Chapter 20
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The mutant tree's eyes glanced at it for a moment and then ignored it just like all the rocks it did in the past two minutes.
I looked at Rahul and I could see his excited expression and then…
KABOOOOM!!!
A large explosion rang in my ears following which, three shock waves crashed against my body in succession and threw me a few meters away from my original position.
A large amount of debris, wooden fragments and other miscellaneous stuff flew past my ears and I quickly ducked down and prevented my head from suffering any damage.
I felt my ears ringing for a few seconds as I tried to make sense of my surroundings. And when the debris stopped falling from the sky, I looked up in the direction of the mutant tree and the sight in front of me made me feel both fear and excitement.
There was a huge whole in the mutant tree's trunk. Almost all of it's eyes were destroyed in the blast and it's whole body was charred black.
The other half of the trunk which was still not destroyed after the explosion started creaking and before long, the whole tree bent to a side, and fell to the ground.
The whole ground trembled upon it's fall as if signifying the death of this giant.
I looked in the direction where Rahul was standing before the explosion and saw that he was also looking in my direction.
We both looked at each other in excitement and without anyone telling us to do anything, we rushed toward the mutant tree at once.
I looked at the large number of mutant beasts on the ground with a greedy expression. Almost all of them had died from the shockwave of the explosion and the few that had somehow miraculously survived were already half dead.
I chopped the head of a large mutant boar and took out it's blood red Core in a practiced fashion.
'Sell it.' I shouted in my mind and put it close to the Black Watch.
The Core in my hand turned in light that flew out of my went inside the Black watch.
'Mutant Boar's 1st tier Core sold for 48 white coins.' Lily's voice rang in my ears like a sweet melody.
I jumped at the next Mutant beast in exhilaration. 'This is a treasure.'
'Sell it.'
'Mutant monkey's 1st tier Core sold for 12 white coins.'
'Sell it.'
'Mutant cow's 1st tier Core sold for 64 white coins.'
'Sell it.'
'Mutant dog's 2nd tier Core sold for 40 white coins.'
'Sell it.'
'Mutant monkey's 1st tier Core sold for 16 white coins.'
"Wait!" Rahul's voice woke me from my trance.
Then he showed a White Leather glove and said "Watch this." He put the hand wearing the White Leather Glove on top of a Mutant dog's head and as if by some magic, the Core inside it's head broke out of the skull, tore through it's skin and was pulled into the Glove.
I was shocked when I saw that. 'What's the hell is that glove?'
As if he'd heard my thoughts he said "It's called Clipping glove. Buy it and be quick. We don't have a lot of time."
It was then that I heard the howls and barks of the mutant beasts coming from the other side of the forest.
'Lily. Buy the glove that he's wearing.' I shouted in my mind.
'It's worth 60 white coins. Are you sure?'
I gritted my teeth and said 'Yes I'm sure. Be quick.'
A white light came out of the Black watch and turned into the form of a glove which then landed on my hands.
Without thinking much, I quickly wore the glove on my right hand and put it on top of a Mutant rabbit's head.
Just like before, the blood red Core broke through it's skull and was caught by the gloves.
'Sweet!' I thought in my mind and quickly told Lily to sell it.
'Mutant rabbit's 2nd tier Core sold for 12 white coins.'
'Sell it.'
'Mutant cow's 1st tier Core sold for 64 white coins.'
'Sell it...
Lily's voice rang continuously in my ears. Just that this time, with the help of Clipping Glove, my speed of taking out and selling the Cores had gone up a notch.
I glanced at the other side of the forest. The sounds of the mutant beasts had gotten closer while we were taking out the Cores.
"Brother." I shouted at Rahul who was a few meters ahead of me.
He looked back at me and understood my implications. Instantly he left all of the mutant beasts behind and jumped at the mutant tree at the center of all the corpses.
He put his hand a the trunk of the tree and after five seconds, I saw a fist sized green 'thing' coming out of the truck.
I didn't get and good look at it before it turned to light particles and entered Rahul's Black watch.
Rahul instantly turned to look at me and shouted "Run."
At the same instant, hundreds of Mutant beasts came out from the other side of the forest. I turned around and was shocked to find a large group of Abnormals coming out from on between the trees.
'Shit! Seems like the Explosive Grenade was a bit 'too' effective.' I cursed in my mind and turned to look at Rahul who point at another direction and said.
"Come. We'll get out of there."
Before his shout ended, both the Abnormals and Mutant beasts saw each other and started running toward each other at once.
I was dazed for a moment when I saw this. 'Damn! Are they gonna start a war or something'
"Run." Rahul's shout broke me from my daze and I started to run in the direction he had pointed at.
My Speed stat had restored to it's original 2.0 stat a few minutes earlier when were throwing rocks at the mutant beasts so I was able to keep up with Rahul's speed.
