As the sun was slowly crawling to the midday point, in a 5 floor apartment block, at the top floor, a young man was about to embark on a journey. He checked his gear and he found it bellow unsatisfactory. The winter jacket left sleeve was almost torn threw, his would be spear was broken in half and barely usable as such. He decided to postpone his expedition.

He turned left and entered in to his apartment. Looking around and spotting a blood trail leading to the kitchen, the image of the corpse, lying there, was still fresh in his memory. Deciding to go there first, he wiped out the Omni-Tool and scanned the corpse.

The same screen with the atomic composition of the corpse popped out, once it got to molecules it started to return unknowns. He wasn’t a bit surprised. The library the Omni-Tool currently uses was all of his life experiences. However, at the end just after the 5.1% of possible extraction something different appeared.

-Energy source found.

-Extraction 3%

-Warning: No Storage Found

-Recommended Extraction(Y/N)

-Y

-Extraction in progress...

With this a small, bluish beam with the thickness of a pinky, came out from the edge of the ring, it pierced threw the broken skin and cracked skull, slowly pulsating every second or so. After about a minute, the light show came to an end. And a new screen was shown.

3 EU of mana have been extracted.

-Due to lack of storage redirecting energy to power core. (Y/N)

The screen was asking him to add extra power to the core, that means that he can extract extra power from dead zombies, his mind was itching with the idea to try it on live ones. Then another question popped up, why does it ask to redirect the energy? He decided to click no, even if he lost the energy, there were 3 more corpses downstairs and at least 20 000 more across the city.

-Beginning mana crystallization.

-Crystallization in Progress-Time left: 3s

…

-Crystallization complete.

-Depositing: Tiny Energy Mana Crystals (EMC)

-No Storage Available.

-Eject? (Y/N)

-Y

-Ejecting

Just as the last line popped up, 3 almost transparent grains the size of rice fell on top of his hand. As he didn’t expect it they managed to roll off it and fall on the bloodied carpet. He bent down and picked them up and made sure they were clean and not bloodied, he put them in his palm and went back to his room. Putting them on the table and after a scan…

Energy Mana Crystals

A crystalized version of mana. This one is purified and crystalized to a high degree, however it has a low density hence its glass like look. Due to its high purity it can be absorbed immediately by a mage, without any side effects. Also useful as a magic medium.

Energy Value: 1

Monetary Value: 1c

Sell Use

His eyes popped out as his hearth danced in euphoria. This little grain was not only high grade and can be exchanged for money. It can also recharge his power. The generator mounted on the Omni-Tool can produce the equivalent of 1 Energy for about an hour. And this little grain can do that almost immediately.

He was somewhat worried by the fact that most of the loot and magic systems don’t work for him, and was wondering how he would make money, while the monetary system was somewhat figured out by now and money was becoming less of an issue as he managed to reclaim only 3% of the zombie’s energy. By the looks of it he would be more worried about energy in the future rather than money.

True he would need a lot of VI if he wanted to make a safe haven for himself, eventually a small army. But the problem was how would he power all of them? So far he could probably extract materials from just about anywhere, corpses, unused cutlery and so on. Reassembling them in whatever he wanted with the assembler. True he didn’t know how useful they were but, it is a fact that they were a part of his Omni-Tool so they could probably grow.

With these thoughts he decided to test them out. He opened the Blueprint window and made a schematic for a 5cm steel needle. After he saved it, he took out most of the tools from his toolbox, with the Utility Module he won’t need them anyway, and started scanning them one by one. For composition he mostly got iron, carbon and chromium, finally he selected a pretty big wrench and pressed the extract button on his desktop.

-Attempting Extraction

-Extraction Rate: 4.2%

-Energy required: 1 EU (Y/N)

He was a bit startled. His extraction rate was pretty low, from the energy extraction he knew that it was a volume percentage rather than probability so he was curious why it required a whole 1% of energy when the normal operations till now where didn’t even reduce it, extracting of the Mana included. He selected Y. After it was another babble about lack of inventory, and he canceled it. Deciding to try something different. Why can’t the Omni-Tool deposit the extracted resources somewhere instead of just popping them out like the crystals?

After scratching his brains for a while he thought of something. In most strategy video games there is a resource drop off point or a stockpile of some sort so why can’t I make one? True the tool lacks an internal inventory so why can’t it use an external?

He got up and went to the closet, he was searching for a metal box about 5cmX10cmX20cm it was an old military first aid kit he bought on the internet a few years back. It was looked quite nice so he bought it. After putting some bandages, pain killers and so on, inside he just left it there. He usually had a few small carton boxes filled with the same stuff that as a first aid kit and other cures of ailments, so he used them instead when he needed it.

