Chapter 1: Chapter 1 - New World
Waking up from the loud storm outside.
'Crap. What the hell is going on?'
Rynold was staring out the window of his classroom when the rain was pouring down heavily. What's weird about this rain is the color.
'It's red....'
Why the hell was it red? It was the first time in history to ever have witnessed such a thing. Then, he looked around the classroom.
It was currently Sunday and it was detention for the students that are staying in the main building. Regardless, it was weird seeing some of the people around to be sleeping or playing with the phones.
Rynold woke up the guy sitting beside him. It was Oliver, his best friend.
"Dude, are you seeing this?" asked Rynold.
"Man, that's weird..." Oliver replied.
Then, suddenly, the rain stopped and at the same time a message window popped up in everyone's mind; forcing people to wake up and pay attention.
[The gods have seen enough of humanity's endless chaos.]
[Constant conflict and hatred have spiked the gods' last nerves.]
[The gods have had enough and decided to create a New World.]
[Those affected by the Blood Rain have lost their sentience. Making them creatures that only have mere instincts to survive.]
[A leveling system has been provided by the gods to those who survived. Those who will rise out above others will control the New World.]
And that was the end of it. The few people around them were stunned.
They didn't know what to do or who had survived the Blood Rain, as the system called it. But one thing was for sure though.
Come out on top!
That was the name of the game of the New World. But in order to do that Rynold realized that they have to leave the school.
"Oliver, call Skye while we make it to the women's dorms. We gotta get out of here as soon as we can," Rynold said.
"Okay," Oliver said solemnly.
'I know what's going on his mind but we gotta get out of the main building first,' Rynold thought as he stood up and walked to the door.
Just outside of the classroom door, there stood a creature drenched in red-colored liquid. It was one of the creatures the system warned them about. It reminded Rynold of zombies that are popular in modern media.
Above the creature's head were the words [??? Lvl. 1].
'Combat right away, huh?'
Rynold ran straight to the creature and threw a punch right to the creature's stomach. While Oliver grabbed a broom that was leaning against the hallway's wall and swung at the creature's head.
Perfect teamwork. It was the result of years of being friends with each other.
The creature collapsed and turned into dust from the combined attack on both fronts. Then, both Rynold and Oliver glowed for a split second and a book appeared when the dust settled.
'Was this a level up?' Rynold thought as he reached for the book on the ground.
[Inventory Window unlocked.]
[Status Window unlocked.]
"Status," Rynold instinctively said.
A window appeared out of nowhere and appeared somewhat translucent. When Rynold tried to touch the window, his fingers were tapping on something that's solid.
Oliver stared at Rynold tapping at the air.
"Dude, what are you doing?"
"The status window was unlocked for me when I touched this book," Rynold said as he handed the book to Oliver, "try doing the same."
Oliver took the book and the same messages appeared. Meanwhile, Rynold started reading through his status window.
Name: Rynold
Race: Human
Class: N/A
Title: N/A
Level: 2
Health: 50/50
Mana: 30/30
Attributes:
Strength: 5 Stamina: 3 Endurance: 5
Agility: 3 Intelligence: 15 Perception: 7
Attribute Points Available: 10
EXP: 0/10
'Damn.'
Rynold didn't know what to expect but his attributes are pretty bad. Especially his Stamina and Agility. He knew that he gets tired easily and wasn't really that fast when it comes to running but it shouldn't be this bad.
Rynold was the type of guy who was too lazy to do anything as he lacked motivation most of the time. The reason why he was in detention was that he skipped a bunch of classes for the semester and this was the week when he was caught skipping class.
Rynold looked at Oliver staring into the empty space. He guessed that he was looking at his status window too and decided to grab the book in Oliver's hand.
Then, a new window appeared.
[Summon: Mech Knight]
Magic Skill Book.
Summons a Mech Knight using magic. Consumes 5 Mana per minute while the creature is summoned. The Mech Knight follows your command without question. It is possible to let the Mech Knight grow stronger and evolve.
[Would you like to learn this skill?]
'Woah...'
This was a skill book that seems unique in more ways than one. It was lucky to have a basic creature such as the one earlier drop such a magnificent item.
Rynold didn't know if he wanted to learn the skill or not, seeing as how he only had 20 Mana. He decided to ask Oliver what his Mana stat was like.
"30 is pretty high, it seems. I only have 10," Oliver said while sharing his status window with Rynold.
It was nice to know the features of the leveling system instinctively as soon as they unlocked it. They would've wasted a lot of time trying to figure it out.
'What the hell are these stats??' Rynold stared at the window that Oliver shared.
Name: Oliver
Race: Human
Class: N/A
Title: N/A
Level: 2
Health: 50/50
Mana: 10/10
Attributes:
Strength: 13 Stamina: 7 Endurance: 5
Agility: 9 Intelligence: 5 Perception: 4
Attribute Points Available: 10
EXP: 0/10
It was insane. Rynold knew that Oliver was physically fit, being an athlete and all but he didn't expect to see this. His physical attributes alone were much higher than Rynold making him a top candidate of being a strong front-line attacker.
As Rynold and Oliver decided to have Rynold learn the Magic Skill Book, some of the students from the different classrooms all came running out and headed straight towards the stairs only to be filled with remorse and dread.
It was like an apocalypse. Creatures roamed around the halls and outside on the school grounds. Luckily, it was a Sunday and nobody was really around the school as most students and employees were roaming around the city.
The students scattered as they panicked and screamed while the faculty tried to calm them down. Meanwhile, Oliver received a call. It was from his girlfriend, Skye.
"Hey, are you okay?" Skye said with a tinge of panic in her voice.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Oliver hurriedly said, "stay still in your dorm room and don't let anybody come in. We'll come and get you."
"Okay, okay. Be careful," Skye warned.
Oliver sent a nod to Rynold as soon as the call ended. It was time to go and head to the girl's dorm.
The first thing they needed to do was to leave the main building. Although the first creature that they encountered was relatively easy to deal with because Rynold and Oliver attacked as soon as they saw it, that doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be the same for the rest of the creatures.
'This should increase our survivability.'
Rynold decided to put 5 more points into Intelligence while the other half he put into Stamina. The 5-point increase in Intelligence boosted his Mana to a whopping 40 points; meaning he could summon the Mech Knight for far longer. He had to increase their chances of survival and to come out unscathed from the school and, for that matter, to survive in general.
A new window popped up as soon as Rynold's Intelligence Attribute broke through 20.
[Basic Mana Recovery Obtained]
[Basic Mana Recovery]
Passive Skill
Increases Mana Recovery by 10% of overall Mana per 5 minutes.
'Huh, neat.'
Rynold realized that there are certain thresholds in the Attributes that a person has and he managed to break through one of them pretty early on.
As they headed down the stairs, he told Oliver to invest his points into whatever he felt like it while telling him to maximize his strengths such as his high Agility and Strength. He allocated most of his free points into Agility boosting it to a flat 15. Then, the rest he decided on saving it instead, seeing how he was satisfied by his current Attributes as it is.
The moment they reached the back entrance of the main building, they saw corpses of some of the students lying on the field while some were being chased by the creatures. It takes roughly 2 minutes to get to the girl's dorm by using the back entrance.
'I guess I have no choice if we want to get to the girls' dorm unscathed.'
Rynold was hoping to save it but he felt both excited and regretful as he said, "Summon Mech Knight."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone