Chapter 8

Training

He wasn't sure how long he stayed this way, curled up on his bed, but when he looked up, according to his bedside clock, it was 4:01 in the afternoon.

He uncurled, sat up, and took a deep breath. You're twelve. You just received an implant and you know the world is going to end in a month. What do you do?

The opposite of what he'd done last time, to start with.

Note to self. Don't be an idiot and take a bunch of Bio-Blessed.

Okay, he thought. Let's keep it simple.

Step 1. Get the word out. Warn everyone that the world's ending.

Step 2. Get a character class that doesn't get its ass kicked.

Simple enough. Unfortunately, at this point, neither step seemed possible.

If only he could warn people and somehow convince them he wasn't crazy.

“Imp. Is there a character class that would allow me to communicate with everyone with an implant within the next month?”

Few implant users in the future, years from now, had that power. High-level generals and advanced power-wielders, but Leo didn't have years to develop this ability. He needed it now.

If he could get the word out to other implant wearers. It would take a few believers to give them an advantage when the change hit, or if he was extremely lucky, somehow stop the change from happening.

“The short answer is no. Nothing that will let you communicate with large numbers of implant wearers at low levels. Implants were designed with your freedom and privacy in mind, and what you're asking for is a difficult skill to obtain, even at higher levels."

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So not an option for multiple reasons.

He opened the old laptop sitting on his workbench and waited for it to boot up. It asked for his password. To his extreme embarrassment, he couldn't remember. After half a century, it was easy to forget the little things. With some laptops, it was possible to force-boot them without the password, but he was pretty sure this wasn't one of them. No password meant he had a big paperweight.

Pushing the laptop aside, he pulled his calendar off the wall and grabbed a pencil and paper.

He forced himself to remember everything that happened between today and the day of the change. A day the survivors knew well, Thursday, October 16th. The day hell came to earth. Today was Sunday, September 14.

He drew a skull and crossbones on Thursday, October 16th. Day of death.

Then he wrote what he remembered about the month before the change. Not much. It wasn't like he'd followed current events or the stock market. Maybe more would come back to him? In the meantime, he needed to improve his stats.

“Imp, put my Demon Tears into intelligence.” Demon Tears were valuable, but he needed to raise his intelligence if he was to have any chance of saving the world, and he needed to do it fast.

Right away, Leo.

His Demon Tears vanished. There was no apparent change to his stats, but he wasn't expecting any. Increasing stats was a cumulative, time-consuming process. The best way to increase intelligence was to perform mind-improving exercises. Solving problems and learning complex concepts. Doing that should combine with the Demon Tears to increase his intelligence more rapidly than could happen otherwise.

He pulled out his old math textbook, and some papers from his school bookbag that might have been schoolwork, and started going through them.

He alternated ten minutes of studying with ten minutes of physical training exercises, sit-ups, push-ups, squats, jump-rope, attempts at juggling, holding his bat like a sword, going through half-remembered training drills, anything he could think of to increase Strength and Agility. Fortunately, Strength and Agility were the easiest stats to raise. The harder he pushed himself physically, the faster he could raise them. Vitality would increase on its own as his implant healed the damage he did to his body. Common Sense was the hardest stat to raise. His Common Sense had increased over time, but nobody seemed to know how to raise it, or for that matter, what it was good for. And considering the world was about to end, Charisma could go to hell.

He remembered the last fight he'd survived. The fight he was proudest of...