Legion zombie

As the last zombie of the horde disappeared in a small explosion of disgusting smoke I grinned as notification after notification appeared on my HUD. Killing off a hundred zombies had been laughingly easy when I was both faster, stronger and more intelligent than them. It was just a matter of staying in the move and killing them fast enough that they didn't have time to react and that strategy had worked perfectly.

The first thing I noticed was the significant boost in strength after I gained those levels and subsequently, the passive boost to my HP and MP and everything related to them gave me. After that, there was another boost of power due to the increase of my VIT, STR and DEX. With just that I was already stronger than what I had been when I first entered the ID. I absently equipped my new title which made me take notice of the thirty-five points I know had which I was going to be using shortly.

The next was how the skill I had been using constantly through the slaughter levelled up exponentially a lot compared to the grind of the day before. Observe went up to level thirteen and its cost dropped so much that I could maintain it running without fear of wasting mana that I could use on another technique. Now [Observe] will tell me the person's stats along with their feelings and possibly even a backstory. [Detect bloodlust] also went up a lot thanks to the desire of the zombies of inflicting harm on me and its range increased a lot.

[Reinforcement] also got a lot of levels thanks to me using it constantly while I fought and it now sat at level fifteen with its bonus increasing along with the amount of MP it cost decreasing. [Mana bomb] also went over level 10 and the entirety of the skill improved nicely. Since [weapon creation] was an active skill with passive characteristics it didn't improve but I gained invaluable experience in using a sword along with putting Sword Mastery at level 15.

I let some zombies bit me to level up [Physical Endurance] and it now sat comfortably at level ten because I let zombies bit me in really sensitive spots which I won't go into details into explaining them because of reasons. Thanks to my Iron Skin the bits felt as if the part they were biting was under the effects of pain-numbing narcotics which meant that while I felt them bite into my flesh it didn't hurt.

Because I kept using kicks when fighting them, zombies, [Hand-to-Hand Combat] went up to level 15 and it was now giving my STR and DEX a nice bonus of 25% of the base stats with stacked up to the power boost that I was already given by the natural rise of those stats through physical and nonstop combat.

That was the extent of my improvement by just fighting a hundred zombies but I still wasn't satisfied. I could become stronger right now and that was exactly what I did. As I heard the desperate and horrified groans of zombies beginning to congregate a few hundred feet in front of me on the middle of the street I brought up the stats window and promptly dumped enough points in WIS to get it to fifty.

[The skill 'Mana Regeneration' has been granted by reaching 50 on WIS!]

[The skill 'Basic Elemental Knowledge' has been granted by reaching 50 on WIS!]

[The skill 'Mana Perception' has been granted by reaching 50 on WIS!]

[Mana Regeneration. Passive. Lvl Max. An ability given to those of special heritage that allows faster recovery of MP. Effect: 100% increased MP regeneration.]

[Basic Elemental Knowledge. Passive. Lvl 1 [0.0%]. You have reached a deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you and through that understanding you have learned to instinctually harness the elements of wind, fire, lightning, earth and water. Elemental skills cost is reduced to half. Elemental skills damage output rise a 100%.]

[Fire Affinity has been granted!]

[Lightning Affinity has been granted!]

[Wind Affinity has been granted!]

[Water Affinity has been granted!]

[Earth Affinity has been granted!]

[Mana Perception. Active. Lvl 1 [0.0%]. Every living being has mana and through continuous experience, you have learned to detect and understand the flow of mana of all living individuals into the environment around them. Range: 20 meters. Cost: 20 MP.]

The grin on my face was as wide as it was painful and I couldn't help the maniacal laugh the escaped my lips as I saw and felt the effects of rising my WIS to fifty in one go. My MP RR was at a staggering three hundred and twenty point seven meaning that I was already at the point at which I could span most of my skills without worrying about going out of mana. I could say without a sliver of doubt that I was extremely OP. And it felt good.

I also felt knowledge suddenly appearing inside my head about the five basic elements. I now knew how to turn my mana into the elements of wind, fire and lightning and how to channel my mana into water and earth to weaponize them in my favour. I felt like I had known how to do this all my life and I was just remembering the steps I needed to take in order to turn the latent power inside of me into harnessing the forces of nature.

At the same, I also became aware of the fact that living beings always let leak slivers of mana into the environment and that I could use those slivers to track them down by using my own mana in a similar fashion as a sonar but more permanent and not in intervals. It was like creating a dome of mana around the limit of my range so everything related with mana was under the 'eye' of my power.

My maniacal laugh dwindling into the occasional chuckle I waved away all the notifications and focused on the absolutely massive horde of groaning zombie that was slowly starting to unify into one being. The process was as fascinating as it was bizarre and disgusting as the hundreds of zombies conglomerated and fused into a gigantic androgynous giant with no distinguishing features other than its sickly grey skin and blank eyes that shone with unholy fury.

Legion Zombie. Lvl 34.

An assembly of zombies full of resentment. When a large number of zombies feel threatened due to mass hunting, they merge into a Legion Zombie. It has no magical abilities but it has immense strength, stamina and doesn't feel pain. It is very slow but should it find itself in a pinch it will lash out against its enemies with unpredictable moves.

HP: 15200/15200

MP: 1200/1200

STR: 233

VIT: 221

DEX: 5

INT: 0

WIS: 0

LUCK: 0

My eyes widened at how much STR and VIT the thing had but seeing that its DEX was ridiculously low and that its other stats literally none existent all my worries disappeared as I decided to kill this thing which was going to be laughably easy thanks to my skills. I dismissed my Daedric Sword since I was not going to be using it and that motion was enough to garner the attention of the apparent Boss of this level.

It roared in fury and it began to walk towards me. It would be on me in seconds despite the distance and its slowness and that was thanks to its sheer size. I estimated that the thing was at least twenty meters tall, dwarfing every building of the neighbourhood we currently were at. Its giant strides covered enough ground to almost cover its painful lack of speed. Almost.

"This is going to be so fun," I muttered to myself eagerly as I made sure that both Reinforcement and Observe were activated and then I activated Mana Perception and Stealth. I decided that for now, those skills will stay always on so I will never be caught off guard ever and the increased bonus of 300% of getting a critical hit was too good to pass up. Suddenly I was aware of everything immediately around me and would take something that didn't have mana and was completely silent to bypass my perception.

I then activated Mana Shield just because it never hurt to be overcautious and that was another skill I could grind constantly because the shield was essentially invisible. I already proved that when I brought it up around a bunch of people and nobody noticed. It seemed like I was the only one that could see the transparent blue spherical construct around me and that was only because I was the one creating it. And then I put two more layers of it, thickening the blue hue of the spherical construct, to grind it thrice as fast and to give me the same increase of protection just because.

And I still had one hundred and 45 MP to burn before my total amount of mana began to drop.

By the time I was done preparing the Legion Zombie was upon me and the earth shook as it finally made reached me. I looked up at it and I raised an eyebrow and it rose a leg to attempt a stomp but when it began to bring its clumsy leg down I simply flash stepped back to put distance between us. The foot stroke the asphalt of the street with a tremor and upraised burnt alloys and dirt and dust.