We reached the edge of the clearing and entered the dense trees without stopping.
I gave one last look at the place where the giant mutant tree had once stood and saw the two different races colliding with each other before everything was covered up by trees.
"Don't look back." Rahul shouted and pulled my hand "Keep running we're still in grave danger."
I looked to our left and realized that a small group of a dozen or so Mutant dogs had separated from the main group and had started to chase after us.
'Damn it! why the hell are you coming after us. Do we really look that tasty to you.'
We continued to run for a while but the Mutant dogs who also had double to speed of normal dogs kept on our trial and started gaining on us.
"Brother they're coming closer." I shouted while panting
He looked at me and said in between breaths "Buy 80 Agility crystals."
Rahul didn't had an AI like Lily so if he wanted to buy something then he will have to open the hologram and buy it from the interface himself. Such a thing was definitely not possible while running so both of us had to rely on Lily.
'Lily. You heard him.' I said in my mind
'Very well then.' Lily said and in a few seconds 8 small blue pills entered my hands.
'These are the pills you talked about earlier.' I asked suspiciously.
'Yes. Don't drop them while running. Each of those pills is worth 10 crystals.'
'Very well.' I opened my mouth and swallowed 4 of them while passed the other four to Rahul.
A hot feeling gushed out from my abdomen and spread throughout my whole body.
I suddenly sensed a surge of power of power being generated in my body as I realized that my Agility stat had gone from 2.0 to 4.0.
My running speed doubled at once and the same thing happened with Rahul who was running beside me.
With our increased speed we quickly left the Mutant dogs behind. I saw with elation as those dozens of dogs were left far behind and soon stopped running.
But as I was about to get excited. A money suddenly came from behind the group and tore through a few mutant dogs like they were paper.
It was the biggest money I've ever seen in my life. It was so big that it might be comparable to a gorilla. Except, no gorilla would be able to tear through a group of mutant dogs so easily.
The Large Mutant Monkey howled at the top of it's lungs and started chasing after us.
'Shit! I must be the tastiest human on the whole planet to be chased time and time again by you bastards.' I cursed in my heart but didn't dare to stop at all.
I looked at Rahul and said "Brother what do we do now."
Rahul looked at the Mutant monkey and said "That must be a 2nd tier mutant beast. I don't think we'll be able to get away from it so easily."
"Give me 4 yellow pills." He said decisively.
'Lily, you heard him.' I said and realized that I already had 4 small yellow colored pills in my hands. 'Ah! Smart Lily.'
Here. I said and passed on the 4 pills to him.
He quickly gulped down the pills and said "Keep running. I'll deal with it and catch up with you quickly."
"Alright." I nodded and continued running. I had full confidence in Rahul and knew that he won't say empty words but after running a hundred meters ahead, I stopped anyway.
At four times the speed of a normal human I could cover this much distance in 3-4 seconds easily and give him assistance in case he needed it.
A watch as Rahul slowed his running and suddenly jumped at a large tree. Without stopping, he once again jumped but this time, it was in the direction of the 2nd tier mutant beasts.
The mutant money saw this and he also opened his jaws and jumped up to face Rahul.
They both passed by each other and seemed to remain unhurt.
From this distance I was not able to tell clearly what happened. That was until both of them fell to the ground.
Rahul fell to the ground on his feet and rolled down a few times before he finally came to stop.
The Mutant money on the other hand, fell limply to the ground and slid down a whole 30 meters before it came to a stop. I could see a long line of blood in the ground where it had slid down.
'Huu' I finally sighed in relief. But instead of getting excited Rahul quickly took out the Mutant monkey's Core and started running in my direction.
"Let's get out of this place before celebrating." He shouted. "Who knows whether there's any other 2nd tier Mutant Beast chasing after us or not."
"I understand." I said and after making sure that we were going South, we started running once again.
—————
"I don't think I've ever been this tired before." I shouted as finished the last Abnormal in the Hamlet. It was made up of a few huts and we ran across it without even knowing that such a thing existed here.
"You'll get used to it." Rahul said and put his hand on the head of the Abnormal he'd finished to take out it's Crystal. I looked at the glove in my hand and once again marvelled at how useful it was.
There were around 20 Abnormals in this Hamlet when we arrived here. Now there were 20 corpses.'
I looked at the corpses and hesitated for a bit before saying "Their smell will attract other mutant beasts. Should we move on to another place."
Rahul thought for a moment before saying. "This is just a small settlement. If there were any 2nd tier mutant beast here then it would have already attacked this place. That means there should not be any high tier beasts near this area."
"Anything below 2nd tier should not be a problem to us now." He said "We'll rest in this place till midnight before we continue on our journey."
'I don't think anything at the 2nd tier would be a problem for you either' I sighed and took out a bottle of water before drinking in small sips.
