Noah survived relatively unscathed. The creature didn’t seem to have interest in him when there were people in more precarious situations. It had killed four and injured another six. Of the six, two were in critical state and would probably die of sepsis or blood loss in the following hours.

Ciara had done all she could, but unless we found more medical supplies, it was unlikely they would survive. Noah told me he had only small lacerations, but we all feared that those who were bitten might fall ill to some disease these nasty creatures carried. If the people who had been hurt by the Goblins were any indication, our worries were unnecessary. No one has fallen ill since yesterday, yet.

After a few minutes of torpor, we all got moving at Johann’s shouts. There would be more bodies to burn later today. I didn’t know the people who died or were seriously injured, but the whole situation made me angry. Johann decided that the next step was for us to reinforce the central building. I got my sledgehammer and tasked myself with helping disassemble furniture. We would reinforce all the first floor windows and construct a mobile barrier that we could push on the entrance. It wouldn’t be as sturdy as a gate, but better than the current glass door.

We managed two or so hours of work when Johann decided to call a group meeting during a meal. He informed us there wasn’t much food left, but we had to recoup our strength. This time though, they gave more food for the people who fought. They didn’t inform anyone they would do so, they just did. No one complained. I wondered how Igor was feeling about all this.

When we started eating Johann addressed the collective. I was only half listening. He spoke about unity and that we should learn to move on. Dwelling in the past wouldn’t help us, were his words.

‘What past? It happened less than three hours ago.’

I wanted to retort, but I found I didn’t really care for what he said. I had to be the solution, not look for it in others. Chen was right, I was in a unique position to exponentially grow. And I was determined to make every use of it.

Johann reorganized the group. We had eight injured and two gravely injured. He sent most of the people in gathering parties to bring back food and look for medical supplies. John stayed with his unit to work the defenses. They had managed to survive the ordeal relatively unscathed. Two injured. Most of the people who were inside had been from Johann’s group. The dead as well. Igor was among one of the injured, but his case was nothing serious. Just a bite wound on his thigh. They gave him a half day’s rest, I think. Noah got a full day’s rest, since he was limping. Ciara said he would need more than that to get back to full health, I am not sure the group could afford that.

I volunteered to stay and work my sledgehammer, but before that I bought myself a pair of resistant boots and a beanie. My feet were particularly thankful to be rid of my tattered social shoes. I wasn’t going to keep saving all my points forever. I had decided to go for a magical weapon, I was currently with 143 points, it would take me a while still. A common weapon wouldn’t help me much, since I already had the sledgehammer. I wanted to make use of my club skill, even if things like swords and axes were available.

As I worked the sledgehammer a sudden pop from the system grabbed my attention.

[You have increased your Strength.]

‘What!?’

I immediately opened my stats sheet and checked my strength status. There it was. Six. And then I felt it. Like some sort of low energy current was crawling under my skin, my body hair all raised. It itched. I tried to control myself. The people around me stared too, as I stood motionless. It started to subside, and when someone finally asked if everything was okay, it was almost entirely gone.

“I am fine. Just a bit tired. I will grab some water.”

I left without waiting for a reply. There were others to perform the task, and I hadn’t taken a break since it started. How long was I breaking furniture? I looked at the sky clock.

20:31:57

‘Around an hour?’

After the itch was gone, I wasn’t feeling particularly stronger. I felt full of energy, like I could do anything. But I pushed away this intoxicating feeling, it would do me no good. I wasn't surprised that the stats could increase, I already suspected it. We are all humans, if we train our bodies we obviously get stronger. Some things are harder to train, like willpower (WIL) and vitality (VIT). I suspect willpower might be innate, but vitality might relate to eating healthy and taking care of your body? That would make the most sense.

Dexterity (DEX) is related to one’s ability with their hands, so maybe training hand eye coordination. Agility (AGI) refers to reflexes and body reaction times. I can think of a few exercises to train that, like trying to dodge projectiles, racing with obstacles, and many others. Strength (STR) is the most straightforward one. We all do it, one way or another.

