Chapter 22

Chapter 22

"Alright man, we need to get you up and walking. It's going to suck getting up, and walking will be slow, but you should be fine once your wife takes a look at the wound. Just remember to keep pressure on it, okay?" Drew said.

"Yeah, okay."

"Cool, I'm going to douse it in alcohol just to be on the safe side. It's going hurt. Bad."

He wasn't kidding either, when he cleaned the wound for his friend, Mark let the pain he was feeling become well-known.

"SON OF FUFFFFF....OWWW!"

"Yeahhhhhh...It's all over now. Now put the pressure back on it while I help you up."

Drew knelt down and wrapped his friend's arm around his neck, and hoisted him up slowly. There were some winces of pain, but nothing compared to the alcohol.

"You good? Feeling light-headed at all?" Drew asked.

"Nah, I think I'm okay."

"Good, we have a long-ass walk back. Have you checked your notifications yet?"

"No... focusing on fighting the pain."

"Go ahead and check them, the increased stats should help a fair amount, especially with the title."

Mark didn't need Drew's assistance to walk thankfully, otherwise it would have taken far longer to get back home. Even so, it was slow going. His friend ended up grabbing ahold of his shirt so he could check out his notifications and not run into a tree in the meantime. Their speed picked up by a good margin after the light warrior had checked his notifications. Upon confirmation of Mark hitting level three, It was time for Drew to check on his own.

*DING!*

You have slain [Feral Hog Adult (Grade - F) - lvl 0] x5
You have slain [Juvenile Feral Hog (Grade - F) - lvl 0] x7
You have slain [Feral Hog Piglet (Grade - F) - lvl 0] x17
Experience earned

Class: [Caster] has reached level 3

Class: [Caster] has reached level 4

Race: [Dhampir (Grade - F)] has reached level 2

Attribute points allocated - You have 4 Free points available

Title Earned [Hunter I]

Ohhhhh, another title! That was good news. What did it give him this time?

[Hunter I]
Kill 25 animals. Grants 6 Free points

Six? Drew was a bit disappointed, his other titles had more powerful effects so far. He wasn't going to complain, it was still six free points, which was awesome. It just felt weaker than his other titles. Maybe it was less powerful because they were just animals, and not beasts or monsters? Oh well, it was still six more points than he had prior. So, that meant he was sitting on a total of ten free points, but how should he spend them?

Thinking back to the fight with the hogs, he couldn't really see any specific stat that would help him more than another. The issues he faced was the difficulty in dealing with such a large group, and being unable to protect Mark. None of the stats would really help with that. He checked his mana bar, it was down to about forty percent. That was pretty good. He'd easily casted twenty or thirty corruption spells, and he wasn't out yet. His intelligence had just gone up another two points, so that would help, but did he really need to put more points into it at this exact second?

Probably not, no. It was currently early Thursday morning, and The Descent was due to hit sometime on Monday. He still had a few more days to get some levels in. Spock had said that gaining experience from level zeros would stop quickly, but Drew didn't think he'd hit that wall yet. He was likely close, but he could probably squeeze in one or two more levels before that happened. So, what was his goal currently with his stats?

Eventually, he'd like to focus on building the stats that were more important to his class, but focusing so strongly on the mental aspects right now didn't feel right. His death toll spell was common grade, and incredibly powerful, but he doubted he'd need to spam something that powerful outright as The System came crashing down to Earth. The System likely expected most people to have strictly their starter skills, plus whatever they received when they were offered new options. So he doubted that the majority of people would have more than one or two inferior grade skills for awhile. If that was the case, he should expect that beasts and monsters would be able to be killed by spells like mana bolt.

Which was still a lot of damage, but not like his other spells were. If beasts were going to be powerful enough to take more than one hit of something like mana bolt, then they'd likely be able to dish out serious damage as well. So it might make more sense for Drew to work on his physical stats to build something more well rounded. At least temporarily. If between fifteen to twenty stat points was considered the peak of what humanity could naturally achieve prior to The System, then he should probably work towards that goal in the short term.

