I concentrated on opening the leaderboards and a screen with three options appeared. I had combat, bardic, and cultivation to choose from and I opened the first one. The combat leaderboard was pretty disappointing, but I wasn’t surprised that I hadn’t made my way into the top ten on there. I eventually did find my name on that leaderboard though. “Number 6,784,234.” I read and groaned inwardly. I decided not to let it get me down though. “I bet none of the top rankers are bards anyway.” I tried to console myself before going back up to the top ten.
Unfortunately, I was wrong though number three on the combat leaderboard listed “Santiago Fuentes, Bardic Archer, Level 35.” My jaw hung open thinking about how much I’d been through to get to my paltry level 17. I couldn’t help but wonder how much combat he’d been in to reach the level that he was at. It didn’t matter too much though. “I’ll just have to work harder.” Closing the combat leaderboard, I moved on to the next option.
This time I wasn’t that disappointed. The combat leaderboard had been an overall measurement of the entire world so there weren’t nearly as many people on this one, but I was still ecstatic when I saw my ranking. “No. 43 Nathan Schute, Bardic Archer, Level 17.” Several of the people ahead of me were also at level 17 so they must have barely leveled before me. “Which means I can definitely climb this one.” My excitement grew, I closed that window and opened the next one. There were only roughly 10,000 people on this list but still, my jaw fell when I found my name at the number 5 slot.
Josh nudged me in the side with his elbow trying to get my attention. “Hello, earth to Nate!” He said and waved his hand in front of my face.
“What?” I respond with a playfully annoyed tone.
“You gonna check out the store or what?” I shook my head.
“What’s the point? I don’t have any money!” Someone who had already been to the front of the line heard what I said and stopped.
“Dude there’s like a whole section for selling stuff I’m heading out right now to collect some Flesh Mongrel eyes so I can buy some of that armor.” The man wandered off, but his words finally stoked my interest in the store. After a while, I finally got to the front of my line and followed the lead of the person in front of me. Placing the palm of my hand on the black cube I was suddenly transported. I was startled for a moment as I was suddenly in a white expanse that seemed to go on forever, but then I saw the two words floating in front of me.
“Buy/Sell” I focused on the buy section and the words changed giving me a list of categories. “Armor, Weapons, Crafting Materials, Food, Tools, Miscellaneous, and the last one Cultivation.” I immediately opened the cultivation tab to see what it had to offer. There were different books, meditation techniques, crystals that helped with contemplating the essence, foods that helped temper the body, whatever that meant, and numerous potions and materials for creating potions. Any time I needed a different category I just had to think about it and a list would show up, from there I could narrow my search option even more. I even found a meditation technique specifically for the sound concept.
The only problem is that everything that I looked at was at the very least 500,000 credits. I gave up on finding anything that I could afford in the cultivation section and made my way back to the others. I chose weapons next, but none of the bows seemed better than the one I already had so I gave up on them. Instead, I opened the armor section this time finding some things that didn’t seem expensive, at least by the cultivation section’s standards. After I spent some more time in each of the sections I decided that it was time to look in the Sell section.
I opened it and found a list of different materials and how much you could sell them for. I wondered if I was selling it directly to the system or if there was someone on the other side buying them. “Probably the congress.” I thought bitterly. There was also a section that offered quests for specific items promising credits and items. Finding a few things on the list that I knew I could get today I exited out of the System Store. It didn’t seem like any time had passed by, but I still stopped at the next person to ask them how long I’d been in there. The man just shrugged and told me that I’d just put my hand on the cube then turned around.
I almost took off without my friends but remembered that I’d promised the others that I wouldn’t do that anymore and went to grab them. I found them in the auditorium trying to cultivate again, I was proud of them for their persistence, but it was time to go.
“Alright hop up let's go do something else!” I said clapping my hands.
“That’s easy for you to say! You’re in the millions on the leaderboard I’m in the billions still!” Tony complained, Tina, nodding along with him.
“It’s true Nate, we need to get stronger, and this seems like our best bet!” Susan chimed in. I sighed, not knowing how to respond when I noticed it.
