It was time to upgrade .
Chapter 12 - The Warrior-Route
Initially Zac had wanted to hold out on spending his points until he understood the class system better , maybe even waiting to allocate until level 25 . He now realized that such thinking was naïve . He needed every advantage he could get the coming months if he wanted to survive . He was supposed to kill 3 more Heralds somehow but had almost died twice to low tier monster at the edge of the island .
Still , he didn’t just want to do anything hasty , so he donned the amulet and sat down in a camping chair . Immediately he felt a warm pulse from the amulet , which entered his chest and spread through his body . Almost his whole torso and large sections of his body were purple from being first strangled and then falling down a tree . It seemed however that the amulet actually slowly alleviated his symptoms . Abby the eye had said that cosmic energy was life , so it made sense though that it would not only help with his cultivation .
When choosing stats one needed to plan for the long term , to make sure it was suitable to his class . The problem was that he had no idea how the class system worked . Could he even decide on a class himself , or whether it would be just assigned to him?
System…? Are you there - Zac once again tried to get some information out of System , but was met with silence . - Can you tell me about stat points? - He entreated , trying hard to hide the rancor he was feeling against this unfeeling overlord .
With a lack of answers he could only make educated guesses and hope that any bad choices wouldn’t haunt him in the future . If it was a video game he would likely dump all the points in the main stat of a class , such as strength for warrior and dexterity for a ranger . The difference was that in a game he could respawn if dying , whereas here it was game over for real .
If he could choose Zac would have preferred to be a mage . Then he could just stand safely in the distance throwing fireballs on unsuspecting monsters until they were burnt to a cinder . Yet he didn’t dare go this route . He had no idea if he would be able to use magic even if he got a class , or how to progress in such skills .
He also skipped ranger-type classes , simply as he had no such weapon . His eyes swept to the hatchet lying down next to his leg . Even after his recent battles it looked almost as good as new . Luckily they had bought a fancier model , being a solid piece of metal with a plastic grip . If the handle had been made of wood it might have snapped by now .
I guess it’s the warrior-route… - Zac muttered and sighed . From the experiences since last week he was plenty reluctant to go choose this class type , but he saw no different option as of yet . Maybe the system would prepare other options he hadn’t thought of yet when he reached 25 .
Zac brought up and decisively spent his 30 free points . First , he placed 10 points in strength . In both fights so far he had been physically weaker , and he needed a boost in that department . What good was his hatchet if he couldn’t give more than flesh wounds on his targets? He then spent 5 points in dexterity in somewhat of a test to see what improved . 5 Points also went into endurance . He would be moving and fighting a lot across the island , and he needed a sturdy constitution .
Finally he put 10 points in vitality . Vitality wouldn’t help killing monsters directly , but he felt that it would help indirectly . He simply was in no condition to fight right now . With increased vitality and the amulet he should heal plenty faster compared to before . Secondly , he would be running around and fighting a lot the coming months . He couldn’t take a few days off after every fight to nurse his wounds , or he’d likely never be able to clean out all demons before the three-month deadline . He also felt that a high vitality would help him in the future no matter which class he got , while strength and dexterity felt a bit more specialized .
Zac felt that Wisdom and intelligence were likely the staples of the mage route . Getting an increase in either wouldn't hurt , but he couldn't justify spending points there when there were more tangible improvements that the other stats could provide . He felt the same about luck . His high luck had likely helped him survive so far . It was thanks to a lucky roll that he was still standing here today . But Zac did not want to rely on luck to survive . Even if he somehow fell ass-backward into victory 9 times out of 10 , he'd still die the tenth time due to lack of proper foundations . Luck was intangible and he couldn't even fathom what benefits he would get from putting points into that stat . It would have to wait until someone explained it to him .
With the points spent he closed down the screen . Suddenly a surge of warmth far stronger compared to what the amulet provided spread through his body . It felt like his every cell was vibrating with life , greedily absorbing the warmth and improving . He was shocked to see his various wounds were healing at a visible rate , and it felt like he could punch a hole through a mountain . This feeling of strength was quite addicting . Soon the warmth faded though , and the feeling of immortality dissapeared with it . The wounds stopped healing at an accelerated speed . Still , Zac felt a good deal better , with a good deal of the bruising and smaller cuts completely gone .
There still was some time left of the day , so after a quick meal he turned his attention to the snake carcass . After a few tries with a kitchen knives he knew the scaled leather was quite resilient to cuts and would make good protection . He brought a few knives from the camper and his hatchet and dragged the carcass some distance away from the camp , and then started skinning it .
He cut along the softer belly , and after 20 minutes he had cut all along the length of the carcass , ruining a knife on the hard scales while doing so . His forearms were burning with strain after the workout . He had ruined most of the meat along the way unfortunately , and it didn’t seem that there’d be much left over to eat .
After that he dragged the skin off from the carcass , and finally scraped as much of the left-over flesh as possible off from the skin with his hatchet . From here he was not quite sure what to do . He had no idea of methods to cure leather . He was an office worker before the end of the world , and he was a few generations too young for these types of things to be considered common knowledge . Zac knew he had read somewhere that urine could be used somehow , but he was not about to experiment with that .
He put the skin aside and dug a hole which he pushed the now mangled carcass into , and filled it with soil . He didn’t want anything to head this direction , even though he was some ways away from the camp .
Zac picked up the skin and made his way back to camp . The skin needed to dry out , so he placed it across the hood of the car , leaving both ends hanging down at the sides . He placed two large rocks down on both ends in order to keep it stretched and stop it from shrinking overnight . He had no idea if he was supposed to do something else , and could only leave it like that over the night and hope that it would work out .
It was starting to get darker , so he decided he was done exploring for the day . He was still feeling beat up even with the rapid healing as well . He took 30 minutes to clean up the camp-site and take stock of his things . Normally he wouldn’t go through his friends’ belongings but these were desperate times . Unfortunately there was nothing of value except some extra changes of clothes and some daily necessities .
With the last of the sunlight Zac found a long fallen branch near the campsite with the thickness of about 3 to 5 centimeters which was about 6 meters long . With a few quick swings with his hatchet he cut off roughly 2 . 5 meters where the branch was the most straight . Then with his improved strength he quickly sharpened one edge into a sharp point , turning it into a makeshift spear . It was likely too malleable to be able to stop anything large like the demonling in its tracks without breaking . However it could hopefully keep some monsters at length if needed . His hatchet was a good weapon , but its length was quite short . It was hard to use while keeping himself out of harm’s way .