《Reborn as a Zombie Plague》


 Prologue - Betrayal

    Jules Arjent had always been proud of his kindness. It was one of his core values that he had always held in high regards. He was known amongst his friends for his benevolence towards others, which earned him the nickname of ¡®Gentle Jules¡¯. This trait of his had scored him his current girlfriend, Miranda, who in his eyes was the prettiest girl he had ever met. He had felt the connection between them right from the beginning. It quickly evolved from there, they went on numerous dates and before they knew it, they had moved in together.


    Jules was a 20 years old student at university studying computer sciences. His parents had created a rather successful business in his childhood, and it could be said that they were quite well off. Which allowed Jules not to have to worry about living costs during his studies. Despite getting decent grades in the B range he was actually quite smart and would have bean easily able to get A¡¯s if he put in the effort to study. Looks wise he was neither handsome nor ugly, the genetic lottery had earned him average looks and a greater height than average, standing at roughly 190cm. He had brown hairs and blue eyes and his body was fit but not quite athletic.


    ¡°Hey Jules! Wait up!¡±


    Jules was on his way to his lecture as he heard a voice calling out to him from behind. It was his best friend Bobby; they knew each other since primary school. Although they had known each other for a long time, they did not become best friend until their first year in high school. From there on they were inseparable, they hanged out all the time and spent countless late-night hours playing video games together.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go together!¡± Bobby called out.


    By some matter of fate both friends had decided to study computer science. This could perhaps be attributed to these countless and sleepless gaming nights. With this it could be said that they truly walked the same path.


    As the two friends were walking and talking Bobby asked a weird question.


    ¡°Hey, we¡¯re friends, right?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, why?¡± Jules cautiously replied.


    ¡°Uh¡­. Miranda and I are now dating¡­¡±


    For a second Jules thought Bobby was joking, however his expression remained unchanged. Taking this more seriously Jules replied.


    ¡°You better be joking.¡±


    ¡°Um¡­¡­ I¡¯m not¡­ Sorry I wanted to tell you sooner but Mir¡­¡±


    ¡°Shut the fuck up! So, what you¡¯re telling me is that my best friend and my girlfriend are now dating!?!¡±


    Despite being a kind person, this news cut deep. Jules was still hoping for it to be a joke, although deep down he knew it wasn¡¯t, the Bobby he knew wouldn¡¯t lie about these kinds of things.


    ¡°Yes¡­.¡± He said after what seemed an eternity.


    Jules trusted Bobby and Miranda immensely, they were the two main pillars in his life. The destruction from this betrayal shook him to his core. Not yet fully taking in the situation, Jules did not reply. He stood still as he gradually felt the world get unstable. The intense emotions made blood rush to his face. He could hear his own heart beat loud and clear. The surge of emotions had completely overwhelmed his ability to think rationally.


    He stood still for what seemed like an extremely long time to him. Once he had recovered enough, he took a long breath and started heading home. Leaving Bobby behind without a reply. Bobby had betrayed him; he did not even deserve to be talked to. As Jules was about to walk around the corner Bobby opened his mouth, seemingly to call him back to tell him something important, but slowly shut it, without having made a single sound.


    Jules had been aimlessly drifting around town for over two hours. How could he go back home, knowing his now ¡®ex¡¯ girlfriend would be there? Over the past few hours Jules had been slowly processing the events of the day, trying to understand what he did wrong. Myriads of thoughts passed through his mind, but none of them could provide him with a satisfactory answer.


    Nigh time was fast approaching. Having nowhere to go home to Jules decided to drop by a friend¡¯s place that was nearby, hoping to stay there for the night. Following a short walk, Jules had arrived at his destination. He quickly glanced at himself in the reflection of a window. His hairs were messed up because of the wind and hours of crying had left his eyes strongly bloodshot. He tried to tidy his hairs however he quickly realised that was futile.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    He readied himself to knock on the door when it suddenly opened.


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe you dared show up!¡± A voice shouted from inside.


    It was his friend Rob. Jules stood there confused. ¡®What the hell does he mean?¡¯ he asked himself. A person stepped out revealing a ragingexpression on his face.


    ¡°How dare you do that to her! You filthy animal! You actually dare try and stay here for the night!?! I hope you rot in jail for the rest of your life!¡±


    Rob promptly went back in and violently closed the door. Causing the windows of his apartment to rattle.


    Jules was shocked, even his friends seemed to hate him now. ¡®What have I ever done to them?¡¯ He just stood there silently trying to figure out what to do next. He couldn¡¯t go home and for some reason his friends hated him as well. ¡®I have to find out why they hate me so much. But first I have to find a place to stay at.¡¯


    He eventually decided to stay at a hotel. Picking the nearest one, he bought a cheap room for a night including meals. After being given his keys, he went to his room, closed the door behind him and just laid down in bed. He unlocked his phone and connected to the hotel Wi-Fi.


    A few seconds after he had connected to the network, his phone started buzzing and making quick beep noises furiously. The were all messages from people he knew as well as some of his ex¡¯s friends and relative. However, after reading the contents of these messages his face quickly paled. All messages contained angry and hateful comments all of which wrongly accused him of having abused his ex. Apparently, she had recently posted a message on social media saying that he had abused her and more. On top of that it seems that hisBobby proclaimed tohave witnessed it. Jules resented them from deep within his heart. The betrayal from his most trusted friend and the hatred from everyone he knew felt extremely painful to him. ''It''s human nature.'' he thought feeling depressed, a nature of greed and betrayal.


    It seemed that they had filed a police report, trying to jail himand earn compensation. Jones was confused as of why his ex-girlfriend would go to suchextent to get him in trouble. He did have an idea, although he hoped he was wrong. He suspected his girlfriend to want to gain some of his parent¡¯s money. He had never given her any in the past, this was an ironclad rule for him. Finances were to be separated until marriage. He could not understand why she couldn¡¯t wait until then. Not that she should have.


    Jules did not know what to think, his world was crumbling around him. All he could do was watch, and see people hate him. Jules could not do anything, and he had never made any other good friends that could trust him over Miranda and Bobby. Due to this, and Miranda¡¯s extensive network of connections, people were far more inclined to believe her than him. Leaving him with nobody to rely on and no options to get himself out of this hole. All the while his hatred for humans kept rising.


    All hope was lost and there was nothing he could do about it. ¡®What¡¯s the point in trying anymore?¡¯ He slowly stood up, put his phone down and headed out of his room. He locked the door behind himself and headed for the stairway. When he entered the stairway, he walked towards the stairs heading up. Hissteps were slow but resolute. For some reason the door to the roof was unlocked, he stepped through and headed towards the edge of the building.


    He had been standing on the edge for over an hour, contemplating the idea of jumping. Although it held no meaning for him to continue living, he did not quite have the resolution to jump. After all, ending one''s own life is no simple decision. He stood there quietly cursing at the vile nature of humans when the sky suddenly flashed white revealing a large explosion a few kilometers up. Out of this explosion shot out a white orb the size of a truck. The orb headed quickly towards him, easily reaching speeds of over 200 kilometers per hour.


    The explosion startled Jules, causing him to lose balance and fall. The orb instantly changed direction and kept heading for him. As it was about to hit him, instead of instantly killing him he was absorbed by it. Jules felt like he was floating in a warm liquid substance. he suddenly heard a voice in a language he did not know yet could understand.


    ¡°[Beep! Last specimen acquired. Begining analysis.] [Analysis in progress. Status: 6%...... 57%......100%] [Beep! Analysis completed! Begining merging.] [Beep! Merging completed. Returning to ship.]¡±


    As the white orb was about to leave a red light suddenly appeared in the sky. The red light was clearly headed for the white orb. It managed to intercept it before it could leave the city. Upon contact with the orb the red light suddenly exploded creating an explosion that transcended the limits of science. The explosion was thousands of times stronger than that of a nuclear explosion yet small enough to only destroy the city.


    The explosion killed Jules before he could even realize it. However as everything seemed to go wrong for Jules, an instant before the light detonated, his phone vibrated back in his room displaying a message from Bobby that said ¡®Hey man I¡¯m so sorry for everything, Miranda blackmailed me. I¡¯m gonna come clean tomorrow to everyone. I hope you¡¯ll find it in yourself one day to forgive me. Sorry again bro.¡¯


    As Jules was waking up, he recalled what had just happened. ¡®What the hell was that white light? Where am I?¡¯ As if answering his answer, a vaguely familiar sound made itself heard.


    ¡®[Beep! Host was retrieved as a sample for study. However, an interference resulted in death of host, destruction of probe and mission failure. Reasons for survival unclear. Host location is undetermined. Scan needed to determine location. Please authorize (Y/N).]¡¯


    ¡®What the¡­¡¯ he thought ¡®Authorize?¡¯


    ¡®[Beep! Authority invalid. Looking for nearest authorised personnel.] [Beep! No signals from personnel found within 1000 light years. Increasing authority of nearest member.] [Beep! Host has been granted full control. Scan authorized. Beginning scan.] [Beep! Host has been determined to be a bacterium. Approximate size: 2 micrometres. Location: Left arm muscle tissue. Several threats detected nearby. Immediate action recommended.]¡¯


    ¡®What the hell?!?¡¯

 Chapter 1 - Patient Zero

    Anne was born in a medium size town of roughly 100 thousand inhabitants called Largen. Despite having gone out of the city on multiple occasions she had never been further away than the nearest village, a few kilometers out. Born as the daughter of a small merchant family, she was able to live a carefree childhood until the day her father and mother ran away leaving her and her brother behind. It turned out that her parents were riddled with debt, causing them to make the tough decision of abandoning their own kids to escape. However, in a weird act of kindness they decided to leave their house behind for them instead of selling it. Ever since then Anne and her brother hd been under constant harassment from the debt collectors. Every week or so they would show up at their door and force them to pay a fee.


    The thing was that the fee did not contribute towards the debt, it was an ¡®extension fee¡¯ delaying the time until which their belongings would be forcibly seized. The fee itself was exorbitant, despite Anne¡¯s hard work she could barely manage to pay it every week. She had considered not paying it previously however the collector was always accompanied by a bodyguard and an arcanist. If she even dared resist, she would be instantly turned into ash. Running away with her brother was not an option either, he was far too young to travel, moreover the Wild continent was far too dangerous to risk leaving the city without a solid plan.


    Therefore, she was left with no other option than give up all her hard-earned money each week. Being barely able to feed her brother and much less herself. Due to this she was slightly malnourished, despite this she was still rather charming. Her height was average, and she had rough long blond hair that complimented her deep blue eyes. Her face had rather gentle and refined features, creating a charming look. Despite the dirty clothes and the dusty face, an aura of happiness radiated from her with an always kind smile on her lips.


    Even though she was heavily in debt because of her parents, she still tried her best to provide for her younger brother Thomas who had just reached the age of 14. She herself had also recently turned 18. Anne worked three different jobs leaving early in the morning and coming back late at night. Despite being extremely exhausted by this schedule she always maintained a smile on her face to avoid worrying her brother.


    One day as she was returning home late at night from her waitress job at one of the local taverns, she saw the door to her house left open. She felt something was deeply wrong. One of the rules she had enforced with Thomas was to never leave the door unlocked, since many dangerous individuals lurk within Largen. Her pace quickened as she hurried towards her home.


    ¡°Thomas?!?¡± she shouted out ¡°Are you here!?!¡±


    No replies were heard, the house was silent. By this point Anne was extremely worried and imagined the worst, her brother could have been killed by robbers! She rushed into the house and searched every room frantically; Thomas was nowhere to be found. The house on the other hand had clearly been ransacked, broken furniture was everywhere, drawers were opened, their contented either stolen or thrown on the ground. Most valuable items in her possession were missing. However, one area had been left untouched, that was the dining table. On the table was a message that seemed to have been carved using a knife. The message read ¡®If u kare for yur bros lif, com to the wel in the forest at midnite¡¯.


    She was furious. Somebody had broken into her house, stole her belongings and actually kidnaped her little brother! Although she did not have a watch as she was far too poor to own one. She could tell by looking at the moon that she did not have much time before the meeting.


    Within seconds she was running as fast as she could, stumbling occasionally. She tripped and fell, some of the skin on her hands and knees had been ripped off, but despite the pain she stood up and kept running. She arrived at the city wall and headed for a bushthenmoved it aside. The bush revealed a crack in the wall that she had accidentally discovered while playing as a kid. Due to her slender physique, she easily shuffled within the crack and made her way through. The throbbing pain in her hands and knees did not make the task any easier.


    After a few more minutes of frantic running, Anne finally arrived at the well. The well itself had been used extensively however it no longer retained the glory from its former days, it was broken and covered with moss giving it an eerie vibe.


    Out of the shadows stepped out four figures. The one at the front was a short and chubby man with a bald head and an evil grin on his face. His clothes looked expensive and immaculate; it would probably have taken Anne a year of saving to be able to afford them. He was followed by two large evil looking individuals one of which seemed to be a low ranking arcanist. Arcanists were powerful beings that studied the science of magic, this led them to be widely respected and commonly employed by wealthy individuals. Even the lowest ranked arcanists were paid enough to only need to work once a year. The other man was holding a smaller figure that quickly revealed itself to be Thomas.


    ¡°Anne!!¡± Thomas exclaimed.


    ¡°Thomas! Are you okay?¡± She replied trying to sound confident despite the shake in her voice betraying her anger and fear.


    ¡°We meet again.¡± The chubby man spoke.


    This was Todd, the debt collector in charge of making sure that Anne would pay her parent¡¯s debts back. His underhanded methods to collect money had earned him an unpleasant reputation within Largen. However, due to his large wealth he was able to bribe the local authorities, allowing him to get away from most of his crimes with little to no repercussions.


    ¡°I dropped by your house earlier today to collect this week¡¯s payment, however, I seemed to have missed you. Therefore, I took the liberty to take a little insurance with me.¡±


    Anne was fuming, she had already paid for this week¡¯s payment, but this obviously wasn¡¯t enough for this greedy pig. She knew from the beginning that he was eyeing her, despite being malnourished, she was sure she would fetch a good price on the slave market. What would happen to her if this actually happened was a thing she would rather not think about. By pretending she missed payment Todd was able to ¡®legally¡¯ seize her belongings including herself. However, there was nothing she could do about it, in this world, those with power could do whatever they wanted.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    ¡°What do you want?¡± Anne replied as if spewing venom.


    ¡°A fair trade. That¡¯s all. Your life for his.¡± He said with a sly grin on his face while pointing at the boy.


    Anne paled; this was the worst-case scenario she could have imagined. As she was a bout to take a step forward to proceed with the trade, a loud and unnatural roar originating from their left was heard.


    ¡°Zombies?!¡± The alarmed arcanist yelled.


    ¡°What the hell are zombies doing here? Shouldn¡¯t have all zombies near Largen been exterminated a while ago?¡± The short chubby man asked as large beads of sweats started rolling down his bald head.


    ¡°Retreat immediately!¡± He yelled.


    However, it was too late. By the time he had yelled out the zombies were already on top of them. Luckily there was only three of them, it was possible for huge hordes to appear sometimes with numbers in the upper hundreds of thousands. These zombies had chunks of flesh missing from their bodies and had a strong stench lingering around them. Their eyes expresses no emotions except a wild and uncontrolled desire for flesh to feast on.


    Alongside humans, zombies were the other predominant race in the Arcane World.Zombieswere arcane creature that been present for as long as anyone could remember. They spread predominantly by infecting humans and then letting the disease kill them following which they would revive as zombies. From what Anne knew about zombies they were split into different ¡®strands¡¯ each having their own characteristics. However, what really stood out about strands is that they were similar to a hive mind, within every strand of zombies was a core zombie that could control all others from its strand. The core zombie was the first individual the strand had infected, these individuals were commonly referred to as patient zeros. If the core zombie was killed, then that specific strand would die. As for how new strands were born, nobody really knew.


    Two of the zombies had made their way towards Todd¡¯s group. However, one was headed for Anne. Despite being dead, this zombie was surprisingly fast, having reached Anne in only a couple of seconds. Without warning it lunged at her, narrowly missing her. As Anne dodged the zombie she tripped on a branch and face planted headfirst. The zombie did not miss that opportunity, and in a fraction of a second it was on top of her trying to bite her neck. Anne narrowly managed to block the bite at the cost of her own left arm. She knew she was in deep trouble, unless an arcanist used a spell to heal the infection originating from a bite, it would always kill its host and then turn them into a zombie. In a last attempt for survival, she drew a knife from her waist that she carried in case of emergencies and repeatedly stabbed the zombie through the head.


    The zombie slowly stopped moving, luckily zombie¡¯s weak spots were their head. Rotting blood and chunks of flesh were dripping all over her face, however this was better than simply being killed.


    She looked up and saw the men struggling with the zombies near the well. Todd was at the back with the boy while the other two men were dealing with the zombies. The arcanist seemed to be casting a spell with strange glowing runes forming a weird formation in mid-air while the other man was delaying the zombies. However, the man made a mistake and got bitten by one of the zombies, this caused him to fall on the ground where he was at their mercy. At this moment a bright red glow originating from the runes appeared followed by a shout from the arcanist.


    ¡°Lesser fireball!¡±


    A fireball of roughly one meter in diameter shot out at high velocity from the runes towards the zombies that were still feasting on the man. In a bright explosion the zombies were instantly reduced to ash, including the unlucky fellow. The arcanist relaxed only to suddenly yell out in pain. Another zombie had actually sneaked around the clearing to attack him from behind, ripping a huge chunk of flesh from his neck with its teeth. The man fell while holding his wound with a shocked expression on his face.


    However, seemingly having learnt from the others'' mistakes the zombie did not proceed to feast on the corpse, and instead turned around to face Todd and Thomas. Todd took a step back, clearly frightened by the zombie. He took out a concealed gun from his clothes and aimed it at the zombie.


    ¡°S-stay away! Or I-I¡¯ll shoot!¡± He yelled out frightened.


    Suddenly a sly smile appeared on his face as he thought of a great idea. He suddenly and violently kicked Thomas towards the zombie to use him as bait.


    ¡°NOOOOOOO!!¡± yelled out Anne.


    However, the fat man paid her no mind and watched as the zombie jumped at Thomas and instantly tore a huge chunk of flesh from his shoulder. Thomas¡¯ screams of despair slowly got quieter as Anne was left sobbing on the ground since she did not even get a chance to save him.


    As the zombie was about to get up andface Todd, a loud bang resounded within the clearing. A hole the size of a coin had appeared in the zombie¡¯s head, the bullet seemed to have bulldozed right through the decaying flesh. The zombie¡¯s corpse quietly slumped on the ground as the fat man reloaded his gun. He then aimed it at Thomas¡¯ head and emptied the chamber. He slowly walked toward the arcanist and repeated the process, his actions carrying a cold and otherworldly vibe to them. As if these movement had been repeated countless times before.


    Anne was still on the ground as her tears slowly turned into a raging fire within her soul. He brother¡¯s murder had broken something within her. All these repressed emotions she had built up within her for all these years by pretending everything was fine had suddenly been let loose. Her hatred for her cowardly parents and for Todd exceeded anything she had ever experienced before. The pain in her wounds gradually disappeared as she stood up and charged at Todd. On the other hand, Todd had seen this coming, he had already reloaded his gun and aimed at her.


    BANG!!


    He had slightly missed and hit Anne¡¯s right shoulder. Not feeling the pain Anne kept charging at him. A worried expression suddenly took over the chubby man¡¯s face as he hurriedly reloaded his gun. However, it was too late, Anne had already reached him. A hand covered in rotten flesh carrying Anne¡¯s vengeance and last effort swiftly made its way towards Todd¡¯s throat. Narrowly missing him, or so he thought, she had in fact managed to scratch him. Anne¡¯s legs gave up beneath her as the infection slowly burned her life force away. The chubby man was holding his throat in terror as he looked at Anne grinning at him. He was now infected. Without a second glance he shot her and made his way towards the city as fast as his unfit body could allow him since his only chance of survival lied with the arcanist there.


    In his rush Todd made one fatal mistake, although he had killed Anne, he had shot her through the heart. As Anne¡¯s life left her body, a new one took its place. However, it was different from that of normal zombie¡¯s. This new life was forged within the raging inferno of her fury and carried her last dying will. Although it was yet unknown to all, this new life was going to bring huge changes to the Arcane world.

 Chapter 2 - Bacteria?

    ¡®What the hell do you mean by bacteria?!¡¯ Jules exclaimed.


    ¡®[Beep! Hosts¡¯ body appears to be an unidentified bacterium.]¡¯ A robotic female voice replied within his mind.


    Jules tried to open his eyes but no matter how hard he tried he couldn¡¯t do it. Even weirder than that was the feeling that he did not, in fact, have any eyes. Starting to panic a little he tried to move his arms and legs. There was no response if anything it just caused his body to wiggle.


    ¡®This can¡¯t be real¡­¡¯ He said, quickly realizing that he was not actually speaking but just yelling in his head. Confusion rapidly mixed in with his panic.


    ¡®I-I was on the roof¡­ and-and¡­ Bobby and Miranda did¡­and the white orb hit me¡­ and now a bacteria! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?¡¯ Jules had reacted as any normal human being would have if thrown in this chaotic chain of events.


    After taking his time to calm down and take all this information in, Jules¡¯ thought became more coherent.


    ¡®According to that weird voice, I died and became a germ. Heh, my luck is trash. Out of all the possible reincarnation I¡¯ve seen in isekai novels, this one has to be the worst.¡¯


    [Beep! Multiple threats have been detected nearby. Threats identified as unknown bacteria.


    Similarity to host: 95%


    Numbers: Estimated, 200 Million


    Location: Left arm muscle tissue (dead)


    Individual threat level to host: E


    Group threat level to host: S]


    The voice snapped Jules back to reality. Now aware of the danger, Jules carefully tried to understand his surroundings. As stated by the voice Jules was supposedly located in a corpse¡¯s left arm. He could feel a dense viscous fluid surrounding him, that fluid seemed to contain some sort of energy. The fluid moved very slowly as if countless other creatures were swimming in it. Jules quickly made the link with the other bacteria. He even found that if he focused on the movements of the fluid, he could roughly guess their location!


    Since they had been marked by the voice as a threat, Jules decided to avoid them and go to an emptier location. He found that by wiggling his body, he was able to freely move within the fluid. Having died before and considering himself lucky to have been reincarnated, he wasn¡¯t going to waste this new life by heading straight for danger. Therefore, he was resolute about making the most of it.


    ¡®Um¡­ Alien computer thingy, since you can tell how many bacteria there are, can you tell me the nearest location without any?¡¯ Since Jules had been given this alien thing, he might as well make the best of it.


    [Beep! My designation is ¡®Xeno Probe 879402¡¯.] The voice said.


    At the same time, a map of the arm appeared within Jules¡¯ mind. It somewhat looked like holograms from sci-fi movies. He found that he could zoom it in by focussing on it. However, the resolution of the map was gradually decreasing the further away it was from him. He quickly found himself on this map, he was a tiny green dot somewhere near what seemed to be a bite wound. Near him was a sea of tiny red dots flowing from the bite. These probably were the threats that the Xeno Probe talked about. Speaking of which Jules found having to refer to voice as ¡®Xeno Probe¡¯ to be annoying. Preferring to use names Jules decided to rename the probe.


    ¡®Xeno Probe. I will now refer to you as Xena!¡¯ Coming up with uncreative names was one of his specialties.


    [Beep! Order received. ¡®Xeno Probe 879402¡¯ has been renamed to ¡®Xena¡¯.]¡¯


    With this Jules felt like things were starting to get better for him. Following the holographic map, Jules quickly found himself in a space with next to no other bacteria. Once he had found a nice empty spot he decided to experiment.


    ¡®Since I¡¯m a bacteria, I should be able to replicate right?¡¯ Thinking back to his biology class at school he decided to try absorbing some on the surrounding fluids.


    As the fluid entered his body, he felt the strange energy within building up inside him. Over a few minutes, the energy quickly filled him up, pushing outwards, making him feel inflated like a balloon. When he felt he was about to explode, his body started stretching until it reached twice its original length. At this point, it started to shrink right in the middle until it was separated into two.


    This was an extremely weird feeling for Jules. He still had control of his original body, but on top of that, he felt that his consciousness was split between the two bodies! This created a huge sense of relief as he was worried, he would remain a single bacterium until he died. But now that he knew that his mind was not tied to a single body but instead to the species, he felt like he had a chance at survival!


    Over what felt like hours, Jules had greedily been absorbing the fluid to increase his numbers. Now that he had over 10 thousand bacteria, he decided to try eliminating some of the threats. This body was not big enough for the two of them.


    ¡®Xena, bring up the other bacteria¡¯s stats and name them ¡®Alpha bacteria¡¯.¡¯


    [Beep! Displaying Alpha Bacteria stats:


    Similarity to host: 95%


    Numbers: Estimated, 1 Billion


    Location: Torso and left arm (dead)You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    Individual threat level to host: None


    Group threat level to host: A]


    Is Jules could be smiling this is exactly what he would have been doing right now. He picked out a few isolated Alpha bacteria and surrounded them with hundreds of his own. He had one of them move forward to see how the Alpha bacteria would react. It slowly made its way towards Jules¡¯ bacteria and suddenly, in a fraction of a second, it stretched out and engulfed its opponent. Within seconds it had been completely assimilated and the Alpha bacteria had divided. This was significantly faster than just sitting there and absorbing the fluid!


    Mimicking the Alpha bacteria, Jules started attacking all of the isolated ones to quickly increase his numbers. After dealing with all those present in his area, he had managed to build up his numbers to over 100 thousand! By this point, he definitely no longer focused on each of his bacteria. Although he could still control them individually if he wanted to, he was more like a strategist sitting behind the scenes.


    ¡®Xena bring up the map.¡¯


    Now that Jules had over 100 thousand bodies providing him with information, the map was now far more accurate. However what worries Jules is that within that time, the Alpha bacteria had reached numbers of nearly 1.5 billion. Once they ran out of space to take over, Jules was sure he would be their next target. And if was not strong enough by then, he would be completely eradicated.


    On the map, a green area, the size of a needle head, near the elbow was visible. This area was the are that Jules had under control. Extending from the bite was a small area in dense red that gradually dimed the further out it got, going as far as the torso, this was the Alpha bacteria¡¯s territory. Despite having hunted a lot of these, the casualties Jules had inflicted upon them was insignificant.


    However, all hope was not lost, Jules had a plan. He got all of his bacteria to move up towards the shoulder, killing all Alpha bacteria they met on the way. Thanks to his tactics the brainless germs stood no chances as long as they did not possess overwhelming numbers. On a few occasions, Jules sensed huge gatherings of Alpha bacteria and avoided them. This trip allowed Jules to increase his forces by another 100 thousand.


    Jules now occupied an area slightly below the shoulder. The concentration of Alpha bacteria there was much lower than where he was before. Thanks to that, Jules was able to quickly build up his forces.


    With time the concentration of Alpha bacteria within the arm had increased tremendously. Having foreseen this Jules had been slowly eating away at their numbers while increasing his. He had also sent small groups to eliminate the Alpha bacteria population within the torso. He now had over 5 million bacteria under his control and had deployed them in a ring completely sealing off the arm from the rest of the body. Due to this all alpha bacteria that tried to make their way across were ruthlessly absorbed. If they were to ever make their way across, they would have to charge in huge numbers. However, these possessed no intellect and therefore such a coordinated attack was impossible.


    Although the current concentration of Alpha bacteria in that area was not enough to alarm Jules, it had been slowly increasing. If this were to keep going, they would eventually manage to breach through. Jules could only hope that he would have enough numbers by then.


    The concentration of Alpha bacteria near Jules had reached a critical point. Their numbers within the arm alone had reached over 50 billion compared to Jules¡¯ meager 100 million. Due to this, they were applying significant pressure on the blockade that Jules had created. They were currently in a stalemate; Jules was absorbing the Alpha bacteria as quickly as they were absorbing Jules back.


    The tide of the battle was slowly turning against Jules when he suddenly heard Xena¡¯s voice, immediately putting a smile on his ¡®face¡¯.


    ¡®[Beep! Analysis of Alpha Bacteria complete. Some components could not be comprehended. Weaknesses have been identified. Optimal attack plan created!]¡¯


    Soon after having renamed Xena, he had been playing around with her functions to figure out what she was capable of. It seemed Xena was capable of super powerful computing far exceeding that of supercomputers in his old world. With a bit of searching, he had quickly found the analyzing feature. He had tasked her with analyzing the Alpha bacteria, and now she had just finished that task. He had also discovered another of her ability, ¡®memory transfer¡¯. Xena had the ability to transfer any information directly to Jules¡¯ memory, saving him the time he would have taken to learn it as well as giving him an in-depth comprehension.


    ¡®Some components could not be comprehended?¡¯ He asked himself.


    ¡®Whatever. Let¡¯s put that optimal plan of attack into action¡¯ he eagerly thought.


    Although Jules no longer controlled the bacteria individually at this point, since they were part of him, he was somehow able to get them to follow specific instructions. He got Xena to transfer the plan to his memory. The process was painless; however, he could feel the information entering his mind. This was a very strange feeling to him because although he had never learned that information before, it was as clear as if he had spent years engraving it in his mind.


    Now having the process in his mind, Jules ordered his bacteria to follow it. This action resulted in an instant change in the tides of battle. Each of his bacteria was now guaranteed to win against the other side one on one. He no longer had to group up on each Alpha bacterium to take them out. This gave him a huge upper hand.


    Thanks to Xena¡¯s tremendous analysis power, Jules¡¯ forces managed to rapidly increase in numbers and might. Nonetheless, when compared to the Alpha bacteria¡¯s growth rate this was still not long enough.


    After another while, the battle was back to a stalemate. The Alpha bacteria had now reached unbelievably large amounts and even showed signs of coordination! Xena could detect that most of them were making there way up to the shoulder to group up and launch a coordinated attack. Even if only a third of the 200 billion bacteria made their way up, that would be plenty enough to take care of Jules¡¯ one billion.


    Surprisingly Jules remained calm upon learning of this. All he did was watch as his forces were slowly decreasing in numbers.


    The time for the Alpha bacteria to launch their attack had finally arrived. A huge wave consisting of 100 billion bacteria invaded Jules¡¯ territory. Jules had put up a fight, however, there was nothing he could as he was being engulfed bit by bit. Soon enough nothing was left of Jules. The Alpha bacteria seemingly rejoiced at having eliminated the enemy that had been annoying them for so long. As they were about to go invade the torso, a tremendous wave of 150 billion bacteria surged out of it. It was Jules!


    Jules had sneakily been sending his own bacteria to the torso. Through the help of Xena, he had been able to optimize their growth within the body. Since these were not fighting, they were able to replicate at exponential speeds. The blockade¡¯s sole purpose was to delay the Alpha bacteria so that he could build up his own force.


    He had sent 9% of these to go attack the Alpha bacteria. Due to his superior numbers and technique, Jules made short work of the enemy bacteria army. Following which he swiftly conquered the arm back. And exterminated the remaining of the Alpha bacteria. This was an absolute victory!


    In no time he completely took over the body, his numbers reaching over a few trillions! He was sure that with time he would have been able to reach at least 30 trillion bodies.


    Still celebrating his victory Jules was relaxing when he suddenly felt the attraction of his original bacterial body. Focussing his attention on it he could tell that it was somewhere within the brain of the body. The cell started shaking and started to glow. The light got stronger and stronger, even though Jules no longer had any eyesto be blinded by. The light slowly dimmed revealing clouds and the outline of some trees.


    Somewhere in the Arcane world. The body of a dead girl called Anne that had met a grim fate suddenly opened its eyes.

 Chapter 3 - The Arcane World

    The bright light originating from Jules¡¯ core cell slowly dimmed revealing the outline of multiple clouds.


    ¡®What just happened?¡¯ Jules thought in confusion.


    Jules had been suffering from a weird chain of events up until this point; he had been killed in alien crossfire causing him to be reincarnated anew with a super powerful alien probe in his head. As if this wasn¡¯t enough, he had become a bacteria and had been thrown in a hostile environment right from the get-go. With a stroke of luck and ingenuity, he had been able to successfully survive only to find himself forced into yet another strange situation. It would be an understatement to say that he was handling this situation really well.


    Judging from what had just happened, Jules thought it safe to assume that he had merged with the brain of the corpse he had reincarnated in. After going through such far-fetched circumstances, Jules had no troubles accepting the idea that he had merged with his host.


    Since he had been reflecting on what had just happened, Jules had completely forgotten that he could now see! Overflowing with delight due to his newly recovered sight, Jules sat up and looked around.


    He was sitting in a small clearing in which an abundance of tall grass was growing wildly as if fighting one another to reach the sky. In the center of the clearing sat an old broken down well that had probably sustained many families back in its prime. Large trees grew on the outskirts of the grassy area seemingly isolating it within a dense and lively forest.


    An expression of surprised appeared on Jules¡¯ face; it was nigh time! How had he not realized that before? Everything looked as clear to him as if it was daytime. If it was not for him looking up and noticing the stars and the moon, Jules would not have been able to tell that it was not daytime!


    ¡®How is this possible?¡¯ he asked himself.


    ¡®[Beep! Sensory input from the host has been enhanced automatically upon acquiring senses.]¡¯ A female robotic voice sounded in his head. This was Xena an alien artificial intelligence that had come to this world with him. It seemed she had the ability to take in any sensory information from his body and optimize it to essentially give Jules super senses!


    ¡°That¡¯s so cool!¡± Jules exclaimed out loud in a surprisingly high-pitched voice before giving way to confusion once more.


    ¡®Why is my voice so high pitched?¡¯ He thought.


    A quick look at his new body that he had yet to take notice of was enough to answer his question. He had merged with a girl¡¯s body!


    ¡®What? Really? Why do I keep being so unlucky? I never asked for all of this to happen.¡¯ he thought with a mixture of sadness and exasperation on his face.


    ¡®Sitting around and cursing my misfortune isn¡¯t going to achieve much.¡¯ He resolutely decided, filled with optimism about his new life.


    He stood up and had a look at himself. He wasn¡¯t nearly as tall as he used to be, and he now had long blond hairs that easily reached past his shoulders. A quick check of his body, to his regret, confirmed that he was indeed fully female. His body was slightly malnourished and severely wounded with two bullet wounds and a huge bite mark.


    Surprisingly Jules could not feel any pain, yet his sense of touch had remained intact. Curious, Jules asked Xena if this was her doing.


    ¡®[Beep! Negative. No pain has been intercepted.]¡¯ the monotonous voice replied.


    ¡®What the hell happened to this girl for her body to be such a mess?¡¯ Jules thought with surprise and curiosity.


    This simple question seemed to have caused something to change within his mind. He couldn¡¯t quite pinpoint what it was until he felt something starting to break within him. Before he could even formulate another thought, a wall within his mind broke. A flood of emotions and memory fragments surging from deep within completely drowned his consciousness.


    These were memories and emotions coming from the body¡¯s original owner and seemed to have been triggered by Jules enquiring about her! Under this vortex, there was nothing Jules could do but experience all of her life in fragments first-hand while burning in the fury of her emotions. After what seemed to be hours the intense emotions and memories had now been completely absorbed by Jules.


    Jules had completely merged with Anne¡¯s remnants. If it were not for the fact that these were incomplete, Jules¡¯ identity might have completely fused with Anne¡¯s as well.


    Filled with a new sense of injustice originating from the memory fragments, Jules¡¯ hatred for human nature grew by leaps and bounds. What he wanted more than anything was to get revenge on this despicable trash that was Todd. As he was about to rashly chase after Todd a familiar voice resounded within his mind.


    ¡®[Beep! Host¡¯s mind is unstable. Source determined to be disorder in memories. Beginning tidying procedure.]¡¯


    Within moments Jules found his mind to get clearer, however, his hatred remained deeply rooted. Regardless, if it wasn¡¯t for Xena he might have fallen into insanity and he was deeply grateful for her help. She had reorganized all his new memories and emotions so that his mind became stable again.


    Jules carefully had a look at his new memories and quickly came to a surprising conclusion. It seemed that he had become a zombie strand, that would explain why he was a bacteria and did not feel any pain! That would mean that Anne was his patient zero and her body was now his core. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that his blood was black and that his heart wasn¡¯t beating. Jules found this to be fascinating.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    On the other hand, it seemed that having become a zombie, he would be killed on sight by any human capable of doing so. This was due to a deeply rooted hatred between humans and zombie that had been around for as long as anyone could remember.


    Digging a bit deeper in Anne¡¯s memories Jules found that the world he had reincarnated in was called the Arcane world. This world¡¯s landmass mainly consisted of four huge continents that each took their quarter of the world. He roughly estimated using Anne¡¯s memories that each continent had more than 10 times the surface area of his old earth! They were the Holy continent, Wild continent, Plague continent, and the Tribal continent. They were arranged in such a way that the Plague and Holy continent were on opposite sides of the planet, the same went for the Wild and the Tribal continent.


    The city of Largen was situated near the east coast of the Wild continent. The Wild continent was home to many powerful wild beasts. Although it was inhabited by both humans and zombies, neither species were dominating this area. On the other hand, humans and zombies each had a continent under their control. The zombies infested the Plague continent whereas the humans occupied the Holy continent situated at the east of the Wild continent. Largen used to be a colony from the Holy continent, which explained its location.


    It also seemed that the technological and scientific level of this world was similar to that of the industrial revolution. Yet, this world had something more, it had arcane magic! It was the science of studying magic, this allowed them to create complex and unique technologies that Jules¡¯ old world had not even come close to making! Things such as weather making stations, or sentient artificial intelligence, or even golems which were the equivalent of robots that could reach the heights of skyscrapers!


    Now having gained a deeper understanding of this new world, Jules felt more comfortable to take action. The first thing he would do was take revenge on Todd. However, since he had been lucky enough to be reincarnated and had sworn to himself that he would never be taken advantage of again, Jules would under no circumstances endanger his life unless it was unavoidable.


    According to Anne¡¯s last memories, Todd had fled right after shooting her. If he was still in the forest and had yet to reach the city, there would be a chance to Jules to get his vengeance. Sadly, Jules had no ideas as of how long ago all of this had happened. Just judging from his time as a bacteria, days could have passed since the incident.


    Regretfully he decided not to pursue this matter for the time being. Since he was now standing up he could notice the few nearby corpses that had resulted from the zombie attack.


    He slowly walked to Thomas and closed his eyes that were still filled with terror gently.


    ¡°I swear I¡¯ll avenge you!¡± he promised to both himself and Thomas.


    Despite Thomas not being his real brother, he had inherited Anne¡¯s memories and will. It could be said that she was a part of him.


    In order to at least give Anne¡¯s brother a decent farewell, Jules dug a grave with a suitable shaped rock from the well and gently deposited Thomas within it. As he was filling up the grave, he reflected on a few things about his new body that he had noticed while digging.


    It seemed that this body was quite strong and sturdy. Jules was confused since according to Anne¡¯s memories, people in this world were about as strong on average as those from his old world, and Anne surely did not shine amongst them.


    ¡®Could this be due to becoming a zombie? Maybe since I can¡¯t feel pain, I¡¯m able to use more strength. Or perhaps maybe the bacteria have merged with my muscle cells giving them extra power.¡¯ He thought as an idea appeared within his mind.


    ¡®Xena! What¡¯s my body¡¯s current stats compared to an average individual from this world using Anne¡¯s memories? Use 1 as the average value.¡¯ he enquired within his mind.


    ¡®[Beep! Task established. Beginning average statistic simulation!] [Beep! Average statistics established! Beginning host body¡¯s scan.] [Beep! Stats have been calculated!] [Name: Anne Martel (Jules Argent). Species: Zombie (Strand). Body statistics: Strength - 1.5, Vitality ¨C 0, Agility ¨C 1.4. Mind statistics: Intelligence ¨C 1.3, Perception ¨C 0.9 (2.5).]¡¯ A voice rang out as a blue hologram displaying stats appeared in Jules¡¯ mind.


    It seemed that due to having become a zombie, his strength and agility had risen above average, however, his vitality was at zero. Presumably, due to being a corpse, that would mean that he did not have the ability to heal and moreover would probably start rotting soon. Putting this unpleasant thought aside he took a look at the mind stats. His intelligence was slightly above average, this seems to be roughly the same as it was back in his old world. However, his perception was slightly lower than average standing at 0.9, luckily thanks to Xena this was increased to 2.5!


    Jules was rather surprised by how different all of his stats were from the average and was surprisingly happy at such good abilities. On the other hand, his 0 in vitality was an issue he would have to address soon in the future. However now was not the time for it, as he had just heard a noise similar to someone running coming from the forest.


    -


    ¡°Dammit! Damn it all! Why did this stupid bitch have to bloody infect me before dying! I hope she rots in hell for all of eternity!¡± An angry voice resounded.


    Todd had been running for the city as soon as he had been infected. He knew he only had a couple of days at most before he would die if left untreated. Due to this, he was completely unwilling to lose even a fraction of a second. Sadly, karma had caught up to him, as he was about to reach the city gates, he realized the absence of identification papers within his chest pocket! Without it, there was no chance for the guards to let him in at night even more so when considering he was infected.


    Thinking through the events of the past hour, Todd realized that he had probably dropped them when he took his gun out. Due to this, he found himself running back to the clearing as fast as his severely unfit body would allow him to. He kept cursing Anne as he ran for the whole trip back, breathing heavily while large amounts of sweat rolled down his forehead.


    By the time he had arrived at the clearing again, the wound in his neck had started to hurt atrociously. He hurried along to the spot his identification papers should have fallen.


    He quickly found them after searching for a short while, letting out a huge sigh of relief. However, as he stood back up, instead of showing signs of relief a concerned look was displayed on his face. Something was not right about the clearing. Looking around carefully, Todd quickly realized something was missing.


    Thomas¡¯ corpse wasn¡¯t where he had left it! Instead, he found a grave nearby that had not been there when he left. He immediately looked at where Anne¡¯s corpse ought to be. Nothing. It wasn¡¯t there, this terrific revelation caused a chill to go down his spine.


    As he was about to leave, he heard the last thing he ever wanted to hear in his life coming from behind him.


    ¡°Well, well, well. Who do we have here?¡± Said vicious female voice that seemed to be filled to the brim with the intent of killing him.

 Chapter 4 - My Very Own Zombie

    Jules had been reflecting on the implications of his stats when he had heard the sound of footsteps coming from the forest. Without a second thought, he ran to hide behind some nearby trees. The footsteps could very well belong to someone investigating what had happened there previously. After all, a zombie threat was something the city could not afford to ignore. Luckily thanks to Xena¡¯s perception buff Jules had plenty of time to find a nice hiding position. He hid within a bush that allowed him to have a nice view of the clearing while remaining undetected.


    As the seconds went past the footsteps progressively got louder and clearer. Jules could tell from the sound that the person was rather heavy and exhausted due to their unstable pace. Within a few more seconds he could hear loud puffs as a short and bald chubby man emerged from the tree line. Jules instantly recognized him to be Todd! His blood suddenly started to boil at the thought of revenge. However, he forced himself to calm down, he had to be cautious, after all, Todd had a gun and Jules clearly knew what it was capable of. With this thought, Jules decided to remain hidden a little longer to look for a good opportunity.


    After bursting into the clearing, Todd stopped to take a look around and then ran towards the area where the corpses of a man and a zombie lied. As soon as he got there he dropped on his knees and began to frantically search for something within the grass. After a few minutes, the short man stood back up with a bright smile on his face. However, that did not last long as he noticed something seemed to be amiss within the clearing.


    ¡°Damn, if he realizes I¡¯m not dead then I¡¯ll lose the advantage of surprise.¡± Jules whispered quietly.


    However, an opportunity quickly arose. Todd had just realized that Anne¡¯s corpse was no longer there causing him to freeze in shock for a moment. This was enough time for Jules to sneak behind him thanks to his superior physical abilities.


    Without a second thought he said:


    ¡°Well, well, well. Who do we have here?¡± In a cruel voice that did not hide his intent to kill Todd.


    This sentence had the desired effect as Todd¡¯s face instantly turned pale and proceeded to slowly turn around. An expression of fear revealed itself to Jules as the man¡¯s face slowly came into view. On the other side, the bald man took a couple of seconds to understand what he was seeing. Anne was alive despite her wounds. ¡®Could it be she survived her wound?¡¯ the chubby man though. However, upon closer inspection he could tell her blood was black and she was not bleeding.


    ¡°Z-z-zombie! You became a zombie!¡± He shouted in fear.


    ¡°Get away from me!¡± He exclaimed as he took a few steps backward.


    As he was retreating, his attention was solely focussed on Jules and he failed to notice the tree root behind his feet. As he took a step back his foot hit the root and he fell on his rear. Having realized that this would make him unable to escape he tried to take his pistol out. However, it was too late, Jules filled with hatred had already thrown himself at him. Out of control he tried to rip out Todd¡¯s throat with his own mouth but was blocked by his left arm.


    As Jules was biting down furiously on Todd¡¯s left arm, the short man held his gun resolutely in his right hand and aimed it at Jules. As he was about the pull the trigger his arm was violently swatted away by Jules who had noticed his attempt, sending the gun flying. This created an opening for Jules as he swiftly let go of Todd¡¯s left arm and bit down on his throat.


    The bald man screamed in agony and blood endlessly gushed out of his wound, pouring into Jules¡¯ mouth. Jules had fully lost control at this point as was drinking the blood in large amounts as it sprayed everywhere. The previous wounds on Jules¡¯ body were starting to close at a rapid pace. Soon enough the bite mark on his new body had disappeared and his bullet wounds were partially closed.


    Within seconds Todd had stopped moving as life left his eyes. Felling that he had defeated his opponent and enacted his revenge, Jules looked up at the sky and let out a huge roar that echoes within the woods at the top of his lungs.


    In a weird twist of fate, the root Todd had tripped on happened to be the same that caused Anne to fall in her struggle against the zombie.


    After a few minutes of panting, Jules slowly regained his consciousness.


    ¡®What the hell have I just done! I killed him and drank his blood!¡¯ Jules couldn¡¯t help but feel ashamed at what he had done. This behavior was completely inhumane. However, upon deeper reflection Jules did not feel troubled by his actions, it felt natural to do this for him.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    ¡®Could it be because I¡¯m a zombie and that¡¯s just what zombies do?¡¯ Putting these thoughts aside the thing that bothered him most was that he had lost control, if he wanted to survive in this world it was imperative for him to remain clear headed. This was a fatal flaw that if not remedied would probably cause him much trouble in the future.


    Meanwhile, as Jules was deep in thoughts, he felt a sudden stream of energy entering his body. The energy went into every cell in his body and began to revitalize and strengthen them. Jules was extremely surprised as the pleasant sensation spread throughout his body but seemingly concentrating in his head and heart.


    After the sensation had ceased Jules, feeling invigorated, asked Xena to bring up his stats.


    ¡®[Beep! Name: Anne Martel (Jules Argent). Species: Zombie (Strand). Body statistics: Strength - 1.6, Vitality ¨C 0.1, Agility ¨C 1.5. Mind statistics: Intelligence ¨C 1.3, Perception ¨C 1.0 (2.7).]¡¯


    It seemed that this energy had increased all of his body statistics and his perception by 0.1! Moreover, it seemed his vitality was no longer 0. This meant that he would no longer have to worry about his body rotting. If he focused hard enough, he could actually feel a very faint heartbeat originating from within his chest. He no longer had to fear decay!


    Despite being overjoyed by these new, Jules still felt uneasy. ¡®What could have caused this sudden energy rush?¡¯ he asked himself.


    Without warning a shadow appeared behind him and made a grunting noise that startled him, immediately causing him to get his guard up ready to fight. He turned around only see Todd staring at him with a weird expression. He looked pale and lifeless, his eyes were glossing and didn¡¯t seem to have any life behind them. It was as in he had lost all intelligence. He couldn¡¯t even stand properly and was clearly struggling to move. Upon looking at Todd, Jules immediately felt a connection with the creature establish within his mind.


    This gave him an instant comprehension of what had just happened. It seemed that Todd had turned into a zombie. Jules¡¯ zombie to be more precise! Jules could clearly feel many of his bacteria currently residing within Todd. It seemed that for some reason, gaining a new zombie caused an amount of energy originating from that zombie would make its way to Jules¡¯ body. Though at this point, Jules had no real ideas as of why. One thing was clear to him however, the more zombies he got, the stronger he would get.


    Jules also felt that through his connection he could see and hear all that Todd does as well as give him orders. It seemed that these orders did not even need to be thoughts, a simple intention for them to do something would cause the zombies to act. This made them extremely convenient and easy to use. It was almost as if they were an extension of Jules himself. Jules was pulled out of his curious thought when a familiar voice appeared.


    ¡®[Beep! New connection to the host¡¯s mind detected. Beginning analysis!] ¡­ [Beep! Analysis complete. Connection determined to be a link to an auxiliary body. Scan of auxiliary body possible. Proceed (Y/N)?]¡¯


    ¡®Yes.¡¯ Jules replied curiously.


    ¡®[Beep! Beginning auxiliary body scan!] ¡­ [Beep! Scan complete! Auxiliary body analyzed. Displaying auxiliary body stats.] [Name: Todd Rodfield. Species: Zombie (Auxiliary body). Body statistics: Strength - 1.2, Vitality ¨C 0.0, Agility ¨C 1.0. Mind statistics: Intelligence ¨C 0.2, Perception ¨C 0.6.]¡¯


    Jules silently noted that Todd¡¯s zombie did seem capable of independent reasoning, albeit at rudimentary levels. Overall the zombie was weaker that Jules was when he first became one. ¡®Could this be dues to the fact that I am the core zombie and not an auxiliary body?¡¯ he thought. However, Xena interrupted him once more.


    ¡®[Beep! Auxiliary body brain structure fully analyzed. Memory extraction is possible. Proceed (Y/N)?]¡¯


    ¡®Of course.¡¯ Jules eagerly thought, any opportunity to get more information in this situation was worth gold.


    ¡®[Beep! Beginning extraction!] ¡­ [Beep! Extraction complete! Beginning memory transfer.]¡¯


    Jules felt the memories slowly enter his head. However, when compared to Anne¡¯s memories these were significantly less chaotic and did not merge with him. They only became accessible to him. Within minutes Jules had looked at all of the important information within Todd¡¯s memories. If he knew what had happened to him, Jules was sure Todd would be livid.


    Jules was now aware of every dirty deal Todd had been involved in. On top of this, he had managed to get access to some more detailed information about zombies! Apparently, zombies followed a weird system to get stronger. They would infect individuals and upon reaching a certain threshold some distinct change in their physic would occur, making them even stronger. It seemed that the first threshold was reached after a strand had gathered 10 zombies. This would cause the core zombie to develop a ¡®plague heart¡¯ that allowed them to spread their plague through the air in a small area near them. Although Todd¡¯s memories were not really clear on what would happen next, it was clear enough to Jules that the more zombies he would get at this stage the stronger the plague heart would become.


    Having gained all of this new information Jules promptly decided to leave the clearing. After all, Todd was an important person within Largen. As soon as it was discovered that he went missing, there would be individuals investigating his disappearance. At that time Jules hoped that he would be long gone because he knew for a fact that once the zombie corpses were discovered, a large-scale zombie hunt would be started. If this were to happen while he was still around, he would surely be killed right here and there.


    Jules contemplated burning all of the corpses present to try and hide the fact that there were zombies around but quickly decided against it. The fire would alert guards and this area would be quickly discovered. With a bit of investigating, Jules was sure they would be able to find traces of zombies within the woods.


    With this in thought, Jules promptly made his way deeper into the forest with a zombified Todd in tow.

 Chapter 5 - Schemes

    Jules had been making his way through the forest for over an hour at this point. Due to his low vitality, he was forced to take many breaks in order to make sure he would not hurt his body. Due to having no vitality, normal zombies would not bother with taking care of their bodies since it would break down regardless. Or even more simply, because they were to dumb to think about it. Luckily Jules was smart since he couldn''t feel fatigued, he had Xena notify him whenever he needed to take a break. Afterall he did not want to stupidly bring harm to this new body of his especially knowing that it would take a very long time to heal due to his low vitality.


    As he was walking, he had Xena explain more thoroughly how the stat system she came up with worked.


    Vitality was the measure of the metabolic strength of the body. If your vitality reached 0 you were considered dead. The benefits of having high vitality would be faster healing, stronger immune system, more endurance, better resistance to poison and enhanced organs. Jules¡¯ core body¡¯s vitality went from 0 to 0.1 before and was able to come back to life due to a weird energy. On the other hand, it seemed his auxiliary bodies, aka zombies, were more like autonomous puppets and remained dead.


    Strength was pretty simple; it was the average of how strong one¡¯s muscles were throughout their body. Individuals with great strength would have high defensive and offensive ability.


    Agility covered how well an individual was able to control their body, it included flexibility, accuracy, coordination and fine movements. Those with high agility would be very good at using their hand for tasks such as crafting or even theft.


    Intelligence was for the intellectual prowess of an individual. It included thought depth and speed, learning, comprehension, planning and emotional control. It went without saying that anyone with high intelligence would be considered a genius.


    Lastly, perception measured how well an individual processed information from its senses. This encompassed processing speed and accuracy of all senses including sight, smell, hearing, touch, time, balance and body awareness. Individuals with high perception were even able to feel time go in slow motion if they wanted to.


    This made Jules rather satisfied with his current statistics. Originally, upon further thoughts, Jules was rather afraid that his core body would be rather vulnerable to diseases due to its low vitality. He quickly realized that in fact he already had an extremely good immune system. They were the trillions of overpowered bacteria within his body that obeyed all of his commands. Therefore, he did not have to fear for the two partially healed bullet wounds to get infected.


    Those wounds had originally killed the previous owner of his new body; Anne. Later due to his zombie nature, he had entered a frenzied state caused and had drunk a lot of blood. This seemed to have caused the wounds to heal at a surprising pace. Although the wounds were not fully healed, Jules was much better off than if they were not. Therefore, he logically deduced that there should be something in the blood that caused zombies to regenerate. He even speculated that he might be able to extend how long his zombies would take to rot if he fed them blood.


    After a few more hours of walking, Jules stumbled upon what seemed to be a camp. This would be a great opportunity to strengthen himself. Afterall he didn¡¯t have many zombies and it seemed that according to Todd and Anne¡¯s memories there were plenty of people or creatures far stronger than he currently was.


    Besides that, Jules had completely forsaken humans and his own humanity. To him, they were just tools to increase in power. He was very resolute in his heart that he would eradicate all humanity in order to get rid of the injustice it brings. He would not take pity on anyone, they only had themselves to blame for being born human. Afterall even if they were innocent at that moment, it was certain that due to their nature they would eventually turn into despicable beings. The world was just better off without them.


    Back to reality, Jules did not immediately rush into the camp. This simply was a foolish thing to do, he didn¡¯t even know how many people resided there! Therefore, he decided to stay put and watch the camp.


    Jules had been watching for over a day before feeling reasonably sure of the number of people living within this camp. It seemed that they were bandits and a whole eight of them. He could tell since these guys did not seem to have jobs and yet were quite wealthy and armed to the teeth. They also looked viscous and quite bloodthirsty. On a few occasions, some of them had wandered near Jules, luckily, he had managed to remain unnoticed to them thanks to his perception. He detected them far before they could notice him, therefore, it allowed him to move away before they came too close.


    During this wait, he had also discovered another one of Xena¡¯s abilities. It seemed that by analyzing the looks, movements, and interactions of an individual, she was able to create an approximation of their stats. This had allowed Jules to notice two individuals that had significantly higher stats than normal within the group. One had a strength near 2 whereas the other one had agility close to 2 as well. However, it seemed that both of them had similar vitality as well.


    ¡®Perhaps it''s due to having another high stat.¡¯ Jules theorized.


    On that though, Jules put it aside to focus on the present, those bandits weren¡¯t going to become zombies by themselves. Due to those two above average individuals, Jules definitely would not be able to fight them without dying, especially when considering how low his vitality was. Even if he sent Todd, those guys would probably be able to take him out without getting infected. But they were far too good of a target to let go.


    After all these guys were bandits. They had no one backing them and nobody would miss them. If they were to suddenly disappear, it would just be assumed that they had moved away, and people would rejoice. Nobody would bother checking what had happened to them. This meant that if Jules was able to turn them into zombies, he would not have to be wary of any retaliation from stronger powers like Largen as long as he did not let any escape.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    Due to this Jules spent a while to think of a good plan.


    A pretty looking girl ran out of the wood towards the bandit, she was injured and clearly looking for help. One of the bandits on guard duty noticed her and called out for the others to come to have a look at this peculiar event.


    As the others arrived, the girl threw herself into the arms of the guard. She was seemingly crying and mumbling something about having been chased into this forest. They quickly learned that she was called Anne and had been robbed on her way to Largen from a nearby village. She had been forced to run into the forest while injured. Luckily, she had managed to survive for a few days, however, she was completely lost. Now that she had finally found some people she was completely overjoyed.


    The bandits, seeing an opportunity, looked and smiled at each other with obvious perverted intentions. They were clearly looking at taking advantage of the situation to have some fun later on this evening. They took the girl to one of their tents, gave her the opportunity to clean her wounds, some food and a bed to rest.


    The girl seemed not to have noticed their looks and continued to express extreme gratitude to them.


    After the girl had gone in, the bandits sat around a campfire and started making preparations for dinner. Of course, there was plenty of talk about the great opportunity that had literally walked into their camp. After all this girl was rather pretty, this was an unusual thing to come across.


    A small while later the girl came out of the tent looking refreshed from a nice nap. After she probably hadn¡¯t gotten any good sleep in the past few days. She went to sit by the bandits and engaged in a conversation with them. The bandits feigned being happy at knowing she felt better after having cleaned her wounds and eaten a bit. However, her clothes were still stained in blood and her face remained dirty. The bandits made a quick mental note to remedy that before the evening. They still did their best to remain courteous, after all, they preferred it if the girl were to willingly join in with their fun. This would sadly not stop them from forcing her to do so if she refused.


    In an effort to show her gratefulness the girl offered to serve dinner. Dinner looked to be some sort of soup with a few chunks of meat and vegetables flowing within. It smelled surprisingly good.


    The bandits were too happy at having stumbled upon such good fortune to notice the girl pricking her finger with a knife before letting some of her blood drip within the soup. Surprisingly, instead of being crimson, these droplets of blood were of a pure black. In fact, if someone were to look carefully at the girl, they would notice that her veins were black. This, however, was very hard to discern due to the dirt present all over her body, almost as if it had been done intentionally.


    The girl gently stirred the soup and began to serve the bandits one by one and then proceeded to serve herself some. She sat down and began eating with them, not letting a single of her emotions hint at what she had done previously. Her acting was perfect.


