A well deserved rest.

John was laying on the floor, his body felt sore and he was barely able to move.

The other students weren't in much better shape compared to John.

Cameron had his eyes closed and was just trying to rest.

"We shouldn't have been pushing ourselves like that, we're in a safer position now so the priority is recovering before another wave of them come."

John heard what he'd said but was trying his best to focus.

During the battle he didn't want to try out his new skill, hard body, he'd been apprehensive because the skill might have have detrimental side effects like making him tired afterwards or causing extreme pain. He thought that effects like that would just ruin his chances of winning so he decided against using the skill till he was in a safer situation.

John decided that trying the skill out was fine since he had recovered a little.

He focused on the name of the skill but that didn't seem to activate it, he tried visualizing his body and trying to make it tougher but this didnt work either.

John eventually gave up and with a slightly red face he quietly mumbled.

"Hard body..."

John felt his skin seem to tighten and become thicker and tougher, he then noticed that his ability to focus was quickly diminishing over the course of a few seconds and eventually he got a headache and his body returned to normal.

John sighed as he realised that his MP wasn't enough to maintain the skill for long.

John thought to himself for a moment.

"At least we have a metric for it now... i went from full to empty in about five seconds... so if the cost of the skill is... 5 mp per seconds... then i have about 25 mp?"

John tried something else. He brought up the menu and tried visualizing a mana bar for himself, concentrating on trying to get the bar to display a number.

Eventually john saw the bar fade into the corner of his vison, a blue bar with white numbers reading 4/25.

John realised that this confirmed his theory about the system developing according to how the person visualizes it, he also realised that this would give people who play games like himself a UI with more utility and practical value.

John got up, head still pounding, he walked to the corner of the room and looked through the window.

Below john was the tech block of the school as well as a group of dead orcs and goblins, this worried john and caused him to search for signs of what killed them.

John spotted it as he looked directly down from the window. He saw a pack of large, three headed canines with jet black fur, snarling mouths wreathed with blue flame and chunks of orc and goblin meat being fought over by them.

John hurried over to the others and pointed out the pack, Cameron's face was panicked.

"Fuck! thats not good!"

John realized that avoiding the dogs was of a high priority.

"We can't clear out the other builsing then, not without taking the long way which will leave up open to the orcs and goblins"

Cameron tilted his head.

"Orcs and Goblins?"

John's face flushed as he realised how embarrassing his words sounded.

"thats just what I call them... ignore it"

Cameron smiled and patted John on the back.

"No it's fine, orcs and goblins makes it clearer which we're referring to."

The tone became more serious as cameron continued.

"But what you said is right, we either have to abandon the others or take the long way."

A voice came from behind cameron, the blonde girl who he'd been arguing with the day prior.

"You've had plenty of chances to save people, we need to look out for number one. Anyone who wants to live can stay here and think of a way to escape with me and the other reasonable people'

Cameron went to argue back but John grabbed him.

"Don't. Acting overly emotional will just cause more conflict, we can't force anyone here to help us find people but at the very least we can help them to stay safe here."

Cameron seemed to calm down as he walked to the other side of the room and sat down.

John focused a little up and to the right to see that his MP bar was full and back at 25/25.

John walked back to where he was as alex and chloe approached Cameron to talk to him.

Thomas walked towards John and leant against the wall next to him.

"I was happy someone was helping out with saving people, people I knew are already dead... those... orcs... got to them before i could help anyone."

Thomas went quiet again before eventually speaking up.

"I killed three so far, and something weird has happened each time."

John looked at thomas before realising what he meant and speaking.

"You saw a bar that filled each time you killed one right?"

Thomas looked suprised as he turned around to face John.

"How did you...?"

John spoke back before he could finish.

"I saw it when i killed the first one, then the second, third, fourth and so on. Point is after the bar filled once i got stronger, like levelling up in a video game. That's why I was so bloodthirsty, i've been treating this like a game without thinking about the fact that if I die that's it. You should kill them when you can but don't be stupid and fight against so many like I did, I have come close to dying too many times even just today."

Thomas went silent as he stared at John.

"I think... i get what you're saying. Don't be an idiot is the gist of it right?"

John smirked and nodded.

"Yup, that and try to think of a menu like you'd see in a game. That's pretty much it."

John walked over to the sink of the room and tried the tap, the water didn't flow which he was fully prepared for. The teachers had enough water for everyone to drink for the first day but John realised dehydration was going to become a problem, fast.

John took at seat at one of the tables, he had a plan for being able to produce clean water but he was going to need more skill points.

He was going to have to ignore his own advice and hunt down some orcs or goblins.