Seeing the death of the father and son, i remained unfazed. I had a fair share of death when i used to work on the streets. The brutalities of gang wars had already conditioned me to not think too much on the deaths of others. I can’t even remember how many times i seen someone get shot in the head.

Heck, i can't even remember how many times i almost died trying to scam and swindle people. Almost everyone in my neighborhood had a gun or a knife with them at all times. If it wasn’t for my partner helping me out in the shadows, the ashes of my body would already be on the streets.

I continued to not move an inch as the shadow wolves continued with their meal. I silently watch and analyze them. Trying to observe their movement patterns and potential weaknesses.

After a few minutes of feasting, the jungle floor was painted in the blood of the father and son. The bodies of the pair cleaned up by the wolves. All the meat and bones in the belly of the wolves.

There were about 6 wolves left, another 2 dead from fighting with the guy.

The wolves finished with their meal, got up and left the area. I could tell that they did not have a sense of smell as they would have found me easily if they had it. As i was consolidating all the ideas and speculation i had on the wolves, i noticed that on the bloodied grass was a golden ball and a wineskin.

After checking that the wolves were gone, i got down from the tree and picked up the golden ball and wineskin. When i picked it up, the blue text box appeared again.

You have acquired D class skill - lesser fireball and D class equipment - Leather Wineskin.

Lesser energy blast- shoot a small beam of energy

Mana required - 10

Leather Wineskin -able to hold 5kg of any liquid.

Only one skill can be equipped at a time.

“Interesting, now i have some way of being able to protect myself.” I said as i felt energy course through me, filling me up with energy.

I pointed at a tree and willed the energy to shoot from my hand. Bluish lights condensed into a ball in front of my palm and shot forward towards the tree. An explosion of wood and dust shot out as the energy blast left a fist size hole in the tree.

90/100 mana

Mana most probably mean the amount of energy i have right now. My body has a total of 100 units worth of mana. I wonder if the amount of mana will regenerate over time or will I need to do something to get it back.

After pondering on the secrecy of mana, i decided to experiment. I decided to wait for half an hour to see if my mana will regenerate and how fast it will regenerate. I needed to determine whether my mana will regenerate over time to plan on my usage of lesser energy blast.

While waiting for half an hour, i decided to pass the time by experimenting with the corpse of the 4 shadow wolves. The wolves were getting smaller and smaller as the black smoke making the figure of the wolf started to dissipate into the surrounding.

I used the makeshift spear and stabbed the belly to see it’s innards. The wolf belly turned into a puff of black smoke as the makeshift spear tunneled through it. After i pulled back the spear, the smoke reformed back into the shape of the wolf, although a bit smaller than usual. I continued with the experiments checking every part of the wolf.

When my experiment was over, i reached a conclusion. The wolves were fully made of black smoke while its eyes were made of red stone. The wolves has the ability to turn material and immaterial anytime they wish. The red stones that made up its eyes was its brain.

The only way to kill them was to aim at the red core that made up its eyes. The wolves only have the sense of sight and touch as they lacked any other sensory organs. The wolves used its red stone as eyes to see.

Thus to beat it effectively, i summarised that I had sneak attack it with my spear and stab it directly at the red core. As long as i don’t get in its sights, it should be easy for me to kill with my spear.

I check my watch for the time and saw that 30 minutes had passed. Since i had no way of checking the amount of mana i had without the popup whenever i used my mana, i had to take a risk and used my mana. It was imperative to my survival that i had to have full knowledge of how mana works.

Knowledge was power and with proper understanding of how mana works i could better prepare for the future.

I willed my mana again and shot a energy blast at the wolves carcasses. In a small explosion, the energy blast and obliterated the already cracked red stones.

83/100 Mana

“So mana regenerates at a rate of 1 mana every 10 minutes.” I noted into my memory.

