He knew where Ken was, no doubt. The entire supermarket would tell him if he asked. The kid was in meditation though, and he didn’t intend on bothering him any time soon. So, he decided to just grab a nice leather jacket for free, a cool looking lighter, and a pack of cigarettes.

Standing outside in the winter snow, he sighed, placing a cigarette in his mouth and lighting it calmly. He felt a lot more at home in the cold since his affinity awakened, and he had begun to enjoy smoking or drinking outside. The smoke and the warm alcohol mixed with the cold winter air always gave him such a comfortable contrasting feeling.

His vitality even circulated faster when he was in the cold, leading him to believe the environment had a lot of importance to meditation. An Ice.. whatever he was, meditating in a volcano probably wouldn’t end very well.

That being said, what was he? He wasn’t a mage even if he could cast magic. What would those who went down the path of Vitality be called? The thought rang around inside his head quite a bit, confusing the fuck out of him. He honestly had no idea. Shrugging and exhaling a puff of smoke that came out partially through his cheek, he tossed the cigarette to the ground and smothered it with his blood stained boots.

“Dallas!”

“Yeah!?”

“I’m heading out. Anything I should be looking for?!”

“Nothing, just don’t get yourself killed. Or shot.”

“Just hope I come back in one piece. If even I die out there, I don’t doubt that you’ll never get that convoy outside of West Cairn.”

Dallas paled slightly but Sebastian just laughed, his mortality clearly not bothering him at all as he made his way through the debris. He didn’t believe any survivors in West Cairn had gone through more than he had in the last week and a half, and that’s even considering he’d rested for ten of those days.

It was the fault of the size of his group. A small group could probably survive by hiding, killing the occasional monster that found them and conveniently getting themselves some more food at the same time. With a big group though, it’s not the same. You can’t keep moving, you can’t really hide, and you need to be sending people back and forth for more supplies. No one talked about it, but the swarm had probably found the group by following the scent of the survivors.

They only took so long to show up because of their size, they had to stop and feed to evolve.

Otherwise, they might have even gotten back before Sebastian and Ken did that day, considering their hour long heart to heart. It would have all been a shit show

Sebastian rolled his shoulders gently and traced his fingers along the holes in his face. They weren’t massive by any means, and they had formed almost in a line, like a constellation. Now that he thought about it, there were three holes, a little too small to fit his finger through. He literally had Orion’s belt on his face, leaving him unable to laugh or cry.

The area around the holes was scarred, too. It almost looked like an eye had been drawn on his cheek, an eye that had three pupils. It removed most if not any chance of growing facial hair, but he didn’t mind, he liked his facial features enough as is even with the scar. He’d only get more scars as time went on anyways, so why not accept the most noticeable one right off the bat?

He had tried to heal the scars with Vitality, obviously. However, his control over vitality wasn't so strong when the wounds were created, and by the time he had gotten a good grasp over it, a week and a half later, they had already healed completely. The body doesn't recognize scars as something wrong, nor does it even realize there are holes in his cheek. Vitality just supplements and enhances his healing, it can't control his flesh directly. Otherwise he'd gladly remove all the scars on his body and the holes in his face. To remove his scars would be altering his flesh directly, and to fill in the holes would straight up be creation. Vitality can't do that. He didn't have much hopes for it to work either, considering Vitality is ultimately the energy of his body. Even if he could do it, the drain might just kill him

He lit another cigarette once he had walked some twenty minutes away. He’d always enjoyed smoking, but he hadn’t been able to afford a pack ever since he moved. Now that all that stuff didn’t really matter much, he got back into it fairly quickly; especially considering how little smoking mattered to his health now. Maybe it would be an issue before, but now he just removed anything negative left in his body with his Vitality.

It was a handy ability, among other things he’s figured out. Vitality grew with every breathe he took, and also grew stronger when he ate the creatures mutated by the light. Circulating it while breathing or meditating would increase the rate at which it grew, but circulating it incorrectly could lead to some pretty fucking bad injuries. He still remembered coughing up pitch black blood after circulating into the wrong ‘passageway’.

Speaking of, what should he call those.. Passageways? Meridians? He knew that eastern medicine had such a concept, so really that would be the best thing to call them. Sounded better than passageways at least, not as wordy. So, Vitality was channeled through the meridians but had a space at the solar plexus where it was stored. Vitality couldn’t leave his body, even if the air around him got cold when he circulated it.

He hadn’t explored a lot with mana though, so he decided to explore with it whilst he was out of the supermarket. The air around him was filled with ice affinity mana anyways due to the season, so there was no better time for it, right?

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Closing his eyes as he walked, letting his vague perception monitor the area, he focused on sensing the surrounding mana. Water and Ice seemed to be drawn to him, whilst fire seemed to avoid him innately. Earth mana was solely in the ground below him, and a mana he would call wind attributed constantly circulated the other mana types floating in the air. He assumed he’d be able to sense the earth mana regulating the elements underground too, if he was in a cave or something.

