I initially wanted to develop a skill that reflected how everything had changed—something akin to a knowledge skill. But I had none. No motor knowledge. No yacht knowledge. No street knowledge. No academic knowledge.

I had “study,” but that wouldn’t translate into pure knowledge of the system when I developed it. I couldn’t afford to waste development points trying to study the system and its “mix and match” philosophy when it would become common knowledge after a few weeks or months.

So it came down to which mana recovery option would be most effective. I could base it on my breathing skill or the meditation skill. Both had their obvious merits and demerits: one I could use while moving, the other while standing still.

There were just several problems.

First, a fundamental lack of understanding of mana. Was it something in the air? Was it something humans could generate? Was it something that humans always had?

Second, I wasn’t sure if more restrictions meant greater power, or if I could get around restrictions through training or other developments.

The idea of training horrified me. I had done it all my life, and now, with magic and the world turning into one big game, I still had to train?

My instinct told me to develop Mana Arrow. There was so much potential, if only I could sink the developments into improving it. Rather than being a jack of all trades, I could specialize in a single skill that did it all: mana-efficiency, mana or health restoration, damage increase, tracking enemies, arrow splitting, piercing, phasing, and so on. The improvements were endless. And if I did the same with my bow?

I went back to the breathing skill. If I wanted to do any of that, I needed a way to generate mana that wasn’t tied to hitting things with arrows.

What if I missed? Or if an arrow only restored a fraction of mana?

One development to improve an auxiliary skill wouldn’t kill me.

“Choose Breathing Skill. Develop it to absorb mana.”

System. Analyzing.

1. Basic Mana Breathing: Train to increase the amount of mana absorbed with each breath.

2. Breath Control: Master control over your breathing to regulate mana intake.

3. Mana Lung Capacity: Expand your lung capacity to hold more mana.

“Can I change my choice to faster mana regeneration?”

System. Error.

Hubris.

The system did not know what I was thinking. I had to clearly state it.

The last two options were completely unrelated to what I wanted, and even the first one slightly missed the mark—I wanted a passive increase, not an active one. It was like how some mountain tribes could use oxygen more effectively…without having to do anything. Otherwise, what was the point of choosing it over meditation?

It was also just too… basic. The choice literally said it was basic.

System. Retry by visualizing the desired skill? Caution: Failure possible without proper knowledge.

It was a tempting message, but the idea of the skill development failing loomed large in my mind. I knew none of the scientific names, except maybe for the throat and the lungs, that were involved in breathing. I’d need to know those, plus mana. And that was just to replicate basic mana breathing, not to increase internal mana regeneration.

I picked Basic Mana Breathing. I knew I was being silly. If it would keep me from watching people die in front of me, then I’d train all my life to use it.

Knowledge filled my mind.

Kind of like a… magnet? Using mana to get more mana?

I wasn’t sure what exactly the process was.

It was still dead simple…precisely like I wanted. So simple that I could have figured it out myself if not for the very real risk of rupturing organs. And it could be any organ. If I moved the mana in my blood just the wrong way, going past the artery walls in my brain?

Brain aneurysm.

And seeing how it was in my lungs, and there was no way I’d be healing a collapsed lung… yeah.

I started absorbing more mana. I couldn’t feel it like I could observe the formation of mana arrows. I mean, why would I? It was inside my body. The moment it went past my nose, I felt nothing of the process. The only thing I could feel was the warmth of my mana and how it traced the sacs of my lungs.

Getting that mana to do anything was hard, and I didn’t even have one mana… I only had the fraction that had regenerated with my slightly over 0.5 mana regeneration per hour. If I were to compare it to something, it would be like looking at a stretch of beach and predicting the waves: which waves would overtake another, which ones would send seaspray, which would froth, which would ripple, and which ones would crash on the sands first, and then the exact time it would begin returning to the strait ocean.

With a fraction of a fraction, I only had to look at one piece of it… one section of wave. More often than not, I got lucky, and the entire wave was one predictable line. Sometimes, I was unlucky, and the waves would split into two or three different sections.

After an hour, my mana pool was full. That was astronomical. Maybe I’d been a little hasty in spending so many points on mana regeneration. But didn’t it mean that the tiny 5% mana regeneration was pulling a lot more weight?