After he found the box he emptied it on the bed brought out his screen, tapped and held down his finger. After about a second a drop down menu appeared. It had the similar options: Surface Scan, Analyze, Extract Materials, Extract Energy. A bit disappointed he decided to analyze it first. After it was done he repeated the action and this time there was a 5th option.

Surface Scan

Analyze

Extract Materials

Extract Energy

Bind Storage

Clicking on bind storage he got this.

Bind Storage

Allows to bind a container for the deposition of materials. More Durable containers are recommended.

Materials: [O]

Energy Crystals: [O]

Confirm Cancel

Taping on the Materials [O], turned it into Materials [X], after confirming. A light similar to the scanner passed to the box, and new information was soon available.

Steel Storage Container (Materials) (basic)

This steel container has a capacity up to 1000cm3 or about 0.001m3. It has to be no further than 3 meter from the user in order for the resources to be exchanged. The storage container can only be accessed via a special tool. It can keep its functionality indefinitely as long as it isn’t broken. Solid materials can be taken out in a cube with 1cm3 form, specialized tool can extract the materials regardless of quantity.

Upon it being broken the storage designation will be revoked and the materials will leak out in the form of a fine powder. Fortunately, it can be reclaimed with a 100% extraction rate. Unless contaminated.

Gases can also be stored in solid form. Recommended for long term storage.

WARNING- The materials full weight is applied to the container, handle with care.

Upkeep: 1EU/Day

A bright smile shined on his face as another nice surprise greeted him, this is better than an inventory system. He gets a sort of permanent storage for all the materials he could find or need. All he needs is sufficient power in order not to have any hiccups.

On the minus side his containers can be broken and the materials degraded in purity. From the mana crystals extracted, it is apparent that the Omni-Tool extract materials with an extremely high degree of purity, which might be the reason its extraction rate is so low, but he can make high quality items without much worry, if he can design them. He quickly reselected the wrench and started extraction.

-Attempting Extraction

-Extraction Rate: 4.2%

-Inventory: (Steel Storage Container) (Materials) FOUND

-Energy required: 1 EU (Y/N)

-Y

-Extraction in progress. Time Left:1m 37s

…

-Extraction complete

-Depositing Materials (0.7cm3)

His energy fell back to 11%. It took him quite a bit of time for it to finish, longer than the mana extraction anyway. As the process started it was the same beam which pierced the zombies head, but this time it went over the wrench in a grid like pattern disintegrating it bit by bit, from time to time something would be sucked by the beam, flow to the Omni-Tool and travel via an orange cord to the Storage box.

Opening the Omni-Tool menu, under storage was listed the new container, and it had a nifty range finder. Deciding to test it, he got up and slowly walked away. The range finder slowly rose from one meter to two, and as it went past three the name grayed out and it continue to increase. This has its own uses, for example it would prevent theft to a point and I can mark my base with it, if it can be renamed it would be best. He taped on the greyed out name and a box with it came out.

Looking around he didn’t spot any keyboard, and he doesn’t want to make any necessary noise so he hasn’t tested if there are voice commands. Prodding here and there, swiping over the screen dint bring up anything, until his finger touched the bottom of the screen and pulled down. A laptop like keyboard greeted him. Typing the majestic name of Storage 1 he saved it as default and for now decided to carry it with him.

Getting up he looked around for another box but found only his 200ml metal flask, silver plated with the world tree Yggdrasil engraved on it, a true work of art, it was a present from his dad for his birthday. It used to be full of high grade liquor until he drank it all, and now it was full of dreams. As he was about to put it away another idea came to mind. He scanned the container and designated it for storage of energy crystals.

Flask of the World Tree (Unique) (Storage) (Energy Crystals)

This flask is a true work of craftsmanship, made from a stainless steel and plated with a generous amount of silver it gave the artisan a canvas on which he could express his soul. Engraved by hand and with great care and love, this masterpiece will help its owner with a sip in a time of need.

Storage: 200cm3 (200 000 grains/100 000 drops)

Unique: It can store energy mana crystals in a liquid form allowing it to be drunk. It increases awareness, regeneration, mental focus, and revitalizes the body: 30% health, stamina and mental focus over 30 minutes-Use/20ml (Liquid)

Options:

Soulbound-Cost 100 000Eu.

???: Locked

???: Locked

Upkeep: 1Eu/Day(Solid) | 2Eu/Day (Liquid)

“Shit”

He couldn’t keep himself from swearing. He knew it was a great birthday present for a student but he didn’t know it was that good. And it could be Soulbound, not to mention the unknowns. It was a damn flask and it had high end gaming options on the go. Why? Judging by the description it is due to the craftsmanship and its intended use. Maybe the flask is better used for storing liquids. If some mage used it to store a legendary potion, what effect would it have? Liquid mana is the most he could accomplish at the moment, probably.

