After reading the notification I looked around not seeing any evidence of the siege that it was talking about. I looked over at Susan and she gathered herself.
“I’ll go check it out.” She said before bending her knees and jumping onto a nearby roof taking off to one of the taller buildings in town. I hadn’t realized how much higher her physical stats were compared to us. Based on how pretty my fellow bandmates were I had to guess that strong was to her as pretty was to us. While she was gone, I asked the others to help me bind my hand to my bow. We cropped my shirt and used the fabric to tie my right hand to the bottom limb. If I couldn’t shoot or play, then at least I could use it as a club.
I hissed in pain as Tony tightened the fabric around my hand and as we finished tying it Susan returned. She jumped down from the closest building and her face portrayed panic. We didn’t have a chance to ask her what was wrong before she began explaining.
“Over at the high school, hundreds of Flesh Mongrels and some other monsters are attacking it. Some survivors are attempting to hold them off but it's not looking good.” She turned to me. “We have to help them!” I looked around and the others looked back at me expectantly. Up until this point, I hadn’t realized that I’d become a kind of leader to my group of friends. Cursing silently at the added responsibility and the fact that I’d made myself useless for at least several hours, I gathered myself together.
“Ok Sue, did you see any way through the mess so that we can talk to the survivors?” She thought for a second before responding.
“Um yeah, I didn’t see any monsters closest to the library entrance. Most of them are gathered close to the cafeteria.” I nodded my understanding.
“Ok let's make our way there get some information and help where we can!” I said with more confidence than I felt. So, we made our way towards the high school doing our best not to run into any more corpses. As stealthily as we could we came up to the side of the building Susan had pointed out. There were a few Flesh Mongrels on the way, but the others took care of them easily.
“Stay back!” A voice called out from above. I looked up and saw a woman pointing a gun at us. “If you don’t stay back, I will shoot you!” She called again. I raised my hands above my head, my bow slightly dipping down in my bandaged hand.
“We’re here to help! We got the area quest!” I shouted up to the woman who continued to glare down at us.
“How do I know that you’re not just here to take advantage of the situation and steal our provisions?” I rolled my eyes at the situation and responded.
“Because if we wanted to do that we could just wait until the army of monsters killed you and cleared out if we wanted to do that.” The woman paused at my words thinking over them. She ducked down back on the roof and a few moments later popped back up.
“Ok someone is coming to let ya’ll in. Don’t try anything funny though! We outnumber you ten to one!” I sighed already tired of the accusatory conversation. We waited for about thirty seconds before the side door that lead into the library swung open and a young man motioned us to hurry inside. We obeyed and as soon as we were all in the door slammed shut behind us and someone else pushed a large bookshelf in front of it.
“Who are you?” Someone questioned and I felt the cold metal of a gun push against my head. I told the man my name and the others before he scoffed. “I grew up around Nathan Schute and he damn sure wasn’t some pretty by, try again.” I heard the man cock his gun, but Tina responded before I could.
“Justin Alberiquez, you put that gun down right now before I tell everyone here what I walked in on you doing at that party senior year! You remember with the sharpie?” The man's face went pale but he dropped his weapon.
“Damn, it really is you. Why do ya’ll all look like models?” I hadn’t seen myself since Josh had shown me back at the house, but I guess I must have really changed.
“Wait I wanna hear about the Sharpie!” Tony exclaimed, earning a quick glare from each of us. “Ok got it not the time!”
“So, what can we do?” I asked Justin to get the ball rolling. He looked at my bloodied and scratched the back of his head.
“Well…” He began. “We have quite a few guns on the roof, but I think you should go see Nurse Robbin she’s one of those people that chose a class and she’s good for fixing us up. At least for now.” The way he spoke about choosing a class confused me, so I decided to get some clarification.
“Don’t you have a class?” I asked and he scoffed.
“Hell no! We don’t know what the heck is going to happen to those people later. What if whatever nanites they’re using to allow those guys to do all that crazy stuff causes them to get sick or have their bodies taken over later. I’m not getting a class till it's proven that its safe.” I gaped at him, remembering all of the battles that I’d been in throughout the last day and a half. I wondered how he’d managed to survive without the abilities the system granted them. We struggled enough by not having some of the stronger combat skills like Susan.
“How many of your people have classes?” I asked and he looked at me suspiciously.
