“Alright, I think I will put 50 points into strength, 70 points into vitality, and the rest into focus. That should do the deed, I believe. Show me my status now, please.”

Status of Ambros Imperim Class N/A Health: [100] 800 Essence Force: [25] 210 Vitality: [10] 80 Strength: [20] 70 Dexterity: 5 Focus: [10] 43 Skill List: Inventory EP: 0 Coins: 0

“Oh, yeah. System, could you display all the skills I could get with my coupon?” Ambros requests. ‘I’ve always wanted to do magic!’

Searching for skills without any requirements... 74395 results found, displaying them now…

“Oh damn, that's a lot of skills. Please display them from best to worst.”

Barrier Manipulation. ★★★★ Description: Create barriers anywhere near or on your body, barrier strength is Focus Score*1.3. Barrier strength and size increases with skill level. 8500 Coins. Time Manipulation. ★★★ Description: Pause time for 3 seconds, usable once a day. The length that you can pause time for increases with skill level. 4500 Coins. Telekinesis. ★★★ Description: Telekinetically control anything that weighs less than 50KG. How much you can control increases with skill level. 3950 Coins. Accelerated Healing. ★★★ Description: When out of combat, healing increased by 200%, regrowing limbs is possible. 3700 Coins.

“Well, this is a no-brainer. System, I use my shop coupon to get the barrier skill.” Ambros says, just as he does, his veins glow slightly blue as sharp pain courses throughout his body.

“Damn, ouch, open skill list, System.”

Skill List of Ambros Imperis. ★ — ★★ — ★★★ — ★★★★ [Barrier Manipulation] ★★★★★ — Exclusive [???]

“System, can you show more details of the barrier manipulation skill? Is that something you can d-" as Ambros was about to finish his question, a new blue screen opened up.

“Oh, hooray!”

Barrier Manipulation. Lv.1 Rating: ★★★★ Effects: Create a barrier anywhere within half a meter from you, a maximum size of a square meter. Costs 50 Essence Force per second. Can defend from 54.6 points of damage.

“I have no idea if defense from 54 damage is good, but sure. Let’s work with this. System, what does the one next to the skills name represent?”

The 1 represents the skills current level, a skills level increases by continuous usage of the skill. Using the skill to its limit also increases its level.

“Cool,” Ambros says, not paying much more attention to the System as he tries to create a barrier over his hand. When he focuses on a barrier appearing on his left elbow, a very light blue, transparent barrier appears and hovers over it. As he leaves the barrier there, he opens his status to see his essence force quickly depleting.

Essence Force: 170

Essence Force: 130

Essence...

“Very well, my essence force is depleting much faster than I initially thought,” he mumbles as he wills the barrier to disappear.

“System, what is the time currently?”

The current time is 7:58 by the Pacific Daylight Time.

“Okay, should I go explore the destroyed city? I’m sure I could earn quite a few essence points and coins. I need food anyway. Yeah, I’ll do that.” he says to no one in particular as he stands up and winces when putting some weight on his injured leg. He sits back down as he falls deep into thought.

A minute or two later, a new system announcement comes up, snapping Ambros from his inner debate.

Congratulations to all survivors of the first mutation horde. As all non-human lifeforms have finished fully mutating now, starting generation of wastelands, danger zones, and safe zones. As all survivors have either finished defending their claimed area or have died while doing so, starting implementation of the home system, evolving system, and leaderboards. As the first mutation horde has passed, starting implementation of timed attacks on claimed places. Congratulations, you have survived the first night, here is your reward(s) sheet. You have been awarded 10 coins for killing 10 mutations. You have been awarded 25 coins for killing 25 mutations. You have been awarded 50 coins for killing 50 mutations. You have been awarded 50 coins for killing an evolved mutation. ★ Survive till next week to get another reward(s) sheet.

“That’s exciting and, well nice. System, can you uh... open my status?”

“Hm, nothing new here,” he mumbles as he pauses and stares into nothingness for a moment. “System, can you explain what the wasteland and new zones are?”

Wasteland: The entire world has been changed into the wastelands, mutations can freely wander around in there. The temperatures in the wasteland will slowly increase till it hits a limit. Danger Zone: The area where a mutation has evolved and where they reside. The place is more dangerous than the wastelands, and mutations killed there can become helpful to the users. The heat from the wasteland is carried over to a Danger Zone. Safe Zone: The nearby area of a home. Mutations can’t enter as long as the safe zone's barrier is not broken. The heat from the wasteland will not be carried over to a Safe Zone.

“So, what would happen when a safe zone’s barrier is broken? Can the mutations once again enter, or are there worse consequences?”

Negative, the user’s race does not hold enough authority to know.

“Huh, how do I gain a higher authority? Does that have something to do with the evolving stuff you mentioned earlier?”

Negative, the user’s race does not hold enough authority to know, please evolve first.