After the last time when we ran out of water I've learned to become much more frugal with water. Although this was not a skill that could be flaunted around between friends, it could definitely save your life in this apocalyptic world.
After we collected all the corpses in one side we sat down Rahul opened his hologram and after a few seconds I heard Lily's voice in my ears.
'Rahul wanted to send you 1000 white coins. Do you want to accept?' Lily asked.
'Huh!' I looked at Rahul in surprise and he explained. "800 white coins for the 8 small pills. And the rest is your contribution in killing the Mutant Tree. Accept it."
'Accept it.' I said to Lily and then looked at my stat once again.
User name:- Ashok Singh Rana
Stats:-
Strength - 1.4
Agility - 4.0
Endurance - 2.0
Perception - 2.0
Mana - 0.0
Skills:-
Agility Booster (2nd tier)
Equipments:-
Basic Sword (1st tier), Clipping Glove (1st tier)
Wealth:-
1728 White Coins, 8 crystals
"How many white coins did you get from the mutant tree's Nucleus?" I asked after a while.
"400." Rahul replied. "But it was damaged in the explosion. Otherwise we might have got around 800 white coins or so."
"Is that so." I then once again looked at the enormous wealth in my watch once again.
Even till now, I was having trouble believing that we got so much from this encounter.
"Oi Rahul. What the hell am I supposed to do with so many white coins?" I asked in confusion.
Although I wanted to use them to buy crystals and increase my stats directly, I felt that taking Rahul's advice would benefit me more.
"Hmm… How much do you have?" Rahul asked.
I opened my hologram and showed it to him.
After thinking for a while, he said "First of all, increase you strength and Mana to 2.0"
"Are we finally using mana?" I asked in excitement as I realized that I had almost forgotten about this supernatural thing.
'Indeed, at this point, I could finally step in this 'Supernatural' thing which was something I had wanted to do since I was a child.'
"Yes. After all of your stats reach 2.0 points, you'll be able to use one more skill." Rahul said. "At that point, you'll be able to use Mana as well."
"Is that so." I said in excitement. "And what skill book should I buy."
"Will you really listen to my suggestion?" Rahul asked.
"Of course I would." I said excitedly.
"Then buy the skill book called 'Advanced Vision'."
Those words suddenly dampened my mood and robbed me of any excitement that I'd felt earlier.
'What about the skills that would allow me to use fire. Or any skills that would help me fly.'
'Oi Lily, is there any skill that would allow me to fly?' I asked in my mind but got no reply.
'Damn it! Ignoring me. This twerp!'
"What does this skill do." I asked in a low voice.
Rahul looked at my expression and started laughing. Then he explained patiently "The 2nd tier of Advanced vision will help you see at night. That is a something very important to us since we move mainly in the dark of the night."
"Having this skill would be of great benefit to us. We'll be able to hunt Abnormals easily and won't be disadvantaged against Mutant Beasts."
"Well…" Although what he was saying made sense, I didn't wanted to accept it.
"Isn't there a fire controlling skill or something." I asked in a sad voice.
Rahul started laughing once more but then regained his calmness and asked "If there was, would you use it."
I thought about it in my mind for a while.
Fire won't kill the abnormals quickly enough. Nor would it be of much use against Mutant beasts.
At night it might even make us a lighthouse and put us in danger.
I knew that such a skill would be highly impractical. It's just that… my dreams.
I sighed deeply and then finally said. "Alright I would buy that Skill book."
Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!
The mutant tree's eyes glanced at it for a moment and then ignored it just like all the rocks it did in the past two minutes.
I looked at Rahul and I could see his excited expression and then…
KABOOOOM!!!
A large explosion rang in my ears following which, three shock waves crashed against my body in succession and threw me a few meters away from my original position.
A large amount of debris, wooden fragments and other miscellaneous stuff flew past my ears and I quickly ducked down and prevented my head from suffering any damage.
I felt my ears ringing for a few seconds as I tried to make sense of my surroundings. And when the debris stopped falling from the sky, I looked up in the direction of the mutant tree and the sight in front of me made me feel both fear and excitement.
There was a huge whole in the mutant tree's trunk. Almost all of it's eyes were destroyed in the blast and it's whole body was charred black.
The other half of the trunk which was still not destroyed after the explosion started creaking and before long, the whole tree bent to a side, and fell to the ground.
The whole ground trembled upon it's fall as if signifying the death of this giant.
I looked in the direction where Rahul was standing before the explosion and saw that he was also looking in my direction.
We both looked at each other in excitement and without anyone telling us to do anything, we rushed toward the mutant tree at once.
I looked at the large number of mutant beasts on the ground with a greedy expression. Almost all of them had died from the shockwave of the explosion and the few that had somehow miraculously survived were already half dead.
I chopped the head of a large mutant boar and took out it's blood red Core in a practiced fashion.
'Sell it.' I shouted in my mind and put it close to the Black Watch.
