People gathered in their team circles, and leftover people wandered about. Some of them hoped a team would take them, some teams accepted beautiful women with no noticeable skills, and some leftovers formed their own team. There were many people who preferred to be alone too, including Cole. No one offered him to join a team, but he didn’t want to work under someone. In this world, he decided to live for himself.
After many people formed teams, someone opened the doors to the outside, showing the light of the outside world. Outside of the building was a prairie. Ahead of it, there was a clean river, dividing a prairie and another prairie. Ahead of the second prairie, many hills spread.
On the first prairie, brown rabbits wandered about everywhere. Looking around, no one saw other creatures beside the rabbits. Judging by their harmless look, people put their guards down against them.
People stepped out of the building including Cole. After he was outside, he finally could see the outline of the building. It was a big one-story building with no windows, and the roof was made of a single dome. It was a gigantic structure, but this building couldn’t fill everyone on earth.
Cole suspected two things. First, similar buildings existed somewhere, or those people here were the only survivors on earth. He clung to the first idea. If that was the case, perhaps Casey had been transported to this dimension too.
He smiled after thinking of that. Death didn’t mean rest, so he might as well enjoy a new adventure with people he knew. One of his goals was to find his gladiator brothers.
While he inspected the building, people had already explored the area. Some of them were wary of those rabbits as they approached them, but those creatures didn’t show hostility and even rubbed their bodies to their legs. After that, some people dared to touch those creatures.
After inspecting the building, Cole walked around. He encountered a lone rabbit and observed it. There was a floating screen above it.
Name: ???
Level: 1
Cole was sure this rabbit was a monster. He rubbed the monster’s head, and it felt smooth. Looking at their docility, this creature might be an easy kill. When monsters died, they dropped cards, and it could be experience cards that would increase his level.
Cole picked the rabbit up and squished its body harder. The creature squeaked weakly and kicked his hand, but he didn’t stop. He was about to strangle it to death when he heard a fuss. Two men were fighting for whatever reason, and people were watching on the sidelines.
The first man scratched the second man’s cheek with a sword, bleeding the second man. Smelling blood that flowed out of his cheek, the rabbits’ eyes glowed red, and they suddenly attacked nearby people.
The rabbit in Cole’s hand was the same. Its eyes turned red, its claws extended, and it bit his hand with its sharp teeth. He instantly knew the blood had triggered them because he was the same as them. Sometimes, his bloodlust increased at the sight of blood and gore too, but he never wanted to admit it openly.
The situation quickly became chaotic. Some people cast skills to fight the rabbits. However, many people were just normal humans in the past life, so there were many people who were scared to fight for the first time, and these cowards ran away with their courage shoved into their guts.
Rabbits were jumping onto the unlucky ones’ backs and tearing their flesh. A woman was lying and screaming on the ground as rabbits were pulling her limbs and digging into her belly.
Cole was too busy to mind other people. He was strangling the rabbit in his hands with all his might, but the rabbit’s flesh was like a solid rock in their berserk state. He could kill it with his sword, but he didn’t want to give the rabbit a chance to escape.
Thinking of a way to deal with the rabbit, he remembered he had a free point for attributes, and he checked the system.
……
Strength: Determines physical prowess
Vitality: Determines physical endurance and defense
Agility: Determines the variety of motor quality and abilities
Intelligent: Determines the mind, intuition, and magical aptitude
Wisdom: Determines spirituality
……
Cole thought of spending his free point on the strength attribute. The free point decreased to zero, and the strength attribute increased to three. All his muscles contracted for a second and relaxed again. He suddenly felt explosive energy coming from his muscles.
Cole squished the rabbit harder, and the creature exploded out blood and meat paste. Blue mist sipped out of the corpse and formed a golden card. His eyes widened. The golden card was the experience card, one of ten Immortal Cards. He grabbed it and willed himself to absorb it.
You have killed a Frenzy Rabbit for the first time. The monster is added to the system’s monster encyclopedia.
You have absorbed a low-grade experience card, gaining 50 EXP.