“Wait how many leaderboards do you have?” I asked and they each responded telling me that they only had two. Not wanting to rub it in their faces I figured it’d be a fun surprise for them when they found out. “Listen you guys aren’t making a whole lot of progress right now, so why not go hunt some weak shit for money and a little essence and then we can come back, and you can keep working on it!” There was some more argument but eventually, we came to the decision that three of us would hunt while the other two would cultivate. We’d switch out every few hours except me.
Tony and Susan chose to go first while Tina and Josh meditated. The attitude of the two that came along with me was sullen, to say the least, but when I pointed out that I could have gone alone they changed their tune. They said that it was because they didn’t want to miss out on the combat experience, but I couldn’t help but smile knowing that the real reason is that everyone had been shaken up by my injuries. We decided to go the other way out of town this time instead of heading back into the forest.
We all ran along the road, and I matched my speed to my friends. About a mile out of town, we ran into a marshland that hadn’t been there before the system and we had to slow down to avoid going for a swim in the dirty-looking water. The slower pace didn’t affect our hunt though on the contrary a few minutes into our careful trek through the swamp a pack of 12 Flesh Mongrels sprang out of the water surrounding us ranging from level 5 to 14. I wondered for a moment why I hadn’t run into any packs like this in the forest but quickly placed it out of my mind.
I began playing a variation of “Love Today by Mika” activating ritardando. The entire group of monsters instantly appeared like they were trying to wade through a strong current. Susan slammed her fists together, activating her weapons, and jumped at the first enemy in front of her. With a strong right cross to the monster’s chest, her fist exploded through it.
Meanwhile Tony readied his chakram. He threw one and the small metal string connected to it wrapped around his victim’s throat. He pulled hard, bringing the thing flying towards him. As the monster reached Tony, he swung his other chakram down, beheading it. Suddenly I felt a heavy hand land on my shoulder, and I reacted rolling out of the way. The Flesh Mongrel that stood in front of me was the level 14 one. I felt my skill about to go on cooldown anyway, so I changed to my bow before the skill lapsed and sank an arrow deep into its skull doing my best to avoid hitting it in the eye.
I looked out of the corner of my eye to see how the others were fairing, just to barely be missed by a bisected monster corpse flying past me. Susan had attempted to throw it instead she ripped it in two, making me wonder how high her strength stat was at this point. I looked over at Tony and saw him decapitate another one. “He’s pretty good with those.” I thought to myself, then I noticed that another one was sneaking up behind him.
“Duck!” I yelled, and he did allowing my arrow to go straight through the center mass of the level 8 Flesh Mongrel.
“Thanks, man!” He called back. I played one more song using my amplify skill and the others mopped up the rest in no time with their attack damage raised. “Whew!” Tony said whipping his brow. “Good shooting tex!” He clicked his tongue winking at me and shooting finger guns.
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“Weren’t you straight a few days ago?” Susan asked.
“What? He’s pretty it’s confusing!” I had to admit he was right; our entire group had become very attractive. I’d been approached more than once while living in the school by men and women alike, but it felt like a cheat with my high charisma, so I chose to let them down easily. My mind wandered to the level 35 bard on the leaderboard. “His charisma must be crazy.” I thought wondering if I would feel exactly like those people that approached me if I ran into the guy.
The world being as big as it was though it was doubtful, I’d ever run into the guy. We spent some time on the disgusting task of digging the eyes out of the monsters’ eyes before deciding it was time to head back to the school to pick up the others. Upon getting back to the school we sold our loot receiving 12,000 credits for our trouble. We’d decided to pool our money to get Tina and Josh secondary weapons. Josh was pretty much strictly a supporting combatant right now, and Tina only had a sniper rifle. If she got into melee range, she’d be in trouble.
We retrieved them from their meditation and asked them what they would like for weapons. Tina touched her hand to the store and a second later she told me what she wanted. It was a pair of mana pistols for 1500 credits and an adjoining holster for another 600. She equipped them and pulled them out of their holsters as soon as she did a line on the side of each glowed blue.
“The line represents how much mana I have so it’ll go dark the more I fire and light up again along with my mana recovery.” I had to admit it was cool as hell. I thought about getting my own secondary weapon but decided against it until we had a little more money. For now, I was doing well at getting distance if I needed it, but she didn’t have my speed. Josh was next and went with something much more low-tech. He chose a black rod that could be extended to the size of a staff only slightly shorter than him.
