The raid

Everyone woke up after they slept in the cave, the floor was so hard that most of them suffered from backpain, except Jack and Cole since they were the strongest between them, but there was another guy, a silent one who didn't talk since the beginning of their journey.

"You youngsters are lively, but I am suffering right now, what has time inflicted on me." The elder complained as he did some lenient stretches while shaking his head. Cole began warming up too, everyone did, since they had to fight some monsters later on.

"Does everyone here have food." Cole shouted as he extended a kind gesture to share his food, even though the normal reaction of most survivors would be to hide their rations of food, in their current times food was scarce.

The quiet guy raised his hand, he did not move his lips, neither will he, that guy was just so mysterious, they didn't know even what the gender of that guy/girl is.

"Here you go." Cole gave the quiet person canned beans, there were expressions of hesitation from the opposite side, but food is a must and a kind gesture must be accepted.

Thanks~

A whisper so quiet no one could hear even if they were close by to the person, but! Cole heard it! Cole heard the super quiet voice! This must be an effect of cultivating, not only did his strength and physical capabilities grow, but the five senses grew, and the other hidden senses did too.

That voice was a girl? What a surprise it is, another girl. Due to unknown reasons girls just won't appear, they barely do, Cole already has a girl in his mind, no harem will appear now or in the future.

"Owhhhh." Sam yawned, "OWHHHH." Jack yawned after Sam, "You infected me." Jack said as he chuckled, and his other yawn got interrupted, it feels bothering when your yawn gets interrupted.

Everyone was ready and packed up, warming up done, bellies full, the journey will commence!

The problem is the cave entrance is covered by the waterfall, they had to exit with the an umbrella or something to cover the top. Everyone climbed up one by one, this time the place was peaceful, no more creepy monsters or howls.

Even though the place looked like a dead forest, fifty fifty, it had a sense of artistic beauty, an artist would be glad to be present at their current situation, the quiet girl brought out her notebook and started drawing, she even had labels, who brings a notebook and doesn't bring food, so stupid!

Cole just spent his time looking at the girls notebook, it was fully labeled, it had the strength and weakness of the monsters, it even had illustrations of mutated plants, but little info were provided, she had brilliant research info, truly a reliable ally.

Jack and Sam were just wandering around the place, while the others talked as they were walking. Cole catched up after his friends, he had a plan, but Sam was already planning far ahead. Sam wanted to defeat mutated zombies instead of normal zombies, even though it would be a pain in the ass, a huge advantage will be provided, "With great risk comes great rewards." Someone once said.

"Do you guys wanna split to explore?" Sam suggested, as he wanted to discover places a strong monster could reside, unbeknownst to him, this place was too dangerous for them to split up.

"Let's stick together." The elder suggested, "I agree." The stranger replied and his friend nodded.

"As you get older you get this gut insinct." The elder said as he smiled.

"Let's travel not far away from here." Cole said while pointing at a certain place, he smelt weak zombies, his intention was training the others.

They went ahead, and located the zombies, Cole wasn't selfish and took the zombies all to himself. Someone finally opened the system, "Guys we can see our stats!" Jack said as he raised his voice to make the others notice.

Everyone were surprised, stats? We already can see them. "I meant new stars, I don't know how to explain, just check!" Jack replied to their confused faces.

They could see their strengths! Muscle force, durability, Constitution, agility, mental strength, internal strength. The stats were detailed unlike before, not even the simple stuff appeared.

Cole looked curiously but with a surprised face, unfortunately his strength came from mostly from the internal energy gathered using the mist essence. His constitution grew, but it didn't match his internal energy, which didn't provide him with a balanced body, making an outcome of concealed strength or side effects could surface.

Others when cultivating will only increase in internal strength, but some manuals or scrolls could increase an additional stat like Jack's lesser cultivation manual, and the longevity. A small amount is added, but Cole unlike the others would increase all the stats, and the internal energy will increase by 4 times more than the others. In a huge amount ofcourse.

Majority managed to kill a small amount of zombies, making them stronger, Cole suggested for them to wait until they return to the cave to cultivate, since cultivating using their spare time will be much more beneficial than injecting it directly and getting only 30% potential. Longevity scroll only increases the potential to 70% because constitution is a hard thing to increase.

While everyone were walking back to the cave to sum up their gains, a howl was heard miles away, it was fear inducing, a scary howl that could shake a person like Cole and the others.

Sam knew the opportunity has come, they can finally raid some big monsters to get a huge start up advantage. Sam asked everyone to speed up their pace and return to the cave immediately, they needed to prepare for the hunt, big hunt.

Everyone got wet again after returning, and they all starting cultivating the mist essence into their body, ofcourse for others it took time, while Cole sucked the mist essence like a vacuum, it was unnoticeable ofcourse, but a little mist essence from the air got sucked in too.

The gains this time was huge, they all spent nearly 2 hours, boredom spread, they would occasionally play around and go back to cultivating, the elder played chess again and won, while Cole already finished, last time he cultivated three mist essence in 20 min, this time he had 13 most essence gained, and only cultivated 9 mist essence, his strength increased by alot ofcourse.

Cole's gain was noticable, his body became more defined and when he took a peak at the stats window he got surprised, his strength increase by 3 times. While the others became nearly as strong as the prev Cole.

They now are ready to go hunt some god damn howling beasts. "Follow my steps." Cole said while walking towards the direction of the monster, currently the mental image of the monster is a wolf, but it isn't possible a wolf mutation occured?

Their expectations were far off, but they would know by then, that this monster is far more sinister than any monster they would experience soon.

They managed to reach the place where they heard the howl, but unlike their expectations, there was no one there, what a shame, they were too late, Sam felt disappointed, but he would definitely get it next time.

When everyone was disappointed at their find, they walked backwards, but Cole noticed something off, even though their footsteps looked normal, something was off, like a foot step overlapping the existing one, too small to be noticable, probably a cute rabbit passing by.

RAORRR..

A monster that looked like total mess jump scared them, it had a weird mouth structure, and a it was long and thin, something that would appear in an another dimension, no one could imagine something like that.

The quiet girl took her notebook out, but Cole jumped to hold her hands, "Are you stupid! We have to run." Cole shouted while dragging her to follow the others.

Their original plan was to attack it, but most of them ran from fear, "Re-assemble!" Sam shouted for everyone to stop running and go into a fighting position, they were to scared to hear anything, but they eventually heard it.

Jack went to their rescue, he held his battle axe and went into a defensive state, to tank the monster and make the others attack it. Cole first pushed the quiet girl aside and asked her to draw and pinpoint the weakness.

The situation was dire, but Cole's strength fazed the monster into defending, the pole strikes landed one after another, it bruised the monsters a little, Jack's aggro was successful, but anymore and they would be at risk, Sam joined them, he held a sword and tried to pierce it, but only slashes could work.

The quiet girl is the key to win this fight, will they be able to hold on?