Huang Wen woke up with an empty stomach. It took a few minutes before he collected the memories from the day before. He stayed in the bed for a while, he observed his surroundings. When he saw and heard nothing near him, he smiled.

Slowly he got up and stretched his body.

The sky still dark, there was no clock or watch to let him know the time.

Was it early in the morning? Was it still at night? How long he slept?

Huang Wen took a deep breath and thought, "Who cares? As long as I live to see another day."

He opened two packs of instant noodle and began to eat it without cooking it first. He used little bit of its seasoning just to give it some taste. After that he washed it with the bottled water.

Huang Wen stared at the bottled water, "If we had to use bottled water every time we needed it, then we'll soon run out of it. When I got out of this place, I would try to drink boiled water."

He stretched his body and began to do some light exercise. Now, more than before, he needed to train his body. He rarely paid attention to strength training but after the world change, he couldn't ignore it anymore. He did 20 squats, 20 push ups, 20 sit ups and 5 pull ups. He careful not to push his body beyond its limit, it would not do him any good if he couldn't lift his arm due to heavy training.

In his plan, he would like to spend more experience points toward his agility stat until he could move easily between floors. If possible, he would like to be able to move like something out of kung fu movies. With such agility, as long as he is careful, he would be able to escape from any dangerous situation. By that time, he would do a bit of experiment with his other stat.

Strength is pretty much explained. He already knew much about stamina, spirit and agility but what about vitality? But it could wait, Huang Wen rested for a while and waited until he was in prime condition.

Quietly he climbed down, he made sure that it was safe to enter. After he did it many times and with his improved agility, Huang Wen crept into the room without much sound.

His steps were light. He pushed back the broken barricades to barricade the door. The noise attracted few zombies.

It was the usual ritual, killed some, they broke the barricades, Huang Wen killed few more before jumped toward the hung bed sheet rope and climbed up. So far he was yet to find another skill book. Once he saw a lacquered wooden box with many patterns engraved on its surface but at that time he was desperately trying to survive and hadn't had time to snatched the box.

He was killing the last few zombies within the room when suddenly, as he killed one of them, another wooden lacquered box fell. Huang Wen quickly killed the rest before he grabbed the box and

He couldn't wait to reach his safe place and checked the box.

Few minutes later he sat safe and sound on his operational base. Huang Wen opened the box. His hand trembled a bit from anticipation.

Laid inside the lacquered wooden box was a simple but fine looking Katana. Carefully he took it and drew it from the sheath. The grating sound of steel filled the room. Huang Wen's eyes gleamed with excitement. He could feel how finely made the blade was.

"Whoaa... this is ... scary...", Huang Wen was admiring it.

He tried to swing the sword and then jabbed it. The weight and the sharp blade, both brought delight and fear. Huang Wen felt intimidated for the first time after he began to gain confidence to survive in this new world.

"Hmm... let's check the description.", he thought.

As his mind wanted to know about the sword, an information appeared within.

"Generic katana."

"Well known all over the world for its sharpness. It was said that a legendary katana could even cut through armors. Although this one isn't a legendary katana, but with a certain degree of mastery you could easily cut level 1 zombies in half."

"Attack power : 15. Durability : 25."

"Should I give it a try?"

"Hmm... I better practice with it for a while. It would be bad if my lack of experience using real sword leads me to stab myself.", Huang Wen said and chuckle to his own words.

Huang Wen spent the next few hours to practice with the sword. He visualized the fight with that sword. He didn't feel that this was a waste of time. The sky began to change its color, so Huang Wen knew he woke up very early in the morning. After he felt comfortable wielding the sword, he rested for a while and couldn't wait to check his new weapon in a real fight.

He climbed down and checked the room. There were three zombies walked around the room. Fortunately, they weren't closed to the opened window. Huang Wen entered the room without any hesitation. He unsheathed the sword and closing the distance fast. Just right when the nearest zombie was within his attack range, he swung the sword and to his delight, decapitated the zombie with one stroke.

He used the weight of the sword. Its sharp blade and his speed to give the optimum result. With the sword, he only lost one point of stamina to kill one zombie. He didn't wait until the next zombie reached him. With his agility, he moved in a flowing movement and killed the zombie one by one.

