World Filter

After a more in-depth investigation, Mark found that the warehouse was probably used to store food for vending machines. As he found tons of snacks, soft drinks, and non-perishable foods on the shelves. After searching around for anything remotely healthy he found literal stacks of bottled water and packets of instant ramen noodles.

Soon he was going to have to go on a quest just to find some damn healthy food.

He did some testing and found that the inventory function had a weight limit. Which made sense. He worked out that it didn't seem to mind volume as long as the weight did not exceed one ton.

Either way that was a lot of packets of ramen. Thirteen thousand, three hundred and thirty-three to be exact. He tested.

Once he had about equal quantities of those, filling nearly 80% of his inventory. He went to sit down. Opening up his prompts, he had something he wanted to look into.

22 x Corrupted humanoid cleansed(28 + Sector reward: x4)

1 x Corrupted Ordinator cleansed(1 + Sector reward: x4)

24 System Points awarded

121/121

Level up!

+2 Prana, +2 Resistance

9 x Corrupted Ordinator cleansed(9 + Sector reward: x4)

38 x Corrupted humanoid cleansed(38 + Sector reward: x4)

56 System Points awarded

144/144

Level up!

+2 Prana, +2 Resistance

Congratulations on being the first user in your sector to reach 100[Prana] attributes!

Rewards: 1x Bronze rank mystery chest [Prana]

Roll: Yes/No

Mark was confused at first but then realized his natural level-ups must have gotten him to 100. It seemed he was still a font runner in his area for Prana and have gotten a reward for it.

Name: Mark Young (22 - M)

Level: 13

Next level: 130/169

Stats:

Resistance

Aura

Mana

Prana

104 [+50]

0

48

110 [+10]

Unspent stat points - 20

Corruption value: 3.78%

System Points: 205.0

Skills: Meditation

Spells:

Passive Regeneration(Self)[2], Force bolt[5], Prana Pulse[2], Regenerate[3], Draw Corruption[1], Corruption recovery[2], Shape Mana(Force)[4], Invigorate[1].

World inventory. Marketplace. Trade.

Mark was surprised it see the system was awarding him with the indirect kills he’d gotten from collapsing the scaffolding. It was good to know though. It looked like the system didn't care how the killing was done, just that it was. As long as the kills were made the system would award people. Mark started to wonder what would happen if one person dropped a bomb on an area, would they get all those points?

Mark dismissed the thought, it was both morbid and completely unrelated to his current predicament.

He assigned his points as follows 2 in Resistance, 10 in Mana, and 8 in Prana. Now that he was on his own he was definitely feeling the resource pinch. So he opted to dump more into Mana.

Once that was done Mark’s eyes fell on the Marketplace tab.

He had been curious about it since the system had announced it.

Pulling it up, he opened into a front page.

Right away Mark was bombarded with listings of all kinds. Food, Clothes, Weapons, Ammo, drugs, and so much more.

Each listing had a price attached to it. It looked like system points were the main currency. Right away Mark could tell something was strange with the products. They had no branding to them whatsoever. Each item seemed to be a generic one with a plain white label stating what they were.

For each product, there seemed to be a number next to it, which Mark assumed was the current amount left in stock, which was dropping fairly rapidly.

For example, a bottle of water seemed to be going for roughly 0.5 points and there were currently 202 million still in stock. Which sounded like a lot but Mark had no idea how large of an area the system was offering these to.

What he could tell was that the system was not taking these from somewhere it was creating them. Providing it to the population irrespective of what they had on hand.

Almost as if it was saying. “There I’ve given all your basic needs, now continue killing”

Mark didn't know how to feel about it, but as long as there was stock, starvation wouldn't be a problem, there were implications for this though.

If things were going to get so much worse, that the system felt the need to provide for the populace, then they were in for a hard time ahead.

Mark also noticed a 24-hour countdown in the top right-hand corner, simply stating ‘Stock refresh’.

One final thing, he searched for items like the one he'd gotten for his reward box. System Items. Nothing came up.

Expecting it but still, a little down he reasoned that those items were achievements, things that a person had to work for, not just have handed to them.

Done figuring out the basics he began navigating the menu in earnest, it was ridiculously easy, because with a simple thought the menu seemed to read his mind and navigate to exactly what he was looking for.

