After stuffing himself with food for two solid minutes Nathan had passed out as his body struggled to use up that energy to fix itself. He was still merged with Nicole as she was keeping up the bone barrier in place for him.

Elizabeth watched as Nathan’s flesh kept squirming and repairing itself in his sleep as all the torn flesh from the bug bites was healing while his skin that had been splashed by acid was getting restored back to normal.

Nathan had risked his life to save herself yet she just couldn’t feel safe with him anymore. To her, he was just too much of a wild card. He was strong and unpredictable. What if she accidentally one day hurt Nicole would he kill her in the same way he had done with Yuuki? The chances of that happening were low, but the chance was still there.

The apocalypse had only happened two days ago most people had yet to change and embrace it as Nathan had. Murder was still a great sin that people couldn’t accept. Elizabeth was no different in this regard. She did feel grateful towards Nathan there was no doubt in that, but she felt too uncomfortable to stay here any longer. Using up her attribute points and skill points Elizabeth had made her choice.

“Nicole, could you let me out of the barrier?” She was a smart woman and understood that Nicole was the one controlling the magic now that Nathan had passed out.

The bone barrier behind Elizabeth began to change as a hole opened up in it. Using it she quickly left the confines of it as she sent a blast of wind killing all the remaining bugs in the room. She was level 11 after all and killing a few level zero bugs meant nothing to her now. She wasn’t even gaining experience from it.

Maybe one day she will realize that Nathan had just adapted to their new world rules so much faster than others. Yet for now, she couldn’t accept his behavior and had to leave. Leaving Nathan to wake up a couple of hours later all healed up. He hadn’t felt this weak in what felt like forever as he opened up his status screen.

| Name: Nathan Bandon |

| Level: 10 |

| Class: Spiritualist |

| Status: Haunted |

| Strength: 16(5) |

| Vitality: 13(3) |

| Agility: 16(5) |

| Sense: 23(16) |

| Magic power: 24(12) |

| Mana: 15(14) |

| Attribute points: 4 |

His base vitality had shockingly fallen all the way to three from sacrificing it to regain his mana in that fight. No wonder he was feeling so weak after losing so many points in it. He couldn’t leave it that low for long as he invested all four of his attribute points back into vitality raising it to seven. This was slowly starting to become a very major problem for Nathan as every time he had to fight a tough opponent he was forced to sacrifice his vitality in the process. He had leveled up two times in that fight yet he had also lost 4 vitality in the process.

Nathan needed to come up with a solution for that problem as fast as he could but for now, he was looking forward to seeing the locked option of his spiritualist skill tree as he invested one of his skill points into Spirit enslavement. Opening up the locked option that required 20 points.

| Class upgrade | 0/1 |

| You have reached the next tier of your class |

| Class: Spiritualist |

| A class specializing for those that use spirits as their main means of protecting themselves. Unlocks the second tier of the spiritualist class tree. |

| Passive: +50% XP gain to any spirit related skills. |

| +5 points to all stats |

“This…” Nathan got completely shocked as he read the bonuses of the second tier of a class! He didn’t need to consider anything as he invested his skill point into it. His whole body felt reborn as all his stats began to increase by 5 points! It felt like he had completely reborn for example his strength stat with the bonuses Nicole gave him had reached 21. He could easily kill a man with just one hand now. He wasn’t disappointed about the power of tier two skill tree options as well.

| Shared soul | 0/5 |

| You can bond your soul with your familiar strengthening the bond you two share even more. |

| Strengthens any preexisting shared spirit effects by 5% |

| The spirit gains the ability to communicate with you |

| Spirit hoarder | 0/5 |

| Your ability to dominate spirits to your will has grown exceptionally |

| Increases your power to dominate a spirit to your will by 20% |

| Increases the limit of the spirits you can dominate by 20 |

| Current limit: 15 |

| Spirit theft | 0/5 |

| The ability to steal abilities or stats from spirits for your own use |

| 2% chance to gain a stat point or ability if you kill a spirit that is equally as powerful as you. |

| 0.5% chance to gain a stat point or ability from a spirit that is weaker than you. |

One option stood out beyond any other for Nathan. Shared soul would finally give him the ability to communicate with Nicole! Investing his last skill point into he called for her.

“Nicole, can you talk now!”

As he called out to Nicole who was floating in front of him he was met with silence one again. Did the skill not work?