Yes. I was thinking about it the wrong way. Rather than trying to make up for my weaknesses, stat points should be used to capitalize on my strengths. And the way I could create strengths was through development.

But how should I use my last development point?

I didn’t know what weakness I had to cover. Saving it until I came across the weakness the mana golems revealed seemed like the epitome of hubris. If the system didn’t let me develop during combat, I’d be screwed.

But rushing into things half baked was equally as harmful. I decided to hang onto my last point.

I think I’m ready.

I unanchored the yacht and headed toward the shore.

Maybe it had been the long morning. Maybe it had been all the thinking. Maybe it had been the pall and horror of yesterday finally lifting.

I whooped and laughed as the yacht cut through the waves, the wind streaming through the windows and threatening to take my cap off—

Okay. Full stop.

The cap stays on.

I tucked it deeper and tighter, then shut the windows. Who cares about the wind, anyway? I was here to hunt, and I was going to hunt.

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I laid on the horn.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

The short and clipped sounds made me want to cry.

Blaaaah.

That was me keeping my hand on the button. It was still loud—the volume was there—but it sounded... defeated. It was like being promised a majestic, revving Porsche 911 GT3, only to receive a tiny meowing cat.

Mana golems spilled over the seawall.

Feeling defeated, I stepped out on deck to check them out. This time, I used the magnification. It was trippy and a little blurry.

What I saw left me feeling... something.

A few of the mana golems were different. They might have always been that way and I never noticed, but when they flicked their tongues, like snakes, or when they roared, there were rows of spikes on their tongues, like a cat’s—but larger and sharper.

Did…did I attract the cat versions?

It just was not my day. The stupid things were mocking me.

I moved my head to the side, away from the magnification. I was getting a headache looking through it.

That was fine. My vision had always been pretty sharp.

I nocked my arrows, focusing on the general area of the kitty golems.

I missed badly.

The mana golems were still eager to snap them up.

I missed badly again.

I stopped, calming myself. I was getting too worked up over this.

My next shot also missed.

I resisted the urge to throw my bow down.

What gives?

I felt my cap loosen.

Ah.

It was obvious, wasn't it?

I pressed down my cap with the fury of a balding middle-aged office drone.

Even I wasn’t this bad at archery. It was the wind—actually the wind. It wasn’t just an excuse like sore arms (which they were) or the humidity that many of us had used at the meets.

I hadn’t noticed since I had been in the area so often and was used to the wind. I was also distracted by the horn and the kitty golems. But the wind was much stronger than yesterday. The cap on my head, despite my efforts, was still one shake away from flying off.

It was to be expected. The strait ocean was basically a wind corridor, much like how poorly designed skyscrapers could funnel 15-mile-per-hour gusts.

I kept shooting like the good boy I was. Who cares if the wind hated me? I could just spam arrows at full strength in their general direction, and they’d go out of their way to kill themselves.

I was surprised when I shot my next arrow and nothing snapped at it.

No way. No fucking way.

I, Alex, for the first time, had fully wiped out the evil monsters along this stretch of beach. Even blasting the Blah! Blah! didn’t bring any more.

That made me hopeful.

If I could do it, then the rest of the city could too. If the disaster extended beyond the city, then the rest of humanity. There were plenty of talented people around the world and in the military.

It wouldn’t be easy, and I didn’t expect humans to overwhelmingly sweep aside the monsters like the military could have. My mind went back to the plane that had been falling on that first day.

But if everyone managed to find a safe place to pick off the mana golems, things would go back to normal soon.

I watched the mana golems’ bodies closely this time. If the water brought one of their bodies close, I’d definitely put it in my inventory and check it out on the deck. I wanted to see if they were edible. I’d run out of food eventually, and… well, they kind of looked like dinosaurs.

I was distraught when they dissolved into little motes of blue light.

Mana?

In their place, hovering just above the waves, were small orbs that shimmered with the same blue light. Each orb contained what looked like an item.

My heart dropped in my chest.

All the mana golems I had killed and left behind? All the arrows I had used?

My greed cooled. I hadn’t been in a position to retrieve the loot. But now? Now I had the chance to collect everything.