What surprised me was how soon it increased. I had been without proper strength training for three years now. I am only two days here, it doesn’t make sense for me to make such a sudden increase in strength, even if I am being so active. Even if I consider muscle memory to some degree, it's way too fast. Should I attribute this to magic? To this place? I can’t think of anything else.

Faced with another question without answer, I decided to go with the flow. If I managed to increase my strength, maybe I can increase other more straightforward stats? I decided to try to increase my dexterity. Since it’s my lowest stat, outside of magic, which I have no idea how to increase, it should be the easiest. If the increase is exponential, the difficulty should be exponential as well.

I passed by some people working the eastern flank. Some gave me a funny look, but most were more worried about their own tasks than with others. Johann was busy coordinating some people, but I am sure he caught me leaving the area. He didn’t say anything, neither did I.

Training. That was my plan. I wanted to try and find if I could really increase my stats by purposefully training a certain aspect. Part of me wanted to invite Noah and some of the others, maybe even John and Johann, but I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t detract from everyone’s time spent building the defense just for a test. Maybe I would have invited Noah regardless, but with him recovering it was best if I did it alone. I don’t think Chen could keep up with me, he didn’t strike me as the athletic type, but he was on the top of my list for the people I wanted to help. But first things first. I needed to be sure.

I found an out of the way street, entered into a building, and decided to practice there. There was no furniture inside, most likely moved by the people in the group. I had a few ideas on how to train my DEX, but I wasn’t sure I could do it with my sledgehammer. I tried tossing it from hand to hand, like some sort of juggling. It was hard. The awkward weight distribution made it harder to catch and stabilize the weapon, especially if I grabbed it further from the hammer head. I needed a better tool for training my DEX.

I suddenly remembered all the kung fu monks that I saw on TV and the internet. They had training with all these different weapons and they had remarkable hand to eye coordination. I could buy one of their weapons, but which? I know I said I wouldn’t spend money with common weapons, but this is different. I couldn’t train my DEX without a proper tool, and unless the system offered things like balls for me to juggle, I am afraid it would have to be a weapon.

I could improvise something from all the furniture, I could even juggle with the food cans, but the idea of training with a weapon just spoke to me. I also really wanted to buy a weapon, I was just resisting it. I was thrifty. Although I liked my sledgehammer, a bruiser weapon wasn’t my preferred style. I was always more of a mobile fighter whenever I played in my teen years.

I started browsing the point shop, most specifically the Common Weapons option. There was a list of available weapons and I was trying to see if anything would speak to me. Katanas? They certainly are cool, but it must be really hard to learn by myself. Other interesting choices were also present, a mace, for instance.

‘Would that be like a medieval mace entirely made of solid iron?’

The weapons have looked quite modern so far, even the sword of the muscled woman looked somewhat modern. I was curious to see what a modern mace would look like, but it didn’t really make sense for me to go for it as I already had the sledgehammer.

I kept browsing for some good ten minutes before I settled on something. A spear. It was a straightforward weapon with great potential. The increased range would also give me more safety. Especially in the barricades, I could stab from a safe distance and even impale stronger enemies, like the boss.

‘Why didn’t I think of checking for something like this before? Am I really so complacent?’

Sighing, I decided not to beat myself so much. I bought the spear and I couldn’t help but stare wide eyed as it materialized in front of me. It started from the bottom, like if it was being made by an invisible 3D printer. Rapidly forming, the long metal shaft was made of solid steel. As a civil engineer, I could tell in a glance that it was a metal of great quality. The tip was in the shape of a V, and each side connected to the shaft forming a sort of pointing arrow. The edge of the spear blade was wavy. It was quite beautiful. There were some details on the center of the blade, copper colored inlays.

Caught in my trance admiring the spear, I didn’t react in time when it suddenly fell and clattered. It was somehow suspended in air when it was being made, or delivered, I wasn’t sure, but when it was done, it just fell on the floor after a while. I picked it up and the cold metal of the shaft was smooth. A few grooves on it allowed me to have a better grip, but it was an incredibly well made weapon. The edge looked super sharp, and I felt tempted to touch it, but decided not to.