After the room was cleared, he followed the ritual. First barricade the door and then entice the zombies to come. Now, with his new weapon, he hunted efficiently. He killed 14 zombies each round. The zombies never had the chance to break through the barricades. Huang Wen's hunting speed was so fast that he could retreat back to safety before the defense was breached. It helped him to grow in leaps and bounds.

He stopped counting the numbers of zombies he killed after he reached level 7. It was getting harder to increase even one level but as long as there were zombies who were enticed to his ambush, he never ran out of zombies to farm. He only stopped to rest and eat.

At dusk, he reached level 10. That was then that something special happened.

At first, he got the usual message, "Congratulations, you have been promoted to level 10. You have 2 stats points, please assign your points."

"Two points to agility", Huang Wen consistently raised his agility.

Huang Wen was going to check his stat when another message entered his mind, "Congratulations, you have been promoted to level 10. You have gained 1 skill point, please select the skill to upgrade, or you can retain it."

"Great...!", he excited.

He only had one skill, the fireball skill and at level 1 his fireball was too much limited, "Upgrade my small fireball skill."

"By spending 1 skill point into your fireball skill, your proficiency at using the skill is improved by 1 level."

"Fireball, level 2."

"You begin to learn the technique by heart. You could easily activate the skill and form a fireball at will. However, you haven't fully absorbed the skill into your soul and as such you could only use it once a day but the time it takes, to form a complete fireball is greatly reduced."

Huang Wen shook his head, "Well that's not too bad at least, I can use it again today."

He was wondering would he fully master it by the time he improved the skill's proficiency into another level? Suddenly he felt that there was something on the window but when he looked at the window there was nothing.

He tried to calm his heart and assured himself that he was too stressed by the situation but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching him. Rather he could feel its presence and its malicious intent. Huang Wen felt that the minute he let himself defenseless, it will attacked him. He had fought against hundred of zombies. Within him there was something awaken, a survival instinct. Now, it told him that there was something dangerous near him.

Huang Wen remembered his third eye, this time he used his third eye, his spiritual eyes, to look at the window. Look at that. There was something sitting on the window's sill!

The sight shook him to the core. He had seen and killed probably hundred of zombies. It desensitized him from zombies. But this creature, it even worse than zombies. Just the look of it, incited fear in his heart. A memory that went far beyond thousands of years, something buried deep down in his DNA.

It looked like a bloated bald monkey with bat wings. At this moment it seemed, it didn't realize that Huang Wen already saw him. Huang Wen turned his back and walked toward the corner of the room. He forced himself to calm down.

He was pretending to get some rest but his spiritual eye, his third eye, still locked on it. He felt his hair raised when he saw this little demon was quietly following him from certain distant.

When Huang Wen sat and rest his head on the wall, through his third eye, he could feel that little demon smiled maliciously. He kept watching as the little demon crept even closer and closer but when it almost entered his sword range, it stopped.

It watched Huang Wen's hand that rest on the hilt of his katana.

It made Huang Wen wondered, 'This little thing seemed afraid of the sword... but there is nothing special with this katana...'

Suddenly Huang Wen moved forward and the little demon leaped back several steps.

'He did afraid of me... maybe he's not that strong... but I couldn't read any information out of him... maybe his spirit is stronger or equal to human but he is physically weak... Or weak against steel...', Huang Wen thought to himself.

The little demon obviously wary but at the same time it was unwilling to let Huang Wen go. It kept watching and wandering around him. Huang Wen yawned and it froze on its place. It watched Huang Wen intently while Huang Wen pretended that he didn't notice it present yet.

Since the little demon refused to enter the range of his katana, Huang Wen cooked another plan.

He pretended to practice his fireball skill. It took quite some time to form the fireball and from the way he saw it, it seemed the little demon laughed at him when it saw how hard it was for him to form a fireball. Even then, it retreated toward the window, watched the fireball and seemed to be ready to leap at any time.

Huang Wen didn't infuse much spirit into the fireball but rather kept it floating above his palm. From the way others see it, it seemed like perhaps he was playing around or practicing the skill. And after some time, the little demon crept back toward near Huang Wen. Secretly Huang Wen was anticipating the right moment to release the fireball.