He wasn't going to go for a melee build, but his body needed to be in peak performance to survive what was coming. Last time he'd spent free points in agility, and that boost was absolutely massive to his speed and dexterity, so he could probably leave that alone for the moment. Extra health would be great, and toughness would lower damage taken from physical attacks. He wasn't worried about endurance, as he didn't have any skills that used stamina as a resource. Strength would also be a solid option.

Hell, if he was stronger, he'd likely just carry Mark back to the house far quicker than they were currently walking through the wooded area. That... wasn't a half bad idea. If he ever needed to retreat from a fight, or carry a wounded comrade, having higher strength would make it a breeze. Yeah, that was a good idea. So he'd use eight free points to polish strength off, and then put the remaining two into vitality to boost his health points a bit. He had a game plan set, but before he could apply his points...

"Hey man, how are you holding up?" Drew asked.

"Eh, still hurts a lot, but the level ups helped a bit. Sorry I'm going so slow."

"No worries man, but I have an idea. If I can get my levels in, I should be able to carry you back home hella fast. Are you good with taking a break until the itching passes?"

"Itching?"

"Yeah, you probably didn't feel it since you're in so much pain, but if you level up a bunch at one time, you get a terrible itching sensation."

"Huh...Maybe I didn't do it right. I saw the notifications, then looked at my status and applied my free points. Is there anything else to it?"

"Nope, that's it. Anyways, it shouldn't take long. Just sit tight." Drew said.

With that out of the way, they stopped in the wooded area and Drew sent the mental command to his minion to guard them. Mark was looking pale, he still had some sweat on his face, but overall he was looking a bit better. Oh well, the faster Drew got this over with, the faster they could get home and get his friend healed. Drew went ahead and distributed his free points as he pulled up the Status screen. After he was done, his new attributes looked great, and were growing really well.

Name: Drew Wright

Race: Dhampir (Grade - F) - lvl 2

Class: [Caster] – lvl 4

Profession: None

Health Points (HP): 134/160

Mana Points (MP): 74/180

Stamina: 132/140

Stats (Attributes)

Strength: 20

Vitality: 16

Endurance: 14

Toughness: 15

Agility: 14

Perception: 18

Intelligence: 18

Wisdom: 22

Willpower: 16

Free Points: 0

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

But the downside to all the stats applying was of course... Ohhhhh the itch, the itch was back and his body felt like it was on fire! ...annnnddd it was gone. Thankfully, it only lasted for a tiny bit of time, but it just felt so fucking awful. Thinking about it from a logical perspective, it was likely his body and muscles were tearing themselves apart and repairing incredibly quickly. Who was he kidding, nothing that had happened recently was logical. For all he knew, it could have itched because McDonalds existed. Okay, maybe not that illogical, but still. It seemed stupid that there was a physical sensation to something that The System was doing in the background.

"Alright man, you ready to give this a shot?" Drew asked.

"I guess... It's not going to look very dignified, will it?"

"No, no it will not. But you're a bottom anyways, so even if Miranda sees you, it won't be a surprise." Drew chuckled.

"Hey! I'm not a... never mind. Just get this over with."

**********************************************

Drew sped through the forest using all fourteen of his agility points, Mark was held in a beautiful princess carry as they leapt over large rocks, fallen trees, and tiny creeks. The other Team had radioed over shortly before Drew and Mark had arrived, Miranda was going to be ready as soon as they got there. The larger team had moved much slower than Drew thought, but he also wasn't used to calculating times for such a large group. All in all, it had taken Drew about an hour and forty-five minutes to get back to the house while carrying Mark.

