“Anyway,” Leon said, coming a little closer to Alex so that no one overheard. “Why are some people looking at me like that?”

“You didn’t see?” Alex said, raising an eyebrow. “That explosion saved their lives, including mine. Why do you think my back is wet? I landed on a corpse pile, bounced onto a puddle of blood, then hauled ass to the subway.”

Leon winced, finding a few people being treated over in the farthest corner. He had completely missed them, but now that he paid attention, he noticed a lot of scrapes that would likely grow into big bruises over the coming days. One guy even had to have his shoulder popped back into its socket, his scream of pain echoing down the tunnel. Then he noticed the bodies covered in white sheets.

It seemed that not everyone was lucky enough to land on a corpse pile.

After chatting for a bit longer, Dominic gathered everyone up. They had almost lost more than half of the group. Fourteen people died, and that was after Leon inadvertently saved five of them by damaging the web. The number weighed on his mind. He might’ve been able to save everyone if he was some kind of genius, or even if he just had some more time.

But he didn’t, and now they were dead.

They jumped down onto the tracks and began the arduous process of hiking through the subway tunnel. No one wanted to hang around with the spiders. They were still keeping watch at the top of the stairs, none of them moving or blinking as they did nothing but observe. It was extremely disconcerting that there was nothing physically stopping them from coming down.

Luckily, everyone who survived the fall only had some bruises and scratches. The walk to the next stop was over twenty kilometres away, and while it was all flat ground, the ventilation was poor and there were a lot of inclines. It would be incredibly difficult to carry someone that entire distance.

Dominic was up the very front with another med student holding a rifle. They would cycle between the two of them every few hours, but for now, Marcus, Olivia, and Mila were standing behind him while Alex was to his right.

There was no natural light in the tunnels. The only source was from a flood light pointed down the tunnel while a few people had electric lanterns either hanging off their backpacks or on their belts.

Once he was ready, Leon opened his notifications.

[Congratulations! You have learned the skill: Qi Burst (Common).]

[While it is possible to learn and even master any Qi technique on your own, the system is designed to integrate them into your spirit as something called a skill. This will allow the system to provide a range of supporting functions, making the skill cheaper, more potent, and even easier to use. Best of all, the system will even aid you when it comes to evolving and improving the skill, sometimes even beyond what is possible without system support.]

[Would you like to learn this skill? Yes/No?]

[Warning! Replacing a skill will remove all applicable advantages. While it is possible to change skills in the future, there may be minor complications when replacing your current skill with a radically different one. For example, long-term habits may get a user killed on the battlefield, and the time required to learn the new skill may cause the user to be attacked during this period of weakness. When replacing or adding skills to your repertoire, it is important to think carefully.]

After discussing it with his friends, Leon made a decision. Not only did the warning sound relatively mild, simply saying that changing the skill would remove the old skill, but the advantages of gaining a skill also sounded too great to ignore. The prompt disappeared and over the next few seconds, a range of minute changes took place inside of him. There was mostly a tingle in his arms, but his head and stomach also felt a bit strange.

[Congratulations! You have learned the skill: Qi Burst (Common).]

His Qi reserves had somehow regenerated from the influx of life essence, and neither were his channels sore. There was also a feeling of stability within his entire body, making Leon feel more sure of himself. Even something as simple as walking down the tunnel felt easier. He would investigate the changes more in the future, but for now, Leon would have to just enjoy the benefits of levelling up in silence.

The problem came when he thought about using Qi Burst. He wasn’t comfortable testing the skill underground, not to mention he had nothing and no one to test it on. He eventually decided to push that to the back of his mind until they came across another demon.

Once that was over, Leon took a chance to see what his new titles were.

[Inspired: Create a Common-rarity Qi technique before establishing your foundation. +1% to Mind.]

[Executioner I: Kill five or more enemies with a single attack. +1% to all stats.]

[Executioner II: Kill ten or more enemies with a single attack. +2% to all stats.]

[Executioner III: Kill twenty or more enemies with a single attack. +3% to all stats.]

[Executioner IV: Kill fifty or more enemies with a single attack. +4% to all stats.]

“I killed that many with one Qi Burst?” Leon asked, staring incredulously at the title.

Executioner One, Two, and Three were crossed out, meaning he was likely awarded one title and then immediately had it replaced by the next as more spiders died. He could definitely remember killing one, its legs flying every which way, but he was almost certain that Qi Burst didn’t kill any other spider.

“Nah, mate,” Alex said, shaking his head. “It looked like you only killed one spider, but your skill was very spread out. It released a ripple of force that tore a huge hole into the web.”

