A Tale in Wild

Once more Zed rode through the desolate wilderness, he saw this place littered with bodies.

Again, in the wild, good chance still abounded. The B-level beasts had yet to arrive in droves, making this a haven for wild divers, they just did not notice yet.

It was only 1 month after everything had happened.

But venturers would found out themselves, shortly. Here, scattered among the fallen, were resources, components, and on fortunate occasions, the coveted spores.

Zed sat on a bleak, abandoned street. Scattered around him were fragments of clothing, soaked by rain and blanketed by dust, hardened into stone-like trash by the changing seasons. The wild divers might use these remnants as kindling for their fires.

In his hand, Zed held a cup while observing it closely. He dared not light a fire in the wilderness, choosing instead to rely on the scant light provided by the stars overhead.

In his mind, he deconstructed the cup, extracting its essence until it ceased to be a cup and became, by the principles in kind of topology, this single-holed solid slowly turned to a donut.

He rotated it in his hands while fingers tracing strange patterns in the air. And then, in a flash of light, the cup vanished, seemingly merging with the air around him.

Exactly three seconds later, the space where the cup had been seemed to congeal momentarily, and a glowing spore materialized in Zed's palm.

[Cup Spore - F]

["IT'S JUST A NORMAL CUP"]

[Durability - 77%]

"No, not fast enough."

Zed shook his head, clutching the spore and applying slight pressure. The spore shattered instantly, then the cup reappearing in his hand.

He murmured with brows furrowing.

"And not solid enough."

This was the art of object transformation, where a simple way could morph a specific item into a spore. This method was akin to an energy conversion formula, particularly useful in the ashes of the catastrophe when the air became thick with unknow elements. Scientists turned their attention towards the study of spores and Awakened beings straightforward.

The transformation technique was one of the first awakened-like skills shared with the public. It posed no particular danger, as transforming objects into spores or taming simple beasts didn't disrupt the status quo. Instead, it showed potential on productivity which accelerating any following policies.

Yea, it called "Make everyone life easier" policy.

With the right skills, every monster's corpse got the chance be spore-ed into something different. It could be a skill, it could be an energy spore, but it only gets spore-ed once.

Just like the drop, but this was definitely a more controlled approach than just waiting for it fall.

Previously, Zed only knew the was techniques for extracting energy spore, but he's heard of better skills circulating among the awakened ones.

Zed twirled the cup in his hand and drew out another nutrient spore. He squeezed out a clear liquid into the cup, savoring it in small sips. Today, his aim at here was to find a brute.

According to his memories, approximately a month after the fall, a wild diver get lost from his team was pursued by a brute in the southern outskirts of the city. He accidentally stumbled upon a mutant brute, or more precisely, a mutant parasite on the back.

He managed to send out signal just in time. His teammates arrived, captured the creature, and sold it in the dark market. Then the beast was discovered by a professor from the Academy, resulting in the entire team becoming rich overnight.

This news sparked a gold rush among the wild divers, turning it into an enviable profession. They became adept treasure hunters, cautious and cunning, sometimes even backstabbing teammates for wealth.

Speaking of this, Zed knew a little bit more as his job in previous was about brute. This mutant one was so rare that only appeared once in wasteland, finally became a familiar of one top beast master...it got self-evolution ability till A-class.

Zed compared the terrain to the description provided by that famous diver. He returned to his motorcycle, pulling out a map with convoluted routes drawn on it. The center of the map was marked with the word "Newford". Around it were irregular circles, each tagged with numbers, signifying various zones.

"Just as before, it must be in Zone C... Under the Twin Windmills, a nest burned with fury? Media and their tall tales..." Zed thought in slight annoyance.

He had found the Twin Windmills and what they called the "a nest burned with fury" It was just a group of brutes trapped in concrete, unable to scavenge for food. They were confined within an arena-like structure, their howls of hunger echoing through the air.

Their brutal nature was on full display as they copulated incessantly, turning on each other in their starvation. The air was thick with the sound of tearing flesh and gnashing teeth as they cannibalized each other, sending chills down anyone who dared to listen.

A sense of unease crept into Zed's heart.

He left his motorcycle behind, gripping his firearm tightly. The cold metal comforted him a bit, a solid reassurance in his hand. In his other hand, there was a spore, a reserve of energy extracted from the air. He scanned the surroundings with alert eyes, focusing on the nearby thick vegetation.

