So, back to the main character again. Aka Markus. Who is now beating the living shit out of a pack of wolves.

Behind him, there's a bunch of corpses, some with an arm or leg missing. He tried to manage his time better by trying to dismantle and kill wolves at the same time, but it turns out that they didn't really like seeing their family get torn to pieces while fighting some crazy bastard who's going to turn them into pieces. So he had to scrap the idea and drop the corpses.

"Ah, this is so relaxing."

He says this after killing around 20 wolves and watching them struggle in pain as he broke their limbs. There's blood everywhere and he's just standing there like he's watching a movie or some shit. Makes you wonder how sane he is, doesn't it?

"I don't know why though, but it feels like someone's talking about me," he muttered to himself.

Whoops. Gotta go. Also, his sanity is stuck at 85 for some weird reason.

"Grrr...Yip, yip!" The wolves began to run from Markus, their tails between their legs. He didn't bother to chase them, since his goal was accomplished anyway.

You have leveled up! Gained +1 CONS, +1 AGI, +1 STR.

After notifications were unlocked, by doing enough things that would give you notifications, its other options would be unlocked. For example, you could add sound, making an annoying little bell jingle in your head every time you leveled some random shit up. Another option was that you could limit the amount shown up at a time, which is what Markus did since it wouldn't be very helpful to have a blue screen pop up in front of your face while fighting.

Walking has become Lvl 8! Kick has become Lvl 5! Knee Strike has become Lvl 2! Axe Kick has become Lvl 2! Unarmed Mastery has become Lvl 3! Target has become Lvl 2! Unlocked Achievement: Wolf Slayer I: Kill 50 Wolves. Congrats, you killed 50 dogs, you crazy bastard. Though considering your strength, they were more like vicious chihuahuas. Cute, annoying, and fragile.

Rewards: Slayer Box I, 1000 Credits, Item Box I(Wolf)

Consequences: Wolves will now fear you. Wolf Bosses will spawn more frequently if there are wolves in your area. Damage dealt to wolves or wolf-related species increases by 10%. Chances of getting better loot from wolves increases by 10%.

The elbow strikes hadn't been as useful as he had previously thought, but most of the other skills had done pretty well. The only skill worse than the elbow strike was the jump kick skill, which was basically useless against wolves. He wasn't even sure if he was even doing it right, since the book didn't give a detailed instruction on how to do it, but instead gave a picture of a stick-goblin in a kicking position. Roundhouse kicks weren't nice either since he didn't have Stability yet, so he'd have to work on that.

More importantly, he was getting used to his new fighting style. All he had to do was kick the wolves a couple of times, and they'd die pretty quickly. Soon enough he'd be able to get his Walking skill to Lvl 9.

Using the cleaver, he got to work on dismantling the remaining corpses, getting the skill to Lvl 2 in the progress. He hacked off their heads and slowly peeled away the skin to make a shitty looking pelt. In the end, the floor of the forest was covered completely in blood, not to mention himself, and he smelled as if he had just gone to the zoo and murdered everything with nothing but his bare hands. Which in a way, he had.

Blood splattered onto the forest floor as Markus purified his clothes. At level 1, it could only get a few handfuls of blood off, but at least he didn't feel like he got thrown up on anymore. He used it until his mana ran dry and he got a headache. After eating a few berries nearby, he kept going with it, pushing as much mana into it as he could, using Mana Amplification.

Purification has become Lvl 2!

Mana Amplification made skills cost more mana but in exchange, they could be leveled faster, which is why Purification was able to level up so fast. However, just like the name suggested, it only worked on mana skills, meaning that he couldn't buff any other skills at the moment with it.

In a little bit, he'd go deeper in. Since he was able to get a buff against wolf monsters, fighting a wolf boss became a little easier. A boss was different from a normal mob as it was stronger and usually had at least 1 element. In the case of the bosses near here, he assumed that it would have either the earth, nature, or water elements. If it was the earth or water elements, it would be a struggle. Nature would probably be impossible, but he didn't think it was likely considering the strength of the normal wolves.

He grabbed a handful of berries from some nearby bushes. Most of them were poisonous but he swallowed them down along with some shit bread, regenerating his health and mana at the same time. He sat down, waiting for the headache and itches to subside while eating some more.

After eating around 20 or so berries, his health and mana were at the max. He got in a comfortable position and began to concentrate, trying to sense the mana around him.

When monsters died, they didn't just leave behind a corpse. They also left behind mana, which could be reused or used to track down any attackers. It was more or less like DNA fingerprinting, as over time each player and monster would have a distinctive type of mana. Even if a player or monster didn't use mana at all, they were still given a mana pool, which would leak mana subconsciously sometimes.

