John looked around the camp and felt utterly exhausted. He didn’t want this burden on his back, but he had no choice. The people around him needed his help, and if he could, it was his duty to extend his hand and help them.

It had already been three days since the tutorial had begun, the man known as Gael which he asked for help the previous day had vanished, going into the forest to do god knows what. His hand was full of things to do and of people to take care. He thought back to the skill hard skin that he bought on the store and was happy with his choice, by having it, he could protect himself and other people better.

He walked to the fifty people that were on his side of the camp and greeted them. Many were young, and few were older. Most of the people on camp ranged from 20 to 35 years old. Most elderly people had died on the first day. It was a cruel reality, but something he had to face. He spent the day organizing the camp and distributing roles among the people. He also helped by making stakes and wooden barricades for defense.

He walked to the other side of the camp and saw Rude approaching. He was surrounded by two men, one on each side of his. Although Rude had an evil glint in his eyes, there was also wisdom and cunning in them. Something necessary to go by. John didn’t like to negotiate with Rude to direct the camp, but some things were needed. He nodded to him, and both of them sat on the ground to negotiate and talk about how the camp would be directed.

“BOOOOM”

Gael ran like a madman toward the camp. He needed to know what was happening. After getting closer, he saw two men fighting. They were exchanging blows at a fast pace. They appeared and disappeared from place to place.

“Amateurs…” Gael said. The two people that were fighting were clearly using skills to power themselves up. The two were John and some guy he hadn’t seen before. The other guy had a golden skin and a red mohawk.

He saw that some other people that were on the mohawk guy side were about to surround John’s group. He looked to the side and saw that Rude and his crew were not taking action. Gael sighed and moved forward.

He disappeared from his place, and appeared in front of the mohawk man. He waved his glaive and hit the man with the flat side of the blade on the man’s head. The man couldn’t even react and was thrown away, as if he was a fly being swatted. The man flew through the air and hit others that were approaching from behind.

Gael only didn’t kill the man because he couldn’t feel killing intent coming from him. He simply used shadow steps to appear in front of the man and attacked.

The man slowly got on his feet, stumbling and almost falling again. He looked at Gael and flashed a smile. Gael retributed with concentrating his aura toward the man. The man trembled from head to toe. “RETREAT!” The mohawk man shouted and the group retreated from the camp.

“Thank you.” John said.

“That was nothing, you wouldn’t lose to him either way. I just wanted to get rid of the nuisances quickly.” Gael stepped toward the bonfire, and saw that Monoceros was quietly seated before it. He walked to it, and said. “I wish to buy some things.”

“Sure, sure. Just don’t bother me anymore, I have important things to do.” Monoceros said while yawning.

Gael looked at his points and sighed.

Points

1.154.700

He had gathered a lot of points by killing monsters through the forest. He knew that the points he had gathered were far from enough. He wanted to buy the Skill Ultimate body from the store, but it cost seventy million points, and he knew that only by spending he would have the capability to earn more points.

“I would like to make a full body armor and a glaive with those ores.” He grabbed the ores from his backpack and placed them in front of Monoceros. “I also want you to place an enchantment of growth on both the weapon and the armor.”

Monoceros opened his eyes and looked at Gael. “Oh… Finally someone with a bit of foresight… How did you know that we could place growth enchantments on items?”

“A friend told me.” Gael said. He took the glaive he was using and herbs from the backpack , clearly ignoring Monoceros’ question and said. “I also want to sell this weapon, and make a pill with these herbs.”

Monoceros nodded his head and said. “All your requests will cost you one million and a hundred thousand points.”

Gael calculated on his head and knew that the price was right. Creating the weapon and the armor would cost him around sixty thousand points, and the pill would cost forty thousand because of the herbs used. The one million points came from the growth enchantments that would be cast on the items, each enchantment was five hundred thousand points.

These enchantments would allow him to fuse four different materials into the items, making them grow with each new one added. These enchantments could only be casted on the tutorial, but the people that bought them were rare. After all, who would use their hard earned points to enchant their weapons instead of buying powerful skills or pills to make them stronger?!

Gael nodded to Monoceros and said. “That’s okay.”

The creature got up and made the ores float before it. Magic circles appeared around the ores releasing many runes into them. A bright light descended from the sky and shone upon the ores. In just a few seconds they melted and began to take form. An imposing black glaive and armor appeared from the light. After a few seconds, the items had taken form. “A fine work that I made.” Monoceros nodded. “You should thank me boy, it’s not everyday that a growth item is born.”

Gael nodded his head and said. “Your work is worth every point spent.” And after wearing the armor, he left with the new equipment on hand.

It was strange to see a man wearing armor and using a backpack on his back, but the situation required it, after all, he didn’t have enough points right now. Gael ignored the looks that he was receiving from the crowd and kept the pill in his pocket.

He now had a goal to fulfill, and the status and weapons to rely on, he swung his glaive, letting mana flow through it.

The quality of the weapon made it possible for him to flow mana through it. The hard thing about mastering a weapon was making the mana flow into it. Moving mana inside the body was hard, but making it flow outside the body was even harder.

The body was a natural container of mana, it naturally had mana flowing through it.Weapons made with normal material made it impossible to flow mana through them, they would crumble due to the foreign energy, or could even explode. Gael had learned that the hard way. Even using techniques with weapons was harder.

A simple technique that could be used was shadow step, it concentrated mana on the user's lower limbs to accelerate their instantaneous speed. Weapon mastery was also a technique, one very hard to master. Weapon mastery basically required the user to extend their mana into their weapons, fortifying it, and making it sharper. The attacks using weapon mastery were much stronger than a normal attacks, because a thin line of mana would be on the blade of the weapon, making it much sharper.

Because of his previous limitations of weapons, he couldn’t use mana on them. But in those two weeks where he had hunted monsters for points and searched for ores, he had trained with renewed vigor how to apply mana on his weapon, enhancing his attacks to another level.

Gael concentrated mana on his lower limbs and used shadow steps to run toward the undead region. Having Mana at Low (peak) gave him enough control to use mana with more efficiency, it was now possible to use a watered down version of shadow steps, allowing him to use it for longer periods.

____________________________

Gael ran through the forest while killing the creatures that appeared on his way. He felt amazing right now! The new weapon was light and sharp, making it possible for him more freedom of movement. The glaive was a heavy weapon, making it harder to wield it. His status being at Low(peak) made wielding it effortless to him, but even so the weapon was not so easy, but now things were different.

The farther he got from the camps region, the stronger the creatures became. He chose to use concealment in order to spend less time fighting.

After a long journey of two days, he finally arrived at the undead region. Ruins of a magnificent city stood before him. The structure of the city looked like ancient Rome, making it look like he was in the middle ages. There was a giant wall surrounding the city, however, most of the wall had already crumbled down, leaving only a phantom of what one day surrounded the city.

The earth was dry, and the trees died all around the place. Undeads walked from place to place, wandering eternally on the ruins, as if searching for a goal to fulfill.

Gael took a deep breath and ventured toward the place where no one had conquered before.