I felt much better about taking them out to hunt with them, having weapons they could use in more situations. But I still didn’t think that they should go out to the marshland. Instead, I took them to the forest. Tina was able to practice her marksmanship with her main weapon and we both covered Josh from above as he learned how to sing and fight at the same time. He wasn’t that bad with the staff, but even I could tell that he pretty much just used it as a club. We were either going to need to find someone who could teach him how to use it or get him something that fits him better. We walked slowly back to the school Josh being exhausted from the battles that he participated in. When we got back and sold our loot the others in the group decided that they’d rather not go out again today. I complained but they were vehement they wanted to focus on their cultivation, and I decided to join them after I went to buy some armor for myself. They gave me permission to use their portion to get something good.
I wound up buying some that looked like standard a hoodie and sweatpants, they were cheap but made of a strange kind of material that shimmered slightly when you moved in the light. The description of the armor also mentioned that it was self-cleaning and self-repairing. There was a lot of armor that was better, but I wanted to continue to save up for cultivation materials. I also picked up a bandolier with two push knives sheathed in it. Then I went to join my friends sitting down and I started to meditate.
Yet again I found the sound essence I’d been looking for easily, but I couldn’t get any of it to join my core. This was so frustrating without a better cultivation it felt impossible to figure this out. I sat back and groaned in frustration. Susan had apparently ended her meditation to go get some water. She walked back into the auditorium and noticed my expression of frustration.
“What’s up, Nate?” She asked and I explained my situation to her. She looked thoughtful for a moment before speaking again. “You know when I’m training for a match, I’ll spend months going over my basics, and often I’ll learn things about them I didn’t think of before. Why don’t you do that?” She asked.
“I already re-read the guide several times it’s not helping me figure this out.” She shook her head.
“No Nate I mean the actual actions you took, maybe look at your core more closely before going to the next step? Honestly, I’m not sure. You’re the expert on this stuff right now after all!” She laughed and left me on my own devices. “Look at the basics.” I thought before sitting down and beginning again. This time I didn’t focus on the sound essence instead turning my attention directly to my core. I probed it looking at every part of the small yellow sphere.
Reaching out with my consciousness I touched it, I spun it faster than it was already moving and reversed the flow. Then finally I tried to reverse what I’d done to get the core to compress drawing a small string of essence off my core. It didn’t feel comfortable, but I felt as if this could be my breakthrough, I pulled at the sound essence around me simultaneously having to keep my core from unraveling as the string pulled out. Then the sound essence found its way to the air essence inside me. Using my will, I tied the two strings of essence together and as the knot tightened it disappeared. The color of the sound essence creating an ombre into the yellow.
The only problem is now the sound essence pulled at the essence that made up my core trying to escape its hold, but I spun my core faster and faster pulling it in. I had to cover my entire air core in the sound essence before I felt it snap into place and as I spun my core the sound essence sank into my core. I sat up breathing heavily as the new essence settled into me, and my friends jumped up wondering what was going on with me. I eventually got my breathing back under control but didn’t attempt to pull any more essence in for the moment. I turned to Susan to tell her that she’d really helped me but before I got the first words out of my mouth, I got that choking feeling again and deteriorated into coughing fits.
The others looked at me puzzled, but I explained that I couldn’t tell them. Our best guess was that telling them anything about the next step in cultivating counted as attempting to help them beyond my means. Peering back inside myself I found that my core had changed slightly. It was still mostly yellow but now it also had small swirling clouds of green inside of it. I celebrated silently inside my head. I opened my cultivation leaderboard and saw that I’d jumped up to the number two slot. Only one person stayed ahead of me. “Autumn Snow, Healer of Faith Level 35.”
She seemed like another monster and when I opened the main leaderboard, sure enough, she was there sitting right above Santiago in the number two position. My position had changed too. I was sinking farther behind in the rankings, my rank now being in the middle 8 million slots. My competitive nature took over and I realized that I either had to get my friends their cores or break my promise and go out by myself again. Turning to my friends, I settled them with a fiery gaze.