I couldn’t just wait around for the military. They should have reacted by now—done something, helped people, reestablished lines of communication, pushed back the monsters, flooded the skies and seas.

Nothing happened. None of the famed rapid response aircraft, or any aircraft, which had been the bulk of the investment for the nation-states and the empire for the better part of two decades, had made an appearance.

Less said about guns and other advanced weaponry, the better.

I thought about the person or people shooting at the mana golems at the docks.

Given time, I was sure the elite militaries around the world would learn how to use the system-provided weapons and kick monster butt. Until then, they were reduced to old-world weaponry, relying on primitive ranged weapons and cold steel.

It just wasn’t going to cut it. They wouldn’t get their act together in a day, much less two days. Maybe in a week, if I was lucky, they'd come roaring back to retake their coastal cities.

Not now.

As I approached the stretch of water where I had killed all the mana golems, I blasted the horn repeatedly. Sure enough, a few stragglers appeared far in the distance.

I ran onto the deck as fast as I could, my shoes skidding on the wet surface. As the yacht slowly came to a stop, I raised my bow and aimed.

My hands were shaking.

I was close enough to the orbs that the mana golems could jump onto my ship and capsize it—just like the ship that had been boarded that day, or all the other ships floating in the water, overturned and broken.

But what I saw that day was the least of it. They didn’t look fast when they were scrambling across the beach and into the water, but when they jumped, chasing me in the water?

Just like with the sand, water didn’t impede them at all. Even when they went out as far as they could go, submerging themselves in the water, they were able to launch their entire bodies so high that their feet could touch the waves before going down again.

If I missed one and they held their breath to get right under my ship…?

I would not underestimate them.

I forced my hands to steady. They were fast and scary, but there were only a few of them, and they were still on the sand.

They died quickly. I made sure each and every one was accounted for.

My nerves were jangling as I moved the yacht forward the last stretch. The orbs floated high, untouched by the wind and waves. I was worried at first that the yacht would damage them.

I panicked when a wave pushed the yacht too far, completely covering an orb.

I was relieved to find the item in my inventory.

I sailed the boat straight through the rest of the orbs.

I still hadn’t received an "out of combat" notification, and I wasn’t sure if that required a full ten minutes without fighting or simply clearing out all the nearby enemies. Either way, I stayed alert, ready to turn the yacht around at any moment. The faster I got out, the better.

I collected the last of the orbs, except for the few I had killed on the beach—

Hell would freeze over before I tried grabbing those.

–then sped my yacht away.

Relief washed over me. I was safe.

I stripped off my clothes, tossing them in my inventory. I shook, but this time from relief. Going through the cabinets, I found spare clothes—my father’s.

I hopped into the shower—I usually showered at night—then put them on. The cotton T-shirt was oversized, the sleeves hanging past my elbows, and the hem almost reaching my knees. Even the underwear was too big... they felt more like shorts at this point.

Embarrassing. But there was no one around to see me like this.

I opened my inventory, checking each item. Mana potions, mana crystals, and a mana golem shard.

Mana Potion: Contained within the still-sticky flesh of the mana golem, a blue liquid rests inside. Restores 100 mana when used.

Mana Crystal: Holding it, you can feel a faint thrum, as if it still pulses with the golem’s lifeblood. Restores 100 mana when used.

Mana Golem Shard: Assemble fifty to create a miniature mana golem. Assemble one thousand to create a full mana golem.

I can have a pet kitty!

It being 5% of the shards of a full mana golem sounded tiny. It’d be pettable.

I was less certain about getting a full mana golem. They were strong brawlers, sure, but against system weapons? It was like their Kryptonite, and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon. As ranged fighters, though... that was a totally different story. Maybe one like me, and I could equip them with other bows I create?

I couldn’t let myself get too carried away. I still had a long way to go before gathering enough shards.

Still, I could imagine it. It didn’t even need to be the full mana golems. It could just be the miniature ones—a hundred of them, all holding their own bows and shooting at their own kind. The sight would be glorious.

As for the first two descriptions…what more needed to be said? They were simple mana-restoring items. If the mana golems didn’t want to be used in death, they could start by not going around killing humans.