Chris was loving this new world. He had a thirst for blood. He had been in prison when Norbak first took him for training. Chris was a skinny guy. Long unkept hair. He was fairly short but he used death mana. He had a class called Necroslayer. He could bring back monsters and people from the dead to fight on his behalf. His own stats weren't high, but Norbak said he would always have a number advantage. With Chris we're 3 other prisoners. They had all been sharing a 4 man cell at the prison when the integration began.

Derek had a class called Titan. He was already a big guy. He was 6'5" and weighed about 245lbs. Now at level 3 he was close to 260lbs. His mana was Earth. They found he could move stone in the ground or air around them. Derek was in prison for armed robbery. He had robbed a liquor store that was next door to his apartment. The owner knew who he was and he didn't even wear a mask. Derek wasn't smart he was pretty much a dumb brute. Still he could tank a lot of damage. They were about to try and claim a territory stone.

Vlad and D'Vok were brothers. Their parents came from Russia when they were 8 and 9. There dad had fled the Russian mob. He took out a loan he never intended to pay back. Both of them had fire mana. Vlad had a class called Blazing warrior. And D,Vok had a class called Inferno mage. Together they could do a huge amount of damage output. They were in prison for a huge fraud scheme. They would call old couples and demand money for kidnappings that hadn't actually happened. Most of the time the old couples paid quickly. They were only caught when they tried the scheme on a retired army vet who didn't actually have a grandson. He knew it was bullshit as soon as the call started. He played dumb and said he would meet them in a park nearby, and pay them 3000 dollars. What he really did was call the cops and set up a sting before he went.

These 4 had been killing off beasts and monsters just for fun on the way to a beam of light that was nearby. They had ran into two people and Chris had killed them both to add to his ranks. Norbak had explained the importance of territory stones. Chris knew you had to claim as many as possible in the first month to get buffs. Norbak also explained that there was a group about 200miles south of them. Norbak said he wanted them killed as soon as possible.

The 4 of them were watching a pack of wolves surround a glowing stone. They were just waiting for the right time to make a move. They had only been able to get one loot chest so far. Only Derek had gotten a weapon it was a mace. It was about 3 feet long with spikes on the ball end. Good thing he had the strength to use it. Chris wasn't worried about the wolves. The brothers could fry them to a crisp as soon as he gave the word.

Chris had enough of this waiting and decided to just step into the clearing. As soon as he was visible the wolves started to growl. Chris just kept walking forward. "Light them up." he said casually. Fire started to swirl towards them. In less then a minute they were no more. "To easy" Vlad said

"Yea I was hoping for a real fight" Derek said.

Norbak had explained to Chris how to claim one of the stones when he was in training. He was told not to share the rewards with anyone from his group. Chris walked up and placed his hand on the stone.

*Ding* Do you wish to try and claim this territory stone. Yes / No

He selected Yes. Rather then a beast wave like The Crew had, they had a puzzle quest they would need to solve. Around them 5 broken pillars rose into the air. Each pillar had odd runes carved into them. Some parts weren't aligned. If Chris has to guess they were suppose to solve each puzzle and something from the pillars would let them know they had succeeded.

"Derek spin that piece of the pillar right there." Derek grabbed the stone that was out of place and turned it. "Fuck he said as a blade slashed out and cut his hand."

"Ok so we have to figure out what is the right way to fix these things or were going to get hurt everytime we make a mistake." Chris explained to them

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"Well make your zombies do it then." Derek said holding his hand to his shirt, trying to stop the bleeding.

"We need to look at them all maybe there's a pattern or something. Then I'll have my zombies move pieces for us." Chris said

Vlad and D'Vok looked at the two near them. They weren't the smartest criminals but they weren't brain dead either. Chris was checking out another on a Derek was looking over the one that had cut him. This was going to take more then then they thought.

They argued more than they solved the puzzles for the first 20 minutes. These guys were half ready to kill each other over working together. Chris thought about killing each of them, and adding them to his undead ranks. Chris was your garden variety psychopath. The only reason he hadn't killed them yet was Norbak explaining they would be better for his undead horde if he waited to kill them when they had higher levels.

Finally they had started to make progress with these damn puzzles. Their clearing wasn't truly in a forest type area like Providence. They were in a semi swamp. The beasts they mostly encountered were rather large black spiders and several types of lizards that were now ten times larger than they had been before the integration.

Chris was getting pissed off. He hadn't been able to kill anything in hours. The others weren't aware of him being a champion. He was holding that card close to his vest. He thought it was better they just saw him as being stronger than them. This way they wouldn't try for a power grab. He also made sure to seem like he knew more about the new world then they did. This was true but only for the fact he could remember his training in time dilation with Norbak. The rest of the prisoners also weren't aware that they were suppose to go kill this other champion. Chris would set it up like he found a golden ticket. He knew the guys craved female attention. He would make sure to kill any he came across to make sure his settlement was almost all male. Then when the time came he would show them that all the females were being horded by this other settlement. It would be easy to push them to attack by then.

After so more painful trial and error they were able to get all but two pillars finished."So what we need to do is make sure every pillar as the runes alternate from top to bottom. It needs to start one place different from the pillar to its left in the circle." Chris said

Now that they had cracked the code it would only be a matter of minutes before the territory stone was captured. They went ahead and compared the final two pillars to the ones next to them. It was easy enough just alternate runes starting at position 2 compared to the one on its left. They were completed in 3 minutes. Then the beam of light reversed direction and flew back into the stone.

Chris knew this would happen. He didn't wait for the others to ask any questions. He didn't care what they had to say. As far as he was concerned he was their boss until they became his zombie slaves. Chris touched the stone to finish taking the territory. He named the settlement The Evil Dead. He felt that gave it a scary appeal. Plus he always liked that movie. He didn't care much about the points they had accumulated. They only has 11000 points. They must not have done well with the challenge. He decided to put up a stone wall for 5000 points. A town hall and a barracks. He didn't see the need for any of the other buildings. As the area surrounding then sprang to life with the buildings coming into being with magic, the others seemed blown away. When they looked to Chris he said "I've used a bunch of my mana to make this happen. Just like I told you guys. Stick with me and we're going to rule this world." It was a bold lie but the others had no way of knowing. He did anything he could to make sure to them he was the most powerful. Somewhere in his messed up mind he truly believed he was the most powerful.

There just happened to be a group of 10 people not far from The Evil Dead settlement. When the pulse went out they all froze. "Doesn't sound like a good place to me Drew." Kevin said

"Your right it doesn't. Let's back track back out of this swamp and head back towards that forest. Yes we had plenty of water here, but I don't want to run into a group of people or anything that calls there settlement something crazy like that. Drew replied

Drew and Kevin's group was an odd lot. Drew and Kevin were the only adults. They had been taking these 8 kids to a baseball game for big brothers and big sisters when the world went to shit. They weren't going to abandon them. It was getting hard though. Food was lacking they hadn't eaten in almost two days. Water could only take them so far. They needed to get some shelter and some food soon. If only to improve the kids moral. They were breaking under the pressure. Drew and Kevin had classes, but apparently the kids were to young and would have to wait until they were 15 to pick a class. They turned back away from the light they had been following and hoped to find someplace decent in the near future.