If I hit 50 followers I'll release a chapter again within 48 hours. Most likely some time today or early tomorrow. Point out any mistakes or inconsistencies you notice. Also what would you do next if your were in their shoes?
Chapter 8: Training & Preparing
There are simple basic necessities that everyone needs to survive. At their simplest it really just comes down to food, water and shelter.
As of now my apartment will do as a shelter. We were able to fortify this place with the furniture and by boarding the windows up it is essentially as safe as we can make it with the materials I just had laying around.
That's one less thing we have to worry about but I'm not sure how long this place will be safe…
I mean If a simple mutated rat can break in then there is a big chance of something else coming eventually and killing us without much of a struggle on our part.
The good thing is that food and water is covered for at least a few weeks if we ration off everything.
Well would be good for a few weeks if Tye Shin and I were your average sized college students but seeing as we are pretty large guys in overall size we will be lucky to get 10 days or so out of all the food we have.
Our bodies basic calorie needs are pretty high seeing as we are both over 200 lbs and over 6’2 feet tall.
The biggest two problems we will face will be what to do when we run out of food and what to do while we wait for it to run out.
I can admit it I'm pretty spoiled when it comes to modern technology. Without electricity there isn't much for us to do and boredom combined with the magic apocalypse isn't going to be too healthy for our sanity.
“Shin we are going to have to leave eventually for better supplies...any idea on what the best place to go would be?”
“Hmmmm Titus, maybe we should gather supplies from the pizza place across the street?”
“No point. Although they may have some food that's still good it will be hard to keep it fresh long not to mention we are going to need more supplies than just food if we plan on living through this long term. I don't know about you but I don't think my apartment is the safest bet for long term survival and I'll go crazy if your face is the only one I see for too long”
Tye Shin had the nerve to show me a face of sadness and grab his chest in a slow melodramatic manner. “Titus you are breaking my heart, how could you not want to see this beautiful face every day and every second?”
I decide on just ignoring the big oaf and focusing on the real problem. Long term food, safety and magic! Magic and safety are probably one in the same. If we can figure out how it works we should be able to get some level of safety.
That means food is what we should focus on first.
We can always just raid apartments, houses and stores I suppose until we find others we can trust. Perhaps there will be communities out there that figured out how to survive. Even the government has had to of taken some kind of action by that point!
Until then it will probably be best to train as hard as we can inside and build anything that may come in handy survival wise later.
I run the future plans by Tye Shin and he agrees with them. Although it may not sound like much of a plan it's enough direction for us to focus our efforts on now and that's what really matters for our sanity plus survival.
With this settled I think “Status” again and the familiar red box with black texts pops up and the information flows into my head.
Name: Titus black
Race: Human
Class: None
Health: (20)
Mana: (7)
Strength: (13)
Intelligence: (10)
There seems to be a lot of things missing from the status window. Most games have agility, titles, stamina, affinities, skills and even more but the ones I can see now seem to be awfully basic.
“Tye I know I asked before but can you give me the rundown on your stats again?”
“I don't see the point but sure man no problem”
Name: Tye Shin
Race: Human
Class: None
Health: (13)
Mana: (24)
Strength: (6)
Intelligence: (15)
“Hmmm he doesn't have any other attributes or categories either. I know I'm missing something important but for the life of me I just can't seem to figure it out!”
I think this all quite loudly in my head but I don't mention why to Tye Shin yet no point in getting him involved in why my intuition is telling me something is wrong with no real evidence.
With the immediate future figured out I decided to devise a training plan to try and raise my statuses. Seeing as I have no idea how to raise my health or mana I'll just have to leave those alone for now.
Instead I'll focus on strength and intelligence. Strength should have to do with how much power I have. For example how much I could bench press or lift. It should apply to the maximum amount of power or force I can possibly put behind something like how hard I can punch.
My best bet for training strength will he push ups for now. I'll do 200 in a row now and up it by 25 every day to see if that works in raising it. If that doesn't do it I'll have Tye put things on my back while I do them.