The Core in my hand turned in light that flew out of my went inside the Black watch.
'Mutant Boar's 1st tier Core sold for 48 white coins.' Lily's voice rang in my ears like a sweet melody.
I jumped at the next Mutant beast in exhilaration. 'This is a treasure.'
'Sell it.'
'Mutant monkey's 1st tier Core sold for 12 white coins.'
'Sell it.'
'Mutant cow's 1st tier Core sold for 64 white coins.'
'Sell it.'
'Mutant dog's 2nd tier Core sold for 40 white coins.'
'Sell it.'
'Mutant monkey's 1st tier Core sold for 16 white coins.'
"Wait!" Rahul's voice woke me from my trance.
Then he showed a White Leather glove and said "Watch this." He put the hand wearing the White Leather Glove on top of a Mutant dog's head and as if by some magic, the Core inside it's head broke out of the skull, tore through it's skin and was pulled into the Glove.
I was shocked when I saw that. 'What's the hell is that glove?'
As if he'd heard my thoughts he said "It's called Clipping glove. Buy it and be quick. We don't have a lot of time."
It was then that I heard the howls and barks of the mutant beasts coming from the other side of the forest.
'Lily. Buy the glove that he's wearing.' I shouted in my mind.
'It's worth 60 white coins. Are you sure?'
I gritted my teeth and said 'Yes I'm sure. Be quick.'
A white light came out of the Black watch and turned into the form of a glove which then landed on my hands.
Without thinking much, I quickly wore the glove on my right hand and put it on top of a Mutant rabbit's head.
Just like before, the blood red Core broke through it's skull and was caught by the gloves.
'Sweet!' I thought in my mind and quickly told Lily to sell it.
'Mutant rabbit's 2nd tier Core sold for 12 white coins.'
'Sell it.'
'Mutant cow's 1st tier Core sold for 64 white coins.'
'Sell it...
Lily's voice rang continuously in my ears. Just that this time, with the help of Clipping Glove, my speed of taking out and selling the Cores had gone up a notch.
I glanced at the other side of the forest. The sounds of the mutant beasts had gotten closer while we were taking out the Cores.
"Brother." I shouted at Rahul who was a few meters ahead of me.
He looked back at me and understood my implications. Instantly he left all of the mutant beasts behind and jumped at the mutant tree at the center of all the corpses.
He put his hand a the trunk of the tree and after five seconds, I saw a fist sized green 'thing' coming out of the truck.
I didn't get and good look at it before it turned to light particles and entered Rahul's Black watch.
Rahul instantly turned to look at me and shouted "Run."
At the same instant, hundreds of Mutant beasts came out from the other side of the forest. I turned around and was shocked to find a large group of Abnormals coming out from on between the trees.
'Shit! Seems like the Explosive Grenade was a bit 'too' effective.' I cursed in my mind and turned to look at Rahul who point at another direction and said.
"Come. We'll get out of there."
Before his shout ended, both the Abnormals and Mutant beasts saw each other and started running toward each other at once.
I was dazed for a moment when I saw this. 'Damn! Are they gonna start a war or something'
"Run." Rahul's shout broke me from my daze and I started to run in the direction he had pointed at.
My Speed stat had restored to it's original 2.0 stat a few minutes earlier when were throwing rocks at the mutant beasts so I was able to keep up with Rahul's speed.
We reached the edge of the clearing and entered the dense trees without stopping.
I gave one last look at the place where the giant mutant tree had once stood and saw the two different races colliding with each other before everything was covered up by trees.
"Don't look back." Rahul shouted and pulled my hand "Keep running we're still in grave danger."
I looked to our left and realized that a small group of a dozen or so Mutant dogs had separated from the main group and had started to chase after us.
'Damn it! why the hell are you coming after us. Do we really look that tasty to you.'
We continued to run for a while but the Mutant dogs who also had double to speed of normal dogs kept on our trial and started gaining on us.
"Brother they're coming closer." I shouted while panting
He looked at me and said in between breaths "Buy 80 Agility crystals."
Rahul didn't had an AI like Lily so if he wanted to buy something then he will have to open the hologram and buy it from the interface himself. Such a thing was definitely not possible while running so both of us had to rely on Lily.
'Lily. You heard him.' I said in my mind
'Very well then.' Lily said and in a few seconds 8 small blue pills entered my hands.
'These are the pills you talked about earlier.' I asked suspiciously.
'Yes. Don't drop them while running. Each of those pills is worth 10 crystals.'
'Very well.' I opened my mouth and swallowed 4 of them while passed the other four to Rahul.
A hot feeling gushed out from my abdomen and spread throughout my whole body.
I suddenly sensed a surge of power of power being generated in my body as I realized that my Agility stat had gone from 2.0 to 4.0.