    At one point during the evening, one of the men excuses himself and leaves saying he needed some fresh air as he was not feeling so well. Time went by and the man still hadn¡¯t returned. An extremely strong looking that seemed to be the leader expressed his concerns as of why the man had not returned yet and sent another to check up on him. After another while, neither man had returned. A look of worry now occupied the leader¡¯s face, this could be an attack!


    He got everybody to grab their weapons as he grabbed a huge sword and to follow him towards where the two men had gone. They were quickly spotted by one of the bandits lying down on their front in the grass. The leader took the lead and made his way to them. Having reached them he kneeled and grabbed onto one man proceeding to flip him on his back.


    The man¡¯s face revealed a panicked expression, his throat held marks of having been clutched strongly. It seemed that the man had been strangled. The leader instantly stood up and looked around looking extremely worried and focussed. He instructed the others to be on their guard as well. It seemed there was a killer roaming within their base. He ordered them in a circular formation with their back facing the center, and in the center was the girl.


    Nothing had been happening for a while. Tension was high and many of the bandits had been startled by either the wind or a couple of nearby small animal. The killer had yet to reveal themselves, they probably did not want to fight the bandits as a group. They would be at a disadvantage if they did so.


    Suddenly, one of the bandits started grasping at his neck as if chocking. His eyes revealed terror as he grasped for his neck in a futile attempt to recover his ability to breath. He was quickly followed by another bandit, and another and one more. Quickly four of the bandits found themselves struggling for their lives, trying to recover their breath in a frantic panic. The leader and a person that seemed to be his right-hand man looked extremely confused as all of his remaining men suddenly started choking.


    Within no time all four of the men had fallen to the ground and died. The leader and his right-hand man had not seen any attack, yet his mean had suddenly died. ¡®Could it be poison?¡¯ he thought. Perhaps they had been shot with poisoned darts or something of the likes.


    Soon enough the leader found his mind to get dizzy. At this moment he heard the girl at his side talk in a melodious yet sinister voice.


    ¡°I can¡¯t actually believe it all actually went so smoothly. Leader. Thank you very much for your hospitality. However, I¡¯m afraid there is one more thing I must request from you, and that is your life.¡± She said with a satisfied smirk on her face.


    This girl actually happened to be Jules! He had tricked them all into believing he was a defenseless girl and used that opportunity to sneak his bacteria in their food. All of these men had died from them. It normally took significantly longer for zombie infections to normally kill someone. Unluckily for them, Jules was the one controlling it. He could get all of the bacteria within their body suddenly accumulate within their throat at will. This blocked their airway and caused them to suffocate. After all, dead people were much easier to infect than living one, therefore, it was in his best interest to kill them as soon as he could.


    ¡°You bitch!¡± The leader exclaimed loudly.


    He took a step forward and tried to hit Jules with a huge swing of his massive sword. If Jules were to be hit by that he would surely be killed. Surprisingly the blow never came. The leader had been restrained by two odd figures. These were the two bandits that had died early on! Moreover, they were actually zombies!


    The leader had not expected that in the slightest. If anything, he thought Jules was part of an organization that meant them harm, not a zombie!


    Within seconds of struggling, he felt a ball grow within his throat. Quickly that ball had blocked his airway and had caused him to start to suffocate. Due to his superior vitality, his immune system had greatly slowed down the spread of the bacteria. Sadly for him, the bacteria had infected him a while ago and have had plenty of time to replicate.


    Next to him, his right-hand man who also had high vitality had finally started to suffocate as well. Within a couple of minutes, both of them had stopped moving and fell on the ground.


    The moment their bodies lost all life Jules exclaimed with a bright smile.


    ¡°This plan was a great success!¡±

 Chapter 6 - Power Up

    As the leader and his right-hand man collapsed Jules was filled with delight. He could not wait to finally reap the rewards of his fight.


    It wasn¡¯t long before his wish was fulfilled. Jules could feel lots of energy making its way into his body from each of the corpses. His bacteria were replicating within the corpses and seemingly absorbing huge quantities of this unknown power. This power would make its way to Jules and be quickly absorbed by his heart, brain, and body.


    As the energy flowed within Jules it created a very warm and pleasurable feeling. This sensation surpassed anything that he had experienced in his previous life. If he wasn¡¯t careful, he felt he could easily get addicted to it.


    Soon enough he got another slight surprise. The energy flowing from the leader and his right-hand man felt much purer and stronger. It felt significantly more pleasurable when flowing through his body.


    Jules could feel it all getting absorbed within him as if his body were a bottomless pit. This, however, did not seem to be the case for his heart. He could feel the energy build up within it at an extremely rapid pace with no signs of slowing down despite approaching its limit. Feeling slightly worried that something dangerous could happen if it kept filling up after reaching full capacity. Jules tried to stop the energy from entering it using his will. Surprisingly this turned out to be effective to some degree. The energy was now entering much more slowly which made him rather satisfied in himself.


    This moment sadly did not last for long as the powerful energy from the leader broke through the dam and resumed filling up his heart. The best Jules could do in this situation was to prevent normal energy from entering.


    Within a dozen seconds or so his heart was full to the bring with that unknown energy. And as Jules had feared it showed no signs of stopping. He felt his heart inflate gradually, slowly expanding beyond its limits. The whole process did not hurt due to his zombie body however it felt deeply uncomfortable. He could actually feel his heart expanding within his own body.


    Within no time it had already reached the size of a melon and kept growing. He was really hoping it would stop at this stage. Sadly, it paid no mind to what Jules was thinking. His heart expanded and expanded until it physically could not anymore within his rib cage.


    At this point, the energy supply from the bodies had stopped and all that remained was what still lingered unabsorbed within his body.


    In a last effort, Jules¡¯ heart quickly swallowed all of the remaining energy that it could before suddenly and violently expanding. This growth spurt was very brief yet very powerful. It was strong enough to instantly breach through the back of Jules¡¯ ribcage and skin. Some of his heart had breached through and the rest soon followed. Jules felt relieved as the pressure within his rib cage gradually decreased. However, the fact that it was leaving his body still freaked him out.


    Quickly enough a pulsating red mass that had reached the size of a watermelon could be seen on Jules¡¯ back. With every pulse, the heart released a small wisp of black smoke that gently dissipated within the air.


    This whole situation with the sudden growth of his heart had left Jules stressed out. He was worried it would have burst or somehow killed him in another way. The fact that he was still alive reassured him. Now that he could calmly reflect on this event, Jules realized that he had developed a plague heart! He had previously learned about this zombie evolution from Todd¡¯s memories but had been too panicked to think about it when it happened. Surprisingly he did not have the 10 zombies required to evolve, and only the energy from the leader and his right-hand man had made its way into his heart. That should have by no means been enough for him to evolve.


    ¡®The leader and his right-hand man had high-quality energy in large quantities, could this be related to it? Could this better energy possibly be related to their high vitality as well?¡¯ He thought.


    Temporarily disregarding this matter, he called out to Xena.


    ¡®Xena, what are my stats now?¡¯


    ¡®[Beep! Name: Anne Martel (Jules Argent). Species: Zombie (Strand). Body statistics: Strength ¨C 2.5, Vitality ¨C 3.0, Agility ¨C 2.4. Mind statistics: Intelligence ¨C 1.4, Perception ¨C 2.0 (5.5).]¡¯


    Unsurprisingly, this improved heart caused Jules¡¯ vitality to go through the roof and increase by a whole 2.9! On the other hand, his strength, agility, and perception had all increased by roughly 1. What actually surprised Jules the most was that his intelligence had increased from 1.3 to 1.4! It seemed that the energy going to his brain made him more intelligent. This would mean that the more zombies he got, the smarter he would get!


    Within a short amount of time, all of the bandits had risen once again, except they were now all zombies. Within their midst was a short chubby zombie, bringing their numbers to nine. A few meters from the group stood the figure of a woman with what seemed to be a huge pulsating heart emerging from her back.


    Jules had gotten Xena to scan all of their memories. As she was scanning them Jules thought back to the time, he got access to Todd¡¯s memories. Looking back at what it felt like it seemed that Xena was storing the memories and giving him access to them. Curious about this matter Jules asked her.


    ¡®Xena, are you storing the memories of the zombies and then giving me access to them?¡¯


    ¡®[Beep! Affirmative.]¡¯ A female robotic voice replied.


    ¡®Damn! How much storage space do you have?¡¯ Jules replied with surprise. Afterall recoding one¡¯s whole life must take up a lot of space.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    ¡®[Beep! Storage size is of 126 Zettabytes. 15 Petabytes currently in use.]¡¯


    ¡°Holy shit!¡± Jules exclaimed. 126 Zettabytes was a tremendously huge figure, essentially a Zettabyte was equal to roughly one trillion Gigabytes! This meant that Xena had enough storage to store the entire internet about one hundred thousand times! The only reason that Jules knew of this absurd measure was that he had previously heard it as a fun fact it in one of his computer science lectures.


    If Jules estimated that one person¡¯s memories were roughly equal to 5 Petabytes since Xena had stored his own, Anne¡¯s and Todd¡¯s, then Xena would be able to store over 20 thousand people¡¯s worth of memories! With this much storage, the memories of those eight bandits would not take up much space. Still in awe at Xena¡¯s ability, Jules thought up of a good idea.


    ¡®Xena, can you record everything my senses perceive at all times?¡¯


    ¡®[Beep! Instructions received. Beginning recording.]¡¯ She replied.


    Jules was rather satisfied hearing this. It meant that he would essentially get a photographic memory but won¡¯t have to be troubled with remembering anything himself! All that he sees hears or even taste would be perfectly remembered by Xena. Since Xena had the ability to let him access these memories or transfer them to him, he essentially would never have to worry about forgetting anything.


    After a couple of minutes, Xena¡¯s voice appeared within his mind once more.


    ¡®[Beep! Memory extractions complete. Giving access to host!]¡¯


    Like last time Jules felt the memories become accessible to him within his mind. Except for this time, they were far greater in numbers. After all, he had ordered Xena to scan eight individual¡¯s worth of memories.


    Jules took his time to look through all of them one by one. In this process, he managed to learn quite a bit about how individuals grew stronger within this world. He also learned about the area surrounding the camp on top of more miscellaneous information. Some of the other information such as their life circumstances were not really important to Jules, however, he could tell they did not have it easy either.


    Jules inspected their memories regarding the camp for more details. It seems that amongst the five large tents that were set up three were used for accommodation. One of which belonged to the leader, this was the tent Jules had previously pretended to rest in. Out of the two remaining tents one served as a kitchen and as an eating place during bad weather. Whereas, the last remaining tent served as a storage area for all the large items that the bandits had plundered previously.


    Of course, all of the bandits had hidden some of their own valuable items either within their rooms or in the forest near the camp. These items if combined would definitely be worth a significant amount. Within those stashes one stood out a little bit from the others, this one belonged to the right-hand man. However, what really drew Jules¡¯ attention was the leader¡¯s own personal treasure. From what he understood the value of what the leader had accumulated easily exceeded what all of the other bandits owned combined. He had locked this treasure away within a chest inside his tent. The chest had been imbued with magic and therefore was impossible to break if one did not possess the key. The leader always carried the key hidden somewhere on him. Due to this, his underlings had never been able to steal it before. Luckily for Jules, he knew exactly where it was hidden thanks to Xena.


    Jules quickly ordered all of the zombies to bring everything of value from the stashes and from the storage to the leader¡¯s tent. Jules had declared this tent be his since it was both more spacious and nicer looking than the others.


    As the zombies made their way around the camp frantically collecting the loot, the leader¡¯s zombie made its way to Jules and handed him a key before joining the others. Afterward, Jules quickly made his way to the tent eagerly looking forward to opening the chest. He already knew what was in it and amongst it was something that had piqued his interests.


    As he entered the tent he did not spare anytime to look around and instead immediately headed for the chest. The chest in itself looked really simple and uninteresting, it was made of wood and its edges were reinforced with a metal that seemed to be iron. What really stood out about it was the huge symbol that was present on the lid. This symbol looked similar to the one that the arcanist conjured when casting the fireball. This probably was the magic that made the chest extremely sturdy.


    In the middle of the symbol was a tiny red bead that emitted a small amount of light. Some of the light seemed to flow along with the carvings within the wood. Those carvings formed an oddly mesmerizing pattern that filled up the symbol. They looked like veins in some areas and like circuit boards in others. The red light originating from the bead would pulse occasionally and send a wave through the carvings. The impulse would then gradually dim as if it was being absorbed by the symbol within the wood before completely disappearing.


    Jules pulled out the key and put it inside the lock. The bead seemed to sense the presence of the key. As Jules turned the key the markings began to pulsate more vigorously.


    Clank!


    The markings suddenly lost all light as the lock opened. Jules grabbed on to the lid and pushed it up. The lid slowly moved out of the way revealing a large number of golden coins. Obviously, the leader had gotten lucky with his robberies in the past. Although wealth was great, it did not have many benefits for Jules since he was a zombie. Trying to get inside a town would have him killed on sight. What really interested him was something else. He proceeded to grab the coins to empty the chest.


    Jules found many items within the coins such as gems, necklaces and even a knife that had a golden handle encrusted with gems.


    After a few minutes of work, a decent pile of coins was visible beside the chest. Now that it was completely empty Jules had a look inside and proceeded to take the golden knife. His hand gently felt the wooden surface of one of the edges at the bottom of the chest. He searched for a bit before abruptly coming to a stop. Without any second thoughts, he jammed the knife at that specific point and wiggled it around. This caused a small panel at the bottom of the chest that perfectly merged with its surroundings to detach allowing Jules to remove it. Hidden below the panel was a small compartment in which sat a silver ring with a red gem and a small leather pouch.


    Jules carefully grabbed the ring and inspected it. It would look like any other jewelry if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that the red gem embedded on it was very much like the one on the chest. On each side of the stone was a small symbol, that were different from each other and yet looked similar. Red veins and circuits spread from the red stone to form patterns within the symbols. However, unlike for the chest, this one was not pulsating, the stone was not emitting any light. According to the leader¡¯s memories, this was a magic item that allowed the user to shoot an extremely powerful laser beam up to three times even if they had never learned how to use magic previously. The laser was supposedly strong enough to blast through multiple trees in one shot. Thus, making it extremely valuable and worthy of being one of the leader¡¯s most valuable possessions.


    This was what Jules had been looking for. However, the small pouch was also of interest to him. He picked it up and had a look within. Its contents consisted of five more red gemstones and a smaller yet clearer variant that was many times more valuable.


    If Jules was correct, these were magicule crystals!

 Chapter 7 - The Way of Strength

    Jules was quite glad to have stumbled upon these magicule crystals. According to the memories he had obtained from the bandits, magicules crystals were a very rare and valuable resource. The reason they were so valued was due to their use in powering magical tools. This explained the presence of the red gems on both the ring and the chest. It acted as the power source for the magic symbol, kind of like a battery.


    The crystals worked this way because they were made of condensed magicules. As the name suggests, magicules are the energy that is consumed when using magic. Under normal circumstances, they were tiny free-floating particles within the air. In this state magicules were useless. Luckily it seemed that humans had billions of extremely small organic devices within their bodies that were able to pull these magicules within their bodies.


    These devices were named magicule condensers. These condensers had a passive role within the body which meant that they were always working without its owner even realizing it. In this aspect they were quite similar to the heart, it was not possible to stop them or increase their condensing speed by thinking about it.


    This meant that at all times of the day people would be absorbing small amounts of magicules into their bodies. Many were unaware of this simple process going on. Due to this the magicules in their bodies would remain unused and stack up within their blood until the time of their death.


    However, if one were to know about this, it would provide them with an opportunity to rise in strength within this world. This is because there were two main ways to use magicules. The first one was to absorb them within certain parts of your body in order to improve them. The other way was to use them on spells.


    Depending on which part of the body magicules were used, different benefits would arise. To classify these benefits that arcanists of this world came up with a stat measuring system. Oddly enough that system was almost the same as Xena¡¯s, it used strength, vitality, agility, intelligence, and perception as its areas.


    This definitely came across as a surprise to Jules. After all, it was extremely unlikely for both Xena and this world to come up with the same stat system. With a bit more thinking he actually concluded that it might not actually be that unlikely. If that system was the best way to categorize stats, then it would not be impossible for both sides to have come up with the same answer.


    What stood out about this system compared to Jules¡¯ was that the values that were assigned to quantify stats were different. In Xena¡¯s system, they increased by one for every increase in that equaled an average person¡¯s stat. This meant that if someone had a strength of 3 then they would be thrice as strong as a normal person. On the other hand, this world¡¯s system used a weird scale. In this scale, all stats used rank 0 level 1 as the average. If a person were to be three times as strong as the average their stat in strength would be rank 0 level 10. If they were able to reach level 11 of a stat they would increase by a rank and go back down to 1. This did not mean that their strength was lost, it was just a different way of looking at it.  Also once they reached level 11, then they would experience a huge increase in strength and become twice as strong as they were in level 10. This meant that a person at level 1 of rank 1 would be six times weaker than a person at level 1 of rank 2.


    Curious, Jules asked Xena to display his strength using this method.


    ¡®[Beep! Name: Anne Martel (Jules Argent). Species: Zombie (Strand). Body statistics: Strength ¨C Rank 0 Level 6, Vitality ¨C Rank 0 Level 10, Agility ¨C Rank 0 Level 6. Mind statistics: Intelligence ¨C Rank 0 Level 2, Perception ¨C Rank 0 Level 4 (Rank 0 Level 10.5).]¡¯


    Jules approved of this method. After all, he used to play lots of video games in his past life and this made him rather excited.


    At first glance, this method to measure stats seemed rather stupid. However, it actually made a lot of sense. It seemed that the level system was made according to how much magicules it took to increase a level. Each level took 1.1 times more magicules than the previous one. If someone wanted to increase a rank it would take a whole three times as much as it took to go from level 9 to level 10. This, however, had huge benefits since increasing a rank doubled your stat.


    From what Jules had learned, the reason each rank was so tough to overcome was that it required for major changes to occur within the body. These changes would be the same for everyone regardless of which stat they chose to increase. If one did not know what to improve then they would remain unable to progress. Sadly, the methods to get past those hurdles were quite expensive and poor people such as these bandits did not have the wealth to buy them. Except perhaps their leader who had stashed away a lot of wealth. This went to show how expensive they were.


    Although the magicule cost for leveling up increased with each level, this did not necessarily mean that it would take an extremely long time to level up the further one went. This is because leveling up vitality caused the magicule condensers within the body to improve! This meant that the more vitality was increased, the faster one could level up. That explained why the leader and his right-hand man had both leveled up their vitality on top of their stat of choice. This way they would be able to condense magicules faster to level their other stat even faster.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    It seemed that the reason the leader had accumulated magicule crystals was not to use them to craft magic tools or to show off his wealth but to use them to increase in rank. Afterall condensing magicules was very slow and using magicule crystals allowed to bypass that process. If eaten, all the magicules within would be absorbed by the body to level up stats. This way once the leader got his hand on a method to rank up, he would be able to use the crystals to overcome the requirements.


    Magicule crystals were rare and expensive because there was no way to make them. The only way they could be found was within arcane creatures. Arcane creatures could not store magicules within their blood like humans. Therefore, they would store them in the form of a magicule crystal somewhere within their body. Since arcane creatures were generally not capable of complex thought, it was impossible for them to understand how magicules worked. Luckily for them, they did not need to understand them, they made use of them without even thinking about it! Their body would naturally absorb them while some of it would form into a magicule crystal. Therefore, a rule of thumb was that the stronger an arcane creature was, the better the crystal from it would be. Nobody really knew why the crystals formed but they were useful, so people hunted arcane creatures for them.