At first, he didn't really feel much. Originally, he had maxed out Mana Circulation first before moving onto other mana related skills, but as he found out later, it was possible to gain mana skills while training Mana Circulation. You just needed to be able to utilize mana, which meant being able to move mana out of your body in some way.

He took a finger and dipped it in some of the remaining blood on his armor before putting it in his mouth. The blood was bitter and tasted like ash, but he moved it around his mouth as he tried to feel the mana. A spark glimmered before vanishing, but he brought it back, extending the mana outside of his body.

Learned Mana Sense Lvl 1! Learned Mana Siphon Lvl 1!

He made a connection to the wolfen mana, bringing it into his body. Feral, uncivilized thoughts came into him. Short commands of "go", "stop", "there", "run", and others flashed by. He amplified the current, trying to get more information. He saw an image, one of a wolf standing on its hind legs. The image was blurry and dark in areas, but he was able to figure out where it was. A familiar tree stood in the background of the image.

So it's taking mana from the earth dungeon, which means that it's got a few earth skills. I'll have to prepare a little more before going in then.

Markus stood back up from his position and grabbed his cleaver, putting it back on his belt. He purified the area with what little mana he had left, using amplification as well and getting it to Lvl 2.

If it had the earth element, that meant that it was able to draw power from the earth, so he'd have to try and take the boss out like in that one story with Hercules and the wrestler dude or just brute force it. And he didn't think he'd be able to lift a giant wolf off the ground while fending off swarms of wolves, so it looked like he'd have to prepare some more bombs.

He started stuffing plants into his bag, along with a few stones. He grabbed Zabra berries, Ganbea leaves, Araden plants, as well as a number of other plants, mostly poisonous.

The bushes suddenly rustled as the sound of footsteps echoed through the forest. Markus looked away from what he was doing only to see the fleeing figure of a child.

Was he planning to steal some kills? Ah whatever, I'm too lazy to hunt down a kid.

Holy crap...

Hidden in the bushes was a young child. He had followed the evil man into the forest to see what they would do. When the man had encountered a pack of wolves, the kid hid in a nearby bush. He had scraped his knee on the tough branches, but he didn't make a sound and just watched.

Jared watched as the evil monster was swarmed by monsters. Wolves piled onto him, one after another. The monster shook them off and filled the air with sounds of bones snapping, wolves howling, and the sound of ripping and tearing.

Then came the laughter. The smile on the monster's face almost made him piss his pants. It wasn't a maniacal laugh, nor a creepy a smile. No, it was laughing like it had just watched a comedy. Like what was happening was a total joke, like if someone was throwing stuffed animals at him instead of real ones.

That was the moment he shit himself and ran. Forget fighting that thing, he couldn't even get near it without shaking.

After selling all the useless crap he didn't need, he went to the guild and turned in all his finished quests, earning a total of 200 Credits. When he was done with that, he went into one of the training rooms to level his skills some more.

First was Mana Manipulation, which he had been neglecting for some time. At Lvl 4, it was possible for him to use mana skills, but he knew that at some point he'd have to be able to use mana with both hands, and later on any part of his body. For example, Mana Shield was a skill that required the manipulation to be maxed out.

But before he forgot, he pulled out the two reward boxes from the achievement. There was a slayer box and an item box. Engraved on the slayer box was a figure standing atop a mountain of skulls, while the item box had a picture of a wolf's head on it. Both boxes appeared to be made of a silver-like metal, though what metal it was made of Markus did not know.

The slayer box he opened first. Inside was an item card, just like inside all the other boxes. And inside the item card, he found a pair of fingerless gloves, which he could put on inside the iron gauntlets. They were coarse and thin and made a snapping noise when he put them on.

Erwin's Wolf Leather Gloves: +6 DEX, +3 DEF, +4 STR. An NPC called Erwin made these gloves. They were originally made for a swordsman, but the player that bought them was a fighter, and so he cut the fingers off. He did this without Erwin knowing, so if you ever meet Erwin, don't show him these unless you want to get your ass beat.

Despite missing the fingers, they still had pretty good stats for a Tier 1 item.

He then opened the item box. Inside, instead of an item card, there was a ring fashioned from some kind of bone.

Wolf's Bone Ring: +3 DEX, +1 DEF, +6 AGI, +1 STR. Crafted from one of the bones of a wolf, this ring will garner you the hatred of all wolves nearby. In exchange, it gives you somewhat crappy stats. Also, you might want to be careful with this, since it's kind of fragile. Totally not a good fit for you.