“Why do you need to know? Trying to learn about our abilities so you can betray us later?” He growled the last part as a woman I knew walked into the room.
“That’s enough Mr. Alberiquez, I’ll take it from here.” It was the principal of the school a woman in her late 60s she’d been our principal since before we’d left school, but she looked different. She carried a large sword on her back and the older woman now stood almost a foot taller than me and she had muscles I could see trying to rip their way out of her teal jacket. “Follow me.” She took off at a brisk walk down the hallway and we scrambled after her. She led us to the nurse’s office where a short older woman with cropped hair and smile lines sat on one of those rolling stools. “Nurse Robbin, you have a patient.” The principal addressed her.
“Oh no! Is that little Natey Schute!” She asked making me blush, no one having called me “Natey” in years. “Come on let me take a look!” She gestured for me to sit down on a cushioned table. I did as she instructed, and she began unwrapping my hands. Once my hands were bare, she clicked her tongue at me and shook her head disappointedly. “You’ve been getting in fights huh? Well, I guess there’s plenty of that going around.” The nurse took my hands in hers and closed her eyes. A couple of seconds ticked by, and a green light permeated from her hands. The light only took another second then it was gone.
When she let go, I examined my hands, both of which were completely better. There were no scabs, scars, or scratches left on any part of my hands. Even my callouses from playing guitar were gone, which I was honestly a little disappointed with having worked hard for those. The healing was better and faster than mine, and it made me realize that there was no replacement for a specialized healer. “There you go, sweetie.” She said after finishing her own inspection of my newly healed appendages. I thanked her and she waved it off. I left the room meeting the others and the principal in that hallway.
“We’ve been trapped in the building since this morning. The teachers and I took classes to protect the children from the smaller monster attacks that happened throughout the day yesterday and over the night. Some more people from around town made their way here over the night either because their children were here or because it’s one of the sturdier buildings in town.”
“How many people made it here were any of them my parents?” Josh interrupted her. She looked shocked at his outburst but after a moment responded.
“I’m sorry young man but I’ve been so busy with the fighting I haven’t been able to take accountability of all the adults that made it here. I was just taking a rest when you arrived.” She looked at the disappointment on everyone’s faces and continued. “You can check the gymnasium or the roof for your loved ones though they may be here.” Josh took off towards the gym before we could stop him, and the others followed him. I thanked the principal and promised that I would do whatever I could to help as soon as the others had checked for their families then I also followed them.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
As soon as I opened the double doors leading to the gym, I saw the twins reuniting with their brothers. They were all on the floor crying and hugging. Susan and Josh were still looking around for their loved ones but a few minutes later Susan’s father ran into the gym picking her up and squeezing her tightly. Unfortunately, Josh didn’t find his parents here. I walked up to him and placed my hand on his shoulder.
“Hey man, it’s only been a day I’m sure they’ll turn up.” He turned to me, tears brimming in his eyes, but he wiped them away and nodded his head.
“Yeah, you’re right. No way my mom would let any monster kill them. She probably got a class like a scolder or control freak and the monsters are hiding from her.” I let out a small laugh and agreed with him.
“Come on let's see if there’s anything we can do to help around here.” After asking around for a bit we found our way onto the roof letting the others continue their reunions. Once we were up there what we saw was truly shocking. The horde had grown even more since Susan had scouted earlier. Now closer to a thousand monsters were pushing their way closer. Most were Flesh Mongrels but other larger monsters looked like they could be ogres or trolls as well as mutated animals. Some teachers who had taken a mage class stood on the roof casting spells down at the growing mob, while some others stood at the front of the school doing melee damage as best as they can.
Gunshots rang out from other people who clearly hadn’t chosen classes. I saw a woman with two daggers get overwhelmed by a Flesh Mongrel and took out my bow. Activating steady I placed an arrow straight through the back of its head. The woman pushed the corpse off her and looked up at the roof to see where it came from. She found me and nodded thankfully before falling back to get a break and probably see the nurse.
“Come on we need to help them!” I said as I turned my bow into a guitar. I started playing “We’re Not Gonna Take It By Twisted Sister.” Activating amplify and Josh took up the lyrics his voice had improved so much with the addition of his new skill and stats. The melee fighters on the ground suddenly surged forward their intensity climbing as monster after monster fell. When that song ended, we started another one doing our best to support the fighters. Susan and Tony came through the front doors of the school and joined the melee while Tina joined the snipers. After a third song using the skill, I received a notification I hadn’t seen before.
