The outside of the shack was thankfully clear of gremlins and Sam decided to search for a weapon. There was a shed out back and he assumed that it would be a likely place for there to be a weapon. Sam slunk around the building, he didn't know if Jeffrey would approve of his thievery, and made his way to the wooden building. It was dark inside, and he could faintly make out the shadows of rows upon rows of tools hanging inside.

When he turned the light on, surprised that the power was still on, he saw that they were all of a make and design that yet again, Jeffrey shouldn't have been able to afford. He sensed that there was some kind of backstory to the man and why he was so obsessed with doomsday planning and that below the unsophisticated veneer, there was something more going on there. He picked out a large machete, the oversized knife could just as easily slice through monsters as cut through branches.

Leaving the shed, he heard a faint noise, like an animal in pain. Sighing, as he knew that this was probably a trap, he still went towards it. Justifying his stupidity by the fact that there were probably a lot of potential levels on the line if he followed the noise, he ran through the woods. A clearing opened up dead ahead and he ran towards it, The noise was getting louder and more urgent as he neared. Finally, he saw the source of the commotion.

A strange monster, some kind of reptilian centipede, was surrounded by a swarm of gremlins. The creature was mewling piteously as the gremlins tore at it with their claws and sharp teeth. Sam started backing up, this was a battle that he did not want, but his foot caught a wayward branch and the soft crack caused every gremlin in the clearing to look up. The vicious green creatures snarled in unison and charged him. Knowing that he couldn't outrun them, Sam was cursing himself for not placing points into Dexterity, so he chose to stand and fight. With his machete clutched tightly, he lashed out at the monsters as they neared. Gremlin after gremlin was turned into green goo by his machete, and his higher Strength made it so that he was killing multiple of them at the same time.

Still, many of them made it through and his body was soon littered with scars from their attacks. He made sure to explicitly target any of the gremlins that started to glow and this prevented him from taking too much damage. Still, by the time the last of the approximately 30 gremlins was down, his health was below half full. With a surge of energy, his wounds started to heal over. Sam groaned.

“So, I can’t level up in combat. Great.”

You have killed a Juvenile Gremlin!(x31)

You have leveled up!(x4)

Damn but the diminishing returns were starting to kick in. How many gremlins had Jeffrey killed to reach level seven? It was probably over 100. Sam opened his status and thought about how to allocate the points. Strength seemed to be the way to go with most of his points, but as the battle had just shown, Dexterity was useful for escaping situations in which high Strength might be useless. Additionally, he wanted to see what Constitution and Resilience did. He decided to trickle feed the points, in order to avoid the effects of using many of them at one time. If only two had almost debilitated him, then eight would probably have him on the ground.

The first one went into Strength. Now that the stat was a bit higher, the stretching sensation was not as intense, although that could be because of the lesser quantity of stat points. Another point went into Strength as the feeling subsided and a final one was placed into the stat after.

Preparing for a strange new feeling to kick in, Sam added a point to Dexterity. This feeling was far more pleasant than that of Strength. It was as if he had just drunk the most caffeinated drink in existence and he had all of the alertness, but without the jitters. His limbs felt more responsive and as he moved them, he could feel the tips of his fingers with a startling clarity. Sam chuckled and placed another point into the stat. As much as he wanted to just stand there and continue to feel the buzz, he had other stats to enhance.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

He had three points left and he wanted to put two into Constitution and one into Resilience. His mental stats could wait for now. The first point was placed into Constitution. His entire body started to roil with an internal heat and that heat started to ramp up quickly. It felt as if he was being slowly cooked inside a pressure cooker and as the pain reached a crescendo, he could feel his organs and skin knitting together and becoming denser and more durable. He had to psyche himself up to place another point into the stat and he braced against a tree for the feeling to overtake him. It was a little better this time, but not by much. Finally, Resilience was the last stat to increase. He placed in the point, not knowing what would happen. Immediately, something felt wrong. A series of cracking noises erupted from his body and a searing pain tore through him as his bones broke and reformed. Energy was being drawn from somewhere and it was increasing his mass. Not by much, but by a decent amount still.

He rolled around as the pain crashed through him in waves, but he eventually was able to overcome it. Beads of sweat trickled down his chin and he had to rest for a minute before getting up. Tentatively, he squared up in a boxing stance and punched a tree. To his surprise, his fist didn't rebound with a flare of pain, instead the wood crunched under it, creating a small dent. He stared at his fist in wonder. This was even better than he had expected. Apparently the physical stats were meant to work together. He made his way over to the strange centipede like creature and examined it.

Juvenile Herpetopede

Level 6

Sam remembered from biology that herpetology was the study of snakes. The name seemed to confirm his assessment of the creature’s nature. It made a weak purring noise and tried to move closer to him. He tentatively reached out, expecting this to be a trick and for the creature to bite him. Instead, it licked his hand weakly with a long forked tongue. The thing was growing on him quickly and he decided that he wanted to save it.

He picked it up with a grunt, surprised at how heavy the barely four foot long creature was. Sam walked through the woods back to the house, surprised at how fast he could move. Now that he was closer to the human average, he realized how normal people must have felt. He was a long way from being The Flash or something like that, but he was edging his way up. As he reached the shack, he remembered the machete. It was covered in patches of green ichor and he was sure that Jeffrey wouldn't appreciate that. He wiped it off on a patch of grass and hung it back up in the shed. He walked up to the front door and knocked on it. A slot opened up in the middle and he was met with the barrel of a shotgun.

“Jesus, Jeffrey! It’s just me.”

“Oh, Can’t be too careful,” Jeffrey said before opening the door. Noticeably, he still hefted the shotgun.

“What the hell is that?” Jeffrey screamed as he saw the herpetopede. He tried to grab at it, but Sam snatched it away.

“Hey, hey hey! I found this little guy outside. He seemed to be peaceful. I wanted to see if we could train him.”

Jeffrey snorted.

“Alright, but don't let that mutant freak anywhere near me, understand?”

Sam nodded as he carried the monster off into a back room. He searched for a medical kit and found one after a few minutes of searching. Of course, there were about 25 other medical kits with it.

“What kind of paranoid man gets this many supplies? There's something going on here.” The idea that Jeffrey had somehow known about the coming of the System was very unlikely, but still plausible. For now, it didn't matter. The man was helping him and this was enough. He placed down the monster on a table and opened the medical kit. He pulled out a pair of rubber gloves and some disinfectant. He didn't want to get some sort of alien virus off this thing. Sam put on the gloves and flipped the creature over. There was a gaping wound on the other side of the body and a thick yellow fluid leaked out of it. A foul stench wafted out of it and Sam wrinkled his nose.

“Let's get you fixed up, little guy.” He dabbed at the wound with some cotton balls and removed the liquid from it. Next, he doused the wound with disinfectant, winching as the creature started to toss and turn. Finally, he covered the wound with a large bandage and wrapped the creature up in gauze. It lay there, breathing shallowly, and Sam left it. There was nothing more he could do and he wasn't going to ask Jeffrey for a healing crystal to use on a monster. Sam went back into the front room to find Jeffrey tinkering with what looked to be a machine gun.