“Nice job guys. Milo, you did great with The Horde. How many levels did you get from that? I got 5 due to the level difference.”

  “I received 8, my lord, this fight was both exhilarating and a boon for the both of us. I know it may sound strange but I truly begin to feel something only when on the battlefield”

  “Well luckily for you we have many battles ahead of us Milo,” I said.

  “Hey don’t forget about me. Greg, did you see what happened? My skill leveled up and we got a new ability” Vaeda spoke up.

  “Wait really?”

  I pulled up my skill list and took a look.

  “Wow, Spellshare? That ability sounds absolutely amazing. So how exactly do you use my skills?”

  “According to the system I now have access to your mana pool, so from there I can use it to activate your skills the same way you would. We will just have to try to keep an eye on your mana from here on out if we want to capitalize on this new ability.” Vaeda said.

  “Sick, that’ll come in handy when we want to surprise attack or overwhelm someone. Milo, what did you pick for your class skill?”

  “I chose a passive skill called Overwhelming Might. It raises my troops' stats by two points each when I have more troops than the enemy. It will only get better as we get more minions for you, My Lord.”

  “That sounds kind of broken don’t you think?”

  “Broken? Forgive me, My Lord, but I don’t understand what you mean exactly.”

  “It’s a term from my world if something is broken it means it is seen as overpowered or too strong”.

  “Oh, in that case, you are quite correct My Lord the skill is quite broken”

  “So what’s the plan now Greg, what do we do next? Do you want to train some more or head on to the next mini-boss immediately?” Vaeda asked.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “I’m not sure. I want to get stronger. I know it seems like we took down Xeaos easily, but that's what happened last time and I lost an arm to show for it. I want to grind until I’m confident of stomping the next two mini-bosses with ease. We have two of the keys required to open The Crypt but we need two more. Milo, can you tell us anything about the other two mini-bosses and what we can expect from them?”

  “Of course My Lord, I’m not quite sure of their levels but I do know a little of them from when we were first summoned to be used by the lich. I do not know which mausoleum will belong to until we get closer to their areas and can see what type of undead are around. However, I do know their classes; one is a mage and the other is a healer”.

  “A healer that somehow heals undead? How does that even work? I have so many questions now”.

  “Well as far as I’m aware all that you’d have to do to heal undead is use dark magic on the undead instead of light magic,” said Vaeda.

  “Okay so then it’s time to grind again then”.

  Truth be told grinding has become mindless. I don’t even need to be here to gain the souls or experience but I do it for the practice so that I can be in better shape for the next fight.

  We return to the mansion after hunting Draugrs for a couple of hours and even though we killed 20 of them I only gained one level due to me now being a higher level than them. I guess the system is designed so that the experience gained by killing lower level enemies is decreased so people aren’t out just murdering small fries all the time. Milo, however, gained another four levels. Like I told him before his stats are up to him to allocate, I’ve never been much of a micromanager in games or real life. I decided to take a look at my status.

  Not bad at all if you ask me. Granted my physical stats kind of suck but I’m a mage and I’m now missing an arm not like I’ll be doing a lot of close combat fighting as it stands. Eight more levels until I get my next class skill. I’m excited to see what the system offers me next. Time to eat though I’m starving after today.

  We all sat around the fire and were eating when I asked Vaeda a question that’s been on the tip of my tongue for a while now.

  “Yo Vaeda what was your world like before the system hit? If you don’t wanna talk about it you don’t have to but I’m curious.”

  “It’s no problem at all man. My world before the system came was wonderful. You have to understand the world I came from is full of intelligent creatures. We didn’t have any humans like you. The closest we came to that was the ape clans. Speaking of the clans, that’s how everyone was divided. We were grouped by species into clans. I was part of the bird clan, but specifically the owl clan. I lived a normal life before the system. I hunted, I flew with friends, I loved and hated. It was honestly a pretty normal life. Then the system came and at first, all of us were extremely excited about the ability to augment ourselves and have powers but eventually it turned us against each other. Where before those of us that were in the same clan got along now there was jealousy, envy, and hate for each other. Brothers fought brothers etc. We didn’t band together and the monsters quickly overran our homes killing anyone they came into contact with. I was one of the lucky ones who survived through it all. Then a blue screen appeared telling those of us that were left that we had failed and that we were now the property of the system to be used whenever it needed us. That happened probably a thousand years ago. I’ve had a couple of masters since then but very few actually cared for me like you have Greg.” Vaeda said as he stared blankly into the distance.

  “Damn that sounds terrible. No matter what I will do whatever it takes to save my friends at least. I don’t know if I can save the world or anything like that but I’ll do my best to help out humanity when we get out of here. One way or another I’m sure we’ll get through this. If there’s one thing humanity is good at its evolving. Plus I have you guys to help me and whatever comes at us I’m sure we can handle it.”

  God that sounded cheesy. I hope they don’t laugh. If Davey and Melissa could see me now I wonder if they’d laugh, or would they be proud of me. Would they even recognize me? I’m a little skinnier now than I was when I last saw them and my eyes are weird but I still look like me right?

  “I’m sure you’re right My Lord, I will do whatever it takes to help you get out of here”.

  “Yeah what he said, we’re in this together man you know that,” Vaeda said.

  “Thanks, guys I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you here to talk to. I’d probably have lost my mind talking to skeletons or gotten myself killed”.

  After saying a couple parting words I went to bed.