“Mana low unable to activate skill Amplify.” “Shit.” I thought to myself and changed back to my bow. I fired arrow after arrow. Hours went on like that I kept an eye on my mana and whenever it refilled, I would play another few songs. Josh not having any real combat skills Just joined me when I was able to play. As the fighting went on people would move the monsters’ corpses until there was a wall of them blocking off the entrance. People took cover behind the morbid blockade and fought over it. Knowing that the combatants had at least some cover I decided now would be the best time to take a break.
I climbed back down the ladder that led to the roof and made my way to the gymnasium. Someone had raided the cafeteria and was handing out food, so I got in line and waited for my turn. After exiting combat, I received a flood of notifications, so I checked those while waiting in line. There were tons of “You have performed!” and “You have killed!” Essence notifications all leading up to my level-ups.
“Level up! Level up! Level up!” These went on until level 15, so I checked my stat screen.
Nathan Schute: Bardic Archer
LEVEL 15
STRENGTH: 6
CONSTITUTION:5
AGILITY:10
DEXTERITY:45
INTELLIGENCE:6
WISDOM:6
CHARISMA:36
PERCEPTION:5
10 Free Stat Points
I went ahead and placed four points into strength. Once I did, I felt a rush of energy running through my body and watched as my muscles grew and toned to match my stats. I automatically felt more of an awareness of my body and its capabilities. I knew that if I wanted to, I could do a back flip standing right here and landing exactly in the same spot.
“Wow!” I whispered excitedly, but my excitement was short-lived as I received a hard shove from the side.
“What the hell is wrong with you freak!” A man yelled drawing attention to us. “This guy just transformed right in front of us he’s gotta be one of those freaks out there!” He moved towards me throwing a haymaker, but his movements just felt slow and clumsy to me, and I was easily able to avoid his blow. It was then that I realized that not everybody had seen the changes that happened with stat increases yet. The man moved towards me again lifting his fist to throw another punch, but a few other people grabbed him and pulled him back.
It took them some time to calm him down and explain what he’d just seen. I thought about getting back in line for food but honestly, my appetite was ruined, and I had more stat points and skill points to allocate so I went and sat down on the bleachers focusing on my screens instead. The battle seemed like it was going to take a long time and I knew that I needed to be able to use my skills more often. So, I placed three points into wisdom and three points into intelligence bringing each to 9 respectively. Then it was time to decide on skills.
I knew I wanted another performance skill because those had been helpful so far, but if I ran out of mana again, I needed to be more effective with my bow. I placed the new skill points and read over my new skill descriptions.
“Ritardando: There are many expressions in music. Casts slow on enemies. Note: You do not have to be performing a ritardando to use the skill, however, it will make it more effective.”
“Scope: Bow upgrade. Adds magnification to soul-bound weapon.” The archery skill was one that I wasn’t sure about, so I pulled out my instrument and shifted it to the bow. As soon as it was done shifting three small glass circles each one smaller than the last flew out of my case and floated in front of my eye. As I looked around the circles moved with me and adjusted which position, they were in to give me the clearest picture. I looked at my hands and the floating monocles moved to the side of my head in subsequent size just above my ear in an arch.
I practiced with them for a while and found out I could move them manually as well so keeping them out of my face when I wasn’t using them was easy. As I was resting, I decided that I would also check out the study material that Apollo had given me. A screen popped up in front of me. “The Basics of Cultivation.” Was the title of the file. As I finished reading the title another page took the place of that one.
“While you can grow without cultivating and allowing the system to allocate your essence for you, it is not recommended. Choosing to continue as you are without cultivating will leave you lacking the ability to upgrade your race, create an aura, or make it past statistic caps without the use of treasures or an auric boon from a much more powerful cultivator. This guide will help teach you the basics of cultivation so that you won’t be lacking a skill set used by the powerhouses of the multiverses.
Cultivation is the practice of collecting essence into oneself and using it to expel impurities improving your soul, body, and mind. The system does a simplified version of this to improve your body and mind but does not enhance the soul or allow you to break through bottlenecks. It is best to begin cultivating before you reach level 50 as that is the first bottleneck. To begin, first, you must learn how to see the ambient essence of the area. This is one of the most difficult steps to accomplish but if you follow this guide, you will be able to accomplish it in time.”