    This was of course very interesting to Jules, after all, he was a zombie now. From what he had gathered zombies were arcane creatures. Did this mean that he had a magicule crystal forming within him as well? That also probably meant that the pleasant energy he felt when he made new zombies were magicules. And that his bacteria were just absorbing those that were unused within the body. Thinking back to the energy he felt from the leader and his right-hand man perhaps he was also able to absorb some of the energy that they had already used to upgrade their stats.


    Jules wanted to know more about arcanists, so he decided to dig deeper within the bandit¡¯s memories. Sadly, his efforts were to no avail. It seems he¡¯ll have to wait for a bit before understanding how they used magicules to cast spells.


    Shifting his focus back to reality, Jules looked at the pile of valuables in front of him that had steadily been increasing all this time. He had previously ordered his zombies to bring everything of value within the camp to him. They had managed to collect all of it while Jules was still deep in thoughts.


    The pile consisted of mostly weapons or valuable looking objects some of which were of unknown purposes. Within the pile, few scattered silver coins were visible along with a couple of golden ones.


    Upon close examination, Jules could tell that most of it were useless. These objects were only expensive and nice looking. This had no benefits to him since he would be killed if he tried to even get close to humans that were wealthy enough to buy these. Even more so now that he had a huge fucking plague heart on his back that would turn any nearby humans into zombies.


    Instead of having the zombies immediately pack away this pile of wealth, Jules picked a rather light and sharp sword from within the pile. The sword was obviously of high quality. Its edge was slightly curved and looked capable of taking a life without effort. Its handle was refined and fit perfectly within his hand. Overall the sword gave out a vibe of elegance and danger which Jules liked a lot.


    He then had each zombie grab a sword as well. Afterall it was quite obvious that fighting with swords is better just barehanded. The only downside was that swords could not infect people. However, this was quickly fixed as he drew a bit of blood from himself and smeared it on the swords.


    ¡°Heh. Zombies with swords.¡± He chuckled. This looked rather absurd to him, Afterall zombies had always been depicted as dumb and mindless creatures back in his world. These zombies would have never been capable of wielding swords. Yet here were his zombies clumsily equipping swords.


    Actually¡­ Thinking back to Anne¡¯s memories before she died. It seemed like the zombies she met were mindless and clearly weren¡¯t smart enough to use swords. This had piqued Jules¡¯ curiosity. He searched through all of the memories he had accumulated so far for more information. At first, he could not find anything, therefore, he decided to expand his search range to information that came from rumors.


    ¡®Ah ha!¡¯ he thought. He had found what he was looking for after having pieced it together from multiple memories.


    It seemed that zombies in this world were indeed mindless creatures. It looked like zombies and their cores all had about the same level of intelligence. He also noticed that stronger zombies seemed to have higher intelligence. He could confirm that through his own experience, his intelligence had indeed risen after he absorbed more magicules. Having started off with high intelligence was definitely an advantage for him.


    Satisfied with his findings, Jules ordered the zombies to move everything back into the storage tent, including the contents of the chest. The only things Jules kept behind were the ring, the sword, and the leather pouch. He quickly put the ring on his right middle finger and attached the sword¡¯s sheath and the pouch to a belt he had stolen from the leader¡¯s room.


    Jules looked back at what he had been lucky enough to loot, especially the magicule crystals.


    ¡®Perhaps I could eat them to become stronger, just like what the bandit leader was going to do to advance a rank?¡¯ He thought.


    Out of curiosity Jules took one of the normal gems out and carefully looked at it. It was about 5cm big while being crimson red with shades of black. It was partially cloudy, especially in the center. Jules decided to take out the small clear one to have a look. Just like the first one, this one was crimson with shades of black. However, it was completely see-through and seemed to be much purer. This one seemed to only be about 3cm big.


    Jules did not really want to waste a precious resource, so he carefully considered eating a crystal. First of all, he was unsure as of which one to eat. He was also thinking that perhaps he could use the gems as extra ammo for his ring. After all his ring used one as a battery, so perhaps he could switch them out when he used one up. He was split between choosing to keep the crystals or using them.


    ¡®Ah fuck it.¡¯ He thought.


    He grabbed one of the normal gems and chucked it in his mouth.

 Chapter 8 - Base Building

    Jules swallowed the crimson crystal in one gulp. Within seconds he could feel pleasant energy diffusing from his stomach. These were the magicules coming from the magicule crystal he had just ingested. Judging from the sensation, Jules felt that they were equal in quality to that of the leader and his right-hand man.


    As expected, the energy started to make its way around his body. Quickly enough, his muscles, brain, and heart began to absorb it greedily. However, to Jules¡¯ surprise, most of it was in fact absorbed by his heart! Jules could feel it swell at a rapid pace on his back. The smoke being emitted from it grew denser and denser and began to form a black fog.


    The energy seemed to be limitless as it flowed out of the crystal. Magicules were being constantly emitted with no signs of stopping. Only after about five minutes then did the energy gradually decrease.


    The sheer amount of magicules contained within the crystal was extremely large. It could be compared to the entire quantity Jules had absorbed up to this point. Although this was great for Jules this instead made him frown.


    ¡®Xena bring up my stats.¡¯ He calmly ordered within his mind.


    ¡®[Beep! Name: Anne Martel (Jules Argent). Species: Zombie (Strand). Body statistics: Strength ¨C Rank 0 Level 7, Vitality ¨C Rank 0 Level 10, Agility ¨C Rank 0 Level 7. Mind statistics: Intelligence ¨C Rank 0 Level 2, Perception ¨C Rank 0 Level 5 (Rank 1 Level 1).]¡¯


    The reason Jules was unhappy was due to the fact that his stats had only increased by a tiny bit. This was all because of the heart on his back. It was like a huge black hole that sucked all magicules that came nearby within it. Although Jules had been able to increase in strength, the weight on his back increased much more. Due to that, he was forced to use more strength than he had gained to support this new weight. Jules felt that if he wanted to keep his mobility, he should refrain from eating any more crystals. That is until he had enough zombies not to have to worry about it anymore.


    Regardless of that, Jules was still quite glad. His perception had increased to become equivalent to that of a rank 1 level 1. This was all thanks to Xena who had the ability to process the information from all his senses and then send him the information in real time!


    Focusing back to the matters on hand, Jules had to make some changes to this camp he just took control of. The bandits had never bothered reinforcing it before, believing that it would never be discovered. However, Jules would never be so careless as not to have any defenses set up in a world where he would be killed on sight.


    Therefore, he decided to ask Xena to create a blueprint of the best possible defense plan for the camp. Within seconds of asking, Xena had gotten back to him with a great plan. Jules was astounded at Xena¡¯s processing power. After all, she had come up with something that Jules would never be able to think of within seconds. It made him seriously glad for her to have accompanied him into this strange new world.


    Looking at the plan Jules felt that the camp could be easily defended against at least 50 people with his current man(zombie) power. The camp would have three layers of defense. The first one would be a field of concealed traps that were cunningly placed at strategical locations. The second layer was a trench that followed the base of a long wooden barricade that would surround the whole camp. The barricade being the last layer of defense.


    The idea was that the traps would be able to either take out or incapacitate about half of the approaching enemies. The trap area would extend to the forest allowing to be very well hidden. The best part was that all traps would be reusable and easy to re-arm.


    The trench would be continuous and run all along the barricade. A small draw bridge would be used to get in and out. The trench would be about a meter and a half deep. However, it wasn¡¯t just a simple pit. On the side opposing that of the wall would be a multitude of small wooden spikes hidden inside the dirt. The dirt on that side would be replaced with another very brittle kind found nearby. This meant that if the intruders made their way within the pit to scale the walls they would be trapped. If they attempted to leave the trench, then the dirt would crumble causing the spikes to be revealed. Those spikes would surely make it very tough for anyone to climb out.


    The purpose behind that was concealed within the third layer of defense. Multiple holes the size of a tennis ball would be cut out within the barricade wall. This would allow Jules¡¯ zombies to use spears to stab any unlucky beings trapped within the pit. As for ladders, there would be large rock available to break them in the event they couldn¡¯t be removed.


    Jules was aware that these defenses would not be able to stop a full unwavering assault of over 50 people. The intention behind those defenses was that they would be enough to dissuade most enemies from attacking. And hopefully, be able to protect Jules from those who chose to attack regardless. Unless the attack was planned carefully taking into account his base¡¯s defenses Jules would be rather safe within it.


    The main downside with this plan was that it required a huge amount of wood and work the complete. Even using all of his zombies Jules estimated that it would take him at least two weeks of non-stop work to complete it.


    As for the wood, Jules wasn¡¯t too worried, he was surrounded by a forest after all. Despite that, he was thoughtful enough not to get it from near his base. If he did so he would lose places to hide traps in. Therefore, he would order the zombies to get it from an area further away.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    The other thing that worried him was times. With zombies, this was the one thing he did not have. Being reanimated corpses, they would soon start to decay. Two weeks was probably pushing the limits of how long he could use a corpse for. The only way to solve this issue was to either get new zombies or to feed them blood.


    Jules had previously noticed that blood had healed him when he was still just a normal zombie. Therefore, he suspected it would also be able to reverse decay.


    Thinking back about it, it was probably the magicules contained within the blood that made it possible. This meant that if Jules was willing to, he could crush one of his crystals into powder and feed some of it to his zombies. He was very reluctant to do so since these crystals were quite rare and valuable.


    Jules shook his head vigorously. The defenses weren¡¯t going to build themselves; he would think about that problem later. He quickly dispatched his zombies to start the construction. There also were plenty of axes within the storage for the zombies to use with which allowed the process to start swiftly.


    Two days later.


    The construction had been going along smoothly and nothing remarkable had happened within that period of time. The zombies had managed to build about half of the barricade. On the other hand, Jules had been staying indoors all of this time.


    The reason behind his actions was that he wanted to try and improve the way he controlled his zombies. To do so he conducted a few experiments such as trying to transfer his consciousness to one of them. Although he found himself unable to fully switch bodies, he was still able to enter a state in which he felt like it was his own. To do this he had to focus intensely on the zombie of his choice, this, of course, took lots of time. This process was so slow it really pissed off Jules. Therefore, he spent his most his time trying to get better at it.


    Within that time, he also noticed he did not need to sleep at all! Jules was a bit sad because it meant he wouldn¡¯t get to dream anymore. However, that also meant that he had plenty of time on his hands now. He also found that he would get hungry very slowly. So slowly, in fact, he hadn¡¯t needed to eat yet.


    Therefore, when he would get frustrated at trying to switch zombies, he would try to lead different experiments. He mostly focussed on the smoke emitting from his heart. His tent was densely packed with a dark fog mostly made of airborne bacteria. That fog would then leak out and make its way outside. The whole camp now was surrounded by the black fog. It totally didn¡¯t look suspicious or anything.


    Trying to resolve that Jules tried a few methods to stop the fog from coming out. He first tried to plug the heart, but immediately stopped when he saw that it started to inflate like crazy. He eventually settled on covering the openings with a cloth. This method filtered out the bacteria and a black goop would slowly condense on the fabric.


    Jules was very curious about this goop. It was pure black and somewhat shiny. What stood most about it is that it almost seemed alive. It would jiggle and move at random. If Jules focused on it, he could even control it at will.


    ¡®They¡¯re kinda like slimes¡­¡¯ Jules thought.


    ¡°Wait! Slimes! Could I make zombie slimes!?¡± He excitedly yelled out.


    Slimes were the basics of any fantasy video games. How could he not be excited at the prospects of making some? On top of that, they were completely free to make! The more Jules thought about it the more excited he got. He started thinking of many different ways to use them, the possibilities were truly limitless.


    As Jules was about to lose himself in his thought, he suddenly noticed something through one of his zombies. It was a human voice. Therefore, he immediately shifted his mind to that zombie. He was now much quicker at doing so, it only took him a couple of seconds.


    He quietly moved towards the noise as not to raise any attention.


    Once he arrived, he could clearly see a group of three humans seemingly in a standoff with a huge lizard. The human group consisted of three individuals that looked to be in their late teens, two boys and one girl. One of the boys held a small pistol whereas the other one held a sword. The girl did not seem to wield anything, she stood at the back and giving out orders. She was probably the brains of the group.


    It was easy to tell that these kids were inexperienced. Both of the boys¡¯ hands were shaking whereas the girl seemed uncertain with her decisions.


    On the other side was a huge black lizard the size of a large dog. Judging from the information he got from the stolen memories, Jules could tell it was a Lesser Red-Tailed Lizard. Its tail was indeed a deep red and seemed to be as long as the lizard¡¯s body. The lizard itself looked like an overgrown salamander with glossy skin. It had two big cute googly eyes that showed an amount of fright. It clearly didn¡¯t want to fight but the small group had managed to corner it.


    Behind the lizard was a steep cliff that seemed rather tough to climb, especially for a lizard. Therefore, leaving it completely unable to run away.


    Jules could guess the reason behind the human¡¯s actions. Lesser Red-Tailed Lizards were arcane creatures, this meant that it had a magicules core which was worth a lot of money. However, they weren¡¯t easy to kill, they easily had as much strength as a fully-grown bull. They were also able to innately use magicules to heat their tail to extremely high temperatures when threatened. When they did so their black tail would turn glowing red hot.


    The reason that the teenagers actually dared fight such a dangerous creature was that these lizards were cowards. Lesser Red-Tailed Lizards would generally not put up much of a fight, being paralyzed in fear.


    ¡°Felix, you should distract it and-and then when you get its attention, Ross you should sh-shoot it in its eye. Then, Felix, you use that opportunity to go for the other eye, o-ok? Does that seem all right to you? If we do that then it will be blinded, and it¡¯ll be easy to take care of it.¡± The girl hesitantly spoke out.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry Mia we got this.¡± The boy with the sword spoke out, obviously looking more worried than she was.


    From that short conversation, Jules could tell that the boy with the pistol was called Ross, the one with the sword was Felix and the girl was Mia. He also realized that this language was different than the one he spoke in his world. It looked like having merged with Anne gave him the ability to understand the language so well he hadn¡¯t realized until now.


    Looking at them Jules could tell that both parties were equally scared of each other.


    Suddenly Felix roared out as he charged towards the lizard. Seemingly trying to reassure both himself and Mia with his fake confidence.

 Chapter 9 - Friendship Through Hardship

    Mia looked at Felix rushing the lizard with a worried expression. Felix and Ross were her closest childhood friends. So close, in fact, she felt comfortable with calling them, family.


    Back when Mia was much younger around 12 or so, she constantly used to get into trouble as a result of her bad temper. She would easily start arguments with anyone she disagreed with. Having always been very smart for her age, her arguments were just as good if not better than the other side¡¯s. This generally easily caused adults to get angry and tell her to leave. Despite being smart she would refuse to do so in most cases and continue arguing. This stubbornness of hers caused her to get into trouble many times. It wasn¡¯t rare for her to return home with bruises.


    Mai had been born an only child in a relatively poor family that struggled to make ends meet. Her mother would, in fact, skip meals multiple times a week so that she could eat. As for her father she rarely saw him. He worked extremely long hours that lead him to come home and leave while Mia was still sleeping. Mia was rather unsure as of what his work was, but she felt grateful that he was still there for her mother and herself.


    As for her mother, she worked as a clerk at the local butcher during the day. If they were lucky, she would even get leftover cuts to bring home for the evening. Sadly, in most cases they would be either taken by the owner or they would have sold out that day.


    Mia also tried her best to provide income for her family. She would roam the street in search of fallen change. She even stole money on a couple of occasions. When she wasn¡¯t roaming the streets in search of money, she was busy doing chores at home. Her parents were far too busy to do any at it was the least she could do considering she did not have a job.


    However, one day she got into an argument with a fruit seller on the main street. The reason being that the products he sold at his stall were mostly rotten. Those products were fruits only found on the wild continent. They were pink and spherical with a green stem shooting out of it. On the inside of the fruit was a very sweet liquid protected by the pink shell. The shell in itself was edible as well as rather soft and elastic.


    ¡°What do you mean ¡®they smell like shit¡¯?¡± a visibly angry man spoke out. ¡°My jorbs are perfectly fresh!¡±


    ¡°That one¡¯s clearly growing mold on it, how could you call it fresh and sell it at a high price?¡± She replied.


    ¡°I don¡¯t need a kid to tell me how to manage my stall. Get out of my face!¡±


    ¡°Fine take it back!¡± Mia said as she threw the fruit back at him. Unexpectedly she threw the fruit rather strongly and aimed it at his face.


    The man put his hand out to catch it, but the fruit was so rotten that it broke upon contact. The momentum caused all of the gooey fragments and the fermented liquid within to slip through his fingers and splatter on his face.


    The fruit normally would shatter under such stress. That one though wasn¡¯t fresh.


    ¡°See it¡¯s rotten.¡± She said with a sly smile on her face.


    ¡°I¡¯ll make you pay for this you little piece of shit!¡± The man yelled out as his face grew even redder than it previously was.


    Seeing this Mia tried to run away. Unfortunately, she wasn¡¯t quick enough, and the man had grabbed onto her arm. His grip was extremely powerful and cased Mia to wince in pain. The man raised his fist and was about to lower it when a small rock hit him straight in the right eye. He instantly let go of Mia to cover it.


    ¡°OOOWWW!! My fucking eye!¡± He yelled out in pain.


    Suddenly a smaller hand reached out to grab Mia¡¯s wrist and called out.


    ¡°Quick let¡¯s get out of here.¡±


    Mia let herself be pulled along and followed the short person. Once they had put some distance between them and the stall the person turned around to reveal a young man in his very early teens. He had blonde hairs and blue eyes as well as a charming face fitted with a confident smile. He immediately presented himself as Felix and said that he and his brother had seen that she was in trouble and decided to help her.


    Soon enough indeed they were joined by another young man. This one had brown hairs and blue eyes, as well as an evident resemblance to Felix. He was Felix¡¯s twin brother Ross, more specifically, fraternal twin. Although they looked similar, they were nowhere near identical. He, on the other hand, had a more timid smile and tended to look down instead of looking at Mia when talking to her.


    After a short conversation, she found out that Ross was the one who had thrown the rock. He was surprisingly good at throwing things and could even accurately hit a target from over 10m away. Mia was fascinated by his talent as any kid of her age would be.


    After this, they quickly became friends and began to meet up every day. The brothers would always be there to protect Mia whenever she got in trouble. Due to this she only rarely got injured. If they were lucky, they would even be able to stop here before she started an argument. This generally wasn¡¯t an easy task as she would start them without any signs. They would still try their best to teach her to stop these unprovoked arguments. Although they were unsuccessful in convincing her at first, progress slowly became evident.  This was troublesome, yet the brothers didn¡¯t mind, they were friends after all. The days they spent together were the happiest ones of her life.


    A year went by like this until one day Mia woke up to terrible news. Her father had died. It was a work incident, that killed him on the spot. She tried to ask her mother for more details, but she wouldn¡¯t budge. Although she hadn¡¯t seen much of her father, he was a man she deeply respected and cared about. The news had shaken her to her core and lead her to isolate herself in her room for over two days.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    The day she came out she saw her mother crying and mumbling to herself about a tremendous debt. Talking about how worried she was regarding the future and how afraid she was of not being able to take care of Mia anymore. This scene in itself had a larger impact on Mia than the news of her father¡¯s death. If there was one person, she loved the most that would be her mother. The mother that had sacrificed so much for her.


    That day Mia took a resolution. She would no longer stand by and be a burden on her mother. That day she left the house and met up with Ross and Felix to tell them what happened and what she would do from now on.