“Sit. Down. Now.” They knew the look that I had. It was the same look any time we were performing, and I let the crowd’s energy get to me. In moments like those, I turn into a beast able to play things that I’d normally struggle with and keep up the performance. They did what I said, and I spent the next several days feverishly talking to each of them about the base elements they chose. If they came up with an idea, I’d build on top of it helping them come up with inspirations that would allow their cultivation to become faster. Susan was again the first to complete her core on the fourth day.
I finally got the opportunity to see exactly what I’d gone through when I’d reached my race upgrade. She screamed in pain as Tina attempted to comfort her, but it was clear that Sue couldn’t hear through the pain. The transformation only lasted a few minutes but when it was over her hair had turned red and her eyes shone an orange color. She looked slightly more muscular as well. I was hoping that she would be luckier than me when it came to controlling her body, but I was wrong. She attempted to throw a punch and immediately broke her elbow, tore several muscles, and popped her shoulder out of place leading to her having to be carried to the nurse’s office and getting fixed up.
After that, the others felt a little less excited about getting their racial upgrade and I couldn’t blame them. Sue had it way worse than me and I knew she was going to have to raise her constitution by a good amount to withstand her new strength. We pooled all our credits together to buy her a mid-tier constitution fruit. They weren’t as good as the stat fruits that we’d gotten from the area quest, but for a single stat, it would do. With another five points in constitution, she only wound up slightly sore after swinging her fists.
The others were far luckier in their transformations, however, there were some oddities. Tina had chosen metal and she’d gained scales on her extremities and her chest, although we weren’t allowed to see that part. Tony’s features were more like mine with sharper teeth and colored eyes. He did tell us that his feet were now webbed though which was interesting. Josh took the cake though. He got big, giant really. My best friend who had only been a few inches taller than me before his racial upgrade was now at least nine feet tall and his legs were about the thickness of my torso. He maintained the supernatural beauty of a high charisma-based person, but he was huge.
“What the hell!” He boomed before adjusting his voice using his passive skill. It was kind of a funny sight hearing his real voice coming out of the giant. I couldn’t help but laugh and he glared at me. “You better find a way to fix this.” He glared and poked me in the chest which pushed me back a little bit just from the sheer weight of it.
“Bro. There’s no way you’re going to be able to stay in the school!” Tony said.
“Oh, I know! We can build him a house outside like a dog!” Tina continued the joke. I started to feel bad about it so I reached way up and patted just under his shoulder.
“It’s ok we can live out in the forest till we can figure it out! Who’s up for camping?” I said turning to the others and getting some looks of disgust. Before the system none of us could have been described as “outdoorsy” but they each agreed anyway. We went to go get his mother so we could explain what had happened. I personally couldn’t mention it because I’d already used up the four people I could help. The others wanted to be able to help their family or save them for later so we could only tell her that he’d changed.
When she walked into the auditorium and saw her giant son she screamed and tried to stab it with her poison needle before we stopped it and calmed her down. Once she realized it was her son, she felt really bad for trying to kill him, so she started crying leaving Josh to attempt to make her feel better, but every time she looked at him again, she started sobbing again. After an hour of putting up with that, she finally calmed down and Josh was able to explain to her what had happened and what our plans were. We went through this situation three more times with the other parents.
Finally, though, we were able to prepare for our journey. We decided that if we were living out there anyway, we’d travel to where Seattle should be. After all, if our small town had managed to survive maybe the city would have survived too. We used the system store to buy another few sets of cheap armor for the others. We also bought a few small survival bags from the miscellaneous section. The bags were essentially small sacks that had a firestone, a small wood axe, a length of rope, and a tarp.
After that, we spent the rest of our money on something called a “System Upgrade: Exploratory Map.” We could only afford two of those, so I got one and so did Susan. Equipped with armor and necessities, we next had to shove Josh through multiple doors to get him out of the school which caused him no end of embarrassment, but it was necessary. Less than an hour later we were well within the forest checking our maps. The map was mostly blank but the places that we’d been through plus a 100-meter area around those places appeared. We followed the compass attached to our maps east, nervous but excited to possibly meet up with other survivors.
The only thing in our way was a few monsters and about a hundred or so miles of wilderness.