My running speed doubled at once and the same thing happened with Rahul who was running beside me.
With our increased speed we quickly left the Mutant dogs behind. I saw with elation as those dozens of dogs were left far behind and soon stopped running.
But as I was about to get excited. A money suddenly came from behind the group and tore through a few mutant dogs like they were paper.
It was the biggest money I've ever seen in my life. It was so big that it might be comparable to a gorilla. Except, no gorilla would be able to tear through a group of mutant dogs so easily.
The Large Mutant Monkey howled at the top of it's lungs and started chasing after us.
'Shit! I must be the tastiest human on the whole planet to be chased time and time again by you bastards.' I cursed in my heart but didn't dare to stop at all.
I looked at Rahul and said "Brother what do we do now."
Rahul looked at the Mutant monkey and said "That must be a 2nd tier mutant beast. I don't think we'll be able to get away from it so easily."
"Give me 4 yellow pills." He said decisively.
'Lily, you heard him.' I said and realized that I already had 4 small yellow colored pills in my hands. 'Ah! Smart Lily.'
Here. I said and passed on the 4 pills to him.
He quickly gulped down the pills and said "Keep running. I'll deal with it and catch up with you quickly."
"Alright." I nodded and continued running. I had full confidence in Rahul and knew that he won't say empty words but after running a hundred meters ahead, I stopped anyway.
At four times the speed of a normal human I could cover this much distance in 3-4 seconds easily and give him assistance in case he needed it.
A watch as Rahul slowed his running and suddenly jumped at a large tree. Without stopping, he once again jumped but this time, it was in the direction of the 2nd tier mutant beasts.
The mutant money saw this and he also opened his jaws and jumped up to face Rahul.
They both passed by each other and seemed to remain unhurt.
From this distance I was not able to tell clearly what happened. That was until both of them fell to the ground.
Rahul fell to the ground on his feet and rolled down a few times before he finally came to stop.
The Mutant money on the other hand, fell limply to the ground and slid down a whole 30 meters before it came to a stop. I could see a long line of blood in the ground where it had slid down.
'Huu' I finally sighed in relief. But instead of getting excited Rahul quickly took out the Mutant monkey's Core and started running in my direction.
"Let's get out of this place before celebrating." He shouted. "Who knows whether there's any other 2nd tier Mutant Beast chasing after us or not."
"I understand." I said and after making sure that we were going South, we started running once again.
—————
"I don't think I've ever been this tired before." I shouted as finished the last Abnormal in the Hamlet. It was made up of a few huts and we ran across it without even knowing that such a thing existed here.
"You'll get used to it." Rahul said and put his hand on the head of the Abnormal he'd finished to take out it's Crystal. I looked at the glove in my hand and once again marvelled at how useful it was.
There were around 20 Abnormals in this Hamlet when we arrived here. Now there were 20 corpses.'
I looked at the corpses and hesitated for a bit before saying "Their smell will attract other mutant beasts. Should we move on to another place."
Rahul thought for a moment before saying. "This is just a small settlement. If there were any 2nd tier mutant beast here then it would have already attacked this place. That means there should not be any high tier beasts near this area."
"Anything below 2nd tier should not be a problem to us now." He said "We'll rest in this place till midnight before we continue on our journey."
'I don't think anything at the 2nd tier would be a problem for you either' I sighed and took out a bottle of water before drinking in small sips.
After the last time when we ran out of water I've learned to become much more frugal with water. Although this was not a skill that could be flaunted around between friends, it could definitely save your life in this apocalyptic world.
After we collected all the corpses in one side we sat down Rahul opened his hologram and after a few seconds I heard Lily's voice in my ears.
'Rahul wanted to send you 1000 white coins. Do you want to accept?' Lily asked.
'Huh!' I looked at Rahul in surprise and he explained. "800 white coins for the 8 small pills. And the rest is your contribution in killing the Mutant Tree. Accept it."
'Accept it.' I said to Lily and then looked at my stat once again.
User name:- Ashok Singh Rana
Stats:-
Strength - 1.4
Agility - 4.0
Endurance - 2.0
Perception - 2.0
Mana - 0.0
Skills:-
Agility Booster (2nd tier)
Equipments:-
Basic Sword (1st tier), Clipping Glove (1st tier)
Wealth:-
1728 White Coins, 8 crystals
"How many white coins did you get from the mutant tree's Nucleus?" I asked after a while.
"400." Rahul replied. "But it was damaged in the explosion. Otherwise we might have got around 800 white coins or so."
"Is that so." I then once again looked at the enormous wealth in my watch once again.
Even till now, I was having trouble believing that we got so much from this encounter.
"Oi Rahul. What the hell am I supposed to do with so many white coins?" I asked in confusion.
Although I wanted to use them to buy crystals and increase my stats directly, I felt that taking Rahul's advice would benefit me more.
