บท 26: Morning Decisions

We killed Zombie after Zombie, group after group. We consumed Mana stones and more Mana stones. Both Anne and John moved up the Transformation Awakener stage. They both became much faster and stronger as they consumed more Mana and leveled up.

Around the early hours of the morning, when we had gained a lot of Mana and were moving faster, we ran into the other groups several times, but we just ignored them.

As the first rays of the morning sunrise spilled over the dystopian city landscape, we met it stoically and then began to head back towards the edge of Dallas where the Hotel had been.

We backtracked by running so fast that it only took us minutes to run there. We had become the apex predators of Dallas. Nothing could escape us.

By the time we reached the ruined Hotel, Jason and Tessa were already waiting for us. As we came up behind them fast, they saw us. I stopped dead in front of them both and I grinned. "How was you guys' night?"

Tessa gave me a toothy grin and then stuck her middle finger out towards me. "Fuck you."

Jason shrugged. "We killed a lot of Zombies."

"How much Mana do you guys have, and what level are you both at?"

I saw both of them clearly open their system windows and then glance back up towards me. Tessa yawned. "Level 48, and 8,080 Mana."

Jason grinned. "Level 54, and 8090 Mana. How about you guys?"

'I need to check my system too actually.'

___________________________

Travis Scott: Level 56. Transformation tier Awakener.

SYSTEM → [Input Command/Open Store]

Vitality → 570 // Strength → 599 (570+5%) // Agility → 570 // Stamina → 570 // Mana → 9,810

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I grinned. "I got more than y'all still even after selling all that Mana for the potions. I'm level 56 with 9,810 Mana."

Tessa spat on the ground. "Tch…"

Jason nodded. "I expected nothing less."

Zane cleared his throat behind me. "Ahem, I'm level 45 with 6,860 Mana."

John walked and Anne both swung around and joined the little circle. John licked his lips in excitement. "You guys probably won't believe it, but I rose to level 46 and I have 7,550 Mana."

Zane looked a little annoyed.

Next to John, Anne stepped forward and grinned. "I went up high too! I got to level 44 with 6,250 Mana."

I nodded. "We got pretty high last night. I unlocked two more tiers of the store last night; Epic and Magic. Everything from them is incredibly expensive though and we would almost have to all collectively give up every single drop of our Mana just for a single Magic item. Have you guys checked the rankings?"

Tessa shook her head. "We didn't have time."

I nodded. "Same."

I opened my inventory and then searched up the rankings in the command bar.

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[Input: Can you open the current worldwide event rankings?]

[Response: Yes I will. Opening Stage One event rankings: The Strongest Become Stronger…

Top Ten Leaderboard → Time Remaining: 13 hrs 10 mins 5 secs…

1. Damian Gray: 21,890

2. Luvi Chapa: 13,780

3. Jungbin Chang: 11,010

4. Travis Scott: 9,810

5. Allison Vain: 8,840

5. Jason Kean: 8,090

6. Tessa Adams: 8,080

7. Brice Vidi: 7,820

8. John Centa: 7,550

9. Alice White: 7,130

10. Zane Scott: 6,860

___________________________

I swiped the window away and looked up. "Jason, Tessa, John, Zane and I are all on the leaderboard. Everyone else is not. We need to decide if we are still going to keep grinding for the remaining 13 hours of the event."

As I was talking, Jett and Will walked up behind us. Will sighed. "You guys miss us?"

Tessa sniffed. "Not one bit."

I grinned. "I did, Will. What kept y'all so long."

"We ran into another group of Awakeners. They talked to us a bit and tried to make us join their group, but we told them that we already had one. They wanted to meet up and talk with you."

'Interesting. I definitely want to talk to them, and maybe I will kill them all. Awakeners are going to be a very good source of Mana.'

I nodded. "Let's all go talk to them. Where did he want to meet?"

"Inside of a parking garage."

I sniffed. "Interesting, and could you tell if he had lower magic power than you or not?"

"I couldn't feel his magic power. He said that he was on the leaderboards for this event."

"What was his name?"

"He said Brice."

I grinned. "And how many others were there?"

"About five others, but I could feel all the Mana from them and it wasn't too considerable."

"Did you talk to the others?"

"No, they just kinda stared at me strangely."

"Alright everyone, let's follow Will and meet this man. I want to see his face. I want to shake his hand. I want to crush it."

"What?"

"It sounds to me like he is controlling all the other Awakeners under him. I could be wrong, and I hope I am, but when we go to that Garage, I want everyone to be on their guard and ready to kill."

I turned to Anne. "If things go down bad, I need you to be able to shoot your arrows. You need to be able to kill for us. Think of it as a way of protecting us all."

She sighed. "Alright, I think I can do it."

She looked a little nervous, but just overnight when she had awakened, she gained the red Hatred colored Mana. I understood that her personality was bound into becoming that of a weapon. Whatever made her that way, I would use it to my advantage.

"Alright everyone, let's go meet this Brice guy."

'That man is definitely shady. He has less Mana than me, but is still on the leaderboards. He would be the perfect kill.'

I grinned as we ran towards the parking garage.