I performed a few thrusting motions, one handed and two handed, and the weight distribution was remarkable. It felt… great. I obviously didn’t know shit about spear fighting, but I had enough common sense to know that it was used for thrusting, slashing and sometimes bludgeoning, like a staff. I wanted to try more spear movements, but it was going to get me off track. I wanted to see if I could increase my DEX. I started throwing the spear from one hand to the other, and it was a hundred times easier.

I don’t know how long I spent doing weird and boring movements with the spear. I did throw passes between my hands. I launched it high and grabbed it. I tried to spin it between my fingers, but after almost cutting myself I decided it wasn’t a good exercise. I wasn’t tired, but I started to feel hungry. I know I wanted to save my points, and a part of me thought it would be a mistake, but I decided to buy food with points. If I wanted to get stronger, I had to focus all my time on developing myself.

I couldn’t spend time going around looking for food, and the thought of asking the group didn’t sit well with me. I liked Mrs Aya, and Noah seemed like a good guy, but I didn’t know these people. Being overly dependent on them felt wrong. Was I being too anti-social? I didn’t like to think myself as such, I liked to be around people. But when it came to my life, I wanted to be the sole person responsible for it.

I ended up buying the food. Now I had only 88 points. It pained me to see it go down, but I had to. The rations that appeared consisted of seven cans of food and five liters of water. I didn’t have a backpack with me, so I ate and drank what I could. The rest I placed in a corner. I suspected no one was going to come here after they were already done with this area. I sat down to rest my food for some thirty minutes and browsed the system while waiting.

I still had one point to spend, after I was first again in the last wave. I wasn’t sure if I could increase my DEX easily, strength could have been a fluke, but it was certainly possible. I decided to spend on the stats that I had no way of training here, like WIL and VIT. The former didn’t seem very useful at the moment, but the latter definitely was. I spent one more point in VIT, I now had nine points in it.

‘If the increase is exponential, how powerful would my regenerative abilities become? Would I eventually be able to close wounds while fighting?’

The thought of fighting a horde as an invincible force had me daydreaming. Again, the intoxicating feeling of power up was getting to me. I pushed it away. I had rested enough, and decided to continue my training. I was determined to get it up.

When the sky was already orange, the system finally pinged me.

[You have increased your Dexterity.]

“Yeeeeeeeeeesssssssss!”

I shouted. After I had lost count of how many hours I spent on these stupid exercises, it finally happened. It was possible. It was fucking possible. This opened up so many possibilities. If I could increase my DEX stats in a day just by doing some stupid juggling and fancy movements with a spear, how powerful could I become in a week? In a month? I wanted to train more. Eat, train and then fight. I would absolutely destroy any and all enemies.

‘I am getting carried away, again.’

I pushed it away. This was the third time today I felt like this, it was getting easier to identify it. I don’t know if it was magical or biological in nature, but there was a powerful feeling of euphoria involved with increasing stats. I never used drugs, but I suspected it was something similar to using something for the first time.

I sat down to eat and drink, and checked my status sheet.

[Name: Leo

Level: 2

STATS

STR: 6 VIT: 9

DEX: 5 AGI: 7

WIL: 5 MAG: 0

SKILLS

Throwing (Initiate); Hand-to-Hand Combat (Beginner); Dodge (Beginner); Running (Proficient); Submission (Proficient); Club Fighting Style (Initiate);

MAGIC

Language(Passive);]

I had somehow increased three stats today, even without a level up, I had increased my strength the same as yesterday. I wonder if anyone was even close to it. Chen’s words were starting to feel awfully accurate.

I was excited to share this news with the people in the group, but there was no time for training left today. Maybe some hot heads would even skip their sleeping just to try and increase some stats, which wouldn’t be helpful. Tomorrow, after the wave, I was going to tell the group. I hoped that Noah would recover enough to join me here tomorrow. Chen as well, that kid might have an even better idea on how to increase the stats.

I left three cans of food and two bottles of water in the corner of the building and made my way back to the camp. The horizon was painted orange as I took a peek at the sky clock.

10:59:03