"Hmm… How much do you have?" Rahul asked.
I opened my hologram and showed it to him.
After thinking for a while, he said "First of all, increase you strength and Mana to 2.0"
"Are we finally using mana?" I asked in excitement as I realized that I had almost forgotten about this supernatural thing.
'Indeed, at this point, I could finally step in this 'Supernatural' thing which was something I had wanted to do since I was a child.'
"Yes. After all of your stats reach 2.0 points, you'll be able to use one more skill." Rahul said. "At that point, you'll be able to use Mana as well."
"Is that so." I said in excitement. "And what skill book should I buy."
"Will you really listen to my suggestion?" Rahul asked.
"Of course I would." I said excitedly.
"Then buy the skill book called 'Advanced Vision'."
Those words suddenly dampened my mood and robbed me of any excitement that I'd felt earlier.
'What about the skills that would allow me to use fire. Or any skills that would help me fly.'
'Oi Lily, is there any skill that would allow me to fly?' I asked in my mind but got no reply.
'Damn it! Ignoring me. This twerp!'
"What does this skill do." I asked in a low voice.
Rahul looked at my expression and started laughing. Then he explained patiently "The 2nd tier of Advanced vision will help you see at night. That is a something very important to us since we move mainly in the dark of the night."
"Having this skill would be of great benefit to us. We'll be able to hunt Abnormals easily and won't be disadvantaged against Mutant Beasts."
"Well…" Although what he was saying made sense, I didn't wanted to accept it.
"Isn't there a fire controlling skill or something." I asked in a sad voice.
Rahul started laughing once more but then regained his calmness and asked "If there was, would you use it."
I thought about it in my mind for a while.
Fire won't kill the abnormals quickly enough. Nor would it be of much use against Mutant beasts.
At night it might even make us a lighthouse and put us in danger.
I knew that such a skill would be highly impractical. It's just that… my dreams.
I sighed deeply and then finally said. "Alright I would buy that Skill book."
The mutant tree's eyes glanced at it for a moment and then ignored it just like all the rocks it did in the past two minutes.I looked at Rahul and I could see his excited expression and thenKABOOOOM!!!A large explosion rang in my ears following which, three shock waves crashed against my body in succession and threw me a few meters away from my original position.A large amount of debris, wooden fragments and other miscellaneous stuff flew past my ears and I quickly ducked down and prevented my head from suffering any damage.I felt my ears ringing for a few seconds as I tried to make sense of my surroundings. And when the debris stopped falling from the sky, I looked up in the direction of the mutant tree and the sight in front of me made me feel both fear and excitement.There was a huge whole in the mutant tree's trunk. Almost all of it's eyes were destroyed in the blast and it's whole body was charred black.The other half of the trunk which was still not destroyed after the explosion started creaking and before long, the whole tree bent to a side, and fell to the ground.The whole ground trembled upon it's fall as if signifying the death of this giant.I looked in the direction where Rahul was standing before the explosion and saw that he was also looking in my direction.We both looked at each other in excitement and without anyone telling us to do anything, we rushed toward the mutant tree at once.I looked at the large number of mutant beasts on the ground with a greedy expression. Almost all of them had died from the shockwave of the explosion and the few that had somehow miraculously survived were already half dead.I chopped the head of a large mutant boar and took out it's blood red Core in a practiced fashion.'Sell it.' I shouted in my mind and put it close to the Black Watch.The Core in my hand turned in light that flew out of my went inside the Black watch.'Mutant Boar's 1st tier Core sold for 48 white coins.' Lily's voice rang in my ears like a sweet melody.I jumped at the next Mutant beast in exhilaration. 'This is a treasure.''Sell it.''Mutant monkey's 1st tier Core sold for 12 white coins.''Sell it.''Mutant cow's 1st tier Core sold for 64 white coins.''Sell it.''Mutant dog's 2nd tier Core sold for 40 white coins.''Sell it.''Mutant monkey's 1st tier Core sold for 16 white coins.'"Wait!" Rahul's voice woke me from my trance.Then he showed a White Leather glove and said "Watch this." He put the hand wearing the White Leather Glove on top of a Mutant dog's head and as if by some magic, the Core inside it's head broke out of the skull, tore through it's skin and was pulled into the Glove.I was shocked when I saw that. 