainly terrible, he swung down, putting his entire weight behind the strike.

THWACK!

Arthur cringed. The sound seemed definingly loud in the silence of the elephant's home. Looking at the spreading pool of red at his feet, he sighed in relief. The first elephant was most definitely dead; half its neck and spinal cord were cut in half.

Making quick work on the rest of them, Arthur was breathing heavily by the end of the ordeal, drenched in sweat. The task wasn't physically taxing, far from it actually, but the guilt along with the fear that something might go wrong made his murder spree an arduous process. As he sat there in the new elephant graveyard, he felt something change within him. His already considerable muscle mass tightened on his frame, his vision sharpened, and his heart seemed to beat more strongly in his chest. Arthur felt good, better than he had in a long time, and his breathing had become much easier.

He felt powerful.

Looking at his system, he tried to see if he had any explanation for this change. No new messages awaited him, however. The only difference he could see was in his ether counter.

Current progression 1340/42000.

It seemed as if there was something special in reaching the one thousand mark threshold, a qualitative change in himself. The only explanation he could come up with was that he too had been absorbing a little ether along with his defective system as he went on his elephant genocide and that at one thousand, he'd finally had enough to notice a difference. Content, Arthur stood in his blood-soaked shoes and smiled, relief washing over him.

With this, Arthur now had his road to strength. It didn’t matter how convoluted that path would be, he WOULD see it to its ending.

After all, the impossible had never really stopped Arthur before, and this was difficult at best.