“Well, how can I evolve?” Ambros questions, but the System did not offer an answer. ‘It seems that it’s something I must find out on my own, or maybe its just painfully obvious but I haven't thought of if.’ just as Ambros thinks that, a new system announcement opens up.

Congratulations to the survivor Cheng Qi for getting the first rank on the combat leaderboard.

“Oh yeah, the System mentioned leaderboards. System, how do you get on the leaderboards?”

To see your leaderboard ranking, please think or say ‘leaderboards’. Leaderboard rankings are affected by the acomplishments of the user. Combat achievements in the combat leaderboards and so on.

“Hm? Leaderboards.”

Combat Leaderboard. Displaying the top five. #1: Cheng Qi, China #2: Ousmane Bongani, Egypt #3: Manuele Andrea, Italy #4: Noah Martin, US #5: Fernand Santer, Germany You have qualified for the leaderboards thanks to your incredible achievements, would you like to be displayed there? Y/N

“Hell yeah! Put me on there.”

Congratulations to the survivor Ambros Imperim for getting the first rank on the combat leaderboard.

“Damn, taking the first place like that, I guess it’s thanks to killing that damn yellow bastard,” he mumbles as his eyes momentarily glance over to his injured and still slightly bloody leg.

As you have ranked first on the combat leaderboards, you will be granted a discount of 50% on all offensive items and skills for the time you stay in the first rank. Granted user Ambors Imperim 100 coins.

“Sweet! Ah, System, do you have anything that could heal my leg, please?”

Searching for items that could heal minor injuries… 489 results found, filtering out the ones with a price of 236 coins and more...

“System, display the cheapest one's first.”

Accelerated Healing Band-aids. Description: When put over a minor injury, healing speed increased by 150%. 75 Coins. Healing Gel. Description: When rubbed over a recoverable injury, healing speed increased by 215%. 160 Coins.

“Ah, I’ll take the Healing Gel, thanks a lot.”

Healing Gel deposited inside the user’s inventory, would you like to pay 10 coins for an automatic appliance?

“No, thanks,” Ambros says as he takes out the gel from his inventory and rubs it on his leg, watching in marvel as the wound starts recovering itself. "Ah, one more thing, what are the, time attacks, thats what you said you were implementing, correct?"

Timed attacks: A mutation attack that aims to destroy a claimed place and kill everyone inside. They repeat with 24 hour intervals and users are awarded for their contributions defending the attacks, thats if they survive.

He nods in confirmation as he leans into the chair to relax a little.

A little while later, Ambros pushes open the Pentagon building’s door and walks out with a confident smirk.

“System, the time?”

The current time is 10:21 by the Pacific Daylight Time.

“Ah, the healing still took a little while. Anyway, this exiting the building shit was really cringe. So, where should I head? There is a zoo at the Smithsonian, if my memory serves me right, I’m sure there’s a bunch of mutations to kill there.” he says as he begins walking towards the place, smashing any mutations on the way there with his new sledgehammer.

About half an hour later, Ambros finds himself in front of a small cabinet with a few turnstiles lined up near it. Ambros placed his hand on one of the turnstiles and lifted himself over it. He looked around to see the nearby plants having been trampled over or having simply died, likely due to the warmer weather recently and the heatwave that has been beginning to near along the new wasteland addition.

Ambros walked over to the nearest exhibition that he was aware of, the hyenas to be exact. As he reached the place, his eyes darted around the place as a look of puzzlement etched its way across his face.

“No mutations here, no corpses here, nothing. Like they vanished into thin air,” he said under his breath as he continued to walk around, making his way from a place where animals were supposed to reside to another.

The only thing that was new about each of the places, was that there was either a giant hole in a wall, the glass was shattered or the bars were bent. “So they just came to a collective decision to say fuck you to the zoo and wandered off? Might as well go see where the giraffes were supposed to be…” he murmurs as he reads the nearest map of the place.

When he arrived at the open field, surrounded by a thin layer of tripwire that was serving as a wall, he tilted his head quizzically. The surrounding place was relatively different from the previous exhibitions he was at previously. Dried blood was laying on the ground, surrounding two giraffe corpses that seemed to have been bitten in their necks. The ground had been brought up in pieces, as a giant part of the tripwire was missing.

“I’m not sure how many giraffes there were here, but I think it’s safe to assume that these giraffes were killed by the evolved mutation I fought earlier. Ugh, I haven’t found any mutations so far, might as well explore the rest while I am at it, though.” he debated with himself as he finished with an impatient tone.

He picked up a jog to finish seeing all of the zoo quicker, but just as he reached the area where the monkey cages were, a sudden dread of coldness washed over him, and he got a system message.

Congratulations, you have found a Danger Zone, as you are the first in your city to do that, you gain 5 EP. You have entered a Danger Zone, beware, the risks are immense, but the rewards can be even greater.