    ¡°What your father died so you¡¯re going to register at the Hunter Federation to help you mother without even telling her!?!¡± Felix exclaimed absolutely flabbergasted. He was already expecting some bad news, after all, he hadn¡¯t seen her for a few days, but this completely exceeded his expectations.


    ¡°You know that if you join the Hunter Federation you¡¯re not even guaranteed to succeed right? And no matter what you won¡¯t be able to leave them once you join them.¡± Ross said.


    ¡°I know. But I¡¯ve made my decision. You guys know how stubborn I am. There¡¯s no point trying to convince me against.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right,¡± Felix said. ¡°Therefore, I¡¯ll go with you.¡±


    ¡°What? You can¡¯t do that. There¡¯s no reason for you to go.¡± She said.


    ¡°I¡¯ll go as well.¡± Ross said.


    ¡°You guys can¡¯t do that!¡±


    ¡°If we don¡¯t go with you, how will we make sure you won¡¯t get in trouble again?¡± Felix asked.


    Seeing that she could not convince them either she reluctantly agreed. They decided to go there the following day in order to allow them to say farewells to their family.


    The next day after meeting up again, they discussed how their families had taken the news. I turned out none of them had actually told their parents! They knew that if they did so they would be prevented from going, therefore, they had resorted to using different measures. The twins had told their other brother whereas Mia had decided to draw the symbol of the Hunter federation on her desk using dirt. Since she couldn¡¯t read and didn¡¯t have anyone to give a message to her mother she had resorted to this method.


    After this Mia and the brothers proceeded to make their way towards the Hunter Federation¡¯s building. The building itself was located near the center of Largen, far away from the outskirts where all of the poor people lived.


    After having walked for about an hour through the densely packed city they had finally arrived at their destination.


    In front of them stood a gigantic building that was easily as tall as twenty people and about twice as long. It was the highest structure they had seen in their lives. The building was made of pure white stone that had been chiseled in patterns depicting monsters. Large grandiose pillars supported the entrance on each side of which were crystal braziers burning with intense purple flames. The building had a tremendously intimidating aura that was both terrifying and awe-inspiring. Atop the entrance was a large black hexagonal symbol depicting two dragons other one purple one white coiling around each as part of an intense fight. This was the hunter¡¯s logo, the white dragon represented humanity and the other one was supposed to represent monsters.


    ¡°Whoa¡­¡± The brothers let out in unison.


    On the other hand, Mia gulped nervously as she looked at the building. She proceeded to take a step forward, soon followed by another and another. Soon enough she found herself walking through the imposing entrance along with the brothers in tow.


    Looking around she found that there was a ton of people. Most of which were wearing white gear, she could even spot some with some purple on theirs. Those were hunters. The white of their armor was a status of their strength. Hunters were extremely respected individuals that held superior strength. This caused them to be very wealthy and essentially almost above the law. However, once one became a hunter there was no going back, you had to obey the federation until you were old enough to retire.


    Mia quickly spotted the admission desk and began to head there with a hurried pace. By doing so she attracted many gazes, most of which expressed curiosity or even mockery. It¡¯s not every day you get to see a kid signing up for such a dangerous job.


    She arrived at the desk and declared.


    ¡°I want to be a hunter, as well as those guys behind me.¡±


    ¡°Sure.¡± The attendant said giving her only a quick glance, it wasn¡¯t the first time she had seen this scenario before it seemed.


    She pointed at an orb on her desk and said in a monotonous voice.


    ¡°Put your hand on it, it¡¯s an aptitude ob. Depending on which color and how strongly it glows you¡¯ll be able to know what you¡¯re good at. If you¡¯re not able to make it glow, then you have no potential as a hunter. Depending on what you get you¡¯ll be assigned to different sections.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll go first.¡± said Felix.


    ¡°Name?¡±


    ¡°Felix Berg.¡±


    ¡°Go ahead.¡± She said after scribbling the name down on a piece of paper.


    Felix anxiously placed his hand on the orb and waited. Within a couple of seconds, a dim red light appeared inside the orb.


    ¡°It seems you have a talent in strength. You¡¯ll be assigned to the fighter unit.¡±


    ¡°Yes! I passed! You saw that! I have talent! Woo!¡± Felix exclaimed drawing some more looks to them.


    ¡°Good job boy, having talent is pretty rare.¡± A booming deep voice sounded it out. It was a person in heavy white armor with two purple stripes on it. ¡°Did you know that only one in ten people have a talent? And yours is pretty decent! Most people that pass only manage to draw a flickering light, but you actually managed to make a stable one inside it. You have a good future ahead of you!¡± This caused even more eyes to be drawn towards what was happening.


    ¡°Thank you, sir!¡± Felix replied with his back as straight as a ruler.


    ¡°I¡¯ll go next.¡± Said Ross.


    ¡°Name?¡±


    ¡°Ross Berg.¡±


    ¡°Oh, brothers?¡± The armored man said with a curious expression on his face.


    Ross then proceeded to place his hand on the orb. And just like for his brother a light shone out after a few seconds. The light inside the orb was green and at least three times brighter than his brother¡¯s.


    ¡°This is some exceptional talent you have here boy.¡± The man spoke out. ¡°You are easily one of the best I¡¯ve ever seen!¡± The man proclaimed.


    ¡°Your strength lies in agility. You¡¯ll be part of the ranger squad.¡± The lady said.


    She then proceeded to look at Mia who took a large gulp. At this point, there were easily thirty people crowding the area to look at what was going on. Two people had been admitted at once, both of which were kids, one of them even had an exceptional talent! This was enough to have piqued everybody¡¯s interest. They now had all shifted their curious gazes to the young girl walking up to the orb.


    ¡°Mia Mendel.¡± She said before placing her hand on the orb. She closed her eyes and looked away, afraid of the possibility of failing.


    A few seconds passed and nobody had said anything yet. Mia feared the worst.


    ¡®I don¡¯t have a talent, do I?¡¯ She thought, feeling extremely ashamed at the idea of failing her mother.


    She slowly opened her eyes to see a bright blue light glowing within the orb. Looking around she could tell that everybody around here was in absolute shock. Just staring at the orb, as if not believing their own eyes.


    ¡°We have an arcanist.¡± The lady said, breaking the deathly silent.

 Chapter 10 - Arcanist

    ¡°We have an arcanist.¡±


    This one simple yet powerful sentence broke the heavy silence, releasing the flood of thoughts that had up to this point been contained within the minds of those present.


    ¡°Holy shit! It¡¯s actually an arcanist!¡± Someone yelled out, quickly followed by many others.


    ¡°Not only that but look at how huge her talent is!¡± Another yelled out.


    ¡°She definitely has a glorious future ahead of her. We must make sure to get on her good side.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s said that only one in a hundred people have the talent to become arcanists! And that only one in ten of them actually manages to become one. However, with such a monstrous talent there is no doubt she will become one. Perhaps she¡¯ll even reach rank 2 in her lifetime!¡± Yelled out another voice.


    ¡°Dang! You¡¯re an arcanist! I can¡¯t believe it, that¡¯s so cool!¡± Felix said to her.


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s really impressive.¡± Ross said, also in awe at what he just saw. His friend was going to be an arcanist! Arcanists were the most powerful and respected profession out there! It required immense talent and effort to become one. Of course, he would be impressed by having learned that his best friend had the potential to be one. ¡°You¡¯ll be able to help your mother in no time this way!¡± He added.


    ¡°Congratulations.¡± Said the woman at the desk, interrupting their celebration. ¡°You¡¯ll be assigned to the arcanist squad. I¡¯ll let you know right now that there are currently only three other recruits assigned to this group at the moment. So, don¡¯t be too surprised, the arcanist squad may be the smallest but it¡¯s by far the strongest.¡±


    She then turned at looked at the group of three kids as a whole. It was perhaps the best batch of recruits they had found this year so far. Following her script, she declared.


    ¡°All of you. If you have any second thoughts now is the time to turn around and leave!¡±


    She then proceeded to pull out the three sheets she had been writing on.


    ¡°Once you sign these, you¡¯ll officially become part of the Hunter Federation. Know that you may very well die before even becoming a hunter! However, also know that glory will await you if you survive. Once you sign this sheet, there is no going back¡­¡±


    ¡°Do you wish to continue?¡± She said as she finished her speech with an ominous tone.


    Mia, Ross, and Felix looked at each other with a small trace of worry but mostly excitement lingering in their eyes. Yet, if one were to look at them carefully enough, they would be able to see their deeply rooted resolve within.


    ¡°We are ready.¡± Mia said with a steady voice as she took a step forward.


    The others followed as they lined up in front of their respective contract. The contract required them to place a drop of their blood on the paper to seal the deal. Although they were surprised, they still went through with it. They grabbed a dagger that had been made available to them and each drew blood from their index. Mia moved first and pressed her bloody finger on the contract. Suddenly a bright light shone out from where the blood had made contact with the paper. It was bright enough to make Mia close her eyes and turn her head away. After the light had faded, she opened her eye and looked down to see that the Hunter Federation¡¯s emblem had appeared on both the back of her hand and the contract. This emblem was a form of arcanist rune that bound her to the contract on which she had deposited her blood.


    Quickly following her, the two boys also pressed down on their contracts. Which was closely followed by a blinding light from each of these. Once it had disappeared, they looked at their hand which also showed the mark of the Hunter federation. They then faced Mia and showed off their new ¡®tattoos¡¯ with a dumb smile on their heads. Smiles which Mia immediately returned as she too was ecstatic. They had joined the Hunter Federation!


    ¡°Now that all procedures are complete, I¡¯ve called an instructor from each of your squads to show you the ropes and bring you to your new residences! ¡°The lady at the desk said with a kind smile on her face.


    ¡°Good luck kids! I look forward to hearing about your achievement!¡± the man in armor said. ¡°Oh, and don¡¯t worry too much about being in different squads. You¡¯ll be spending plenty of time together once you become fully fledged hunters!¡±


    The small group of three celebrated together before being taken away. The first one to go was Ross, his instructor was a rather tall and slender man which had an extremely masculine face and a rather haughty expression on his face. He didn¡¯t say much and only pointed at Ross before leaving with him.


    The next one to go was Felix. It turned out that his instructor wasn¡¯t there. So surprisingly the responsibility of showing him around fell onto the armored man that had been watching all along. This made Felix rather glad as he felt they would get along well.


    Mia stood there by herself waiting for her instructor to arrive, however, after half an hour no one had shown up yet. As she was starting to get nervous a hand grabbed her shoulder, the hand was neither strong nor weak, instead, it gave out a feeling of perfect control. She jumped in surprise as she hadn¡¯t heard nor seen anyone get behind her. She immediately turned around to see an average man with extremely messy hairs and an extremely tired look on his face staring at her. The man had a poorly shaved stubble on his chin and clearly looked lacked the concept of maintaining looks. Luckily of Mia¡¯s nose, that man seemed to have rather good hygiene which was unexpected from someone that looked this way.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°Oi. You¡¯re Mia, right?¡± He said. ¡°Come with me, I¡¯m your instructor, you can call me Nash.¡±


    ¡®What the? You¡¯re telling me this guy is my instructor, an arcanist? No way. He probably is a cleaner or something that got put in charge of me like for Felix because my actual instructor isn¡¯t here¡¯ She thought.


    After walking for a while, they finally arrived at the arcanist quarters. There Mia was shown in her room. It seemed that by having potential as an arcanist she would get preferential treatment and get her own room! After this, she got to meet the three other recruits, all of which were at least twenty, which was rather intimidating. But overall, she felt that she would get along well with them. They then proceeded to go on a tour of the area, where Nash pointed out everything she should know.


    Finally, after an hour of walking, he stopped and turned around to face her.


    ¡°Behind this door is a training ground for arcanists.¡± He said as he pointed towards a clearly reinforced door which looked like it had seen better days.


    He walked up to the door and pressed on a button, the door instantly opened revealing a gigantic outdoors training ground. The area was surrounded by 4 massive walls that were easily as tall as the Hunter Federation building from before. Each of the walls seemed to be at least 4 meters thick.


    ¡°Now that you¡¯re one of us, you¡¯ll need to know what to strive for. Here, I¡¯ll demonstrate the power of an arcanist for you.¡± He said.


    He took a deep breath in, and upon exhaling a strange yet fascinating symbol appeared in mid-air in front of him. The symbol was as large as a cartwheel and seemed to be glowing with an eerie green light. The symbol gradually shone stronger and stronger until suddenly Nash yelled out.


    ¡°Acid spray!¡±


    The moment the words left his mouth a flow of high-speed green liquid flew out of the symbol. It shot in a gracious arc up at a 45-degree angle before coming back down on a small tree in the form of a highly concentrated rain. As soon as the rain came in contact with the tree the leaves disappeared soon followed by the branches and then the whole tree. The whole process had taken less than five seconds and had caused a whole tree to be dissolved as well as the ground below it forming a pit that was a couple of meters deep.


    Mia was speechless. This man indeed was an arcanist, and the might that he had demonstrated went beyond her wildest dreams.


    The man turned around and spoke to her.


    ¡°Now that you¡¯ve seen this, I expect you to be able to cast such a spell in the future. Once you do so you¡¯ll be recognized as a fully fledged arcanist. Good luck.¡±


    And so, the days went by as Mia followed the strict schedule enforced upon her that supposedly would allow her to become an arcanist. Her days consisted of both physical training and classes that would teach her how to become an arcanist.


    She first learned about the magicules system which she found rather fascinating. Afterward, they were taught about how being an arcanist worked. The idea was that there were ancient symbols that existed and that by visualizing them and injecting magicules within them, they would create the effect associated with them. In a way the symbols represented spells. What made it so incredibly tough to be an arcanist was the complexity of the symbols. To make use of them one not only had to memorize their complex structures perfectly but also understand its meaning. By understanding a symbol¡¯s meaning, one would be able to understand how to control the magicules flow within to bring out its full potential. Spells could be used with a very limited understanding of how their meaning, however, the better it was understood the stronger and more magicule efficient the results would be. She was also told that people with full understandings of spells were extremely rare and that for example, the acid spray that Nash had used beforehand was only the might of a 10% understanding. Therefore, it was very important for arcanists to increase their intelligence stats through magicules. As for talent, she learned that this referred to how easily they would be able to increase a specific stat in the future. Those with talent would unknowingly use magicules in low quantities to improve their stats from a young age. The orb from beforehand was able to detect her talent by measuring how many magicules she was passively absorbing, as it was a good indicator of how easy it would be for her to upgrade that stat. And that be an arcanist that stat was obviously intelligence.


    Over the course of the next few years, she got to see Felix and Rob on quite a few occasions. Felix had grown extremely strong whereas Ross instead became extremely nimble. On the other hand, Mia still wasn¡¯t able to cast any spells. However, that did not mean that she was falling behind. Generally, for an arcanist to have enough brain power to understand enough of the meaning of a rune to cast it, they were required to reach rank 1 in intelligence. However, Mia had only just reached level 9 of rank 0 a few weeks prior. Despite that she had within those few years managed to memorize the structure of over 100 runes and had made progress in understanding three of them. This feat made her a genius compared to all other recruits they would generally only reach this stage after becoming a rank 1 in intelligence. And even then, it generally took them at least a decade.


    Luckily thanks to her talent she was allowed a pay slightly higher than average, which she had used to support her mother financially. When her mother found out about how well Mia was doing, she was both really glad and really sorry. Afterall it was her fault that her daughter resorted to such actions. If she hadn¡¯t said all this that day then Mia would have never known about the situation and never joined the hunter federation. But she was glad because her daughter was very successful, and she was proud of her. On top of things she no longer had to worry about money, although this made her happy, she was still embarrassed to have to rely on her daughter. He feelings at the time were very complex, to say the least.


    After a few more months Mia got the news that she would finally be allowed to participate in the hunter exam. If one successfully passed it, they would officially become a hunter! On top of that, she learned that she would be able to pass it along with Felix and Ross!


    Showing up on the day of the exam they were told that their goal was to kill a Lesser Red-Tailed Lizard and bring its body back to the federation. If they successfully managed to do so then they would become official hunters.


    And now here they were, in the forest, having trapped their target between a cliff and themselves.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry Mia, we got this.¡± Felix said bringing her back to reality, before charging at the lizard.

 Chapter 11 - Experiment Time

    Mia watched Felix as he rushed the lizard. As he got closer the Lizard began to look gradually more nervous, as it was clearly trying to find a way out. Sadly, it never got the chance to find one, as Felix had already reached it. In an attempt to defend itself the lizard hesitantly tried to hit Felix with its glowing red tail. But of course, the attack was easily avoided by Felix, who decided to use this as an opportunity to counterattack. He raised his sword high and prepared to cleave down on the lizard. However, despite being cowardly, the lizard wasn¡¯t slow when it came to avoiding attacks. It managed to narrowly avoid the sword aiming for its neck.


    Despite having avoided the majority of the blow, a small cut appeared near its neck. Luckily, only its scales had been harmed and its flesh remained intact. Seeing this the lizard backed off a bit more while clearly looking more frightened than it previously was. Seeing this Felix raised his sword again, to attempt breaking through the lizard¡¯s natural armor once more. This blow was of course yet again avoided by the lizard, but this time without any injuries.


    This went on for a while until the lizard got frustrated and decided to risk making another attack. Mia could tell that the lizard staked all its hopes of escaping on this one attack, as it readied itself to make a huge tail swing. That swing contained a tremendous amount of momentum and was extremely fast, with the added bonus of the glowing hot tail, any normal human hit by that attack would die on the spot. Felix, however, wasn¡¯t a normal human, he had been training in the fighter unit for a few years and had finally gotten the opportunity to become a hunter. There was no way he would let his life stop there. With this in mind, he jumped backward using the entirety of his superior strength to avoid the attack.


    Unfortunately, his was a tad too slow and the attack hit his left leg which was too slow in retreating. Upon impact, a loud thud was heard as Felix was sent spinning in the air with the added momentum of his jump. As soon as he got hit, Mia could tell that his leg was fractured, that attack was far too strong.


    Looking back at the creature the group quickly realized that its strike was a double-edged sword. Its massive momentum had caused it to spin off and lose balance, almost causing it to end up on its back. This was the moment they had all been waiting for.


    ¡°Ross!¡± Mia called out, shaking him out of his daze.


    He immediately understood her intentions and readied his aim.


    *Bang*


    The bullet, despite being spherical, followed its intended trajectory perfectly and lodged itself within the lizard¡¯s right eye. This caused the creature to let out a loud and sharp scream reflecting the intense pain it was currently in.


    At this point, Felix was supposed to step in and take out the other eye. But with his current injuries, it would be a miracle for him to even be able to stand.


    However, to everyone¡¯s surprise, Felix was standing. And not only that, he was beside the lizard and ready to strike a blow to its left eye. Instead of staying down, he got up the moment he hit the ground and rushed for the lizard. He ignored the pain in his leg to make sure the plan would proceed smoothly.


    Seeing that Felix was right beside him, the lizard panicked. As its left eye was about to be taken out as well, it suddenly moved in an extremely surprising way and jumped at Felix in an attempt to bite him.


    No one had been expecting the cowardly lizard to turn berserk at the last moment. However, if they had actually taken the time to think about it, it wasn¡¯t surprising for a creature to act this way when it was corned and about to die.


    Felix, who hadn¡¯t been expecting that, tried to dodge its attack. He jumped out of the way. Unfortunately, when he did so, his left leg gave out an atrocious amount of pain, causing it to weaken and collapse instead of jumping.


    ¡°Shit¡± was the last word he said as he saw the lizard reach for his neck with its extremely sharp teeth.


    Felix¡¯s body was lying down of the ground. His right arm was entirely missing. It seems that when his leg gave out on him, it caused him to fall towards the left. This had led to the lizard missing its attack and taking his right arm instead of his life. With such degree of injuries, Felix was definitely not getting back up without treatment anymore. Mia was fully aware that if they wanted him to survive that wound, they had to immediately get him back to the city. Unfortunately, it seemed to be an impossible thing to do at this point.


