บท 6: No time to waste

"I have to survive," I have to survive" A weary yet powerful voice was coming from a dark alley, it was Mal-Chin who was sitting in the darkness. Because of the moonlight, things were barely visible, but still, one could make out a figure with tattered clothes on his body and underneath the clothes was his frail body which was shuddering because of cold. He was chewing on something that looked to be a half-eaten piece of meat.

A few days ago, when Mal was thinking of committing suicide, that night he had a dream in which he saw his parents they had a gentle smile on their faces, they knew that they were going to die but they were happy because their son was alive and well. Mal had his head down as tears were constantly falling from his eyes.

"Mal..." A gentle voice called him, "Mom...." *Ugh..* "Don't leave me alone please..." *Sobs*

"Mal listen to me..." The voice called him again. Mal still had his head down because he didn't want his parents to see his crying face. "You know why we named you Mal-Chin? You probably don't, before you were born, you were caught with a strange disease, because of it you were getting weaker and weaker every day and even the doctor had given up on you. They said that even if we take the child out, he won't be able to survive for more than 5 minutes." His mom paused as she started getting emotional thinking about the past, with a sigh his dad continued.

"But your mom was adamant about taking you out, it was a very dangerous situation because one wrong move, and I would have lost both of you, but when you came out, we forgot about everything when we looked at your face which had a smile, and guess what both of you survived, and thus we decided to name you Mal-Chin 'a person who persists till the end."

"So please Mal, we beg of you please try your best, work as hard as you can, be happy, be sad, and also be angry but don't lose hope." Both of his parents said at the same time as they hugged him. (Auth:- Awww so saad T_T)

The next day, Mal woke up with tears and will to live in his eyes. "Mom, Dad even if the world gave up on me, even if I fall, I will come back and fight, I would rather die trying than die like trash of the society." Mal had now steeled his heart and was ready to face anything...well only mentally though because, he had no powers to fight back and on top of that, he made his physique worse in the past one and a half years by not eating and exercising well.

For the first time in a year and a half, Mal looked towards the sky and clenched his fist as if saying 'let all the hardships you want me to have come to me, I will face them all with a smile on my face.'

Mal finished the leftover meat he got from a dustbin and started running towards the nearby mountain, it was a place where he started exercising a week ago after he had the dream. This mountain was comparatively safer than the other and also there was a cave that Mal had made into his house. The air in the mountains was way more energizing and fresher than that in the city. In the past when the whole world was going through a change and everyone was giving their all to get stronger, Mal was roaming around the city to city aimlessly therefore he could differentiate between the places better.

After moving from place to place, Mal had a general understanding of the situation of the world. People had started making gadgets and modes of transportation again, but this time all of the gadgets were made using 'ether' which could be either found underground or one can get these by killing monsters. Ether was like a generator in itself and it held an enormous amount of power. Even a small 1-inch piece of this crystal could make a car run for a year. But, the main use of Ether was to exchange for items from the store. The store was available inside the information panel, but you had to be level 20 to have access to that.

Now for the level system. A few months after the start of a 2-year promise, a notification popped inside everyone's status bar. It was like a mail that described the things that were yet to come. The first thing it said was about the 5 years people spent sleeping and yet no one felt any older. This was because when the mana was being injected inside the earth. People were sent into a state in which everything in our body came to a pause, which included aging.

The second thing it mentioned was about the level system and how to earn levels. By gaining levels a person could get their abilities to strengthen or perhaps even evolve into something more powerful and this was enough to move people to level up. It was also when the existence of the shop was explained.

But it was extremely difficult for a person to level up, it was not as easy as it was shown in mangas and anime. Even after a whole year and a half, the person with the highest level on earth was Lv 12 and he was strong enough to fight 50, level 5 ability users, and one level 5 user, in general, is strong enough to destroy a building single-handedly. Now one can see how powerful the strongest person was.

His name was Raizel and he was a person in control of 3 elements:- fire, lightning, and a rare wood element which boosted his power even more. He was invited to join the upper worlds but he denied the offer as he wanted to enter with his own power that is after fighting in the tournament.

But what the truth was everyone knew, it was to boast. He wanted people to see how righteous he was.

Now that's all about the level system and shop. Now you will probably ask, what about our MC? what level is he at? The truth is even now, Mal was trying to understand his power 'Can Paint,' but his efforts of finding out about his power came out to no avail. He even sometimes forgets that he had an ability. After looking at his status so many times, he noticed that his status cark looked like a palette which was cool and all but what? No matter how good his status looks aesthetically, it won't matter if cannot use it to get stronger.

"Half a year is left...I have to get stronger somehow." Mal thought to himself. Simple exercises will not cut it, so, the only choice I have is to get access to the awakening potion somehow and hope that I get something good out of it, other than that I also have to get an Ether weapon and a battle suit so that I can at least defend myself." Mal thought, but the difficult part of this plan of his was, he had no money, and even if he had money it would not have been enough to get an awakening potion as there were only 5 of them in Korea and 1000 in the world.

The awakening potion was something the higher beings (the person who was flying) gave the earthlings so that earth would be able to nurture some powerful figures and the criteria for getting an awakening potion was that only people who were at a level higher than 8 and had at least 2 abilities were able to get it.

And Mal was a level 0 noob with only 'can paint' as an ability.

Let's now first get my priorities straight:-

1. I have to train my body back to fit.

2. Fight some level 0 animals or some weak level 1 monsters to have some battle experience.

3. Somehow get a battle suit and a weapon

4. Awakening Potion (Most Important)

"It's impossible for me to even fight for a place in the upcoming battle of champions, that means I have no choice but to go to the planet cluster X2, and I have to be ready for that and that means I would have to do everything to get all the things I would need, either by hook or crook." Mal took a deep breath and continued,

"I don't have any time to waste."