“Can you use your voice again?” Nathan tried again but this time he felt a change. It was weak but Nicole had signaled him through his bond that she couldn’t.

She had gained the ability to communicate with him, but it wasn't through her voice more of a way to convey or transmit her thoughts or will to him. Nathan couldn’t help but be disappointed that he couldn’t hear her voice again, but still, it was already a great step forward for Nicole to regain her humanity as long as he kept leveling up and pushing himself, she will regain more of what death had taken from her.

With all of that taken care of, Nathan was once again full of motivation to go level up even further. Unsummoning the bone barrier he was welcomed to the broken room with holes all over it from the blood(hemolymph) of the bugs. The thousands of bug corpses that were half corroded covered the street outside the store. Most of the bugs seemed to have scattered and were no longer in the city as Nathan began to approach the corpse of the queen. He had learned from the forest god’s corpse that strong monsters had a chance to give him benefits if he looked for them inside.

| Blood nectar |

| Tier 1 |

| The condensed substance of the creature’s blood by Secerea armare. |

| Can be used to restore Health. |

| Can be used in alchemy. |

| Plant nectar |

| Tier 1 |

| The condensed substance of the plant essence by Secerea armare. |

| Can be used to restore health. |

| Can be used in alchemy. |

| Secerea armare Nectar |

| Tier 1 |

| The combination of plant and blood essence made by Secerea armare |

| Can be eaten to increase vitality up to 10 points. |

| Can be used in alchemy. |

Nathan dug out each of the crystals that hadn’t been shattered. While digging out the crystals from the queen’s body he noticed a lot of them were connected by a strange appendage that went deep into her body. Nathan continued to butcher her corpse even more before reaching a strange organ that connected most of the crystals to it.

| Secerea armare nucleus |

| The nucleus of secerea armare that lets it collect the essence of biological beings. |

| Can be consumed to receive the benefits of the dominating essence it has collected. |

| 25% chance to cause mutation. |

“Damn.” He wasn’t willing to gamble with the 25% chance it was just a bit too much for Nathan to risk. What if the mutation ruined his life completely? It was just a risk not worth taking for him. Still, it was worth keeping as he went back into the store and grabbed a backpack. Putting the nucleus in a zip lock bag while putting the nectars into a different zip lock bag in case he needed them in the future. Before going back into the store and grabbing the supplies he needed as he got ready to explore this changing world and level up.

Nathan began to explore the town to look for more supplies as he considered his options. The fact that he had woken up alone without Elizabeth being there was all he needed to know that she couldn’t accept his actions of killing Yuuki. He still felt guilty about what he had done to him. But he didn’t regret it as if he hadn’t acted there was a great chance Nicole could have died. There was also that small factor he didn’t want to acknowledge himself that he wanted to kill Yuuki for hurting her even if it wasn’t intentional.

Even if he had grown so much more powerful now it didn’t feel enough as he considered his options on ways he could increase it. The hardest yet the most rewarding would be if he started to hunt down the unique ability users for their power. In that way sooner or later he would find the abilities that would make him truly powerful. But for now, he could constantly train his magical ability. By summoning a small piece of his mana that only took as much mana as he was regenerating to sustain Nathan began to change its shape as it floated near him.

As long as that mana didn’t consume more then he regenerated he could use it permanently advancing his skills in mana manipulation and the magic of his choice that was fire magic.

His perfected adaptation was in full effect as his mind adapted to using magic while exploring the town as he constantly kept changing its density and form of the flame. His mastery of magic was slowly but steadily increasing over time as he constantly kept practicing with it.

It hadn’t taken him long to find what he was looking for, the map of the local area. Now that he knew his current location he could find his next destination which was one of the biggest towns in the area. The more people in a location the higher his chance of finding people with unique abilities. Nathan was right in his assumptions about unique ability holders but what he didn’t know was that the higher the population of humans in the area was before the apocalypse the stronger the invading monster will be.

Nathan spent a bit more time in the town to find some more of the crucial supplies he would need as well as a new pair of shoes and clothes in general. The soles of his shoes had been completely shredded from the force of his legs as well as the acid that they got covered in. After a whole hour had passed by he was ready to leave the town. He wouldn’t be returning back to that farm settlement, it would just feel odd after he had killed Yuuki. He was going to go on a journey to look for more unique abilities to add to his arsenal.