Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Early Friday morning, the group had set out to the first local property in order to hunt the wild hogs that gathered there to feed around daybreak. Drew had managed to raise two additional skeleton minions the night before, he wanted to keep going, however two seemed to be the limit that his mana could handle before needing to wait to regenerate. By the time he'd woken up, his mana was back to full, so he added another duo as well. He only had two more sets of coyotes bones left to reanimate before he would need to move onto the hogs he'd killed with Mark. But before he got to that point, he was going to need to visit the cemetery to raise some guards for the property so they could begin training with bows.

For the morning's hunt, the group had decided to stick together and try to clear out the herd visiting the feeder before moving to the next property tomorrow. Normally, when you rented another person's land to hunt, you'd be given a body count maximum that you could bag before needing to pay extra. If everything went right, Mark would be paying a lot of money in bonuses to the property owner. Not that anyone was worried about that due to The System coming, and that the value of money was going to plummet. Right now, experience and getting ahead of the curve was the most important thing.

Luckily for the group, the herd that visited the rented property was huge. It was around the same size as the group that Drew and Mark had taken out. However, due to this being someone else's property, and the very real possibility of trail cameras, they'd decided to stick with firearms instead of their magic powers and swords. The last thing that Drew needed to happen was locals seeing that right now. It'd bring too many questions, and too much attention to their group. Plus, considering that there hadn't been a peep from other progenitors from across the world, he assumed that everyone was deciding to play it safe at the moment.

He had thought there would be at least one crazy bastard who went around healing the sick and pretending to be a prophet, but it turned out the other progenitors were either just as cautious as he was, or it'd been buried by governments. He didn't care, as it was ultimately beneficial to him and his group that nothing big had happened yet. At least anything big that was publicly known, anyways. The hunt itself had gone off without a hitch. With so many people waiting in blinds with firearms... well it was a massacre. If there were any hogs left, Drew would have been very surprised, as there wasn't a single movement in the clearing.

Everyone had gone up two levels except for Drew, he'd just gotten one. But that was expected due to the difference in levels between himself, and the hogs. Everyone other than him was now at either level three or four. Meanwhile, he'd hit level five. He'd thrown his two free points into vitality, getting closer to that sweet twenty attribute points that he was aiming for. He hadn't gotten any new titles, which was a bit disappointing, but he knew he was just spoiled from the first several that he'd gotten. The other bit of good news was, once he'd hit level five, he'd been given the skill options that Spock had previously spoke about.

[Caster] class skill available

A rather large group of skills were available for him, and unlike during the tutorial, he wasn't on a time crunch to select one. Well, he was, he still needed to head back home for the workers. But that wasn't a huge deal as they'd taken their vehicles to go hunt, and Amber was driving his happy ass back, which left him plenty of time to browse through the list. The first grouping appeared to be weapon proficiencies.

[Basic Unarmed (Grade - Inferior)], [Basic Shield Technique (Grade - Inferior)], [Basic Axe Proficiency (Grade - Inferior)], [Basic Shield Technique (Grade - Inferior)]

The list went on to cover most weapons and even a martial arts proficiency. However, the honest fact was, there were too many options. He ended up spending the entire car ride home just browsing the skills that were available and picking out favorites to set aside to look at again and compare. Even once they'd gotten home, he stayed in the car to continue looking through all the data. It was overwhelming how many choices were available. Everything was inferior grade, but still, this was basically the same as spending a boon at this point. Plus, he didn't want to feel rushed like he had the first time he had picked out skills.

There were skills for trapping, active skill abilities like [Dash (Grade - Inferior)] which would allow him to have a quick boost of speed in a single direction. The ability basically tripled his agility for three seconds and sent him dashing off in a chosen direction. There were active weapons skills as well, mana skills, and spell skills. The only thing the damn list was missing was the kitchen sink. On the bright side, Drew was happy that he wasn't locked into one specific style or theme, such as magic users being unable to wear heavy armor or crap that video games did. But, on the other hand, because he wasn't locked out of anything, there were just so many damn choices.

After awhile, he'd narrowed down some sets of skills, and tossed aside others. He was slowly building a list. This was likely going to be the only class skill he received before The Descent hit on Monday, so he needed to choose carefully. The final list he ended up with was not as big as he thought it would be, but each skill option felt like it was a necessity.

[Dodge (Grade - Inferior)]
Grants proficiency in avoiding physical attacks, and some magical attacks.

[Basic Sword Technique (Grade - Inferior)]
Grants proficiency with both one-handed and two-handed swords of various sizes.

[Mana Sense (Grade - Inferior)]
Grants the ability to detect mana within a close proximity of the body.

He was stuck between those three skill choices. Dodge just sounded like a straight life saver, and something that would allow him to survive tougher fights that became melee slugfests. But he had already boosted his agility attribute points for a similar reason, and planned on getting them to twenty points sooner rather than later. The sword technique would be very nice to have as well. He'd never been trained in the sword, even though he owned several. He just thought they were cool back then, but now having some actual skill with a melee weapon really could mean the difference between life and death for him.

Lastly, there was mana sense. On the surface, it wouldn't directly boost his combat ability, but something in his gut told him it was a very good option for him. He already had mana manipulation from his hybridized race, but he hadn't actually done anything with it yet. If he could sense mana, then he should be able to easily manipulate it. The logical part of his brain was telling him that having that skill would ultimately lead to bigger gains down the road if he took the time to learn how it interacted with mana manipulation. The only thing that held him back from selecting it right away was the lack of direct survival or offensive ability in a combat situation.