    The lizard had turned berserk and it wouldn¡¯t be an understatement to say that the roles had been reversed. They were the prey and the lizard was the predator.


    The lizard turned around and faced Ross with Felix¡¯s arm still in its mouth. Its eye was filled with a deep bloodlust and rage. If they hadn¡¯t witnessed this event, Ross and Mia would have sworn that it was a different lizard than the one they had just attacked.


    Ross could feel the lizard¡¯s gaze staring at his soul. He could tell that all the lizard wanted was to kill him. Its appearance was absolutely terrifying. Ross couldn¡¯t move or breath. He stood there frozen as the lizard began to charge at him.


    ¡°Ross! Ross!¡± Mia shouted in desperation, trying to get Ross to run away.


    Sadly, Ross couldn¡¯t hear any of her cries. He stood there, frozen, facing the lizard.


    ¡°Shit, shit, shit, shit!¡± Mia cursed under her breath. ¡°I guess I¡¯ve only got this left.¡±


    As she said this, as symbol began to appear, hovering in mid-air in front of her. This was the fireball spell. She chose that spell because it was the one she was the most proficient in. She was fully aware that her understanding of it was too small to cast it, and that she risked being affected by backlash due to that. However, if she wanted her friends to live, she had no choice.


    The symbol began to glow brighter and brighter until she yelled out.


    ¡°Fireball!¡±


    As these words left her mouth a fireball the size of a soccer ball shot out from the symbol. Her understanding of it was only at around 3% and normally an understanding of 5% was needed to cast a spell. It could be said that she was either extremely lucky or that she was a rare genius. Despite having successfully cast the spell, it would still be weaker than if executed with a 5% understanding.


    The fireball shot out of the symbol at a surprisingly fast speed towards the lizard. Within a fraction of a second, the fireball hit the lizard¡¯s side. The lizard let out yet another cry of pain as the scorching hot flames were ravaging its body.


    Contrary to Mia¡¯s intentions, it seemed that the spell caused the lizard¡¯s fury to grow stronger instead of stopping it. It sped up as it charged at Ross, and in an instant, it closed the gap between them. Showing no signs of stopping, it delivered a full force blow to Ross. The sound of multiple bones breaking was heard as Ross was sent flying through the air. Knocking him unconscious on the spot.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°NO! ROSS!¡± Mia shouted.


    She could feel tears rising to her eyes, she had completely failed at defending her friends. When the lizard turned to face her and their gazes met, the fury within their eyes clashed, creating a tremendous amount of pressure.


    ¡°This is it.¡± Mia said in a calm cold voice.


    Another fireball symbol appeared in front of her. However, this time, the symbol was several times bigger than it was before.


    ¡°You want to take my friend¡¯s lives and escape!? Don¡¯t you think I¡¯ll let you do whatever you want! I don¡¯t care if I die in the process! Take that you piece of shit!¡± It was clear that at this point Mia had completely and utterly snapped. She had lost all her sanity after having seen the sight of her two closest friends being sent to the doors of death.


    The symbol began to glow brighter and brighter. Seeing this the lizard seemed to have regained its sanity. Fear now filled its eyes; it was obvious a spell of this size was more than enough to kill it. Therefore, as any smart creature would do, it tried to run away. Unfortunately for it, it was too slow.


    ¡°FIREBA¡­¡±


    *Thud*


    The ground suddenly rose in front of Mia and hit her in the face. Her vision turned black and her consciousness began to fade away before she could even react.


    Jules stood in the clearing and looked at the results from the battlefield. All three kids were unconscious, two of which were severely injured. The reason the girl called Mia was unconscious was that Jules had knocked her out with a heavy branch he had found nearby. He had taken advantage of the fact that her attention was completely focussed on the lizard to sneak behind her and incapacitate her.


    The lizard didn¡¯t seem to be doing any better, as it had collapsed right after seeing that Jules meant it no harm. After all, it had just been through an extremely stressful moment and had suffered many injuries.


    Seeing everyone at his mercy, Jules decided to bring them back alive to his camp instead of killing them on the spot. This, however, was not out of kindness. Ever since he had learned how magicules worked, he had thought of a couple of things that he would like to try. Therefore, he decided to take advantage of those three kids to run some experiments.


    With the help of all of his zombies, they were all transported back to the base within no time. Jules had also decided to help the lizard, there was no reason for him not to, hating humans did not mean he was no longer kind.


    He got his zombies to repurpose the kitchen tent into a resting area for the lizard. Jules didn¡¯t know much about how to heal things, but he still had some common sense. He had his zombies wash the wounds with some clean water to the best of their abilities. Following this he had them apply some bandages he had found within the camp on these wounds. At first, Jules was worried his own bacteria would turn out to be a problem when trying to heal the lizard, luckily it turned out that if Jules focussed hard enough, he could stop the bacteria from replicating within any organism of his choice. This way the lizard¡¯s immune system would just take out the few remaining bacteria. This process works similarly to that of a switch, once activated he would have to focus on it to deactivate it. This meant that he didn¡¯t have to focus on it permanently.


    While some of the zombies were taking care of the unconscious lizard, others were busy bringing the three humans to one of the bunk tents. They were each laid down on a bunk bed and tied to it in case they woke up. Soon after a couple of zombies walked in and proceeded to try their best to stop the bleeding from Felix¡¯s arm. After a few minutes, they had managed to significantly slow down the bleeding by using bandages. However, it was clear that this clearly wasn¡¯t enough, and that Felix was still going to die unless he got proper treatment. The other two seemed to be rather stable, albeit in a lot of pain.


    Jules walked into the room with a grin on his face. Clearly, whatever he was going to do, he would enjoy it. In his right hand was a bag, although it wasn¡¯t see-through it was easy to tell due to its movements that there was something alive in it.


    Jules walked up to them and inspected them with a glance quickly one by one. After some careful deliberation within his head, he decided to approach Felix and sit beside him. He then proceeded to reach within his bag and pulled out a black goop that seemed to have a life of its own.


    ¡°Alright, it¡¯s time to experiment.¡± He said, looking extremely eager to begin. ¡°Xena, name the recording of this experiment ¡®Parasite 1¡¯.¡±


    ¡®[Beginning recording ¡®Parasite 1¡¯.¡¯ She replied within his head.


    The reason Jules had named this experiment ¡®Parasite 1¡¯ was that he wanted to see if it was possible for his bacteria to live within the host without killing it. He wanted to try it because he came up with an interesting idea. Magicule farms.


    He wasn¡¯t able to produce any magicules himself and had to rely on what he absorbed from corpses. If he wanted to get stronger, he would have to kill. This in itself wasn¡¯t a problem for him morally, however, if he killed too much, he would without a doubt draw attention to himself. Considering the fact that he wanted to survive above and that he had a rather careful nature, looking for alternatives wasn¡¯t such an unreasonable idea. Therefore, he was very interested in searching for solutions to this problem.


    His current idea was a very simple one.


    ¡®Since humans can produce magicules, would it be possible to steal these without killing them. This way it would be possible to have an unlimited flow of magicules.¡¯


    Therefore, his goal was to attempt having his bacteria replicate within their host without killing them. The hurdle was that he would have to find a way to bypass the host¡¯s immune system. Which was why wanted to experiment.


    So, when stumbled upon three people that seemed to have rather high vitality, he decided he had to try it out. And worst-case scenario, if his experiments failed, he could just turn them into zombies. Therefore, he wouldn¡¯t really lose anything by giving it a shot.


    The first step of his experiment would be to infect the subject. To do this he decided to try using the slimes. This could prove more effective than just making them consume blood or scratch them since the slimes were made of 99% bacteria.


    His first subject was Felix. Since Felix was doomed to die regardless, it would be good to use him for his first attempt. This way he wouldn¡¯t lose too much of an opportunity if he failed.


    Therefore, Jules opened Felix¡¯s mouth and placed a slime the size of a small potato in it. Afterward, he closed Felix¡¯s mouth and pinched his nose until he swallowed the slime.


    Jules took a deep breath and focused on the bacteria now with Felix¡¯s body. There were approximatively 1 trillion bacteria within the slime. By the time the slime made its way to Felix¡¯s stomach, about 500 thousand bacteria had already entered his bloodstream. Soon enough another 50 million followed, then 10 billion. The flow of bacteria stopped at roughly 20 billion, it seemed that the rest had been destroyed by the acid within his stomach.


    Now that he had his forces inside Felix¡¯s blood, he had to find a way to bypass the immune system. His first idea was to find a spot that was safe from it. To do so he made sure to spread out his bacteria evenly throughout the body.


    As expected, the immune system kicked in quick. Felix¡¯s white blood cells began to devour countless bacteria. It was extremely quick and efficient. Jules was taken aback; he wasn¡¯t expecting this. But it made sense, the higher their vitality, the better their immune system. However, since Felix was wounded, he wasn¡¯t expecting that much. If compared to the bandit leader¡¯s, Felix¡¯s one was way stronger, even in this state.


    This made Jules come to a conclusion. If he didn¡¯t find a way to bypass that immune system quickly, his bacteria would either be eliminated, or he would be forced to kill Felix. The reason he felt that he wouldn¡¯t be able to try again was that Felix¡¯s immune system was getting better and better at fighting back his bacteria. It was learning extremely quickly. Essentially, the longer it took, the more immune Felix was becoming to him.


    This prompted Jules to search more frantically. Unfortunately, he still remained unable to find a safe spot. At this point, 50% of his bacteria had been eliminated and the enemy was only growing stronger. Therefore, Jules decided to gather his bacteria in one spot, he was going to have to switch tactics.


    ¡°It¡¯s time to fight back.¡± He said.


    This was his other idea. Destroy the immune system and have his bacteria replace it. The reason he wasn¡¯t too keen on doing so was that he wasn¡¯t entirely sure his bacteria could do a good job at replacing it. However, it was clearly visible that his original plan wasn¡¯t going to work.


    After having grouped up, his bacteria began fighting Felix¡¯s immune system. Those on the outside of the group would fight, whereas those on the inside would replicate. By doing this Jules was able to gradually gain ground on the enemy. But quickly enough he started being overpowered, the immune system kept getting stronger and had started to push back.


    Unfortunately for the immune system, they weren¡¯t the only ones getting stronger.


    [Beep! Immune system analyzed. Optimal fighting plan established.] A nice voice declared within his head.


    As soon as he heard her voice, Jules grabbed another slime and forced Felix to swallow it too. At the same time, he got his bacteria to follow the optimal fighting plan that Xena came up with.


    This move instantly turned the tides of battle. Within a minute Felix¡¯s entire immune system had been destroyed.


    ¡°Alright, now is time to see if it can take its place,¡± Jules said with a satisfied smile on his face.

 Chapter 12 - Results

    ¡°Here we go.¡± Jules said, with a calm and steady voice.


    Now that he had completely exterminated Felix¡¯s immune system, he was attempting to have his bacteria replace it. He did so because it was in his best interests that the humans, he would use to farm magicules in the future wouldn¡¯t just die from the first disease they encountered.


    Therefore, after having failed at concealing his bacteria from the host¡¯s immune system, he was forced to destroy it. This meant that it was now vulnerable to diseases. Since his bacteria were able to fight off other cells, Jules theorized it would be possible for him to establish an immune system within the host¡¯s body. But this wouldn¡¯t be a simple process. After all the human immune system was an incredibly complex mechanism forged by millions of years of evolution. He, on the other hand, was attempting it on the spot.


    Along with Xena¡¯s help, he quickly established that there were three things he would need to achieve in order to create a fully functional immune system. The first one was the ability to determine what is foreign to the host and what isn¡¯t. The second one was to determine if that foreign substance was harmful or not. And lastly, it had to be able to eliminate it if it indeed was harmful.


    He quickly realized, however, that even with Xena¡¯s help he still might not be able to succeed on his first try. This because Xena lacked that data necessary to fully predict how its current propositions would turn out. Therefore, Jules asked her to create the ideal experiments that would create the most feedback possible regardless of the outcome.


    Shifting his attention back to Felix he began to set up the new immune system. Jules was extremely focussed throughout the entire procedure. Although he was following Xena¡¯s instructions, it didn¡¯t change the fact that this was an extremely complicated process.


    Luckily for him, the procedure wasn¡¯t very long. It only took him about 10 minutes to complete the procedure. He even added some mud to Felix¡¯s wound, this way it would be more likely for him to get infected by something. As it was the best way to try out that new immune system. On top of things, it seemed that the mud helped slow down the bleeding, which was rather good. At this point, he could only wait until he got results. He decided that it would be a good idea to wait for them before continuing his experiment with the other two humans.


    Having completed what he wanted to do; he went back to his hut to conduct some new experiments. But before that, he instructed Xena to come up with an escape route for him in case his defenses failed at any point. And of course, after a very short wait, a familiar voice sounded out and transferred the blueprints to his mind.


    The escape route wasn¡¯t anything amazing, it was just a simple tunnel that leads from his hut to a large tree that was roughly 500 meters away (~1600 feet). The only thing special about it was that it had cleverly concealed ends and a structure that could be easily collapsed from the inside. This would allow him to leave a zombie in it behind as he was escaping to have it fall onto any pursuers.


    After adding it onto his zombie¡¯s ¡®to do¡¯ list he began his new experiment. This time around he wanted to focus more on the slimes that he had made. As they currently were, the slimes had no autonomy and only occasionally jiggled. They didn¡¯t do much besides being entertaining to play with. However, Jules had found out he was able to control them if he focused on it the same way he focused on his bacteria; this was because these slimes were made of them. Sadly, even if he gave them orders, they had absolutely no ability to do things without supervision, unlike his zombies.


    Therefore, he wanted to see if Xena had the ability to control them. After all, he used his mind to control them and since Xena seemed to be connected to his mind, then perhaps she could control them.


    ¡®Hey Xena, can you try and move that slime around? Try and make it go outside.¡¯


    ¡®[Order confirmed. Attempting to establish connection to <Slime>¡­ ¡­ ¡­ Connection successfully established! Connection speed: Extremely slow ¨C Current connection speed limits reaction rate to: 100ms.]¡¯ She replied as the slime started to bounce towards to entrance.


    ¡®That¡¯s a surprisingly fast reaction time for an extremely slow connection. I wonder how quick it could become if I find ways to increase the connection speed.¡¯


    Feeling extremely pleased with how this turned out, Jules got Xena to take control of all the slimes he had. In total, he now had 8, at this speed he was able to make roughly 4 a day. Worried that after a while the sheer number of slimes could take a toll on Xena¡¯s processing power, Jules decided to ask her about it.


    ¡®Xena, how much of your processing power does controlling a slime take?¡¯


    ¡®[Slime control estimated to take less than 0.000001% of total processing power available per slime.]¡¯ She responded.


    This was a crazy figure, it meant that she was able to control over 1 million slimes at once! This came as quite a surprise to him; he wasn¡¯t even sure he would ever reach such a huge amount of slimes.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    After hearing this Jules had decided to resume his experiments. Amongst various things, he found that he was able to combine or split slimes together to create different sizes. He found that if they became smaller than a marble then they became increasingly tougher to control. He found himself completely unable to control them accurately once they became smaller than a water droplet, he supposed that it was due to the fact that they represented a tiny portion of all the bacteria he controlled. And that once it became too small relative to the rest, it became increasingly difficult to control. However, this didn¡¯t seem to pose a problem to Xena. She was able to control them no matter how small they became, which was rather impressive.


    However, Jules learned each individual slime no matter its size took Xena the same amount of processing power to control. Therefore, it wasn¡¯t a very smart idea to make them become too small because large slimes were clearly more useful than small ones.


    He also found out that they were very good at digging, this is because individual bacteria would dislodge dirt particles a then pass it on to the next one until it was ejected out of the slime. Looking at a slime dig was an extremely mesmerizing process; the dirt was floating to the top of it and then falling off. The best thing was that Jules could control where the dirt was ejected. Therefore, he could have large slimes dig trenches and eject the dirt to the sides and complete the trench within minutes.


    It seemed that his slimes were also able to carry things inside them without damaging them. In a way, they were living shock absorbers. Jules thought that this would make it a rather convenient way to carry fragile stuff in the future.


    At this point, Jules had tested everything that came to mind. As a result of having discovered the slime¡¯s abilities he got them to dig the escape tunnel.


    With this done a whole day passed and before anything noteworthy happened.


    Mia slowly opened her eyes, waking up from her rather deep sleep. Feeling quite groggy she noticed there was a rather strong pain being emitted from the back of her head. The pain felt rather dull yet imposing. It was one of those things that the more aware you were of it, the more painful it would get.


    After slowly coming to her senses and trying to ignore the pain, she took a look at her surroundings only to notice that she was in an unfamiliar place. It seemed that she was in a sort of cheap tent that hadn¡¯t been properly maintained. It was rather dim within it, as only very little sunlight could make its way through the walls. However, what stood out to Mia the most was the pungent smell. It was horrendous and made her want to throw up on the spot. It felt like a mix between decaying flesh and blood. The warm and humid atmosphere within did not seem to help in any ways either, if anything it actually made it worse.


    The first thing she wanted to do was to get out of there. But when she tried to sit up, she quickly found out that it wasn¡¯t going to be possible. The reason was that both her hands and feet were tied to the bed she was resting in. This instantly caused her to panic, why was she there and why couldn¡¯t she leave? She violently tried to tear off her restraints but found herself to be unsuccessful.


    By the time she had stopped both her wrists and ankles were severely bruised and bleeding. It really seemed that she didn¡¯t hold anything back. And for some reason, she couldn¡¯t remember any of the events that lead to her current situation.


    Having given up on breaking free of her restraints she decided to take a more careful look around herself. Quickly enough she noticed two other figures resting on beds near her, both of which also seemed to be tied down. One of them was missing an arm whereas the other one clearly seemed to have multiple broken bones. Compared to them Mia felt rather lucky that she only had a painful headache.


    Having her curiosity peaked by the two individuals also lying down in the room, she attempted to figure out who they were. However, it seemed that she was having trouble identifying them due to the darkness. Yet, she could clearly tell that they seemed extremely familiar. Annoyingly, every time she tried to search her memories for them her mind got cloudy making it impossible to recall who they were.


    ¡°Got damn it, if only Ross and Felix were there, then I might be able to escape.¡± She grumbles under her breath.


    ¡®Wait¡­¡¯ She thought after looking back at the two individuals. ¡®Could it¡­ No... I¡­ It¡­ Ro¡­ Felix¡­?¡¯


    Suddenly as she seemed to connect the dots, an extremely powerful wave of pain gushed out from the back of her head. At the exact same time all the memories of what had happened beforehand flooded in her mind.


    ¡°NOOOOO!!! FELIX!!! ROSS!!¡± She screamed at the top of her lungs with an unceasing flow of tears flowing down her face. The shock of seeing her closest friends in such a state on top of suddenly remembering how they became that way was plenty enough for her to lose her composure.


    After her initial scream she just quietly sobbed occasionally calling out their names. Amongst her self-cursing and pitiful noises, she did not notice that somebody had walked into the tent.


    ¡°It seems you¡¯re awake. I heard you all the way from my place.¡± Said that person causing Mia to jump in surprise.


    Mia couldn¡¯t see that person clearly, but she could tell from her voice that it was a woman.


    ¡°Who are you? What are you going to do with my friends?¡± Mia replied, still sobbing.


    ¡°My name is Jules. As for what I¡¯m going to do to you and your friends, you¡¯ll figure that out soon.¡± The woman answered back.