Right now, the best Sebastian could do with mana was form a small ball of ice in his palm. It was much better than just freezing the air. It required a greater sense of mana and a better control over it. He only practiced randomly during the week, yes, but it still took a week just for him to do this. He had a feeling though that the hardest part was the beginning.

Step by step, he tried to gather more mana and feed it into the ball of ice. Small protrusions appeared on the surface of the ball, but it shattered before they could become anything substantial.

So, he did it again.

And again.

And then another time.

This time it just exploded immediately.

A few more times.

Only when he felt his mind was exhausted and he felt the ground below him become a little softer did he open his eyes. No beast had attacked him, maybe because their instincts told them it would mean death. The beasts got smarter as they leveled up, not dumber. It would be death to believe he just got lucky.

He had made his way to the city park. It was practically a forest, and patrols stopped being sent out after the first few days.

Mostly because no one had the balls to go anymore. Sebastian knew why now. The trees had grown massively, the lowest easily reaching a few stories tall, maybe more. Pale white grass mixed with blues and greens had covered the ground up to his knees, and many flowers that he couldn’t recognize coiled around other plant life.

It had become clear to him that The Light had also mutated most plant life. Yes, the streets had trees too, but they hadn’t shown much of a difference at all if any. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt it wasn’t good.

This forest would probably consume the city if it wasn’t stopped fast. Sebastian didn’t think he or anyone else could stop it either. Animals, maybe. Plants? Not a fucking chance in hell. Plants existed even within the cracks between pavement. If this forest wanted to spread, and it probably would, the entire city would be consumed soon.

If these plants tried to eat him too, he was going to fucking lose it. A quick Identify on the plants showed they all have levels, and the ones that didn’t just had plain effects like lowering fatigue, staunching blood, blood thinners, all sorts of crazy shit. The Light confused him now more than ever if they gave plants some form of sentience and strength too.

Slowly stepping into the forest, he paid attention to everything. Sounds, sight, smell, even the taste of the air. This was the place he’d try to level up to 10 after a long few days of rest, but it also means it was immensely dangerous. The majority of beasts left here were probably Tier 1 or above. God there needs to be something that sounds better than Tier 1.

Though distracted a little by his thoughts, he still noticed the abrupt shiver of plants nearby him. He turned to find the source within the shrubbery before he felt danger appear above his head without a sound. He crouched down fast and rolled backwards, bring the saber from his shoulder and placing the blade in front of him.

Sebastian saw a large, bright blue barbed flower in the place where his head was, it’s stem a few meters tall, connected to the bush he heard movement from. The flower swayed lightly, seemingly looking towards his new position.

[Lv. 9 Carnivorous Water Flower]

[A mutated form of flower that resides in areas with a lot of water, the plant had become carnivorous after The Light. It hunts through surprise attacks. Further information unknown]

Well, the plants do in fact eat people.

What the actual fuck.

The flower seemed to feel his slight anger, even though it couldn’t see or hear. It released a weird screeching sound, shooting out sharp seeds from it’s strange flower mouth in his direction. He brought up his blade and deflected or slice the seeds with ease, but his expression still darkened.

Stepping forward and bringing his saber down across the flower stem, he sliced it clean in half, leaving the plant writhing against the ground. The lack of experience for the kill confused him, before he looked down at the ground with a scowl. The roots. The plant can grow back if the roots stay intact.

Not only did the flower release a loud screech that basically gave his position away, it would be time consuming to kill. Maybe that’s it’s strategy? If it fails, it forces it’s enemy to run away by drawing other enemies to it, knowing it’s roots are too difficult to kill before they’re besieged.

Sebastian smiled at the thought. Most creatures might fall for the trick, yes. He wouldn’t though. He came here to kill. He came here to grow strong. He’s not here to hunt stealthily or assassinate a bunch of wildlife.

Grinning even wider, he walked over to the bush with the intent of clearing it. He didn’t hear roaring beasts or stampedes of monsters, but he knew they were coming.

He stabbed the tip of the blade into the ground, feeling it hit a thick root. It vibrated as if in pain, and it only kept doing so as Sebastian kept thrusting the blade into the earth where it grew. Roots were shredded and mangled over and over. All of his focus remained on killing this fucking flower, as pretty as it’s flesh eating petals were.

Feeling the blade hit something especially hard, he circulated his vitality and pressed it even further down. There was a final screech, and then the roots grew still. The blood red text that finally appeared only further confirmed what he believed.

[You have slain a Lv. 9 Carnivorous Water Flower]

[Awarded 45 xp]

Wiping his brow of sweat with a gentle touch, he stood straight and pulled the blade from the ground. Closing his eyes briefly, he finally turned to the surroundings with a coldness in his eyes.

He was completely and utterly surrounded.