As for intelligence it should be a status that affects my ability to gain and apply knowledge. It may even affect the speed or my ability to remember things. With that being said I'm pretty embarrassed that Tye has 5 more points of it then me. He may be my friend but he's not exactly known for being a deep thinker.
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I should be able to raise it by just reading some of the books I have laying around. As big of a fantasy genre nerd as I am there isn't much besides moral lessons to be learned from those books so I will be better off reading some of my course work books to raise Intelligence.
It could come quite in handy seeming as I have some books on leadership strategies as well as how to work through problems with logic as well as some real world examples and case studies discussing proper planning and how to avoid pitfalls of the past. A lot of them have to do with technological failures but not all of them. These should be pretty useful to me especially in the world's current situation.
Well I guess that's settled then. For strength I'll do push-ups, squats , burpees, sit ups of increased difficulty every day. At least 200 each. In my spare time I'll study what the course work books I have and if I run out I'll move on to some of the fantasy novels I have and maybe learn something useful.
With the status plan worked out I told Tye Shin my idea and he agreed to try and do the same to get his status to change. Just like that it began.
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It has been 8 days since we started the study and workout all day everyday plan and I don't think anything has changed so far. I mean I do feel more fit and the food we rescued from the freezer and fridge is all gone but other then that there has been no real changes.
Except for…..well sometimes we hear weird growls and noises outside. Even an explosion of some sort a day or two ago followed by some distant screams.
I'm not exactly a cowardly person but not knowing what's happening outside is getting to me big time. It's weird how humans work. We have a big fear of the unknown but hardly worry about the tangible things we should be worried about like accidents, going hungry, getting sick or anything like that. It's always the fear of what's happening or what's going on in the unknown that gets us scared.
I don't think I'll ever openly admit it and judging by Tye Shins face when the screaming happened I know he feels the same but I'm pretty fucking scared of the outside right now.
I was expecting for a +1 intelligence or +1 strength from all the working out and learning we have been doing so far but it hasn't happened yet giving me little hope in increasing my statuses.
What has to of been the 300th time I call my statuses up again to check for a changes.
Name: Titus black
Race: Human
Class: None
Health: (20)
Mana: (7)
Strength: (13)
Intelligence: (10)
“There isn't any changes and I'm starting to think this dumb thing is broken now. Tye Shin have you gotten any changes in yours yet?”
“STATUS!!” He yells it as if he was some super hero powering up and in a completely serious manner.
Name: Tye Shin
Race: Human
Class: None
Health: (13)
Mana: (24)
Strength: (6)
Intelligence: (15)
“Still no changes here on this side either Titus”.
Understanding the statuses is important but at this point it is only going to cause more problems than solutions by stressing and worrying about it.
The working out has been good for us so far. Can't expect to be able to out run killer chipmunks or take any of these mutant beasts if we don't work hard and gain enough strength to be able to. Whether the status reflects this or not I have increased the amount of stamina and strength I have these 8 days so far. It's the same with Tye Shin.
Now that all the perishable food is gone after 8 days we had to move on to the non perishable foods I have. Luckily enough I have about 15 lbs of brown rice, 4-5 pounds of canned black beans and a good 10-15 cans of assorted soups, fruits and veggies like greens I have been avoiding eating before this. If we stretch it right we may be able to last a couple more weeks on these supplies before we have to venture elsewhere.
Tye puts a big pot on the stove and tries to get the gas to lite up but it seems the gas has gone off finally just like the electricity.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck” I can't help but say my favorite curse word a few times.
I check the water next and it still seems to be working no problem.
“Tye we need to figure out how to cook this rice and boil this water at the very least or its gonna cut down on how long we can last inside at the very least”.
After 10 minutes of thinking with no solid ideas we decide to split up and check my apartment for something that may be useful.
After another 20 minutes I found just what we needed! I found a small grill for tailgating. When I say small I mean exactly that. It's about slightly smaller than the biggest pot I have.
Using this and some coal I had we are able to cook some rice and boil some more clean water just in case. With this our most immediate problems have been solved for now but this comfortable lifestyle will only last as long as the food does.
Worrying won't do us any good though. We both grab some bowls and chow down on some food before we sleep for the night.