Chapter Eight: A Way Out

A week passed before Karl had gotten any kind of motivation to try and get out of the entrapment of his prison, he also fully came to terms with the fact that he was a skeleton. Standing up, he started slashing at the walls with the end of his new tail using all of his strength, and there were insignificant results.

With every slash a small scratch was all that was produced, a millimetre was added every time as Karl continued slashing away at the wall, and he had to make it through a three metres of wall, give or take.

Having all the time in the world, Karl continued hacking away at the wall as a few more days passed, and he was getting close to escaping this prison. That was if you ignored the fact that he needed to make the hole large enough for his entire body to crawl through.

Another few days passed as Karl finally saw some light coming from the hole he was making, it was bioluminescent light from mushrooms, and it was as bright as shining a laser pointer in your eye. Slashing faster, Karl continued for another day before there was a hole large enough to fit his skull through it.

Before Karl could dig anymore, something terrible happened, his tail finally broke after days of use. Staring at the end of his tail, Karl rubbed it with his fingers before finally stumbling back and falling to his knees.

Begging to sob with no tears, Karl sat there for a few minutes before a sound coming from the hole attracted his attention, and he looked at the hole. Crawling through the hole was a small Sporeling the size of his palm, it had a shining pink cap with red spots, short arms and long legs, and sharp claws.

It was crawling on all fours through the hole, trying to reach Karl, and it was going to. Launching forward, Karl started running to the small Sporeling, and he stumbled causing him to fall down. Even though he only fell once, it was enough time for small Sporeling to finish climbing through the hole and reach Karl.

Pushing himself off the ground, Karl was just about to continue heading towards the hole he made, but it was already too late. He was trying to get an advantage while the small Sporeling was crawling through the hole and try to kill while it couldn't retaliate.

A sudden force struck Karl's skull as he felt the world was spinning, then another force struck his chest, and then a last one struck his legs as he had his legs swept out from under him. Falling down to the ground, Karl finally saw that his attacker was the small Sporeling that had crawled through the hole, and it was currently staring at him.

Stunned at the current situation, Karl wasn't able to do anything as his skull was constantly struck by the long and sharp claws, which he finally realized were actually the ends of the arms and legs, and he wasn't able to do anything.

Every other Sporeling he has killed, including the Guardian, Karl had killed them when the situation was advantageous to him. Like when he killed the first Sporeling, he had killed it by dropping a long heavy metal pipe straight through it's body.

Or the other Sporelings, he had killed them by getting them to fall to the ground and explode into tiny pieces or through the Guardian sweeping it's legs and killing thousands of them. And for the Guardian, he just lit it on fire, so he hasn't even been in a real physical fight with the Sporelings, he hadn't even fought anyone before he became a skeleton.

Raising his arm an covering his head, Karl realized that his system panel was in front of his eyes as he saw that his health was decreasing rapidly, and he would reach zero health in 20 seconds if he didn't do anything to stop the Sporeling from attacking him.

Seeing that his health went down by another three points, Karl took action immediately, and he punched the head of the Sporeling. The Sporeling that was attacking Karl at this moment was a higher level Sporedster, it was only a few levels higher then the other Sporedsters, and it was quite a bit stronger.

In terms of attacking power, this higher level Sporedster was three times stronger then the other level one Sporedster that had given Matthew all of those scars on his face. Even though it had a higher attacking power, it's health was a pitiful two points.

With Karl's current strength, killing the Sporedster would be easy if he attacked fast enough, and he did. After his clenched fist connected with the Sporedster's head, it's head exploded into chunks of mushroom and bioluminescent blood, and it covered his skull since he was right under it.

Trying to wipe off a liquid when you didn't have skin or flesh was quite difficult since you couldn't actually wipe it off, you can only slowly scrape it off since bones don't deform slightly like flesh does.

"Congratulations on killing a level 4 Sporedster, you have gained 300 EXP, as a reward for killing this monster for the first time you gain two times the EXP. You have gained 600 EXP, you now require 4200 more EXP to level up."

Looking at the notification, Karl started to get an inkling on how he could possibly escape from this prison, but first he had to absorb the body of the Sporedster. Because he was stilling laying on his back on the ground and the Sporedster was right beside him, he just touched it and absorbed it.

"Strength 8>6, Constitution 37>36, Agility 8>2." Touching empty air after the Sporedster disappeared, Karl stood up an tested out his new speed since his Agility had increased fourfold, and he was definitely surprised.

One point in Agility is the average that most Humans would have, two points is roughly the same speed as professional level, not Olympic, runners, swimmers, and climbers. Eight points in Agility is just over two times faster then the world record fastest 100 metre sprinting speed, swimming speed, and climbing speed

So Karl was two times faster then the maximum speed achieved by the record holders just before the attack, he was definitely surprised at that amount of speed that his body could produce, and because he didn't have muscles or any other tissues on his body he could run forever at his top speed.

Sitting down and hugging his knees again, Karl started waiting for more Sporelings and other mutated creatures small enough to enter the hole, and he was waiting to kill them so he could level up.

The way out that Karl thought of was to gain a level, throw his skull through the hole that he had made, and put the single point he would gain from increasing by a level into his constitution so the rest of his skeleton would fly through the prison he was trapped in.

Because his skeleton could break through anything, Karl got this idea, which was a brilliant one that anyone could think of, but he had forgotten that the fact that he had once done that already when his lower mandible had flown back to his face shortly after he woke up.

