[MP is now unlocked.]

[Class bonus stat will be given in an increment of two levels.]

[Previous class bonus stats distributed: Intellect +4, Spirit +2]

[Mage’s Skill Archive is now available.]

[You have received 2 Skill Points.]

He welcomed the free stat points yet what caught his attention was the Mage’s Skill Archive. He opened through the menu section and found another option. Then it opened.

[Restoration-type Spell]

[Barrier-type Spell]

[Illusion-type Spell]

[Conjuring-type Spell]

[Fire-type Spell]

[Water-type Spell]

…

The list went on and on as some even drew Leo’s attention. ‘Death-type spell?’ He opened it up and a new list appeared. Reading through them, he got the gist of what a death-type spell was. ‘So basically a necromancer,’ Leo grew curious over the other type. He took his time and read through every type of spell.

‘This is going to be a problem,’ Leo thought. True to what Ken said, Leo definitely had a lot of thinking to do. And looking through the cost of these spells, he could only pick two.

Looking around the empty cafe, Leo opted for a better place to think, and perhaps a working PC might help in this endeavor of his. He went back to Ken’s office room, and surprisingly the new warrior wasn’t there. ‘Should I go back to my office? But that would be quite awkward, right? Since I did just come down.’ After checking the PC was still on, Leo shrugged his shoulders and took a seat.

What better way to find inspiration than the world wide web. ‘Let’s see what I can get,’ he typed down the most generic thing. “Best spell builds for mage” and the answer was not what he wanted. “Okay, I guess that’s a bit too random,” Leo said. He searched through a couple of times and read through some blog posts and articles. But none of them had the answer he sought.

He leaned back on the seat, thinking deeply about what to choose. Yet a smell bothered him. He sniffed around, and then he smelled his armpits. The frown showed he wasn’t pleased. ‘I think I should hit the shower,’ Leo thought. ‘Better yet, should I just get the Clean spell? I don’t know what that spell exactly does, but since it’s under the Utility-type my assumption might be right about it.’

Leo smiled, having a convenient spell like that would come in handy for someone as lazy as him. A few words and poof. Grimes and smell went away like they never existed. But he would be an idiot if he chose that spell right now. For now, his priority was to ensure his survival, and being clean all the time wasn’t for survival.

‘Nah, probably not. I should probably logically solve this. The spells listed have no description whatsoever and I don’t know their mechanics, their cooldown, their mana consumption, or even their casting time. I only have their names, so taking an offensive type of spell in a jungle-like this is a no-go. But it would be a different scenario if we have more people besides me and Ken, I would have chosen a cool elemental spell or something. So for now, I can only go through the support route. Either being a disruptor or a buffer,’ Leo eyed down at the few spell types. Enhancement-type, Barrier-type, Restoration-type, Illusion-type, Mental-type, and Hex-type. They were a lot more that may pertain to his criteria but these six were the only ones that he understood behind their words.

‘Hmm. This is kinda disappointing, considering this isn’t what I imagine of being a mage,’ his fantasy of hurling bolts of lightning and fire while cackling like a dark lord was still far away. Out of survival, Leo had to pick something he wouldn’t in an RPG game.

‘So this is my best bet in not dying early,’ Leo watched new windows emerge as he picked his new spells.

[You have learned Small Heal]

[You have learned Buff Agility]

‘I can’t believe it, but I’m now playing support.’ He nodded, accepting his newfound reality. Leo wasn’t the support guy in the game as he liked nothing more than decimating his opponents. So this was a first.

[Small Heal Lv.1]

[Restore health points to a single target. The amount of HP restored is based on the skill level, base level, spirit, and intellect of the caster.]

[MP cost: 10]

[Cast time: 1.5 seconds]

[Cool down: 10 seconds]

[Buff Agility Lv.1]

[Increase single target agility and movement speed.]

[MP cost: 15]

[Effect: +10 Agility, 5% movement speed]

[Buff duration: 60 seconds]

[Cast time: 2.0 seconds]

[Cool down: 60 seconds]

‘Not bad, I guess. But the buff could only be used to a single target, and the cooldown and buff duration isn’t making it team friendly.’ Not much of a supporter if you could only buff your own self. But it was better than nothing.

“Here you are,” a voice came from at the door. Leo glanced and noticed who it was.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Kareena said, coming over to where Leo was. Her hands rested on her hips as her arching eyebrows had never been sharper.

“And I’ve heard you had a friendly talk with Atwell,” Leo replied, grinning.

“You’re right,” Kareena crossed her arms. “The glass door can’t be open. The rescue team even tried explosives, and it didn’t work. We will remain stuck here unless we do what it wants. So…” Kareena leaned over the table with her hands on the surface of the black oaken table. “…how do we do it? How do we reach level ten?”

Leo narrowed his eyes. “Seriously? Do all of you people never play a simple RPG game?” he had to ask since Luis’s experience taught him one thing. Not everyone played the same game.

“I was busy learning theory of computation and compiler designing. And also making a working security program. So games are not in my schedule,” Kareena said.

‘Now I know why I subconsciously tried not to flirt with her,’ Leo thought. Kareena was indeed a bombshell beauty, on the level of those Bollywood actresses. But for some reason, he just felt like she wasn’t right for him.

