Chapter 27: Race to Level 10 IV

“Hmm… how weird!” Teo’s mumbling caught Gloria’s attention, who was busy inspecting a shiny rock between her fingers.

“What’s up?” She inquired, throwing a curious gaze at him.

“There are a lot of yellow markers on the map. We’ve got newbies.”

“Oh! How unlucky of them.” Gloria shook her head, lamenting their fate.

Teo stared dully at her. “You just dissed us too. You know that, right?”

“It’s true, though.” Gloria shrugged her shoulders. “No one comes to a place like this willingly.”

Teo shook his head and stopped discussing further on that topic. It’d only make him feel depressed. He looked around to change the topic when his eyes fell on the stone in her hand. Its shiny exterior and the purple flame-like design in the center made an intriguing piece, like a precious ruby unearthed from a ruin.

They did dig it out… just not from any ruin, though.

Far from being an ordinary rock, it was an item found only inside a level two zombie’s head. The akashic records called it Mana core, a consumable that could increase MAG by one point.

Though, he didn’t know the proper way to consume it. Teo had two of those stones in his possession; one given by Gloria when they first met and another from killing a level-two.

“What are you looking at?” Gloria asked, pocketing the stone carefully.

“How to use that thing? The System said it’s a consumable, but I don’t see a way to eat it. Should I just pop it in like a candy?”

Gloria blinked a few times, then made an ‘o’ with her lips. “First, grind the stone into powder. Then, mix them with a mana-replenishing potion, and chug it down. You can buy them at Marcy’s. I think it cost a hundred tutorial coins or something.”

“Oh…” Teo tried to recall if he had seen such a potion on Marcy’s list, but nothing came to his mind. I’ll ask her when I see her.

He got up, ready to start on the next horde. He was feeling great, and there was a sort of fluid to his movements. As if he unlocked a restriction put on him from birth. There were not enough words in his vocabulary to describe how wonderfully agile he had become. Teo was sure that he could outrun a mutant dog, a domesticated monster, in service of the city police.

Is this the effect of having higher agility? I feel so…. free… like a gust of wind.

“Yo? What’s up with you?”

Gloria’s voice pulled Teo back to reality. He found her waving a gloved palm across his face with her brows raised in curiosity.

“I’m fine.” He said, leaning back.

Gloria nodded, “Alright. Let’s go. The next horde is waiting for us.”

“After you.”

Teo followed Gloria’s lead as they beelined towards the next cluster on the map. Compared to the previous ones, there were fewer zombies in this group. They still didn’t relax. Lyria’s Cemetery had a reputation, after all.

They enacted the same strategy where Teo’s minions acted as vanguards while Gloria took out the problematic ones from afar. It worked like a charm, and the entire horde was cleaned up in a matter of minutes.

“Well, this is weird,” Teo mumbled, looking down at the zombie lying in a puddle of vile blood by his feet.

“Didn’t work?” Gloria inquired. She was leaning against the wall, eyes on Teo doing his experiment.

“No.” He scratched his head, throwing an idle eye on his level-two zombie that was merrily munching on a rotting hand. “It’s supposed to work, though. Am I doing it wrong?”

“Maybe it’s impossible.” Gloria reasoned. “We still don’t know much about that skill of yours.”

A deep sigh exhaled through Teo’s pursed lips. While finishing up the final one before they faced the last horde, he thought of an idea. Was it possible to tame other zombies with his level-two?

But the result was different from what he had thought. The level-ones instead attacked at his level-two at first sight.

“Now we know,” Teo grumbled as the sword in his hand whipped at the unsuspecting level-two’s head. Its skull gave in under the explosive momentum behind the weapon as gooey brain matter sprayed out in a conical shape.

You killed Zombie Lv 2 x1

+40 EXP

+10 EXP

“Sheesh! Was that necessary?” Gloria asked, wrinkling her nose as the foul scent hit her nostrils.

“Yeah. It had outlived its purpose.” Teo shrugged his shoulders.

This zombie was nothing without its pet level-ones; it couldn’t even play the role of a meatshield due to the innate nature of hiding behind others. He would rather not waste his Leadership on such a useless unit.

Gloria shook her head and focussed on regaining her Mana. “Anyway, after this horde, we are leaving the first floor. I don’t have enough time to sit around and wait for zombies to respawn.”

“Alright.” Teo agreed with her plan. Hunting the zombies had become less efficient the higher his level climbed. He needed a change of scenery. “By the way,” Teo began as he settled on the floor while waiting for Gloria to regain her energy. “How strong are these skeletons compared to zombies?”

Gloria hummed thoughtfully and then said, “Comparing them is like comparing a pre-teen to a toddler.”

“Ohhh…” Teo doesn’t know what to say. Her example came out as weird and oddly relatable. However, somehow it made sense, and he accurately understood their capabilities.

To put it simply, they are way stronger than zombies.

Gloria had more to say.

“Skeletons are more agile than zombies, almost comparable to us humans. And they use weapons made from bones. Also, each skeleton has around 100 HP, and even a minor graze from their attacks could chip away 20 points of health. You better be careful. They hurt.”

Teo attentively noted all their characteristics and committed them to his memory. They would come in handy later. He inspected the beginner weapon in his hand, a frown quickly forming on his face. I need an upgrade.

The wooden sword’s effectiveness was already lost. Teo was barely making it work by taking advantage of the zombies’ glaring weakness: their heads. It won’t work on the skeletons, from what he could tell.

“You need a better weapon,” Gloria informed, pointing towards his sword. “It’ll take ages to kill a single skeleton if you go around swinging that thing.”

“I know.” Teo nodded, then looked at the rifle leaning against the wall next to her. “Where did you get that thing? I’ve not seen anything like this on Marcy’s list.”

“I assembled it. Look—” Gloria pulled the sleeve of her left hand and revealed a tattoo. An index finger was swiped across it, causing the tribal image to lit up, then spit out an empty magazine into her waiting hand.

“I brought in all the parts and assembled them here. That’s how I bypassed the restriction imposed by the dungeon.”

Teo was paying full attention to her explanation. His eyes revealed curiosity when she showed off the tattoo… only to get wide as saucers when the magazine appeared in her hand. In his twenty-one years of being alive, never had he seen something this outrageous. How could a mere tattoo create things out of thin air?

“What is that? How can you create things out of nothing?”

A smirk found its way to her smug face.

“Teo, allow me to introduce you to the Smith family’s exclusive, the War Crests.”