Right now he didn't need much but he did put two boxes of 9mm ammo in his cart for 50sp in total. As an afterthought, he also put a granny smith apple for himself and a beef knuckle bone for Boe into his cart. For a grand total of 2.2sp.

While searching he came across the explosives section, every single one was sold out.

It both didn't surprise, and did.

It wasn't a surprise that giving normal humans access to explosives resulted in them buying them all up.

What was, was the price.

For a single frag grenade, it cost 98sp which Mark doubted would ever be worth it. You would never recoup the costs of the explosive, even if you got it into a very dense pack of zombies. And they only got more expensive from there.

It must have come down to a pure survival decision for some. Or the government bought them all up.

There was even a fucking tactical nuclear weapon. Mark didn't bother counting the zero’s it cost.

Closing out of the menu he hit the buyout option, there was a bid option but it didn't pertain to him right now. He just wanted his stuff.

Right away he saw the Sp deducted from his account and the items appeared in his inventory.

At the same time, he brought his prompts back up

Congratulations on being the first user in your sector to reach 100[Prana] attributes!

Rewards: 1x Bronze rank mystery chest [Prana]

Roll: Yes/No

Hitting ‘Yes ’ he waited. After a second and new screen appeared.

Item: Tenders touch(Bronze)

Item lvl: 19

Resistance + 95

Prana + 15

Description:

Description: healing effectiveness increased by 25%

He was starting to notice a trend, both items he had gotten now offered Resistance in correlation to their level. He wasn't sure yet but he wouldn't be surprised if every item offered at least some Resistance.

Mark had first thought the attribute was just a versatile option but he could see now that the stat was probably always intended to work in this manner and as a rule, one could cover for their weaknesses with items.

He called them from his inventory. A pair of black fingerless gloves appeared in his hands. They were made from some kind of leather and looked fairly thin. As he put them on they tightened to fit his hands perfectly. They weren't nearly as flashy as his bracers, but they gave him a sense of reassurance.

He felt the glove's power move to join his. Gaining so much Resistance at once was a rush. The world seemed to slow down for a moment as his senses went wild. He had to blink rapidly as the dark room got slightly brighter. His skin grew tougher and his muscles twitched as his reactions became finer.

Boe whined from his place near Mark's feet. Panting he stroked Boe’s head.

“All god boy, all good” he whispered.

Doing the math quickly he found that he now had the equivalent of 67 Aura. Well, the defenses at least.

He grinned at the gloves.

“Time for a treat boy,” he said taking out his items from the Market and giving Boe the beef knucklebone.

Sitting down on his sleeping bag he tucked into his apple.

The knawing of Boe, his crunching apple, and the sound of roaring rain were the only noises in the warehouse for a time.

Mark's eyes fell on the collum of rain entering through the broken windows, slowly falling into a daze. Staring at the water something caught his attention. Mark got up and went over to it.

The rain was weird, squinting he could just make out something faint expanding off it like a heat shimmer. Sticking his hand under the falling rain he sent out his senses. Right away he could see the Mana in the air, faint as it was, but this was different. He honed his focus, pushing deeper.

At first, it was so small he doubted it even existed, but then he felt it.

In each raindrop, a boiling pot of energies raged. Mana, Prana, and what he assumed was Aura. Even Corruption.

The rain was mixed with an almost imperceptible amount of these energies, Corruption making up at least a third. Feeding off the others and dispersing into the environment around them. Mark withdrew his hand. The Corruption was spreading faster than he expected.

Now this wasn't something he was foolish enough to think he could stop but it did spark a thought about his own situation.

The Ordinators seemed to follow by scent but perhaps what they were scenting wasn't his body odor - or at least not only that - perhaps it was his Mana or Prana, or even the Corruption itself.

It would explain why the rain seemed to confuse his pursuers. It was flooding the area with energies, masking his ‘scent’.

Because of his spells, he already knew Mana stuck around for a while and Prana could survive as long as there was Mana to give it form. Was he leaving a trail where ever he went?

But even still, he had to be giving off so little could it really be that? How did he even block that?

Mark's train of thought was hijacked when the sound of wings flapping came from above.

He snapped off his light while searching the dark ceiling. It grew louder until something entered through one of the broken windows above.