……
Name: Cole Zander (Level: 1 [50/125])
Race: Human (Bronze)
Class: -
Strength: 3
Vitality: 2
Agility: 2
Intelligent: 2
Wisdom: 2
Free Points: 0
……
Even though the rabbit’s blood had disappeared, the smell had attracted more rabbits to him. They were tiny, but if they came at the same time, they were easy targets. He raised his greatsword from the ground and swung it horizontally, killing several rabbits in an instant. Cards of various colors floated out of their corpses.
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Rabbits bit him from behind, but with a fast spin, Cole freed himself from them. He killed them with one swing. This seemed easy, but he couldn’t block them all. Some rabbits attacked his blind spots too. However, the more he got injured, the faster the energy surge that flowed throughout his body. His skin reddened and became tougher, and his HP recovered faster. These were the effects of Cole’s [Injury Transmutation].
Cole grabbed floating golden cards and absorbed them. His HP recovered to full as he gained a level. He immediately spent his free point to vitality, so he could withstand this barrage of attacks.
……
Name: Cole Zander (Level: 2 [25/250])
Race: Human (Bronze)
Class: -
Strength: 5
Vitality: 5
Agility: 4
Intelligent: 4
Wisdom: 4
……
His overall physical performance increased, and he didn’t need to rely on his passive skill too much.
Cole swung down his sword and destroyed the ground into chunks. He sensed enemies coming from behind and leaped to the side to avoid them. A rabbit clung to his arm, but its teeth couldn’t pierce deeper. He pulled the rabbit and bit its head to death. More enemies swarmed him, and he spun his body like a tornado.
With rabbits’ blood all over him, he looked like a madman. People near him distanced themselves from Cole as they looked at him in fear.
Cole didn’t care about them. He was enjoying his rampage. Such ferocity and wildness came from him. As the feeling of accomplishment doped his brain, Cole rushed to the river when other people came back to the building.
As he kept going, Cole suffered more injuries. His passive skill enhanced his physical performance, but those rabbits won in quantity. He could die, but not today. He reached the river and plunged into it.
The rabbits lined on the riverbank and squeaked. It looked at Cole with bloodlust, but no rabbit chased him in the river, so Cole swam to the other side.
After a while, he got out of the water, and he sighed in relief. Luckily, no water monster had attacked him in the water.
Everyone had come back to the building, and Cole felt pity they didn’t risk their lives to cross the river. Once those rabbits smelled intelligent creatures’ blood, they wouldn’t come back to normal for a day, and that was what the monster encyclopedia said about frenzy rabbits, so they could either cower in that building or risked their lives.
Cole couldn’t control his big grin. He felt freer. This world was fun. For example, he felt a sense of accomplishment after collecting many cards in his hand, and he could strengthen himself by levelling up too. He had never felt such fun in his previous life on earth.
Remembering he had got experience cards, Cole tried to absorb them, but he failed. The cards were still in his hands. Feeling confused, the system screen suddenly appeared in front of him, providing him with information.
You have absorbed experience cards. You have failed. Higher-level units can’t absorb lower-level experience cards.
Cole shook his head. He had known this after absorbing the knowledge card from the emissary of the Immortals, but he forgot about it because of things that had happened. He had no choice but to hunt monsters at the same level as him or higher if Cole wanted to use experience cards and level up.
Cole couldn’t use the lower level experience cards, and he planned to sell them later if he could. Aside from experience cards, there were several types of cards in his hand. Those were three yellow consumable cards, five orange loot cards, and three grey point cards. All the consumable cards had the effect of healing his HP by 10%. The loot cards comprised the rabbit monster’s body parts. The point cards were like the currency in this world, and each card had ten points value.
Cole used all HP recovery consumable cards. Suddenly, smoke came out of his scars, and an additional layer of skin enclosed them. Soon, his HP increased to one hundred percent. He had been healed. However, he still felt the fatigue after fighting so many monsters.
