‘Zoey must be pretty nervous to be shaking like that... I’m not surprised, dealing with these two daemons won’t be easy. I’ll have to give it everything I got so that we can try to escape out of here.’ Alexander thought.

Both him and Lindsay were surprised as Zoey rushed forward without the slightest hint of hesitation. Neither were as surprised as the daemons themselves! What the hell was this human doing?! Was she deciding that encountering them was too much to handle and killing herself by running head first into would be a better end? Poison’s hands started to length and grow into sharp deadly long claws.

“She has poison! Don’t let her claws touch...” Alexander’s warning wasn’t fast enough as Zoey’s shoulders were raked by the daemon. It easily tore through her hoodie.

However, as a tradeoff for being poisoned, Zoey’s fist caved in Poison’s face without any consideration for her attractive looks that might make the average male hesitate to hit such a delicate face. She was sent flying into the wall as Zoey rushed towards her, not ready to let up just yet.

“You little?!” Vio couldn’t believe the strength possessed by that human.

Poison’s eyes were completely blank! That human managed to momentarily knock her unconscious just one punch! Either those gloves had to be Magji Tools or she was a talented majistar somehow with that pitiful amount of magji within her body. Regardless of which, he needed to take her seriously.

Vio ran after the strong human to kill her before she could kill Poison. As he was about to snatch her by the hoodie, he was stopped by the other two with more respectable magji in their bodies. They used their magic and nearly got him by surprise. This meant, Poison had to deal with the strong one on her own. He had no chance to help her any more than he already has.

Zoey gave Poison the worst beating of her life. Each impact of her punches was like miniature car crashes on Poison’s face. Her glasses were shattered, the face that most men would consider dangerously alluring was so swelled it was like looking at a pig’s face, and the poison she was so proud of was running through Zoey’s body but it wasn’t the type of poison that weakened her. It affected Zoey’s senses and made it hard for her to realize what was going on. Blurry vision, a loss of balance, and a feeling of weakness in her body. Nevertheless, Zoey wouldn’t stop punching the demon until she couldn’t raise her fists anymore.

Suddenly, Zoey was pulled away by a strong force. She wasn’t able to see what grabbed her or what was happening but she tried getting back up on her feet to get ready for another fight. Her hand slipped, and she fell right on her face. The poison’s effect was getting worse... How the hell was she going to fight like this? Impaired hearing and vision? Was she supposed to smell, touch, or taste her way through this fight now? Hell no! Zoey continued to try and get back up onto her feet before feeling someone grab her under her arm pits and lifting her up.

“They’re gone. They got away.” Alexander told her.

“Oh...” Was the only thing she could say. ‘My exp...’ Then everything went black.

[Status]

[Name: Zoey]

[Sex: Female]

[Body: 1.9]

[Mental: 1.1]

[Magic: 0.3]

[Skills: 9]

[Abnormal Condition Resistance Lv1]

When Zoey woke up, she found herself back at home. Raising up from her bed, she immediately checked her phone. A few messages from Katlyn and Callie, two long messages from Lindsay and Alexander, and one from her mom. A warmth welled up in her heart after seeing how many messages were sent to her. Her phone was no longer dry and empty! She had actual friends to talk to now!

But before she got to reading and responding to all those messages, Zoey got up and checked on the condition of her body. She moved all her limbs around, went through a few light warmups with her training equipment, and felt like nothing was wrong with her at all! Either that Abnormal Condition Resistance skill was the shit or Lindsay and Alexander fixed her up with some healing magic or something. In actuality, she felt even better after waking up!

Alexander: I hope you’re feeling alright by the time you read this. We used basically all of the case’s money on a magjistar doctor to fix you up. If you still don’t feel well, feel free to tell me! I might be able to ask my mentor for a favor to heal you. If you are feeling well, tomorrow me and Lindsay plan to deal with a daemon on the outskirts of the city. Call either one of us if you’re interested. Stay healthy. 😄

Lindsay: Hello Zoey. I hope your injuries have not gotten worse by the time you read this. You don’t have to worry about anything if they haven’t. We told your mom and dad a convincing story so they weren't too worried about you coming home unconscious. If you’re feeling up for another case, just message me or Alexander when you can. This daemon will be more fitting for our ranks and hopefully none of us will get injured this time. Ttyl Zoey.

Well, it was nice to see that someone was worried about her and was looking out for her. Maybe next time she hears poison, she shouldn’t just run in like an idiot and try to kill the demon as fast as possible. But then again, she did just get a skill perfectly capable of handling something like poison... Zoey didn’t know what kinds of abnormal conditions her skill was referring to but from the video games she’d played. Poison, fire, ice, lightning, stunning, mind control, were all things that fell under abnormal conditions. If she thought about it, this skill could become the perfect skill against all daemons combined with her defensive skills.

Leveling up her defense skills will make her practically untouchable but if somehow demons were able to bypass that untouchableness, Abnormal Conditions would be a backup for her. The thing about this skill was that it was basically going to be impossible to level except on rare occasions just like Focus. Unless she wanted to burn herself alive, electrocute herself, and start downing harmful substances, there was no way this skill was being leveled up. And while Zoey was pretty sure she was batshit crazy and insane, she wasn’t that far gone yet to start doing things like that. Painful things still hurt a lot and doing reckless and suicidal crap like that wasn’t what she wanted to do. She was addicted to the progression but not completely losing her mind and body to the Box. Just only a little bit of its power has consumed her.

A knock on her door grabbed her attention.

“Come in.” She spoke.

Everett came in with some boxing gloves their step-dad bought for him. They were designed with flames and fit perfectly for his small hands. She guessed he heard her messing around with the boxing equipment and came for some more teaching. Zoey didn’t mind. Teaching was a super easy skill to raise and she wouldn’t pass up a moment to raise it even more.

“Can you teach me how to fight like you do in the ring?” Recently Everett’s been obsessed with boxing and other fighting styles similar to it.

So much in fact that he’s started playing more competitive fighting games. His favorite type of fighters were close-ranged aggressive type fighters. But usually for those characters, they were horrible at long range and getting close in to the opponent took patience and caution. Otherwise, they’d be spammed to death from a far or punished for going in too hard.

“Sure, but you might not be suited for my style of boxing.” She told him, observing his body.

From the way he was growing, becoming a swarmer probably wasn’t for him. He was getting tall and if he put on some muscle, it still probably wouldn’t be the type of muscle that would make him a beefy god. Everett would probably suit an out-boxer or a counterpuncher more than becoming a swarmer or slugger. But Zoey didn’t know shit about those styles of boxing. Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration, as she did hold some knowledge but very little experience with fighting those types. Most of the people she fought against fought in a similar way to herself.

“That’s okay. I want to learn anyway.” Everett said.

“Alright. Let’s start out with some warm ups before we get into the real thing, alright?” Zoey responded back to Callie’s and Katlyn’s texts.

“What do I do first?”

“Stretch! Always stretch before doing something exhausting.” She advised.

“Got it.”

The next two hours were spent training with her little brother until it was time for dinner. Zoey recently bought some weights for herself to try and raise her body stat more but remembered that she needed to raise that mental stat! So, she downloaded several brain exercise apps on her phone and took out her school books while Everett was sweating and heaving on her floor. It was a relaxing night and after their two-hour training session, her teaching skill leveled up to level 6 and her mental stat rose to 1.2.

“I’m still pissed at Coach... I guess I'll skip out on going to the gym and deal with that demon with Alexander and Lindsay. Oh! I still need to watch more videos on ground fighting too.” Zoey suddenly remembered.