Quickly opening the flask, he put the three grains in it. Now he had both a material and energy storage (Not counting the core). All that’s left is to test the Fabricator. Opening the menu, he selected the needle blueprint and taped Fabricate. It then prompted for a material to be selected. Due to his knowledge of steels’ crystalline structure the Omni-Tool was able to replicate it, for future reference He should probably find a way to designate the material composition of the different parts in the blueprint before fabrication.

-Fabrication in process (Steel Needle)

-Materials 0.05cm3 steel

-Time: 15s

-Proceed (Y/N)

-Y

-Fabricating: 15

14

…

As the fabrication process started, an orange tether stretched to the materials compartment, and materials flowed through. Soon it started assembling the needle like a 3d printer. The needle itself was suspended over the circle during fabrication. When the process was complete a prompt about ejection was shown, he ignored it and took the needle by himself, as he did the prompt automatically confirmed the ejection.

Looking over his first fabricated object he was quite pleased it looked brand new, he didn’t need to scan it to know that it was very sharp, from what he knows everything is fabricated molecule by molecule, which means that the needle itself has a monomolecular edge, and that is as sharp as you can go without quantum physics.

He took some thread, finding some old newspapers and started to fix his jacket. He patched the hole on his left sleeve and started to layer the paper it wasn’t pretty but It would have to do for now. First he has to clear the block, he will think about more complicated stuff later.

He fixed his mighty garments and now he needed a good strategy. The only way to stop the zomboes is to break their heads open or to incapacitate them, preferably from the neck down. Worst case scenario he has at least 18 zombies to kill, he doesn’t have a trusty skeleton summon to do the job for him until it drops a defensive item so he has to do it home alone style. Layering a few blankets in the fourth and fifth floor and making sure he has enough room he started to transport old building materials from the attic.

Slowly layering down bricks in a semicircular fashion around the staircase to the 4th,5th floor and the attic, he secured them with a few good sized wooden beam that fitted in the bricks holes making a uniform structure. After that he slowly moved few brick on the stairs next to the barricades for throwing or plain smashing the zombies heads. And finally he had to make a face mask, his body had the luxury of a modern day gambeson.

He decided to use the fabricator. As the defenses were done, he would be able to hear the zombies coming from a mile away. He gathered all of the useless and rusted metal from the attic and managed to gather quite a significant amount. The fortification process took quite a lot of time so it was around 2pm, his core was at 17 percent so he could gather at least about 20cm3 of iron and a bit of oxygen, if he used the energy from the flask.

Opening the Omni-Tool menu he clicked on the 17% and a prompt about using the energy mana crystal, he selected all and agreed. He slowly watched his percentage rise to 20. Just before exiting his look fell on the Core-T1, clicking on it to see if anything different showed up after acquiring the new energy source.

Core-T1:

It’s a basic evolving powered core. It functions both as a generator and battery, with the ability to use mana as an energy source. Can be improved upon.

Generation:1

Capacity:100

Upgrade:

Generation:100Eu

Capacity: 100Eu

Omni-Tool (Special): Can supplement with secondary energy sources in order to increase stockpiled energy!

He expected to be able to upgrade the core but hose prices were a blow, a single zombie provides 3Eu worth of crystals so it would take over 30 just to upgrade once and those buggers won’t stay still and wait for him to play whack a mole. As similar thoughts were flowing through his mind he remembered about the 3 corpses on the fourth floor. He quickly increased his energy levels to 29% and was ready to start his extraction process.

While extracting he thought about his other possible upgrades and decided not to check on them at least until he is finished with clearing his block, he didn’t want any depressing thoughts for now, as fighting relatively freshly reanimated corpses was heavy as it is. Finally, he was ready, using 25% of power he managed to extract about between 0.7-1.2cm3 of material per 1Eu so he had around 23cm3 total material, mostly iron oxygen and other. He had the idea of making a bomb with hydrogen and oxygen mix but decided against it would shock the whole neighborhood drawing every single bugger to him and he didn’t want that.

After he made a helmet medieval looking helmet, basically a bascinet with a dropping plate filled with holes. Even though it was only about 1to 2mm thick it was still around 200g of extra weight on his head. At least his whole head was protected with minor visual impairment, thanks to the many small holes. After making a quick padding for the helmets inside he took a few rusty nails and went all the way to the 4th floor.

His plan? Make the zombies run up and down the 3 floors, probably braking their appendages in the process. He dropped a nail between the railings, he was quite lucky as it went all the way to the 1st floor and started to bounce around. Soon the sound of wood shattering and legs shuffling is heard.

Oddly he heard an exaggerated exhale from somewhere below and the zombies topped moving. Instead they started to climb up the stairs. He could hear that some are scattering while others continued to try and climb the stairs. A few minutes later a lone zombie reached the 4th floor barricade. He lifted a brick and slammed it down on its head. A second time followed by a third until its head cracked and it fell down the stairs.

Not long after, a loud scream rang through the block, as a zombies started to congregate towards him. Throwing brick after brick he was able to down the first two zombies before they managed to swarm the barricade and slowly started to move it. Killing one more he went to the 5th floor where everything repeated itself, thanks to the stairs the zombies managed to tumble from time to time which gave him time for a few kills. By the time they made it to the 6th floor where the attic is he managed to kill about 8 of them.

At the top were his greatest weapons. He kept his now short spear, and the biggest wooden beams he could find. He was barely able to lift them over his head. He killed two more zombies as he finally threw his first beam. It was quite a blow to the zombies who didn’t have a good footing. He managed to knock most of them down.

As he was enjoying his view he saw a zombie staying at the back, just watching. This gave him a creepy feeling he knew the zombies so far were extremely aggressive so this behavior is not normal. There were about 7 zombies left.

He kept smashing their head with the bricks. He was fighting close to 15min so his stamina was bound to run out. He was getting more sluggish as only 3 more zombies were left. He hefted a beams with shaking hands, as he was about halfway to lifting it over his head, the odd zombie sprang in to action. In a few big strides he managed to reach the top, it used its comrades as stepping stones in order to jump over the barricade and tackle him. There wasn’t much room to fall to, so his back hit the wall.

The padding reduced the brunt of the damage, the zombie latched on to his shoulders tried to bite his head, but only got a taste of metal. Plamen managed to rotate himself to secure room for some movement. He backed in to the attic all while his helmet was being treated as a chew toy, eventually the zombie got somewhat annoyed and grabbed his head squeezing, chewing and clawing at the same time. The helmet could barely hold at it was starting to deform.

As he got to an open space he spun sharply, as the zombie lost a bit of its grip on his head, he reeled backwards and viciously head-butted the zombie and spun sharply again and put his leg tripping it. The zombie fell on the floor it quickly jumped back up like it was nothing. But he already expected that and lowered his body and lifted the zombie on his shoulder. After that he relaxed and let gravity do all the work as the zombie fell head first in to the concrete floor.

Its head cracked but it didn’t die. The damage managed to stun it long enough for him to get up and make it an acquaintance with his boot, ending the meeting with splosh. For a moment he wondered whether he would be able to extract mana since its brain is literally spilled over the floor.

He looked at the barricade, 2 zombies struggling to breach it, unfortunately for them they weren’t enough to do so. His breathing was calming down, they weren’t going anywhere so he was calm and decided to try extracting the mana from them. He raised his arm, pulled up the screen and pressed the energy extraction from the dropdown menu. The beam hit the head of the left zombie and tenaciously followed its movements. After a minute, something expected showed up.

-Mana is in a turbulent state

-Extraction Failed

.

It was a short and descriptive. The Omni-Tool Might be precise but it had its limits. He offed the zombies and started to look around. He walked down, along the way to the first floor He found 3 more zombies with broken legs trying to climb the stairs. They were of no threat. All he needed was a good ol’ brick.

He was getting a bit worried about the corpses left. If he could, he would have disintegrated the corpses. Unfortunately, it required about 1Eu for every 1.5 kilograms of mass so it was close to 50Eu for just one corpse, averaging at 75kilos and he would get mostly organic materials which he couldn’t use for the moment. So he was prepared to pile them up somewhere. The basement came to mind. He would have dumped them outside if he could but it wasn’t safe.

Even now he could see from the terrace, groups of up to 20 zombies slowly moving around. Worried about it he decided to rest for a bit and continue to work. While taking his break he would start to gather the mana from the corpses. About 48 from the normal zombies and 15 from the smart one. Totaling at 63 energy units.

He was glad, this number was very satisfying. Deciding to save up for and upgrade he got to heavy duty work once more. He found the most remote part of the basement he could, and looted it. This time he could be a little more leisure with the noise as he started to stockpile the food on the fifth floor and the materials on the attic.

Since the block lacked an elevator, and there was no power to boot he had to work during the daylight. Soon one part of the basement was clear and he began to drag the corpses there. It was filled quite quickly as the 20 corpses piled up were quite a gruesome sight he felt oddly calm, come to think of it he had quite an adrenaline rush during the fight but he was emotionally calm back then, why?

True he didn’t consider the zombies human. Most of them were disfigured and only looked human shaped, so that’s a plus, and cleaning the corpses was a chore, disgusting but still more of a chore. The blood was just red, other than the slight disgust and turning of his stomach due to the unpleasant smell and sights he wasn’t emotionally disturbed.

He should probably think long and hard about the problem in the future. As the sun was starting to set he fixed two of the barricades. Taking out a big piece of ply wood he used duct tape to fix the hole on his front door, got to bed and slept like never before.