'What's the hell is that glove?'As if he'd heard my thoughts he said "It's called Clipping glove. Buy it and be quick. We don't have a lot of time."It was then that I heard the howls and barks of the mutant beasts coming from the other side of the forest.'Lily. Buy the glove that he's wearing.' I shouted in my mind.'It's worth 60 white coins. Are you sure?'I gritted my teeth and said 'Yes I'm sure. Be quick.'A white light came out of the Black watch and turned into the form of a glove which then landed on my hands.Without thinking much, I quickly wore the glove on my right hand and put it on top of a Mutant rabbit's head.Just like before, the blood red Core broke through it's skull and was caught by the gloves.'Sweet!' I thought in my mind and quickly told Lily to sell it.'Mutant rabbit's 2nd tier Core sold for 12 white coins.''Sell it.''Mutant cow's 1st tier Core sold for 64 white coins.''Sell it...Lily's voice rang continuously in my ears. Just that this time, with the help of Clipping Glove, my speed of taking out and selling the Cores had gone up a notch.I glanced at the other side of the forest. The sounds of the mutant beasts had gotten closer while we were taking out the Cores."Brother." I shouted at Rahul who was a few meters ahead of me.He looked back at me and understood my implications. Instantly he left all of the mutant beasts behind and jumped at the mutant tree at the center of all the corpses.He put his hand a the trunk of the tree and after five seconds, I saw a fist sized green 'thing' coming out of the truck.I didn't get and good look at it before it turned to light particles and entered Rahul's Black watch.Rahul instantly turned to look at me and shouted "Run."At the same instant, hundreds of Mutant beasts came out from the other side of the forest. I turned around and was shocked to find a large group of Abnormals coming out from on between the trees.'Shit! Seems like the Explosive Grenade was a bit 'too' effective.' I cursed in my mind and turned to look at Rahul who point at another direction and said."Come. We'll get out of there."Before his shout ended, both the Abnormals and Mutant beasts saw each other and started running toward each other at once.I was dazed for a moment when I saw this. 'Damn! Are they gonna start a war or something'"Run." Rahul's shout broke me from my daze and I started to run in the direction he had pointed at.My Speed stat had restored to it's original 2.0 stat a few minutes earlier when were throwing rocks at the mutant beasts so I was able to keep up with Rahul's speed.We reached the edge of the clearing and entered the dense trees without stopping.I gave one last look at the place where the giant mutant tree had once stood and saw the two different races colliding with each other before everything was covered up by trees."Don't look back." Rahul shouted and pulled my hand "Keep running we're still in grave danger."I looked to our left and realized that a small group of a dozen or so Mutant dogs had separated from the main group and had started to chase after us.'Damn it! why the hell are you coming after us. Do we really look that tasty to you.'We continued to run for a while but the Mutant dogs who also had double to speed of normal dogs kept on our trial and started gaining on us."Brother they're coming closer." I shouted while pantingHe looked at me and said in between breaths "Buy 80 Agility crystals."Rahul didn't had an AI like Lily so if he wanted to buy something then he will have to open the hologram and buy it from the interface himself. Such a thing was definitely not possible while running so both of us had to rely on Lily.'Lily. You heard him.' I said in my mind'Very well then.' Lily said and in a few seconds 8 small blue pills entered my hands.'These are the pills you talked about earlier.' I asked suspiciously.'Yes. Don't drop them while running. Each of those pills is worth 10 crystals.''Very well.' I opened my mouth and swallowed 4 of them while passed the other four to Rahul.A hot feeling gushed out from my abdomen and spread throughout my whole body.I suddenly sensed a surge of power of power being generated in my body as I realized that my Agility stat had gone from 2.0 to 4.0.My running speed doubled at once and the same thing happened with Rahul who was running beside me.With our increased speed we quickly left the Mutant dogs behind. I saw with elation as those dozens of dogs were left far behind and soon stopped running.But as I was about to get excited. A money suddenly came from behind the group and tore through a few mutant dogs like they were paper.It was the biggest money I've ever seen in my life. It was so big that it might be comparable to a gorilla. Except, no gorilla would be able to tear through a group of mutant dogs so easily.The Large Mutant Monkey howled at the top of it's lungs and started chasing after us.'Shit! I must be the tastiest human on the whole planet to be chased time and time again by you bastards.' I cursed in my heart but didn't dare to stop at all.I looked at Rahul and said "Brother what do we do now."Rahul looked at the Mutant monkey and said "That must be a 2nd tier mutant beast. I don't think we'll be able to get away from it so easily.""Give me 4 yellow pills." He said decisively.'Lily, you heard him.' I said and realized that I already had 4 small yellow colored pills in my hands. 'Ah! Smart Lily.'Here. I said and passed on the 4 pills to him.He quickly gulped down the pills and said "Keep running. I'll deal with it and catch up with you quickly.""Alright." I nodded and continued running. I had full confidence in Rahul and knew that he won't say empty words but after running a hundred meters ahead, I stopped anyway.At four times the speed of a normal human I could cover this much distance in 3-4 seconds easily and give him assistance in case he needed it.A watch as Rahul slowed his running and suddenly jumped at a large tree. Without stopping, he once again jumped but this time, it was in the direction of the 2nd tier mutant beasts.The mutant money saw this and he also opened his jaws and jumped up to face Rahul.They both passed by each other and seemed to remain unhurt.From this distance I was not able to tell clearly what happened. That was