Walking around a brute nest was an uncomfortable experience. The walls of the concrete structure were covered with pus-filled swellings of various sizes. They glowed faintly, illuminating the ground enough for Zed to watch his step and avoid awakening a slumbering brute.

Every now and then, his boots crunched on something brittle – bones, perhaps, the remnants of a beast's meal. The grim crunching sound just echoed oddly in the damp silence.

While walking, Zed peered through the narrow crevices, examining the interior. It was clear no one had been inside for a long time, and any that had went were likely torn to shreds.

There were, in fact, multiple exits around the building, but the aimlessly wandering brutes were too dim-witted to find them. Only the fortunate few that meandered into the cracks had a chance of escaping.

This observation also provided Zed with a critical clue:

This "brute nest" likely had no queen. It was easy to distinguish. Aimless mobs of brutes indicated a queenless nest, while groups hunting like wolf packs signified the presence of one.

The queen acted as the brain of these swarm creatures. A brute nest without a brain would fade away in time. Surviving in the wasteland required more than just instinct, it needed a thinking mind.

"No queen? Maybe I'm in the wrong one."

Zed mused aloud.

"Or perhaps she just hasn't arrived yet..."

He wasn't overly disappointed.

Zed had patience in spades. When hunting beasts in the past, he could stay outside the shelter for weeks. Once his food ran out, he would harvest the insects behind the brutes for sustenance. He patted the dagger at his waist, preparing to revisit his past skills, to see if he was still as good as he once was.

As Returning to the end of the street, he arrived at a crossroads. Collapsed lampposts and a massive billboard littered the ground. Half-eaten bodies were strewn about. Zed pushed his motorcycle to an elevated spot near a building. The location was ideal, enabling him to observe the brutes through a window and providing enough space for a quick getaway if needed.

As the first light of dawn broke, Zed felt a sense of hypnotic effect watching the teeming brutes, despite having rested on the city's outskirts the previous night.

"Children born in this won't need to count sheep to sleep," he thought, "Brutes are just as good."

Their skin was an unusual pale color, resembling stone without blood. Faint veins traced across their bodies, their fingers sharp and their limbs emaciated as if all fat had been sucked out, leaving only muscle tissues behind.

As he watched these creatures that were once human, Zed couldn't help but feel a wave of melancholy. He recalled a legend, a tale about the onset of the apocalypse. Philosophers of the previous life sought answers but found none until the day Zed died.

Why? Why must humanity endure this?

He heard numerous theories in the past. Some claimed the world was God's experiment, punishing humans as they turned too sheep-like in life.

Zed didn't believe in God, not until he used the spores and felt a subtle shift in his disbelief. He couldn't really imagined the things he saw in his dreams.

Others thought it was merely the planet's self-regulation, like the Cambrian explosion. Zed was indifferent to these ideas. If you asked him, as someone who had survived three years in the apocalypse and had to redo everything, he'd say, despite the bleakness, he felt a strange vitality.

Not an exciting or wild kind, not like those extreme groups that celebrated the chaos, but something he'd never felt before.

It was a vitality on the brink of death, a sense that time had paused, that all the disorder and broken rules of the apocalypse were mere facades.

There was no wish on tomorrow, no miss on past.

This feeling wasn't freedom. In fact, it could easily turn into its antonym. Even the strongest had to tread carefully in this world. The fall transformed what industrial revolutions and wars couldn't erase into history overnight. Many old habits had to change. They viewed their previous lives through the lens of an 'old school,' living in the same era but a vastly different world.

Zed squinted, seemingly lost in thought.

"Anyway," he muttered, "given a second chance, things will be different this time."

He covered his head with a piece of cloth, giving a yawn. Although the morning light had no particular effect on him, Zed found himself increasingly fond of nocturnal activities, and oddly, the blood-soaked scenes.

Just as he was about to close his eyes, absorbing some energy from the air for simple spore storage, a staggering shadow emerged from the throng of brutes.

At first, Zed assumed it was just another ordinary brute, but something was off. Ordinary brutes had pitch-black shells, but this one shimmered with a golden hue.

It was a robust half-naked woman, her tattered clothes stained with blood and dust. A golden bug clung to her lower back, right at the dimples of Venus. Its shell was like a piece of art carved in gold, gleaming brilliantly in stark contrast to the others.

So different.

Zed eyes wide with surprise and intrigue, shot to his feet instantly.

"Could it be...?"