Cole looked at the surroundings. There were many hills, and many trees towered over those earth mounds. It seemed there was a forest above the hills. He didn’t think too much and walked ahead. There was no monster on his way, but he didn’t let off his guard even a bit.
On the way to a hill, he used up point cards. In his system, his currency point increased to thirty. The currency point would be useful in the future because he could use points to buy other nine types of cards: active skill, passive skill, blessing, consumable, equipment, debuff, loot, monster, and experience cards. He could trade with other units or dimensional merchants. He knew these pieces of information from the knowledge card he had absorbed.
The cards left in his possession were loot cards. He could eat some loot cards such as monsters’ body parts. Those were the same type as consumable cards, and the main reason they fell into loot type was they had some values. For example, he could sell them at high prices. Not only that, some classes could use loot cards to craft various things too.
After confirming all cards in his possession, Cole thought of a way to store them. He had nothing with him. He was even shirtless because he hadn’t worn a shirt when the Immortals had transferred him to this world. The only thing that covered his skin was his long, black pants. It had pockets on the sides, so he stored his cards in each pocket.
As he arrived at the top of the hill, Cole could see the surroundings better. These hills spread until the riverbank. There were other hills ahead, and a valley in between. Ahead of the opposite hills, he could see a forest.
Cole could choose to go to the riverbank, or he could traverse the valley and go to the forest. He thought about his choice.
There seemed to be nothing if he went to the riverbank. However, the valley under him seemed dangerous because he spotted many giant holes, and enormous black ants the size of tigers occasionally got out and in.
Looking at those hundreds of giant ants, Cole’s heart raced, and he couldn’t stop grinning. His hands were itching to bash those creatures’ hard carapaces. They were the perfect target for his greatsword compared to Frenzy Rabbits.
Cole shook his head and thought about his choice rationally. If he rushed alone, he was doomed to die. His goal was no longer finding a perfect rest, so he couldn’t reckless.
Cole sighed. “Is this dimension designed for people to venture together? No, I can’t give up. I shall traverse these hills and arrive in the forest.”
Cole observed one ant, and a screen appeared above it, but the system only showed him question marks and its level. He couldn’t get more information about them, or at least it was still locked before he killed an ant.
Cole picked a rock on the ground, pivoted his waist, and threw it to a level two ant. The rock hit the ant and cracked its carapace. His eyes widened in surprise. He couldn’t believe a mere throw could deal damage to a monster. He suspected it was the work of his attributes.
As he thought of that, the ant’s antennas swayed. It spotted Cole on a hill, and it rushed at him. The creature’s action attracted its comrades, and other ants followed behind it.
Cole grinned as the ants arrived at the hill. He swung his sword, splitting a level two into two parts. Two more ants of the same level charged at him from the sides. He flipped his body in the air and severed an ant’s head. As he landed on the ground, he spun around and slashed the third ant.
Cole was lucky because three of them were level two, but stronger ants kept coming from the valley. He fetched the cards from those three corpses and ran away. Several ants caught up to him, and a level three ant rammed its head to his back. Cole thrust his sword on the ground to support his body from falling.
Cole bit his lower lip to endure the pain, and he immediately absorbed one consumable card with the effect of healing his HP by 10%. The card had halfway dissolved into smoke, but it turned as a whole again. At the same time, the system rang in his head.
You can’t use healing cards in the middle of the battle.
Cole didn’t have time to complain as he sensed an ant’s killing intent on his back. He flipped up his body and stood on the handle of the greatsword with his hand. He pulled his sword, slashed an ant, and landed on his feet again.
You have triggered the effect of [Dedication of Passivity].
As the ant turned into blue smoke, a black card floated in its place, and he instantly picked it. He wanted to read the card, but those ants surrounded him from every direction. His heart raced in thrill. The risk was worth it because Cole had just got a black card, aka a passive skill card.
“What great timing. I need experience cards to level up and open my skill slot.” As he said that, he jumped to a nearby ant and pierced its head. An experience card dropped from the corpse, and he absorbed it along with other experience cards in his possession.
Name: Cole Zander (Level: 2 [175/250])