I opened up the door to my apartment and climbed down the stairs. I remembered when I first moved into my apartment two weeks ago, a move that was dictated by my job. My apartment was on the second floor of a brand new, five-story apartment complex. As far as I knew, I was the first tenant in the place. If I remembered correctly, only a total of three people were living in the apartment complex, the land lord still trying to process applicants and get them approved.

That worked out for me though, I didn't want to be around people freaking out about the apparent apocalypse. Another growl sounded from outside.

Okay, maybe it would be nice to have somebody around. Someone else that could be bitten by one of the monsters sitting outside. I reached the bottom of the stairs and paused next to the door leading outside. The stairs were indoors, a feature that I found quite comforting.

Still, I couldn't stay inside the rest of my life. I would run out of money eventually, and the only way to gain that money would be to kill monsters or finish quests. I didn't know how to get a quest, but the growls outside were definitely pointing out the monsters that needed to be killed.

I gripped my laser pistol tightly before flinging the door open.

...

Nothing.

There was no sudden burst of movement, no menacing monster trying to eat my face off. There was just a very comforting silence. I stepped outside, my heading whipping left and right as I tried to find what had been making the growling noise.

I was in the parking lot, only two cars were on the black pavement. My moped was parked next to the door. Besides the grass that surrounded the parking lot, there was only an empty road besie the apartment complex. I let out a sigh of relief as I stepped outside.

That was when it hit me. Literally, as a something slammed into my side. It had been pressed up against the wall, right where I couldn't see it. I felt pain as whatever it was bit my hand. I could see my hand flare bright blue as my SP dropped from 410 to 320 instanty. I shoved against the thing biting me, but it felt like I was shoving against a brick wall. I raised my hand and punched the thing in the face

It let go of me and stumbled backwards a step before catching itself. Now that I was able to see it, I recognized the creature that had attacked me. The wolf bared its teeth at me and growled. I had, somehow, been able to keep my gun in my hand. Raising it now, I pulled the trigger.

A red beam of superheated energy lashed out at the wolf. At the same time, my vison seemed to dim. It was probably to prevent myself from going blind as the laser was impossibly bright. Even dimmed, it was still like looking into the sun.

The laser instantly hit the wolf in the chest, missing the head where I had aimed at. I saw its chest glow blue, its own shield kicking in to prevent it from having a hole burned through it. The wolf let out a howl and leapt at me. Even as it lunged towards me, I started to react.

My improved agility must have had something to do with it. I had never been considered athletic in my life, I wasn't even able to buzz in first during Jeopardy. I fell backwards, firing my pistol multiple times. Of the five shots I fired, only three of them hit. The wolf passed over my head, hitting the wall of the apartment building.

I scrambled to my feet as the wolf picked itself off the ground. The wolf whipped around towards me and growled. I noticed that it now had a hole burned through its shoulder. The hole revealed grey goo on the inside of the wolf. The goo waved and rippled, but it made no effort to piece itself together. The wolf stalked forward, no longer attempting a wild leap.

I aimed the pistol at the wolf and pulled the trigger. This time, I held the trigger down. A red beam lanced out of the laser pistol and hit the wolf right in the face. The beam surged continuously as the wolf let out a pained howl. The howl suddenly cut off as a blue screen appeared in front of me.

Combat has ended! You have defeated 1 wolf, Level 10 Loot gained: 5 shards

When the screen appeared in front of me, I jerked in surprise. This meant that there was now a fairly good sized slash through the wall of the apartment building where the laser pistol had burned through. I hurriedly took my finger off the trigger at the same time as I dismissed the screen.

That did not work out like I had wanted it to, not at all. I needed to upgrade my intelligence, that wolf was moving to fast for me to come up with a plan. Sure, I had come out on top this time, but what if there had been two? I wouldn't have been able to keep track of them all.

I accessed the shop and put 39 status points into intelligence.

Name: Tony Eisen Species: Nanite-Human Gender: Male

Level: 19 (186 Status Points)

Age: 27 Agility: 6 Charging: 41 (EP Regen Rate: 82EP/Second) Dexterity: 6 Intelligence: 50 (Percieved time: 1.5x normal speed) Shield: 41 (Shield Points: 410. Costs 41EP/Second) Storage: 41 (Energy Points: 410) Strength: 1

I now thought at 1.5x the speed of a normal person, or 50% faster. Awesome. That meant I might actually be able to see that wolf before it hit me. Maybe. I checked my nanite count. 452 shards, 54 chunks. Great. I was now really starting to look poor. Since I was already on a shopping spree, I went ahead and bought the laser rifle. The sniper rifle wasn't meant for close range and the laser pistol didn't have the firepower I wanted. Now I had 51 chunks. Just peachy.

I looked around, not quite sure what to do next, and saw my moped laying off to the side. I instinctively reached for the keys in my right pocket and pulled them out. I stopped. Why could I reach through the armor? I paid attention as I reached back into my pocket. As I watched, the black armor turned to grey goo and moved out of the way of my hand, letting me reach into my pocket without being hindered.

I went over to my moped and put the key in the ignition. Another blue box appeared in front of me.

You have discovered Electric Moped blueprint. In the future, you may access your available blueprints by saying "Open Blueprints" Would you like to convert your moped into 50 chunks? Yes/No

Okay, that was new. I selected yes and watched the moped dissolve. Opening my inventory, I checked to see if it was there. Nope, not there. "Open Blueprints."

Electric Moped: 50 Chunks to make. To create object, say Create Electric Moped. 10EP/1 minute driving N/A

Huh. Might as well try it out. "Create Electric Moped." It formed in front of me from the ground, just like that. I noticed that my nanite count was back down to 51 chunks. I decided to try out a different hunch of mine. "Create Electric Moped." A second moped formed beside the first one. So blueprints would let me create multiple copies of an object, so long as I had the nanites. Simple enough. Now for the second test. "Store Electric Moped in Inventory." Nothing happened. Maybe it was because there were two of them?

"Store Electric Moped in Inventory." This time, I focused on the moped on the right as I said it. The moped dissolved into gey goop and disappeared. Checking my inventory, I saw that it really had disappeared. Great. I touched the other moped and got a prompt to convert it into chunks. I selected yes and summoned the first moped from my inventory.

Now, instead of an ignition or keys, it simply had a switch to turn it on. Weird. Maybe the key thing was to claim ownership of the moped? I decided to ignore the wacky rules for now. I was sure that the wolf I had killed wasn't the last one.

As I had that thought, I heard more growls behind me. Turning around, I saw three wolves emerge from the grass beside the apartments. This day could not get any worse.