The moment that little demon stopped from approaching him, Huang Wen released the fireball. It shot toward the little demon like a lightning and caught him off guard. With a shriek the little demon threw its body to the side to avoid the fireball but Huang Wen had been watching him closely, drew his katana and moved at the same time.

With a loud bang, the fireball exploded and made a hole in the wall. The little demon cursed and howled in pain as the katana sliced one of its wing. It tried to run away, but Huang Wen moved faster and grabbed it on the neck. He slammed it hard and pressed its face against the floor. The little demon tried to wriggle free, but Huang Wen was too strong for it.

"Curse you! Curse you! Damn filthy ape! Released me at once.", it yelled a string of curse.

But it suddenly shut its mouth when the cold blade of steel of Huang Wen's katana touched its face.

"Shut your mouth, or I'll lope your head off." said Huang Wen coldly.

"Wait... wait... wait... let me be your loyal servant... O great master... with sharp eyes and mind. Your great strength truly beyond the ordinary human. Not even the great alchemist of old comparable to you.", suddenly it changed its curse into flattery.

"I don't need flattery words... if you have nothing else to offer...", Huang Wen let the sentence hung, threateningly.

"Yes, o great master... I have information... lots of important information you might not know.", it yelped in fear.

"Do you know who is this person who changed the world?", Huang Wen asked.

"No.. wait I mean yes... of course..."

"Don't lie dimwit!", Huang Wen pressed the side of his blade harder.

It wasn't the sharp edge, but it scared the little demon greatly.

"No... err... he's...", the little demon tried to come up with some sort of story but it seemed that it was not that smart either.

"You insist on lying to me?", Huang Wen snorted and he sliced a chunk of its flesh.

There was the smell of flesh burnt as the blade sliced through and the little demon screamed in agony and let out a string of curses. When he sliced its wing, Huang Wen could smell the similar burnt smell, but it happened at the same time as his fireball explode and he didn't pay much attention.

"Shut up... does it burn? Are you in pain? Surely you don't want more pain...", Huang Wen added some weight as he pressed its head against the floor.

"Yes... yes... no... please no... o great master, the most benevolent... please no more... I will only tell you the truth and nothing but the truth.", said the little demon.

"Well, tell me then...", Huang Wen coldly said.

"I don't know who changes your world into its current state, but few days ago someone ripped and created a small hole on the barrier between our worlds. Bigger demons could not go through it, but little demons could."

"And then we heard this voice tell us, little demons, about these holes."

"What happened then?", Huang Wen asked curiously.

"Well ... nothing, we saw the hole and we went through it ...", said the little demon.

"And...", said Huang Wen.

"... we did what we naturally did thousands years ago when our ancestor still freely roamed on your world...", answered the little demon.

"And what is it, what did you do?", Huang Wen asked.

"..."

"Do you want me to cut something?"

"No... no... O great master... we did nothing... really... we just did what we naturally do..."

"Don't make me lose my patience.", Huang Wen gritted his teeth, he really began to lose his patience.

"We eat part of human soul... just a little bit...", the little demon squealed in fear.

"...", that little demon answer shocked him.

"Are you saying that you're the one who turns people into zombies?", Huang Wen asked to make sure he got it right.

"Zombies? Oh... you mean ghouls... err... sort of...", the little demon answered.

There was a moment of silence. Huang Wen tried to digest this information.

"How many of you are here?", he asked.

"How do I know? The barrier fixed itself after some period of time but I bet many of us managed to enter this realm before it closed again.", said the little demon.

"Do you have more information?", Huang Wen asked.

"Err... no... I mean... we just low level demons.... we don't know much. Perhaps other demons know something. I could help you to catch them. What do you say about that? Free me and I'll help you catch them.", the little demon answered and made an offer.

"I say, you know too little and I have no use for little demon who knows almost nothing. I'll just lope your head off and see. Maybe I got more experience than killing zombies.", Huang Wen coldly answered.

"Wait.. wait... wait a minute... I do have a bit more information...", quickly that little demon spoke.

"Talk fast and don't stop talking until you tell me everything you know. If I find nothing important came out of your mouth, I'll kill you!", said Huang Wen threateningly.