Although Alex didn't know what exactly happened, he has decided to ignore that for the time being. As long as he was safe, there was no need for him to raise up much of a fuss. He finally stopped and laid down his injured body as he leaned against the giant tortoise's corpse.
Too stimulating. The events of the day had been far too stimulating for him. He never thought that he could experience so much excitement and pain in just a few hours.
'This body, how do I treat it?' Alex thought wryly as he stared down at his broken body.
Alex knew that with the attack of the monsters, the hospital probably didn't even exist anymore. Just looking at the various broken bones, big lacerations and various internal bleedings on his body, Alex knew that he was not that far off from death unless he got some emergency treatment. The only reason as to why he hasn't died yet was mostly because he had spent a lot of points on his vitality.
'Wait a minute, if this was a game..." Alex suddenly had a thought.
He immediately dragged his wounded body around the giant tortoise's corpse. His eyes were looking carefully left and right like he was diligently searching for something. He kept this going for about five minutes before he finally plopped down and sigh in disappointment.
'I thought that the giant tortoise would drop a health potion or something. Looks like I was wrong,' Alex thought wryly.
The only option left for him at that moment is to lay down and hope that his higer than normal vitality would be able to heal his body in time. He did felt his wounds gradually turning better and better, but Alex knew that at the rate he was recovering, he would be dead or permanently crippled before it can actually heal him completely. Also, his body was frantically losing stamina quickly. Alex was sure that it was because of his high vitality stat using his stamina to recover. At this rate, he might also die from over exhaustion.
'Even when I'm safe, I have so many problems. That squirrel have pretty much ruined me,' Alex thought.
He was just about to lie down and leave everything to fate before something glowing at the side of his vision suddenly made him curious. Since it was closer to the crater and futher away from the tortoise's corpse, he didn't notice it before. It was glowing blue with crackling noises that sounded similar to the squirrel's charge up state.
When Alex made his way towards it, he saw that it was something small. It was about the size of a small pebble. The one thing that differentiated it from a normal pebble was the blue electricity that kept dancing around it.
Thunder Squirrel's Fang
Unlike normal squirrels, Thunder Squirrels are a mutation from Fanged Squirrels that feast on meat. Its tooth have all been turned into fangs and infused with its deadly electric aura.
Possible alchemical ingredient.
Alex saw the description of the little fang even before he had to touch it, which made him sigh in relief. Even with his hands gloved up in his claw gauntlets, Alex did not want to touch the thing at all if he could help it. His bad experience with the squirrel made him afraid of touching anything that came straight out of that little monster's body.
'Wait, if the squirrel's tooth can become an alchemical ingredient...' Alex thought as he stared at the giant tortoise's corpse that was still just sitting there intact.
Sure enough, a long list of notifications and descriptions appeared in front of him when he looked carefully at the tortoise's corpse.
Laser Tortoise's Shell
The shell of the laser tortoise. Despite its durability that rivals regular diamonds, it is relatively weak compared to the shells of other tortoise type beasts. Decent armor material.
Possible alchemical ingredient.
Laser Tortoise's Bones
The bones of the laser tortoise. Due to its main Life Energy Beam skill, its bones contain a few hundred times more vitality than regular tortoise type beasts. Eating can restore a slight bit of health.
Legendary cooking material.
Laser Tortoise's Meat
The meat of the laser tortoise. Due to its main Life Energy Beam skill, its meat contains a few hundred times more vitality than regular tortoise type beasts. Eating can restore a slight bit of health.
Legendary cooking material.
‘Jackpot!’ Alex could not help but thought to himself as he stared at the corpse of the giant tortoise with happiness. He did not waste any time as he immediately made his way to the giant tortoise. He stabbed his clawed hands at the giant tortoise’s meat and ripped of chunks and chunks of them.
While he could not even leave a scratch on the giant tortoise’s body before, ripping out chunks of meat from its dead body seemed to be so much easier, almost effortless in fact. Alex took off his ruined bloody shirt and laid the ripped tortoise meat on it. At that moment, he didn’t care what sort of bacteria and diseases that he could get from putting the meat on his dirty shirt. All he cared about was to gather as much meat from the tortoise corpse as possible.
When the one fourth of the tortoise’s corpse had turned into nothing but bones, Alex stopped. The meat on his shirt had piled up and could hold onto any more. After that, Alex went and tried to look for dry wood that he could use to start a fire.
It took him about an hour to do so because he could only crawl due to his injuries, but in the end, he managed to gather a sizable pile of wood. He gathered a few of the sticks into a circular formation and started a bonfire with it. When he was done, a decent fire burned in front of him.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Despite the fact that it was still midday and the smoke could probably be seen for miles by others, Alex have already stopped caring. Most of the people in the city are dead, so Alex didn't think that anyone would be attracted to the smoke. As for beasts, Alex wanted to level up anyway. He needed to put more points in his vitality so that he could heal up faster. If a monster was as hard to deal with as the squirrel, then he would fight it to the death.
He skewered some chunks of meat that he had ripped off from the giant tortoise and grilled it over the fire. Immediately, a nice smell of burnt meat wafted out. While Alex didn't have any condiments that he could use to cook the meat better, just the smell of burnt meat in the air was already making Alex's mouth water.
Alex suddenly realized that it was around lunchtime, which meant that the time was just about right.