Considering they'd been around eight miles away, in rough terrain, and he was carrying another person who likely weighed close to two hundred pounds, that was a damn good time. He didn't know what the average time was for Olympic athletes to run that distance, but he felt confident that he was at least close to that level. The extra weight of carrying his friend had been negligible in the end, but it did take some adjusting with how he balanced himself at full speed. If his agility attribute was at twenty like his strength, he was sure he would have beaten some kind of record.

Other than his mom, who was absent, the rest of the group had been waiting for him right outside the wooded area on the property when Drew arrived. He'd sat Mark down, and Miranda came rushing over. The gut wound had taken two casts of her basic healing spell to fully close, and the ribs took an additional two. He was happy that Mark was fully healed now, but it was good to see what a real wound would take to heal.

"He definitely had a broken rib, my mana allowed me to feel it snap back into place and heal over. How are you feeling, baby?" Miranda said.

"Much better, thank you. A tiny bit weak, but there's no pain and it doesn't hurt to move anymore." Mark replied.

"You're probably weak from the toll the injuries took on your body, and likely the blood loss as well. You need some juice and to take it easy for a few hours. Also, where are your clothes?"

"Uh, I had to pull them off of him to check his wounds, dress his gut wound, and I didn't want him putting them back on. They were drenched in hog's blood. I let him borrow my jacket so he didn't catch a chill, butttt... yeahhhh. I have the clothes in my inventory if you want them later, but I think they should probably be trashed, or burned." Drew replied.

"Thank you for taking good care of my husband, Drew."

"Uh... yeah. Honestly, I feel pretty guilty that I wasn't able to protect him better. We ran into a herd of about thirty-ish feral hogs. I thought I'd be able to do a better job, but we were overrun with their numbers. We took them all down though, and we each gained a few levels."

"Don't you feel guilty, you did the best you could, and you even carried him back here. He's all healed now, so don't you go feeling bad about anything."

*************************************************

The rest of the morning went quickly. Mark was in bed resting, the data demons were busy using demonic magic powers to pirate all the world's movies and shows, and everyone else had a nice little meeting. The other team had ran into two small herds of deer, and they managed to all level up once, with Miranda and Amber reaching level two. They'd gotten a couple of titles, and were feeling pretty good about their gains. Even his mom had done well. She'd started out with some kind of curse that slowed targets down, which made it easy for Beefcake to bisect the deer. Amber had hit all her targets, even when they were moving, and Freya had gained a level as well. It was very productive for everyone involved.

That said, Mark getting wounded showed that they needed to take team composition far more seriously. Drew ended up promising to raise more minions, and the teams would be split a little differently moving forward. Additionally, goals for the day were discussed, and they'd settled on a game plan. Mark was going to need to go out and buy some animal control measures like traps. Some melee weapons needed to be decided on for everyone, and vehicles.

Drew had previously found some car lots that had a couple of 'classic' cars that fit what he was looking for. Basically, anything without electronics. Lights were likely fine, as were batteries, but everything else had to be old school. He'd also managed to find a couple of older, basic model side by sides and ATVs that he'd be going out to purchase today. Even with the trailer, it would take a couple of trips just for the recreational vehicles, but he also needed to grab an older truck. Miranda was going out to also find an older truck.

For melee weapons, Drew already had a couple of swords because he was a nerd, but swords took a lot of practice to use well, or would require some System assisted proficiency, so many people opted to go purchase hatchets and axes. They were fairly easy to use even for a complete novice. Drew was planning to have both a large axe and a sword as backup, but he needed to go have the sword sharpened today. Miranda settled for a hatchet, and Amber took a small axe. His mom settled on a dagger that he'd have to go have sharpened as well.

He also planned on picking up some sharpening equipment, a couple work benches for the outbuildings, and he was going to attempt to find some blacksmithing equipment. He wasn't personally very interested in blacksmithing, but it'd be good to have the equipment to fix any damage that occurred. With everything said and done, the meeting concluded. It was time for Drew to summon a new pet to add to the security of the property, and then he'd get to work on the errands for the day.