until both of them fell to the ground.Rahul fell to the ground on his feet and rolled down a few times before he finally came to stop.The Mutant money on the other hand, fell limply to the ground and slid down a whole 30 meters before it came to a stop. I could see a long line of blood in the ground where it had slid down.'Huu' I finally sighed in relief. But instead of getting excited Rahul quickly took out the Mutant monkey's Core and started running in my direction."Let's get out of this place before celebrating." He shouted. "Who knows whether there's any other 2nd tier Mutant Beast chasing after us or not.""I understand." I said and after making sure that we were going South, we started running once again."I don't think I've ever been this tired before." I shouted as finished the last Abnormal in the Hamlet. It was made up of a few huts and we ran across it without even knowing that such a thing existed here."You'll get used to it." Rahul said and put his hand on the head of the Abnormal he'd finished to take out it's Crystal. I looked at the glove in my hand and once again marvelled at how useful it was.There were around 20 Abnormals in this Hamlet when we arrived here. Now there were 20 corpses.'I looked at the corpses and hesitated for a bit before saying "Their smell will attract other mutant beasts. Should we move on to another place."Rahul thought for a moment before saying. "This is just a small settlement. If there were any 2nd tier mutant beast here then it would have already attacked this place. That means there should not be any high tier beasts near this area.""Anything below 2nd tier should not be a problem to us now." He said "We'll rest in this place till midnight before we continue on our journey."'I don't think anything at the 2nd tier would be a problem for you either' I sighed and took out a bottle of water before drinking in small sips.After the last time when we ran out of water I've learned to become much more frugal with water. Although this was not a skill that could be flaunted around between friends, it could definitely save your life in this apocalyptic world.After we collected all the corpses in one side we sat down Rahul opened his hologram and after a few seconds I heard Lily's voice in my ears.'Rahul wanted to send you 1000 white coins. Do you want to accept?' Lily asked.'Huh!' I looked at Rahul in surprise and he explained. "800 white coins for the 8 small pills. And the rest is your contribution in killing the Mutant Tree. Accept it."'Accept it.' I said to Lily and then looked at my stat once again.User name:- Ashok Singh RanaStats:-Strength - 1.4Agility - 4.0Endurance - 2.0Perception - 2.0Mana - 0.0Skills:-Agility Booster 2nd tierEquipments:-Basic Sword 1st tier, Clipping Glove 1st tierWealth:-1728 White Coins, 8 crystals"How many white coins did you get from the mutant tree's Nucleus?" I asked after a while."400." Rahul replied. "But it was damaged in the explosion. Otherwise we might have got around 800 white coins or so.""Is that so." I then once again looked at the enormous wealth in my watch once again.Even till now, I was having trouble believing that we got so much from this encounter."Oi Rahul. What the hell am I supposed to do with so many white coins?" I asked in confusion.Although I wanted to use them to buy crystals and increase my stats directly, I felt that taking Rahul's advice would benefit me more."Hmm How much do you have?" Rahul asked.I opened my hologram and showed it to him.After thinking for a while, he said "First of all, increase you strength and Mana to 2.0""Are we finally using mana?" I asked in excitement as I realized that I had almost forgotten about this supernatural thing.'Indeed, at this point, I could finally step in this 'Supernatural' thing which was something I had wanted to do since I was a child.'"Yes. After all of your stats reach 2.0 points, you'll be able to use one more skill." Rahul said. "At that point, you'll be able to use Mana as well.""Is that so." I said in excitement. "And what skill book should I buy.""Will you really listen to my suggestion?" Rahul asked."Of course I would." I said excitedly."Then buy the skill book called 'Advanced Vision'."Those words suddenly dampened my mood and robbed me of any excitement that I'd felt earlier.'What about the skills that would allow me to use fire. Or any skills that would help me fly.''Oi Lily, is there any skill that would allow me to fly?' I asked in my mind but got no reply.'Damn it! Ignoring me. This twerp!'"What does this skill do." I asked in a low voice.Rahul looked at my expression and started laughing. Then he explained patiently "The 2nd tier of Advanced vision will help you see at night. That is a something very important to us since we move mainly in the dark of the night.""Having this skill would be of great benefit to us. We'll be able to hunt Abnormals easily and won't be disadvantaged against Mutant Beasts.""Well" Although what he was saying made sense, I didn't wanted to accept it."Isn't there a fire controlling skill or something." I asked in a sad voice.Rahul started laughing once more but then regained his calmness and asked "If there was, would you use it."I thought about it in my mind for a while.Fire won't kill the abnormals quickly enough. Nor would it be of much use against Mutant beasts.At night it might even make us a lighthouse and put us in danger.I knew that such a skill would be highly impractical. It's just that my dreams.I sighed deeply and then finally said. "Alright I would buy that Skill book."