But, the more that he thought about it, he already had mana shield. He had boosted his agility, and would continue to do so, until he hit twenty points in the stat. Plus, he had his pets. If he didn't have minions, then he wouldn't even consider choosing mana sense at the moment. The minions, especially in greater numbers, could screen enemies and block them from getting to him. If he managed to raise enough of them soon, he might be able to overwhelm some enemies with greater numbers alone. Plus he wasn't going into doomsday solo, he had his family and friends with him. They could help cover for his melee weakness, at least in the short term.

With his thoughts in place, he decided to select Mana sense. If he was by himself, or stuck in the city, it would have ended up being a completely different choice, but he had other people and minions to rely on. He didn't need to go for a solo build with his class. He still wanted those other two skills, and would likely pick them up down the road as they seemed incredibly useful, but for the moment he was happy with his choice. It was past dawn now, and the workers would be arriving shortly, so he decided to pull up his Status to check his overall growth.

Status

Name: Drew Wright

Race: Dhampir (Grade - F) - lvl 2

Class: [Caster] – lvl 5

Profession: None

Health Points (HP): 180/180

Mana Points (MP): 190/190

Stamina: 140/140

Stats (Attributes)

Strength: 20

Vitality: 18

Endurance: 14

Toughness: 15

Agility: 14

Perception: 19

Intelligence: 19

Wisdom: 23

Willpower: 17

Free Points: 0

Titles
[Progenitor], [Forebearer of The Descent], [The First Necromancer], [Curiosity of the Divine], [Hunter I]

Yeah, he was looking pretty good so far. Perception and intelligence were almost to twenty points, wisdom was past it already, and willpower was also close. His strength was fantastic right now, and his vitality was looking really nice as well. Endurance, toughness, and agility still needed some work, but a couple of race levels and some free points would fix them up pretty nicely. His mana was currently full, so before the workers came, he decided to raise the first duo of hogs.

Once his new minions were raised, he sent them off to join the rest of their boney pals waiting in the wooded area near his house. Come to think of it, since people would be coming over soon, he decided to send them deeper into the forest than he normally had them stay. It was better to be safe than sorry, he didn't want any of the workers seeing animated undead animals hanging around his property. Sure, they didn't move unless he gave them orders to patrol, but still... he didn't want folks thinking that he had a whole Halloween haunted forest that he was working on. Folks would start popping up at his property to ask questions if that happened.

Right now, he needed every moment possible before The Descent to work on himself, his skills, and to gather supplies and erect defenses. He had no time to entertain the locals with fanciful tales of him building a Haunted house out in the country. It was bad enough that he was building the fences and walls, and he was sure folks would end up talking about it for the next couple of days before The System came crashing down on everyone's heads. That was small town living though, everyone knew everyone, and everyone knew everyone else's business. Luckily for him, he lived out in unincorporated land. That meant, even if those jerks in the town had something negative to say about the fences and walls, there was fuck all they could do about it.

Sure, they could call the county itself, but he hadn't broken any laws, so they wouldn't be able to do shit. Not to mention it was Friday, everyone in town knew how lazy the town government was, they would definitely be having a half day at work, just like normal Fridays. Additionally, government stuff was closed on the weekends. So, the absolute earliest that anyone from the county would come to stir the pot was Monday. Fat chance of that happening! Monday was doomsday!

The workers showed up about thirty minutes later, but the first to arrive was Robert. It wasn't like he was staying far away, but it was still good to see that he was interested in helping out and earning some money. After all the crap he'd been through, most people would lose their will to do anything at all. It would be easy to succumb to depression over everything he'd been through, yet there he was, standing in front of the house waiting on Drew and everyone else to begin work. Good for him, getting out and doing something would surely help his emotional and mental wellbeing.

Drew led the workers around the property, showing them where the supplies were kept, and instructing them where to begin construction of the outer barbed wire fence. Most properties that were local only had three wire fences, so he was getting a bit fancy with his six wire fence. Of course, that was only going to be the first line of defense to deter some of the beasts and monsters. The second fence would likely end up taking all of Saturday, and maybe part of Sunday to put up, especially with concrete holding the posts. The outer fence was mostly in place already, so the workers were just modifying it by adding more barbed wiring. They'd also be checking the T-posts to assure that everything looked to be in good condition.

Once he had the workers set up, Drew began his task for the day. To start construction of the sandbags for the fallback wall. It was just as much of a pain in the ass as he thought it would be. Forty pound sandbags were no longer heavy to him, and he could easily lift four of them at a time without breaking a sweat. The issue was the sheer quantity that were needed for the wall, and he was filling the burlap sacks with a shovel. Thankfully, he had System stats now, and was able to work like a machine.

By the time the rest of his group had come back from errands for the day, it was nearly noon. He'd only been able to finish about a sixth of the sandbags and place them for the fallback. Luckily, with everyone else pitching in once they'd gotten home, it sped up a considerable amount. By late afternoon, his group had finished the sandbag portion of the fallback, and the workers had completed the outer fence plus they had finished setting the posts for the secondary wall in concrete. The concrete would need to dry and set overnight, but the workers looked to be on track to finish the secondary fence by the end of Saturday. A little ahead of schedule, but still it was nice to not be as pressed for time.

After all, Amber's sister was due to come in late Saturday night, or early Sunday morning.

The Descent was quickly approaching.