After being down with all my experiments, i decided to head off towards the center. I only had 30 hours left before the flood takes place. Along the way, i decided not to use my dice, keeping it ready for in case of emergency.

After a few more hours of slowly travelling, i noticed that the sun was soon setting and i was about half way there to the center. Along the way, i did not run into a lot of wolves. Those i did meet, i hid and waited for them to pass. I did not see any reason to risk my life attacking them.

I also did not used my dice throughout the journey, keeping it off cooldown in case of emergency.

As i was walking around trying to find a stream to get water, i heard the sound of water flowing. I head towards the direction of the sound, hoping to find a water source. The roaring sounds of a flowing river invaded my ears as i got closer and closer.

However, just as i was about to leaving the jungle and into the clearing where the river was, i saw a large group of survivor. There were about 24 men,15 women and 17 children.

Seeing that a large group would be beneficial to my survival, i decided to meet up with them. Though a larger group would attract more shadow wolves, the sheer size of the group would be able to out number them. Moreover, with magic skills and items that people got from the lucky chest, i was sure some people in the group had skills that were beneficial to people in a group.

After planning how i was going to approach them, i exited the jungle and showed myself. I ran towards them with intense look of relief.

With my many years of conning and scamming people, i was a master of acting.

“Other survivors!” I cheered as i ran towards the group.

One of the ladies saw me and motioned to the rest of the group. All of them smiled as they looked at me. All of them knew, the bigger the group, the easier it will be to fend off the wolves.

“Boy, are you okay?” One of the men asked as i joined the group.

“Yeah, i’m fine, a little shaken up but mostly fine” I replied.

“I’m Darren,” Darren introduced himself.

“I’m lawrance” i introduced myself.

“Don’t worry we are together now. With the size of our group, we are able to fend off the wolves well,” he tried to reassure me.

“How did all of you meet up?” I asked as the group rested by the river. Some with wineskin like me, used it to scoop the water and passed it around for others to drink.

“Did you not see the flare?” Darren asked.

“Nope, what flare are you talking about?” I asked.

“Simon over there used a flare gun he got to send a signal to everyone to gather. Anyone who saw the flare received a notification about it” Darren explained as he pointed towards a chubby man.

“Thank god he used it, if we didn’t meet up, i think most of us here would be dead to the wolves,” Darren said as he sent a thankful look to Simon.

“How did you survive by yourself?” Darren asked me as he saw my waterskin “ you must be very good with that spear to have fended off the beasts by yourself.”

“ i just got lucky, it was a blessing i only ran into one or two wolves. I managed to hide in trees and bushes whenever i notice something,” I explained “ I didn’t even have to used my spear once, i just hid until they passed by.”

“Wow you must be very lucky, we already had to fend off so many packs of wolves so many times,” Darren complained.

“What did you get from your lucky chest?” I asked him.

“I got a skill called water whip, i can create a whip of water and use it to attack the wolves, i’m one of the main defenders of this group, don’t worry i’ll protect you well,” Darren smiled at me.

After thanking him, i mixed around with the group, trying to get to know everyone. Being a good con men, i knew that having a good relationship with others would be helpful in the future. Moreover, knowing what other people skills and items were was great too.

After talking to everyone and mixing around while walking along the river towards the direction of the center, i learnt a new thing from them. Not only do mana exist,qi exists as well. Some guy had a skill called qi blast which used qi as energy rather than mana.

We walked for a few hours along the river until the sun set and we decided to settle down for the night. As we were settling down to rest, i saw people pulling out tents and food from black boxes.

Curious as to how they got the boxes i asked Terry, a 15 year old boy i befriended “ Terry, where did you guys get those black boxes?”

“Those boxes? I heard Tom talk about finding it in the jungle, he said that they were called supply boxes and contains food and survival items,” Terry explained to me.

Hearing him talk about supplies boxes, an incredible idea formed in my mind. A devilish grin crept onto my face as i thought of the overpowered abilities of my dice.