We sat within the rest area for half an hour. Usually, half an hour is not enough to shake off the exhaustion as right after a workout session your body will go into a fatigued state where you can barely move. Not to mention our workout session was basically risking our own lives increasing the mental stress over the physical one.

  However, within these rest areas, the energy regained is much faster and the body rests easier and you can get to top shape in no time to continue your progress. A small blessing in a merciless land. These things were very rare in my old world and every one of them was a little piece of heaven in a merciless hell we had to tide through.

  "So how does this Mishaa thing works?" Will asked.

  "You can try for yourself, though I doubt you'll have more information than what I showed you."

  Will then spoke, "Mishaaa," then kept turning his head around as if looking for something, "Mishaa!"

  Same thing happened again, he then turned to me and said. "I see nothing."

  "Try Massive Intelligent System of Aid and Assistance." I said.

  "Wow, that's a mouthful, Massive Intelligent System of Aid and Assistance, show status screen!" Will said and immediately a notification window appeared in front of him, clear from the jump back reaction he did.

  "Oh this is interesting…" Will said.

  "I can't see what you see, if you want, ask the system to change its long name to the abbreviated form, then ask her to share status screen."

  Will spoke to the system and immediately after having it change its name to the abbreviated form, he showed me his status screen.

Status Screen Name Will Franklin Race Human Job N/A Potential Unknown Current Awakenings N/A Skills N/A Titles

N/A

  "Bruh, this is looked too damn dry, I don't have anything on my status screen." Will said disappointedly.

  "Don't worry about it, it's just the beginning. You'll have more than you can keep count of later on," I said.

  "Then why do you have 'skills' and a title?" Will asked.

  "I only have one skill, the rest apparently are skill I haven't learned yet, and the title I own is from my former experience. The skill is also a part of it, but I haven't tried it yet."

  "Then why not try it now?" Will asked.

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  "I don't know what it will cost to use, nor its effect. Skills aren't really something you throw around, they're powerful but the cost is great sometimes, I also don't have a good mana pool, nor enough stamina to actually use it, if the cost is more mana than I have, I might fall unconscious, or if the cost is stamina I might get instant exhaustion, so I might as well try it when I'm in a safe area then see how the skill functions."

  "That's a lot of restraints for using a skill."

  "Not all of them are like that though," I replied, "Most Skills come with a clear description of what they do and how they function, but this one, is a bit special, since I didn't actively get it. So I might as well not risk anything for now." I replied.

  "Fair enough." Will replied.

  "I think we rested enough, how about we keep moving?" I asked.

  "Sure, I'm with you," Will said as he pulled up his sword.

  I replaced the candle on the lantern and we both moved forward and deeper into the dungeon.

  "So how was the first integration as you called it?" Will asked.

  "It wasn't nice, a lot of people died, like… a lot. No one was prepared and everything came crashing down in one single day." I said.

  "What about the army?" Will said.

  I shook my head, "The army needs proper communication to function, and with the first integration a lot of major power points were hit, and they were hit hard. The loss of electricity and the sudden uselessness of fire arms made everyone rattle unable to come to accept that their technological advancement was all thrown against the wall, useless. The worst part weren't the monsters though," I said.

"There is something worse than monsters?" Will asked questioning me unbelieving of such a statement.

  "Yes, it's us. We humans, when afraid, are very, very dangerous creatures. The world government fell and everything went to complete chaos. Law and order were nothing but a notion back then, and everyone was for themselves. People killed other people in fear, masses gathered and made private societies that lasted for a long while before the new World Order was formed. The private societies were lawless zones where murder, rape, and even worse things were happening daily. But people did what they had to, to survive."

  "Man, what you're saying feels pretty incredible and distant, but seeing that we're facing three foot sized rats in a dungeon and all this shit is making it more and more believable. What's this World Order?" asked Will.

  "Think of it as an Adventurer's Guild, an association with several dozen powerful guilds that took over the government job. They assigned Skill Users such as us to help organize the world. We were sent on missions to exterminate monsters or liberate gang held areas and free the people from their oppression. It was hard work at first, but once the 'guilds' were established things turned slightly back to order. But it was still not enough, people found ways to make their greed prosper at the expense of the misery of others. Those were dark days, and they'll be coming very soon."

  "Shit, I don't want my family to go through that." Will said.

  "Don't worry about that, I'm already planning a countermeasure against that, I can't help everyone, but I can help those close. So stick close and I'll make sure you won't regret this." I said as I pulled my sword and nodded forward.

  "Rats?" Will asked.

  "Yep, let's Get Killing," I said as I headed forward towards the closest rat.

  The two of us moved at a slightly fast pace as rats came at us, thankfully one by one.

  We took turns taking them out, and I was surprised to see how adaptive Will was, he no longer was squeamish about killing some rats. Apparently Facing your fears is the best way to get over them.

  And he was proving that by valiantly stabbing a few rats more than enough times to kill them.

  "It's already dead bro," I grinned "Save some of that stamina we'll need it later." I said as we continued on until we arrived to a branching path.

  "What now?" Will asked.

  I got closer to one of the paths and crouched down.

  Pressing my hand on the ground I turned to Will and said, "The ground here is sturdier, rats frequented this place often enough that it's solid now." I said.

  "Bruh, you're a tracker now?" Will asked.

  "One of the few tricks I learned before. We'll take this path now, hopefully we'll find the boss and get this dungeon cleared. The early rewards should be plenty and worth our trouble."

  "Right let's go," Will said.

  The two of us moved through the rightmost path and found what we were looking for after a bit of walking.

  We were in a wide room that had several newly born rats in it, hairless and blind and in the middle was a rat so big that I had trouble believing that it could even be able to move.

  The rat noticed us as the glaring light from my lantern was an odd addition to the dark atmosphere where this rat lived.

  "Holy shit!" Will said.

  "Indeed," I said as I twirled my sword out of habit when preparing for battle.

  "That's the boss, get ready!"