Another week passed as thirteen more of the same Sporedsters had crawled in the hole trying to get Karl and they were all killed as soon as they had crawled far enough in the hole. Every time he killed an absorbed one, he would get 300 EXP, two points into Strength, one into Constitution, and six into Agility.

With the increase in his stats, he became more confident in killing Sporelings and their other mutations, and he realized that he could make bigger cuts into the walls of his prison if his tail was repaired.

After every Sporedster killed, Karl would absorb it and then go and sit in the corner, waiting, watching, listening, and when the Sporedster started crawling into the hole, it would never leave. Because he had killed thirteen more Sporedsters, Karl only needed 300 more EXP, then he would level up, throw his skull through the hole after tapping the back of his skull, and put his point into constitution.

In those thirteen days, he had obtained seventy-eight more points in Agility, twenty-six into Strength, and thirteen into Constitution. With his new speed, he was as fast as the average sports car with it's pedal to the floor after gaining it's maximum speed.

While he was sitting in the corner, he heard a noise and immediately looked at the hole, but there was nothing there. Listening closely, Karl heard some shouts, grunts of pain, and roars of anger. Crawling towards the hole, he looked through it and saw a group of 6 people killing all of the Sporelings inside of the mushroom stem.

Continuing to watch, Karl watched for 15 minutes until the group of 6 people had completely killed all of the Sporelings and coincidentally gathered in front of the skull sized hole Karl had made, and Karl saw that five out of the six of them were injured.

There were five men and a woman, the five men had five different hair colours, jet black, hazel brown, platinum blond, golden blond, and copper redhead. Surprisingly, all of the men had the same colour of eyes as their hair, which was bizarre.

As for the woman, it was someone Karl recognized, it was Jashuri. Out of the group of 6, she was the uninjured one, which was unsurprising since Karl guessed that Jashuri had slept with all of them to get protection.

She was like a pimp except she slept with the guys for protection instead of the guys being paid with money. When Karl saw Jashuri, he was angered to the point where he had actually clenched his hands so tightly that he had slightly cracked his own bones.

Remembering what Jashuri had done to him was like he was remembering what 1+1 is, he could remember it for as long as he lived, after all, she was the one who had made Karl like this in a way. He could've just been one of the millions of other Humans who were selected to be immune to the spores if Jashuri hadn't taken an interest in him, maybe it was his fault since he didn't reciprocate her feelings, but why does that warrant a death penalty?

Jashuri was wearing a tight fitting cloth robe that outlined her figure seductively, it was pink and red with lime green accents, it had a detachable leather hood that was white with pink hearts all over it, a mask was connected to the hood by a few buttons, it was to stop dust and the like from causing her to loose concentration.

In her right hand was a wooden wand made from birch wood, it was 8 inches long with sky blue stripes on it that looked like cracks running up and down the length of it, and a small heart on the end that was held.

While he was watching, he saw that the five men all looked at the prison he was currently in, he then saw them smiling and laughing happily, but then they all stopped as they clutched their necks after a few seconds.

Blood started spilling from the gaps in between their fingers, Jashuri could be seen behind them, she was holding her wand that was glowing with a pale sky blue light. Waving her wand once more, she chanted some kind of spell that Karl couldn't hear since he was too far away, and the five men blasted apart into hundreds of little pieces as their flesh scattered all around.

A light barrier had appeared in front of Jashuri that stopped the blood and flying flesh from touching her body, it disappeared only after all of the blood and flesh stopped raining down from the sky. Smiling to herself, Jashuri looked at the ball in front of her as extreme joy blossomed in her heart, she had no feelings of regret about killing those men that she was with.

Observing the Guardian's Treasure, as they have been labelled by the people in the Safe Havens, Jashuri gripped the wand tightly with both hands, she then raised it over her head and started chanting.

"Lučklrëį Nuńe Jûasī Kùto Fłis", which translated to 'Large, Sharp, Wind, Blade, Cut' or as the spell is called, 'Wind Blade'. A gigantic blade of condensed swirling air that was a metre thick and ten metres long appeared from the tip of Jashuri's wand, swinging her wand down like a sword, she cut the Guardian's treasure in half.

Karl, who was inside, had barely managed to get out of the way in time before the wind blade struck down, and he was glad he had managed to get out of the way in time. Surprised at the destructive power of the wind blade, Karl looked at the cut, and he noticed that it was not a clean cut at all.

The cut looked like a chainsaw had made it, not a sword, and it looked like that because the blade of air was moving extremely fast while being super condensed to the point that it felt like a solid object. Hearing footsteps approaching, Karl quickly hugged his knees and put his head down as he pretended he was just a normal skeleton.

He realized that he was an anomaly and that no one else was probably like him, so he needed to pretend to be a regular old skeleton, also because he was afraid that Jashuri would end his life since she thought that he was a weird creature, and lastly he knew this was his way out of this prison so he didn't want to mess up this perfect opportunity to be free.

(P.S. Yes I know I have not uploaded a chapter in a while, I just get these, I'm trying to think of the words, it's not writer's block, I'm just not really in the mood for writing I guess, also because I've been working a lot of closing shifts and I'm pretty tired after a I get back. Also some of my keys are acting up, my S,D,E,O, and L are acting up. End of Post Script, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I might have another one out in a few hours since I'm in a good mood to write.)

(P.P.S The reason his speed isn't like Mach 1 is because the more points you have in your stats, the less it actually increases, well, for him absorbing the creatures anyway, if he put points into it then that's a different matter all together.)