Marcus nodded. “Once the shock wave spread out, a whole bunch of spiders fell as the webs snapped one after the other. I assume it was too much weight for the web to hold them all?”

“Honestly,” Olivia said, “I’m surprised it was only fifty that died. Thousands of those little bastards fell down.”

Leon read over the title again. “Not complaining, even if I technically cheated.”

Everyone shared a glance, either nodding or shrugging.

Marcus grinned. “Better to be a living cheater than an honourable corpse, I guess.”

Leon imagined that the intention of the title was to wipe out that many enemies with one devastating Qi technique, not snap a few webs and pray that the effect cascades. Repeating that event, however, would be incredibly difficult so Leon would take what he could get. Not to mention that he didn’t care. He would rather be a slimy bastard than dead.

With that out of the way, Leon opened his status.

Status

Name: Leon Hartwell

Stage: Early Foundation Forging

Race: [Mortal] Human

Level: 6

Titles: Prodigy, First Step, Inspired, Executioner IV.

Mind: 2.73

Body: 3.01

Spirit: 1.53

Skills

Qi Burst

His stats had all risen by a shockingly large amount, Mind and Spirit both increasing by half a point. It had been less than a few hours since the previous increase and now it had jumped once again. The first jump in value was from resting overnight, but what could have been the cause now?

Though Leon had an idea, he asked his friends what they thought. Some of their ideas were silly while others were very close to his own, the collaboration allowing him to feel completely confident that the culprit was the life essence from the spiders. The huge influx of warmth had healed his scrapes and bruises, leaving him feeling refreshed and full of energy. Now, he understood that it also raised his stats as a byproduct. If he killed another hundred spiders, his stats may rise by a minuscule amount, but he guessed that the current boost was from using his Qi so violently rather than the essence actively improving his body.

Before the influx of warmth, every muscle from his shoulder to his fingertips had burned with pain. Leon had likely torn them all, and that wasn’t even mentioning the strain on his channels. They were raw and cracked, the damage likely too great to naturally heal with time.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

He was lucky that levelling up could aid in the recovery process. If not, Leon would be bruised from the fall, unable to use his Qi from all the damage to his spirit, and only have a third of his Qi supply left. That wouldn’t have been great considering he didn’t have a gun, meaning he could only defend himself with his cultivation.

Going back to chatting with his friends, Leon discovered that Marcus and the other surviving riflemen had killed quite a few spiders. They had all unlocked the system and gained access to their own interfaces, but they couldn’t feel or manipulate their Qi because their bodies were still being saturated by aura. They were also limited to level one, a cap placed on them from absorbing any more life essence until they awakened their spirits and gained access to Qi.

The infusion, however, had done something quite interesting. All of their aura saturations had jumped. Marcus was the highest at forty five, increasing by a little under ten whole points from when he received his first notification. The excess life essence fortified their bodies as it flowed in and then leaked out, but it also helped to awaken their spirit somehow.

As long as they continued having near-death experiences, Marcus should awaken his spirit within the next week or two. If not, he would still gain access to his Qi within a few weeks since it was naturally increasing by the day. All he needed was time, and in the tunnels, they had an excess of that.

Suddenly, everyone stopped when Dominic called a halt. There was a demon farther down the tunnel. It was a regular humanoid monster, the same type that had appeared in the apartment all those days ago.

Hold on, that was only yesterday, Leon thought. So many terrifying things had happened in such a short amount of time, making him feel like the apocalypse had started weeks ago. Hell, he had almost died three or four separate times depending on if he wanted to count Dominic as a lethal threat.

Leon pushed his way to the front. “Is it cool if I deal with this? My Qi can be regenerated, but our bullets can only be used once before they’re gone.”

Dominic said nothing, merely giving him a weary glance before gesturing to go ahead.

Leon took a deep breath as he began to push on his dantian. A thick bar of Qi was pulled out of his navel, the power easier to control now that he had time to think about his actions. Not only was he able to pull on a smaller amount, but he could also manipulate his power more finely now.

It also helped that his channels didn’t ache nearly as much from the passing of his Qi. The pain was distracting, so while there was still a bit of discomfort, things were a lot easier now that his channels had grown tougher.

Nothing jumped out as being different until the Qi flowed into his arm. Instead of requiring his intense focus, Leon could feel the Qi gathering in his palm, the power moving as if his channels were naturally pushing the technique into shape.

