Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Discovery.

The moon above and the clear sky helped the world not fall into complete darkness. The night was beautiful and the weather condition was perfect. Though the occasional gunfire certainly took it away...

"Miss Lily..."

I didn't sleep yet and instead collected my thoughts. 

The world has changed and there is nothing I could do about it. I am more accepting of the fact that the world has descended into chaos because I am from a Martial Arts Family. I have personally killed and tortured enemies so violence and harsh conditions aren't new to me, but it is obvious that not everyone can adapt to the change like I am.

Well, at least society has not yet fallen completely and there are footholds that people have established like the subdivision that I'm in. However, I am certain that things would get much worse, and that this was just the beginning.

While I was escaping from the cathedral area, the figure of Miss Lily surfaced in my mind. I wanted to go to her but the problem was that

I don't know where she was. 

The apartment that we were using last night was just one of her many residences and considering that she is a businesswoman, she would have already left the apartment when the clock hit 7 AM. 

I couldn't call her because electronics are useless now. Blindingly searching for her is also not an option since the area we are in, Summerlin South, was getting messy by the second. Moreover, there's also a chance that she was one of the people that had initially turned into a zombie. Although I doubt it since she wasn't a weak woman to begin with and that unless she got bitten, she wouldn't turn into a zombie. But that isn't a guarantee.

I talked with a personnel right before sunset and the government is reassuring the people that they are doing rescue operations and reclaiming the area from the hands of the zombies. But Las Vegas has at least a total population of 600,000 people, even this small part of Las Vegas has tens of thousands of people. It would take a week to a month to see some noticeable results.

I could only hope that she is alright and that her bodyguards are loyal and competent enough to keep her safe until then.

Now, the God of Creation…

It was painfully obvious from his words that there are other Earths and that they are better than their Earth, hence they pitied us and brought mana.

Mana is not a new concept to everyone who has read novels or played RPG games. The novel or game worlds have mana-born monsters like the zombie that people transformed into when mana was introduced to Earth. Likewise, people and animals from such worlds can use mana and get stronger. Basically, the concept is like those fake Martial Arts novels or games that I despised, just that instead of Qi it's mana.

Nonetheless, both Qi and mana in the novels or games are from people's imagination. The God of Creation must have chosen this familiar term so that we would be able to get the gist of it. It may not be called mana in other Earths and instead be like True Essence. 

I can say this because the God of Creation specifically said that they want 'fun,' hence he probably used this familiar term as sort of a hint to help humanity. After all, seeing people just get slaughtered helplessly by the monsters might be 'fun' to watch at the beginning, but it gets stale. It's like torturing someone, if they really don't want to spill out the information, just kill them as it gets annoying the longer it goes on. Unless you are a sadist that is. But I doubt that the God of Creation is a sadist. His name literally has creation in it, not destruction. 

On the other hand, competition between humanity and monsters – to determine the overlords of this new Earth – is much more entertaining. You would see both sides grow at a similar pace and hence create tension! Now that's fun!

Nonetheless, a cruel way to find entertainment but it's not like humanity also didn't do the same. I mean, just look at the gladiators and their death battles in the coliseum. 

However, even assuming that I'm right about what this mana is, how would one even start using it? 

My idea was this, since fantasy had become a reality, so why not use fantasy logic?

In games, it's just a stat that you can level up. This is certainly not how the real world works. In novels, they either train or cultivate by absorbing the mana through mediation or something like that.

The novel route is promising, but still, absorbing mana to your body through meditation? How would you do that?

Of course, I could always just try it myself. It's not like I'm shouting this guess out in public, so there's no need to be ashamed even if it turns out wrong. 

But testing can wait for tomorrow, it's already night. I'll try it after training when there's nothing else to do. After all, I can't play games nor browse the internet! 

For now, I'm going to sleep. Though not deep sleep, just half-asleep as I need to stay alert. I don't want to be eaten alive by a zombie in my sleep.

•×•×•×•

Throughout the night, the gunfire never stopped. It still echoes in the distance from time to time. 

When morning came, I first washed my face to wake myself up. Fortunately, nothing major happened during the night like zombies sieging the subdivision.

Speaking of washing and water, I should probably save as much water as I can. The house has a big underground storage tank for storing water in case of disasters like storms – where clean water is hard to find.

After all, I don't know how the zombie infection works and if it affects the water like the movies and novels. 

My guess on why some people turned into zombies is that they're incompatible with mana...? But that wouldn't really explain why others would get infected…

Anyways, I don't need to know it to survive as I can always just treat it like a zombie virus until the government relay their findings.

I'm more keen on testing out the possible usage of mana as this would increase my strength. 

…

When I fully recovered from my training, I suddenly discovered something. 

I felt my strength get stronger. Though it's only a little, like a +0.2 from 1 (so like 1 + 0.2 = 1.2; 1 < 1.2), it's still an increase.

I was supposed to start meditating and start my test on mana, but I have to confirm it so I trained again. After all, it might have been just an illusion after the pump. 

This time, I trained and pushed a tad bit harder. I felt another increase, like a +0.3.

Who would've thought?!

This discovery had already partially answered that I'm seeking for the test. You can in fact use mana to get stronger. The only thing left is whether you can only increase strength by training or you can also do it by meditating.

A bit excited, I started meditating. I calmed myself down and emptied my mind. I then followed the cliché of feeling the mana around you from the novels since that's what I used as bases for this test.

About a minute in, I started to see specks of different colored lights!