When he took out the skewered meat from the fire, Alex suddenly saw a notification.
Cooked Laser Turtle Meat
The meat of a laser turtle that have been cooked over a live fire. Due to the immense vitality that the meat possessed before its cooking, this cooked meat restores 1000 health points when consumed.
"Holy shit, 1000 health points!" Alex could not help but shout out in excitement.
Although he didn't know how many health points he currently had, Alex didn't think that it is ever close to a 1000. He immediately shoved the cooked meat into his mouth and chewed happily. The meat seemed to burst into his mouth as Alex felt a strange energy flow out from the meat into his mouth. From his mouth, the energy went and circulated itself all over Alex's body.
Hah!
Alex sighed in comfort. The pain from the various injuries that the squirrel had inflicted on him suddenly disappeared as he felt all of those cuts and wounds suddenly disappearing. The various broken bones had also mended back to their proper place like magic.
"Goddamn! This is some good stuff!" Alex said.
Alex's cooking skill was mostly just ordinary. In fact, most of the food that he had tried to cook in the past all tasted kind of bland. However, the cooked tortoise meat that he ate before was without a doubt the single most delicious food that he had ever eaten.
'Healing my body completely just from eating a few chunks. This is miracle meat!' Alex thought to himself as he stared greedily at the mountain of tortoise meat in front of him.
Alex immediately made his way over to his ruined classroom on the other side of the street. He took out some lunchboxes that were left behind because of the student's death and brought it back to the ruined building that he was just in before. He also gathered a few more dry wood and piled up onto the pile that he had just had.
'I can't let these meat go to waste,' Alex thought as he started smoking the pile of meat in front of him.
After about three hours of smoking the meat and filling it up in different lunch boxes, Alex finally heaved a sigh of relief. The giant tortoise beside him that was as big as a car was left with nothing but its shell and bones. Alex had stripped it off all of its meat.
Alex had originally planned to strip off its bones as well since it seemed to also be capable of healing him after it was cooked, but his bag was full and Alex did not really know how to cook bones in a meal. That was why he left it all along with the bones.
Alex had changed out of his tattered clothes and he was wearing a black shirt with some cargo pants, both of which he looted from some other people's corpse. He was also carrying a large backpack that he looted from somewhere within the rubbles of the school. The backpack was filled to the brim with lunchboxes that was filled with smoked tortoise meat.
'I guess I should learn the skill book that I have gained before I go huh?' Alex suddenly remembered.
He made his way over to the ruined building again and picked up a bloodied book that have now been covered in building debris and dirt. Alex cleaned off the dirt and blood as he opened the book carefully. Instantly, a notification appeared in front of his face.
Do you want to learn the skill 'Life Energy Beam'? (Yes/No)
Alex picked yes without any hesitation. The book immediately turned into countless white balls of light and flew directly into Alex's body. A sudden surge of knowledge suddenly assaulted his head as Alex felt that a plethora of images and information flashed over and over in his mind.
When Alex finally regained himself, he looked at his watch and realized that not even three seconds had passed. However, to Alex, it felt like learning that skill took quite a long indeterminate amount of time. After learning the skill, Alex suddenly knew quite a bit about how to shoot out that life energy laser beam.
'Still, to eat up 10 health and stamina points... I'm going to have to have at least 50 vitality before I can use it comfortably,' Alex thought wryly to himself.
After learning the life energy beam skill, Alex had learned that his health and stamina points is very hard to grasp. There was no set point that could determine how many health or stamina points he have at any given moment. The only thing that he could rely on is his vitality.
Apparently, vitality not only determines how tough your body is, it also determines how much health and stamina points you recover each second. From the knowledge gained from the skill book, Alex knew that he recovers one fifth health and stamina points of his current vitality stat per second. The more vitality he has, the more health and stamina that he could recover each second.
If Alex has 50 in his vitality stat, he would recover about 10 points in health and stamina per second. In that case, he would be able to shoot and keep up his life energy laser beam forever. By that point, he would be so freaking overpowered!
'I might not have enough vitality points yet, but maybe I can try the life energy beam once to see how strong it is?' Damien thought to himself.
Alex put out his hand in front of him as he focused the life energy in his body. After a one second delay, a gigantic light blue beam of light suddenly shot out from his hand and flew straight to the school that have already turned into piles of rubble. When it his this rubble, the beam suddenly exploded and made a two feet crater.
Alex had only kept it going for three seconds, so he only lost about 30 points in health and stamina. Despite this, his body already felt slightly weak and tired, as if it was feeling unwell. Thankfully, it only took around 6 seconds before he recovered to his normal self.
'I'll just treat it as a killmove that has a cooldown proportional to how long I use it,' Alex thought as he stared at his consumption.
'The power of this move isn't as strong as the tortoise's though,' Alex thought as he compared the two feet crater he made with the giant holes that the tortoise made that spanned at least a few miles around Santa Cruz.
When he looked into it further, he realized that his skill was only at level one. The skill itself has a maximum level limit of thirty, and every level up of the skill would improve the skill's destructive power. Alex had no doubt that he would be able to completely decimate a whole city if he managed to level up the skill to its maximum level.
'I guess it's about time I go back home and find my family huh?' Alex thought as he slung the large backpack on his back and made his way over to the city.