The guide detailed a meditation technique to use and recommended that I spend as much time as I could practicing it to get the best results. So that’s what I did, sitting and breathing in the way the guide detailed I spent time doing this until I felt a hand on my shoulder. My eyes snapped open, and I saw my friends standing in front of me, worry in their eyes and Tony’s hand on my shoulder.
“What are you doing man? We’ve been trying to wake you up!” I hadn’t realized that they’d been there, but I shook it off and tried to explain. As soon as I tried to speak about cultivation though I felt my throat tighten painfully and I coughed. A glowing message the same color as my Song of Healing appeared in front of me.
“Sorry man too expensive for you! Learn the basics before you try to teach. P.S. It’s about time! A.” I finished reading and realized that they were still waiting for me to respond.
“Sorry guys I was just really tired, long couple of days you know?” The others looked at me with understanding before Tony slid up beside me and wrapped me in a side hug. It didn’t last long before we moved to stand it was time to get back to work. The melee fighters on the ground were finally catching a break only having to fight something if it made it over the pile of corpses meanwhile Tina and I were putting down monster after monster.
The new addition to my bow made it much easier to aim so we were taking down the monsters in the backline with the mages. When night fell one of the mages cast a spell that created lights that levitated over the shrinking horde so that we could continue. I took another few breaks throughout the night and every time I did, I continued my meditation and had someone shake me out of it when it was time to get back to work. As dawn broke over the horizon, we put down the last of the monsters.
“Congratulations you have completed the area quest! Contribution High! Reward: 1x Mid-Tier Attribute fruit!” When I finished reading the notification the same light that appeared that first day when I received Ballads Bow and when it subsided, I held a small red and white fruit with black flowers sprouting out of it. Concentrating on it I received another notification. “Mid-Tier Attribute Fruit adds +5 to each attribute.” My eyes bulged out of my head, and I looked around at my friends with excitement. Turns out Josh and I buffing everyone off and on for most of the day and night gave us high contributions. The other three received medium contributions earning them a low-tier fruit that only added 2 attribute points to each stat.
I looked around at the other people on the roof and even the people without classes and they had all gotten something as well. Getting to my feet I walked to the closest person with a gun.
“Hey, what did you get?” She looked up at me and back down at the black marble in her hand.
“Uh… it says that it’s a Stat Berry. It gives one stat point to a stat of my choosing. Just a bunch of garbage if you ask me, I reckon all this stat stuff be gone this time tomorrow. Just a government cover-up for what they’re putting in the water down here.” She then tossed it over her shoulder off the roof. “Ok, so she’s lost it.” I politely thanked her then walked back over to my friends.
“So, what’d she say?” Susan asked. I relayed what I’d learned and received groans in response. I couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment. The fruit in my hand did look delicious and I realized that I had never gotten anything to eat earlier. “When was the last time I ate?” I thought, and before I knew what I was doing I’d taken a bite, then another, and another until the whole fruit was gone. My stomach felt full and a warm feeling spread from my stomach through my extremities.
“Hey, that feels kinda good..” The world went sideways then everything went black. I woke up with the worried faces of my friends leaning over me. Shaking my head I sat up and looked around.
“Woah dude I think I may be into dudes now,” Tina said in a joking voice.
“Me too.” Her brother continued.
“What are you talking about?” I asked confusedly and Josh pulled me to my feet leading me to the ladder to go back down. Once we were on the first floor, he dragged me to the closest restroom and told me to look in the mirror. I did so and what I saw shocked me. I’d grown at least 5 inches, my skin was flawless, and my muscles much more toned and proportioned. The person in the mirror was someone who I hardly recognized. I couldn’t open my stat screen fast enough.
Nathan Schute: Bardic Archer
LEVEL 15
STRENGTH: 15
CONSTITUTION:10
AGILITY:15
DEXTERITY:50
INTELLIGENCE:14
WISDOM:14
CHARISMA:41
PERCEPTION:5
0 Free Stat Points
I felt powerful like I’d never felt before and even though I’d been fighting for my life. Even though I was less than a mile from a mass grave, from a place that had inspired such a fit of rage and disgust in myself. Even though all of that had happened, with the eating of that fruit, with the feeling of power that I felt inside myself I had only a single thought running through my head. One thought that if I was honest with myself scared me.
“I want more.”