Leon pulled back, wanting to test how much effort was required to form the technique. If the skill could manifest on its own then he wanted to know. Sadly, that didn’t seem to be the case. When he reduced his attempt to that of a casual, barely focused effort, the Qi in his palm refused to gather into a Qi Burst at all.

Despite still needing a substantial amount of focus, the upgrade was enough to let him move around while forming the technique. Being able to flee or, if he lived long enough, fight while using Qi techniques was a major advantage. It would definitely save his life in the future.

With that done, Leon gathered a comfortable amount of Qi in his palm and just held it there. The demon was still hobbling over twenty metres away, giving him ample time to feel how the Qi flowed in his hand. It wasn’t as chaotic as he expected. His palm held a slowly spinning disk while his fingers and thumb were like tiny rivers that looped back to the ocean in his palm. Little streams were pushing up to the tips and then flowing back down, almost fuelling the circular motion of the disk in his palm.

There were so many tiny details he noticed. Whether it was due to the shape of the channels in his hand or the quirks of how Qi behaved, he was learning a lot in the few seconds he could spare for the process. Sadly, all good things came to an end.

The demon stumbled close enough to notice him, screeching its horrible song of death. It pounced at Leon since he was the closest. Seeing it fly towards his face, memories of his near-death experience began to resurface.

Leon almost hesitated.

Almost.

He smashed the demon in the face with his palm, a wave of invisible force erupting between them. The shock wave not only stopped its leap but also launched the demon back down the tunnel. It flew away and did a flip, landing on its back a few steps away from Leon.

The demon stopped moving, but it was almost certainly still alive.

A few people behind him chuckled at the comical sight of the demon with its legs flipped over its head, but Leon ignored the sounds as he prepared to attack again. Qi flowed into his hand and formed the usual spinning disk, only this time, he began to test different areas in the hope of improving the skill.

There were no visible scratches or cuts on the damn monster. While Qi Burst had worked great on the spiders, Leon now realised that the skill was very specific in its purpose. A wave of force could only do so much to something solid, and while his approach to creating skills wasn’t necessarily wrong, he now understood that Qi Burst wasn’t very useful in most situations. The last thing he wanted to do was use up all his precious Qi when a bullet to the head would do the job far more efficiently.

Leon started by speeding up the rotation of the disk in his palm. As he expected, pressure began to rapidly build up in his fingers, making it feel like his fingertips were about to explode. The discomfort was a mild distraction, but his control would begin to slip if it got any worse.

Standing over the demon as it began to stir, Leon thrust his palm into its face once more. Its head bounced off the rock floor, the wave of force a notch more volatile. The energy wave also spread out less but the demon still wasn’t dead. Stunned, sure, but he didn’t want to stun his enemies with a gentle breeze.

He wanted to kill them before they could kill him.

Leon took the bloody stone underneath its head as a sign of encouragement. He used the same amount of Qi, but instead of spinning the disk faster, he attempted to compress the Qi in his hand.

The disk shrunk by a minuscule amount before the Qi began to fight his control. Leon sighed, guessing that its size had been reduced by ten percent. The speed of its clockwise rotation didn’t increase and, surprisingly, he couldn’t feel any extra pressure in his fingers or palm. Besides the smaller size, nothing else seemed to change.

At least at first glance, it didn’t.

Everything about the process had been unusually smooth. It was surprising, but that didn’t stop Leon from pulling his arm back and smashing it down onto the demon’s forehead. The loudest bang yet echoed down the tunnel while a huge vibration shot up Leon’s arm. A hint of regret for his decision to experiment rose up in his chest, but before he could apologise or even pray that the noise didn’t attract anything else, the demon’s head smashed into the solid rock floor and cracked open.

Cerebrospinal fluid splashed out like juice from a watermelon thrown onto the pavement. Nothing happened for a few seconds as everyone waited for the demon to move, their unnatural tenacity a horrifying trait. But as the seconds passed, the monster didn’t make a noise. Leon half expected it to jump back up until a rush of warmth filled his body.

It was dead.

The people behind him stood in silence, their eyes glancing between Leon and the corpse as the scent of metal and salt began to mix with the stale air of the tunnel.

That had been... a bit more effective than he had intended.

With no one coming forward, Leon stepped back from the puddle of cerebrospinal fluid that was clawing at his boots. He gave Dominic the all-clear and walked back through the crowd, quickly meeting up with his friends while he ignored the stares people were sending his way.

With the demon out of the way, they began to walk once more. Although the sound was much quieter than a gunshot, it was still enough to echo down the tunnel. No one wanted to tempt fate and wait for a monster to investigate the area.