“Come on,” he got up, “I’ll fill you in while we head to the cafe.”

“I’m not hungry,” she raised one of her eyebrows.

“Well, we’re not going there to eat,” Leo said. He explained to her how the system worked while going down to the cafe. At the same time, he distributed his free points; one point to agility and the other four to dexterity. On the other hand, Kareena was skeptical of how lousy this system was in terms of presenting her status to questioning the validity of someone’s intelligence being able to increase through points given by the system. To Kareena, everything was illogical.

“None of those things you said make sense,” Kareena said. She still couldn’t let her denial down, even after seeing what happened to the main entrance, and the things she saw.

“It doesn’t. But hey, that’s our new reality. You better drop the denial, babe, or else all of us are going to get stuck here forever,” Leo said, smirking.

Kareena pouted as she could only keep her silence. One thing for being smart she couldn’t run her mouth without facts. And for that, she was not like the other girls. They both reached the kitchen, and it was hard for Kareena not to notice the bloodstains dragging towards the freezer room.

“And what is that?” she asked, pointing at the bloodstains.

“Uh, best not to know right now,” Leo said.

“What do you mean by that?” she frowned.

“Let’s not do that,” he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to the back door. Not before grabbing a few pounds of raw meat.

“Is this necessary?” she asked. But after going through the back door, the different air hit her. The jungle humidity brought the heat on her.

“Quit talking, and start moving,” Leo threw raw meat a distance away from the edge of the jungle. He spotted a few prying eyes lurking in the darkness, and Identify found what they were.

Setting the bait, Leo and Kareena waited near the door and sat on the ground. She struggled with her pencil skirt as it was not suitable for a thing like this. And she even questioned the need of holding on to this fruit knife. She looked over to the one who dragged her into this, and Leo’s gaze never left the sight of the meat on the ground. Leo looking serious made Kareena decide to wait patiently.

Then something jumped from the bushes.

‘Now,’ Leo’s eyes slightly glowed in a greenish hue and after two seconds, he felt new energy coursing in his veins. His feet rushed over the jungle floor as his speed was heightened. The ocelot, a wild cat of the jungle spotted the incoming intruder. It bit on the meat and hissed menacingly at Leo.

Leo whirled his fire axe, aiming the sharp blade right at the feline. But his speedy attack missed. The ocelot jumped at the last moment, dodging the thing that might send it to its death. It landed on its four paws and rather than turning tail and run, the ocelot stood its ground. It lunged and countered with its claws.

Leo slid back and twisted his body. But the ocelot was too nimble on its paws. Claws marks riddled his left flank as blood slightly trickled down. For the first time, Leo felt the pain against an enemy. His face twitched, and he gripped the axe tight.

Gritting through his teeth, Leo unleashed another mean swing. He swung and missed. Yet Leo came hard at the jumpy wild cat. His random amateurish swings were no match for the elusive furball. But he pressed on, attacking the wild cat with everything he got, keeping his sight always at the bigger version of a house cat. Then he found his chance.

The ocelot was in mid-air, dodging Leo’s attack. And the persistent man tackled the ocelot with his shoulder right to the ground. He mounted over it and knelt his weight over the ocelot. The wild cat squirmed, hissing and yelping to escape. Leo smacked a one and two right at the ocelot’s head, and the feline dialed down its cumbersome wildness.

“Come over,” Leo shouted at Kareena. The woman who found everything illogical was standing there in a daze.

“Oh, yea,” she hesitated. Her legs were trembling. But Leo’s shout brought her closer to where he was.

“Now kill it,” Leo said.

Kareena stood there, gazing long at the squirming wild cat. In her eyes, the ocelot just looked like a regular cat. She then glanced between Leo and the ocelot with her eyes quivering. “Do I have to?” her voice trembled as even her grip on the fruit knife was turning loose.

Leo pitied her. As he could see this woman wasn’t readied for this. Her reaction even made him wonder whether he was normal or not, considering he just leaped into action in this strange new world. Heck, he even killed these animals like they were monsters in a game. And perhaps thinking it was a game made it easier for him. But he knew better as Kareena didn’t have much of a choice.

“Hey,” Leo grabbed her shoulder and their eyes found each other. “Let’s get back home, okay?”

She nodded. Steeling herself for what she was about to do. Even with trembling hands, she raised the fruit knife in the air, preparing to send it away. “Ahhh!” she screamed and the knife finally pierced through flesh. Kareena let go of the knife as her tremblings hands shook even harder. “I killed it,” she said, staring at her hands then at the dead ocelot. Tears started to well in her eyes, then it appeared. The windows that Leo told her about came greeting her sight.

“I got it, it said I finally leveled up,” Kareena said, slightly smiling at Leo. But the smile didn’t last long. She knew what had she done to receive such a thing. She had to end a life of a living thing.

“We had to,” Leo said. Trying to at least give her comfort. But before he could say more, a few windows he didn’t expect blew up.

[Safe Zone time limit had been reached.]

[Safe Zone will now be unavailable.]

Leo couldn’t hide his surprise. His eyes bulged wide open then came a frown. From the look of it, things were about to go down.

“Leo, is this message what I think it means?” Kareena hoped she was wrong.

Then Leo said.

“Buckle up, babe. Tonight is going to get rough.”