Ignoring the snarky description, he tried putting it on, but it wouldn't fit on the metal gloves. The ring was pretty thin, and was meant for someone with a smaller hand size than him. Markus frowned and opened up the shop, ready to sell it, but changed his mind at the last second. He could probably use it to attract monsters, he realized.

He pulled up his stats to see how he was doing. Surprisingly, a number of his stats had gone down. The GMs routinely fixed a number of bugs here and there when they felt that the game difficulty wasn't hard enough. Of course, they usually didn't tell the players, and would only make announcements when the number of bugs was sufficient enough to garner compensation.

Status

Name: Markus Zhang

Lvl: 6

Class: Fighter

HP: 108/124

MP: 136/136

SP: 72/72

EXP: 109/600

Strength: 47 (+26)

Dexterity: 28 (+17)

Persistence: 20

Agility: 31 (+10)

Resistance: 25 (+10)

Intelligence: 24

Wisdom: 36

Constitution: 22

Willpower: 15

Composure: 22

Karma: 24

Defense: 49 (+36)

Sanity: 85

He gulped down a loaf of bread from the shop, filling his health bar back to the max. Next, he looked at his skill list. His class hadn't been giving him skills with every level, he noticed, so he counted the number of fighter skills he had. The number was 11.

Stamina Skills (Active)

Uppercut Lvl 9, Walking Lvl 8, Throw Lvl 7, Running Lvl 7, Examine Lvl 7, Reading Lvl 6, Writing Lvl 5, Climbing Lvl 5, Kick Lvl 5, Listening Lvl 4, Communication Lvl 4, Studying Lvl 4, Gathering Lvl 4, Concentration Lvl 3, Hiding Lvl 3, Spying Lvl 3, Scratch Lvl 3, Punch Lvl 3, Cooking Lvl 3, Jab Lvl 2, Hook Lvl 2, Jump Lvl 2, Cleaning Lvl 2, Dodge Lvl 2, Knee Strike Lvl 2, Axe Kick Lvl 2, Dismantling Lvl 2, Elbow Strike Lvl 1, Roundhouse Kick Lvl 1, Jump Kick Lvl 1, Riding Lvl 1, Trip Lvl 1, Crafting Lvl 1, Disarm Trap Lvl 1,

Stamina Skills (Passive)

Breathing Lvl 9, Premonition Lvl 8, Sleeping Lvl 7, Training Lvl 7, Paralyze Resistance Lvl 5, Adaptation Lvl 4, Unarmed Mastery Lvl 3, Weapon Mastery Lvl 2, Target Lvl 2, Fall Resistance Lvl 1, Poison Resistance Lvl 1, Petrify Resistance Lvl 1

Mana Skills

Mana Circulation Lvl 4, Purification Lvl 2, Mana Amplification Lvl 2, Mana Sense Lvl 1, Mana Siphon Lvl 1

Finally, he sat down and began concentrating. His objective for that day was to push mana through his left arm and up into his left hand. He began funneling mana from his core into his upper left side, tunneling slowly and making progress. Markus then pushed it through his veins in his shoulder, and a cool feeling passed through that area. It was hard to know whether he was making progress: only a level up would really tell him anything.

He kept pushing at it, not making much progress. Since he hadn't been training the skill much recently, the veins that were barely open before had now closed up. It felt like trying to funnel water in a bucket through one of those really tiny straws that's not actually meant for drinking when you get coffee.

And then...

Mana Circulation has become Lvl 5

Just a little more now...

Mana Circulation has become Lvl 6

Mana Circulation was a little different from other skills in the way that each level was gained.

Most skills went something like this: First 7 or 8 levels = "milestones", Lvl 9 = "knowing what you're doing", Lvl 10 = Test.

Mana Circulation was just milestones and then a test. If you didn't know what you were doing then you wouldn't have had the skill in the first place.

The milestones, in this skill's case, were body parts. Specifically, they were the hands, arms, torso, head, legs, and feet. Markus had already gotten the upper body part, now he just needed the lower body.

Then he looked at the clock. With the grand hunt in a few minutes, he left the room.

A few moments after he left, a person in the room next to him quietly opened the door. They wore the kind of clothes you'd see on someone trying to rob a house, probably stolen from somewhere or bought in the shop. The person motioned behind him, signaling another player to exit the room and enter Markus's room. Once inside, they went right to the clock, removing a square object from the side.

"This better be worth it, dude."

"Trust me, this guy's the strongest in the city."

"Dude, if it turns out I wasted half my credits on this..."

"Don't worry, it'll work. There's no way he noticed it."