Mark tried to slow down his breathing, he could just make out a shape sitting on the window sill. It was much bigger than a bloody pigeon. That thing looked to be the size of Boe. He still couldn't tell what it was, but the warning he’d watched recently came back to him.

‘Bat-like in nature’

Mark curse his luck, had he wandered right into these thing’s nest.

The rain was beginning to die down now but the wind still carried a bite. After a moment, Mark heard the sound of the creature sniffing the air. Dread filled his chest.

The creature suddenly took off dropping into the room. Mark lost sight of it to the darkness. Grimacing he began moving to the door he’d entered through. Boe trotted toward him. Worryingly he couldn't hear the sounds of its wings anymore. Mark is almost there when one of the corner shelves moved. Mark’s head snapped up towards a large open maw.

There, wrapped around one of the supporting shelves was a creature made of nightmare fuel.

Pale leathery skin sat nestled in one sickening blob of flesh. The huge wings of a bat protruded from its sides and one long stingray-like tail with a barb attached to it coiled around the shelving.

The thing had no eyes, only a mouth. Yet Mark felt like it was staring straight into his soul. His body locked up, and his mind froze. He suddenly felt like the world was doomed, he was doomed.

That all this fighting was pointless. Fear invaded his mind, and for the first time since the apocalypse happened, he didn't know what to do.

Mark's mind raced, something was wrong but he couldn't think straight right now

He saw the creature's tail begin to unravel from the shelving. Slowly aiming at him.

Boe began barking in the distance.

Mark felt as if submerged under water, then he felt the cooling chill of his Mana flooding his mind kickstarting him, this wasnt his fear. It was a mental attack.

The creature screeched, plunging its barb toward Mark's heart.

A couple of things happened at once, Boe lunged forward. Gabbing for the base of the creature's tail.

Mark cast [Shape Mana] Filling it with Prana and growing it to cover his head and chest. The mental attack disappeared immediately.

Finally. Realizing the spell was broken the creature changed the direction of its attack. The tail extended outward and connected with Mark's knee.

Given the power behind the swing, Mark expected the lash to break his leg. Only it didn’t, in fact, it barely did anything. The force caused his knee to buckle and the stinger did leave a shallow scratch but other than that the attack was useless. Mark was just as surprised as the creature seemed to be. Although not for long. Boe ripped it off the shelf and dragged it down to the ground. Where - with what must have been enhanced strength - he began lashing the thing about like a chew toy in a display of aggression and violence.

Dropping the unmoving creature, Boe excitedly trotted over to check on Mark.

Mark could still feel the lingering effects of the creature's ability running in his head. Shaking slightly he closed his eyes and Concentrated on the feeling. Flushing his mind with Prana. Setting his intent to remove all that was not his. The Prana came in like a tide, washing away the effect that had taken hold in his brain. Right away he felt himself relax and the shaking subsided.

A ping sounded out.

The damned thing had used some kind of terror effect on him. The only reason he had managed to break out of it was his high Mana stat.

That had been incredibly dangerous, he almost hadn’t acted at all and that was with nearly 60 Mana and 200 Resistance. What about people that didn't main the stat?

At least he found out that his construct worked against spell influences.

Grabbing his sleeping bag and moving to the door, Mark patted Boe in thanks.

“Time to go,” he said to Boe.

As they got to the door, Mark heard the sound of more wings. Only, this time it wasn't one. This sounded more like a flock.

Slipping outside he remained close to the wall, sticking to the shadows, moving from building to building. Looking over his shoulder he saw a host of figures circling the warehouse like flies, they seemed to be flying frantically, searching.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle.

Mark needed to keep moving, if he could get some breathing room maybe he could come up with a solution.

Mark had only made it two blocks when he heard the sound of laughter and fighting up ahead. Looking out of an alleyway Mark saw four people fighting half a dozen Corrupted, led by an Ordinator.

The laughter was coming from a young man, holding a baseball bat covered in blood.

“That’s right motherfuckers, right here! Papa needs that sweet exp”

It was at this point, the rain decided to splutter out completely.

All the Corrupted froze and lead by the Ordinator suddenly broke away from the group. Charging in Mark's direction.

Mark cursed.

Good news, his theory held water. Bad news the water was gone.