    ¡°You better not be thinking of harming them otherwise¡­¡±


    ¡°Otherwise what?¡± The woman interrupted. Although Mia couldn¡¯t see her face, she could tell that there definitively was a smug smile on it.


    ¡°At least show yourself, you coward.¡± Mia exclaimed. If she was going to die, then she might as well keep her honor till the end.


    ¡°As you wish. ¡°The woman replied while reaching for the fabric covering the entrance. And in one swift move, she tore it off letting an abundance of light flow inside.


    ¡°Ah!¡± Mia exclaimed as her eyes weren¡¯t used to the sudden brightness.


    She slowly opened her eyes to adjust to the light. She gradually began to see more and more of the person standing in front of her. However, instead of revealing anger or surprise, Mia¡¯s expression slowly turned to that of terror.

 Chapter 13 - Revelation

    ¡°Are you happy now?¡± Jules said with a slightly annoyed look on his face.


    ¡°Y-you¡­ What are you?!¡± Mia replied clearly shocked by what she was seeing. Anyone seeing such a sight would definitely not expect that ¡®creature¡¯ to be human. After all, what kind of humans had huge pulsating hearts on their back that emitted black smoke on top of having quite visibly black blood.


    ¡°Ugh. How to say. I¡¯m a bloody zombie.¡± He replied, still annoyed yet this time with a slightly embarrassed look on his face.


    It still hadn¡¯t been long since he had been reincarnated in this new world. On top of the odd events that occurred after his reincarnation, he currently had the body of a female. Which to say the least, made him rather uncomfortable. Therefore, thinking back upon what put him in this situation still made him feel slightly awkward. Despite that, he was still a strong will individual and managed to mostly conceal that expression. If he started giving in to his hostages, he wouldn¡¯t know what to think of himself anymore.


    ¡°You¡¯re what? Zombies can¡¯t talk, you must be lying. What are you really? What do you want to do with us?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a zombie and I talk. If you don¡¯t want to believe me well that¡¯s your problem. I¡¯m not here to convince you otherwise. Now it would be nice of you to shut your mouth while I check-up on my experiments.¡± He snapped back; this girl was getting on his nerves fast.


    This seemed to have achieved something as the girl finally shut her mouth and watched him with an incredulous look in her eyes. As if she wasn¡¯t expecting Jules to reply to her that way. However, that look quickly faded and was replaced by another, more ferocious one, when she saw Jules approach her dear friend Felix.


    ¡°Hey! What do you think you¡¯re doing to my friend?!¡± She exclaimed as soon as Jules had started inspecting how Felix¡¯s new immune system was doing.


    This majorly pissed him off. This girl was his bloody captive. He had already told her to shut up, yet she still wouldn¡¯t stop. Was she even aware that she and her friend¡¯s lives were in his hands?


    ¡°Do you want me to knock you out?¡± He replied accompanied with an equally furious stare.


    ¡°I swear if you dare harm him in any wa¡­¡±


    SMACK!


    Thud.


    Jules had punched her straight in the head, causing her to instantly lose consciousness and collapse back down on her bed.


    ¡®Finally, some quiet¡¯ he thought.


    Now that he was freed of Mia¡¯s annoying voice, he proceeded to shift his focus back to Felix. He was looking forward to the results of this experiment because it would essentially give him the ability to steal magicules from humans without killing them. Yet, in Jules¡¯ eyes, the potential of this research was far greater. If his bacteria truly became able to remain in a host over a long term, then there were many things he would potentially be able to do. There was one such idea that stood out to him. Quite eager to try it out later he tasked Xena to put some work into making it possible. He named this the ¡®Mnemo¡¯ project. Sadly, according to Xena¡¯s estimates, it seemed that it will take about two days for it to be complete. Luckily, he still had plenty to experiment with.


    Looking at Felix he could instantly see that there was something wrong with him. He was quite pale, and his condition seemed to be deteriorating fast. His breathing was quick and yet very weak.


    ¡®Interesting.¡¯ Jules thought. This was by no means bad news. In science a failure was always a step forward, there was always something to learn from things going wrong. In fact, lots of inventions had been discovered completely by mistakes either from failed experiments or as by-products. Therefore, instead of being demoralized, Jules was actually looking forward to seeing what was going wrong.


    Using his bacteria and Xena¡¯s abilities, Jules was able to go through a series of step that allowed him to identify the problem. And indeed, it seemed that the immune system that he had set up was malfunctioning. Although in theory, all should have been fine, it turned out that a certain part of Felix¡¯s body caused it to go wrong. This caused Jules¡¯ bacteria to identify his hemoglobin as a foreign threat. Due to this, they had been constantly destroying it on top of the red blood cells they were on.


    So how did that put Felix into such a tough spot? Hemoglobin is a protein responsible for carrying oxygen from the lungs to the cells. Therefore, since Felix was losing his rapidly, this meant that he was essentially suffocating because he wasn¡¯t able to get oxygen to his body. Hence the weak rapid breaths.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Unfortunately for him, Jules was completely unable to replenish his hemoglobin stock. Although he instantly fixed the problem with his bacteria, he wasn¡¯t able to repair the damage they had done. Unless Felix were to get a blood transfusion, he would certainly die within the next few minutes.


    ¡°What a shame. I would have liked to experiment more on him¡­¡± He thought out loud.


    However, this wasn¡¯t all for nothing. Although his bacteria had started to attack Felix¡¯s red blood cells, it wasn¡¯t the only thing that went wrong. Thanks to that, Xena had been able to gain a lot more data in order to improve the procedure until it became perfect.


    On a side note, he also found an easier and stealthy way of asphyxiating people. Another thing that came out of this experiment was that I seemed that red blood cells were rather prone to be destroyed by his bacteria. This was due to their rather small size and lack of ability to defend themselves. This proved to be a way easier way to cut someone¡¯s oxygen flow than to crudely get them to form a lump within the throat. The later needing a rather large number of bacteria to accomplish. On top of that, using this method would probably cause people to feel more and more faint-headed until they collapsed, not vigorously gripping their throats. This made the new method a quicker, more efficient and quieter way to kill someone.


    Overall Jules was quite satisfied with what his experiment on Felix earned him. Knowing he was no longer a threat, he decided to untie him. This way he would be able to get up as soon as he became a zombie.


    Having accomplished his goals for the day he proceeded to make his way to the now repurposed dining tent.


    As soon as he stepped in, he could smell the stench of blood within this room as well. The inside of the tent was dim, just like the one he just came from.


    Inside the room, on a mattress laid a rather large lizard. The lizard was fast asleep, still recovering from its heavy wounds. Large white bloodstained bandages were wrapped across its torso. Although it wasn¡¯t extremely visible, the lizard seemed to be in pain.


    Jules walked up to it and sat down.


    ¡°Here buddy. It gonna be okay.¡± He said in a reassuring voice. For some reason, he seemed to care a lot more about that lizard than the humans. Despite his hatred towards the latter, he was still quite surprised at his lack of empathy towards them. He literally just sentenced one of them to death and yet wasn¡¯t feeling anything. At first, he thought perhaps its normal, maybe shock or something. But he quickly dismissed that idea, as he didn¡¯t feel bad about it before the experiment or when he killed the bandits.


    His main hypothesis was that it was due to his new body. He was a zombie. Zombies lived to kill, why would they care about the person they just killed? The idea that his body exerted such huge control over his mind quite frankly terrified him. However, upon deeper reflection he still deemed it to be an advantage. If he wanted to get stronger in this world, he would have to kill. There was no way around that, even if he decided to farm magicules, there was no guarantee that it would make him stronger. Zombies had evolved to spread their disease, why the hell would they focus on making a strong core when they have an army. Thinking over it logically, a core probably evolved to become some sort of support unit, not a fighter. Therefore, he was quite glad not to have to worry about that aspect of things. Although then on he made sure to always be on guard towards strange thinking patterns as he did not want to become a stupid zombie. His strength originated from his caution, he knew that, and he didn¡¯t want to lose it.


    Looking back at the lizard he noticed that it seemed to have woken up. Its deep dark eyes were wide open and looking around the room quite curiously. It stood up slowly and stared at Jules intensely. This lasted for a few seconds until it decided to throw itself at him. Jules let out a surprised scream, but instead of finding himself hurt, he looked down only to see a happy lizard rolling around on his lap with its tongue out. In a surprisingly similar way to a dog... This somewhat amusing sight and made Jules giggle a bit. Although it was still injured, it seemed that it was still well enough to roll around and play a bit.


    It seems that it had deemed Jules to be friendly after their intense gaze battle. Perhaps it even recognized him as the one who saved it from the three kids. Although Jules was remotely controlling one of his bodies at the time, it seems that the lizard was able to see through that. Which in a way made it easier for him to manage the creature.


    The lizard looked at him again, this time with pleading eyes. Jules having noticed that immediately knew what it wanted.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll play with you for a bit.¡±


    Instantly after having said these words the lizard jumped at him almost as if it understood these words. They played for about 15 minutes until Jules decided to stop it to make sure that it got all the rest it needed. Only leaving after he made sure that it had plenty of water, as for food, Jules was still unsure as of what it needed.


    Now back in his hut, Jules decided to spend some of his time to practice his remote-control skills. Although it was a bit easier and significantly faster than it used to be when he started, it was still a very mentally exhausting task.


    After a couple of attempts, he noticed something peculiar. He had one more zombie than he should have. And of course, suddenly, without any warning, a rush of magicules surged within his body, causing his heart to expand a little bit more. He couldn¡¯t get enough of that feeling, it was almost like a drug. In a way it kind of was his food, therefore it somewhat made sense for his brain to reward that action, except that was rather extreme. But hey, he wasn¡¯t complaining about it.


    Having acquired this new zombie, he decided to try and remote-control it as well. After some focussing, he finally manages to take control, only to find a pleasant surprise. It seemed that Mia had awoken, and she was looking at him with an incredibly bright smile.


    ¡®Oh boy, she¡¯s in for one hell of a surprise!¡¯ Jules thought to himself, almost laughing.

 Chapter 14 - The Deal

    ¡°Felix! You¡¯re awake!¡± Mia exclaimed, brimming with joy.


    Not giving him any time to answer, she immediately began to bombard him with even more questions.


    ¡°Wait, you¡¯re not tied to the bed? That freak must have thought you had died! Ha! Joke¡¯s on her! Hey, Felix! Untie me, quick! ¡­ Felix? Felix? Why are you not saying anything? Hey Felix!... Felix?... What¡¯s wrong? Please say something to me.¡± Mia started to panic. Her mood quickly dropped as she began to imagine the worst. ¡®Had he lost his tongue? Was he in extreme pain? Did something happen to his head? ¡®


    Thoughts of dark scenarios began to overwhelm her mind when she suddenly got interrupted by Felix. Yet instead of reassuring her, what followed shook her to the deepest reaches of her mind.


    ¡°Pfffffft! Hahahahahahaha!!¡± Felix suddenly burst out laughing. This, however, did not reassure Mia in the slightest. She knew Felix wouldn¡¯t joke in that kind of situation; besides, she was much more worried about his voice. There seemed to be something fundamentally wrong with it. It was crude and lacked to intonations she was used to, as if he wasn¡¯t used to his vocal cords. As if he wasn¡¯t himself.


    ¡°You truly are a first-class idiot.¡± He said, shaking her out of her thoughts.


    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Mia replied, sounding extremely worried.


    ¡°Do you not remember our conversation?¡±


    ¡°What conversation?¡±


    ¡°The fact that I¡¯m a zombie. It shouldn¡¯t be too hard to connect the dots from her right?¡± Felix replied with a mocking look in his eyes.


    ¡°What? But I didn¡¯t talk about that with you, just the weird lady¡­¡± She said slowing down these last few words as the truth started to dawn on her.


    ¡°Y- You¡­ You mean that¡­ You¡­ F-Felix is a zombie?¡± Mia said hesitantly while trying to hold back tears.


    ¡°See! You got it! Good girl!¡±


    ¡°Does this mean that Felix is¡­ is¡­¡±


    ¡°Dead?¡± The possessed boy interrupted her. ¡°Yeah, and you better say your goodbyes because you probably will never be seeing him ever again.¡±


    ¡°No! You can¡¯t do that to him! He¡¯s my best friend! He¡¯s always been there for me, ever since we were kids! Please leave us his body! We didn¡¯t do anything to deserve that fate, at least please let Ross go. Take me instead! I¡¯ll obey you and do whatever you want me to.¡± Mia begged with all her might, as the dam holding her tears back collapsed. Her thoughts were frantically banging around within her head. She could feel the pressure caused by that incessant banging trying to pop her eyeballs out. Her head hurt, her brain hurt and her ability to form coherent thoughts was lost with it. Yet somehow, she had managed to string of coherent words within that torrent of emotions.


    Felix looked at her with an exasperated look. At this point, the girl had completely collapsed and was crying at the top of her lungs. It truly wasn¡¯t a good day for her. This went on for a long time. At least from her perspective. After this seemingly eternal time of torment, she finally began to quieten down.


    ¡°Are you done?¡± A feminine voice rang out. ¡°How long are you going to keep me waiting? I¡¯ve literally been standing here for over ten minutes. You just wouldn¡¯t snap out of it. Ugh, you¡¯re so annoying, grow some balls already.¡±


    ¡°Please¡­ *sniff* Please let them go¡­¡± She quietly begged.


    ¡°What can you give me in return? I¡¯m not dumb enough to just give away my precious research material. Therefore, if you want that Ross guy freed, you better give me something worthwhile. That also goes for Felix, if you don¡¯t mind having a zombie around of course.¡±


    ¡°You can have my life, my soul and all that I own!¡± Mia said.


    ¡°¡­¡± The woman looked at Mia in silence, with a slightly surprised and annoyed look on her face. ¡°Are you actually stupid? I know I was making fun of you before, but that kind of stupidity is just on a whole other level. You do realize that you¡¯re at my mercy, right? You do know that everything you just offered me; I already have?¡±


    ¡°I-I¡¯ll give you knowledge!¡± Mia said after a brief moment of worry and hesitation. ¡°I can teach you magic and all that I know!¡±This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    ¡°I already have ways of getting all of this. If you truly want them free you better come up with something else.¡±


    Mia froze. A deep panic began to re-emerge on her face. It was quite clear that she was trying her hardest to come up with something. Time went by and as the woman was about to leave, Mia took her a deep breath and steeled her resolve before saying.


    ¡°I¡¯ll betray humans. I¡¯m willing to work for you as a spy within their ranks.¡±


    ¡°Hmmm. That sounds good, however, how do I know that you won¡¯t betray me once I let you go?¡± The woman said, looking quite tempted by Mia¡¯s offer. It was not every day that one could acquire such a highly ranked spy.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know¡­¡± She replied looking slightly ashamed. ¡°It was the best idea I could come up with, I didn¡¯t really think about that.¡±


    After taking a brief moment of thinking, the mysterious zombie woman named Jules replied.


    ¡°Well, there is a way¡­ Sadly it¡¯s still in its experimental phase. To be completely honest there is a chance you will die, including your friend.¡± She said pensively. ¡°If both of you survive, I¡¯ll let you go. Otherwise, I¡¯ll keep the remaining one here for further experiments. Do you agree to that?¡±


    ¡°So, we¡¯ll still have to be experimented on?¡± Mia said somewhat disappointed.


    ¡°It¡¯s your choice. You can decide to stay here and be experimented on until death or you could decide to undergo only one and buy your friend¡¯s freedom. Now quick, make a decision, I¡¯m getting impatient.¡±


    ¡°I-I agree to the deal.¡± Mia replied, hoping that she made the right choice.


    ¡°Very well. I¡¯ll be back soon.¡± The woman said as she left the room.


    As soon as the woman had left Mia began to worry about what was to come. She had decided to betray her people so that her friend could live! She had decided to side with a zombie-like creature that held no regards for human life. On top of that, there was no guarantee that they would both make it out alive! What if she decided to go back on her words and kill both of them? No, that wasn¡¯t possible, she benefitted from the deal after all. But what if she just enjoyed giving her false hopes and tormenting her?


    Thoughts were whirling around in her head like an unstoppable storm. No matter how hard she tried to stop them, grim scenarios would always find a way to get to her. The woman still wasn¡¯t back yet, leaving her at the mercy of her own thoughts. The wait seemed like a painful eternity to her. What had she done? What had she done!?! She frantically looked around trying to find a way out of this place. Unsurprisingly she couldn¡¯t do anything more than what she was able to do beforehand. Escape was impossible.


    As she was about to go insane, the familiar figure of the woman with a pulsating heart on her back walked in. She was carrying a small bag filled with some sort of living creature in her right hand.


    ¡°Took me a little longer than I planned to find the little buggers.¡± She said with a mocking tone in her voice. Hinting at the fact that she knew how Mia was feeling, and that she had taken a long time to come back intentionally.


    ¡°What are you going to do to us?¡± Mia said in a weak voice. ¡°What¡¯s in that bag?¡±


    ¡°Oh, that? It¡¯s a little surprise. However, I¡¯ll tell you that I essentially am going to place something in your bodies that will allow me to kill you at any time from anywhere. I¡¯ll be able to monitor you through that. Therefore, don¡¯t even think of breaking our deal or I¡¯ll make sure to give your friend the most painful death possible.¡±


    With these words the woman made her way to Ross, bringing her mysterious bag along with her. She took a seat next to his bed and opened her bag. As her hand reached for the things contained within the bag, Mia felt her heart tighten as worry began to flood her body. Finally, her hand came back into sight holding something that looked like a shiny, smooth, and black rock. But it wasn¡¯t a rock, the thing had a consistency that resembled that of fruit jelly. That wasn¡¯t where the weirdness ended. The thing moved by itself as if it had a life of its own.


    ¡°W-What¡¯s that?¡± Mia blurted, somewhat scared of this new thing she had never seen before.


    ¡°It¡¯s a thing of my creation. I call them slimes.¡±


    ¡°Slime? It doesn¡¯t look like a slime though.¡±


    This seemed to have piqued the woman¡¯s interest as she sunk deep in thoughts. After a small while, she replied.


    ¡°Indeed. Its doesn¡¯t look very similar to the slimes you find in the forest. After all, these are much larger significantly more¡­ liquid. And these little ones here don¡¯t have cores, unlike the others.¡±


    ¡®What the hell?¡¯ Mia thought. ¡®One second she had never heard of slimes but suddenly she¡¯s very knowledgeable about them. This is beyond creepy.¡¯


    ¡°Anyway, back to the experiment.¡± The woman said.


    And then nothing. The woman just stood still.


    This made Mia extremely uncomfortable. She looked around trying to figure out what was going one. She even tried calling out to the woman but didn¡¯t get any replies. Seeing this Mia decided to quieten down and wait for something to happen.


    The tent had fallen not a deathly silence. Once her hearing had gotten used to it, she found out that she could hear the woman¡¯s heartbeat from where she was. And thus, time passed silently only to be interrupted by the occasional heartbeat or breath. Mia noted that the woman¡¯s heartbeat was surprisingly slow, probably because it was so big. She had heard somewhere before that the bigger the creatures were, the slower their heartbeat was. Or perhaps it was just that her body would explode if it pumped away at full strength. She didn¡¯t know nor cared to be honest. Therefore, she just kept waiting as her thoughts wandered from place to place.


    Suddenly she broke out of her trance and exclaimed.


    ¡°Alright! I¡¯ve gone over everything. Simulations have been run using the new data. Failure chances are at 23% and the chance of death is 10%. Everything is looking good. Let¡¯s begin!¡± She shouted eagerly.


    And before Mia could realize what had just happened, the woman pinched Ross¡¯ nose and shove the slime in his mouth.


    The only thought occupying Mia¡¯s mind was:


    ¡®What the fuck?¡¯

 Update

    Hello everyone!


    It has been ages since I posted anything to this story!


    So I''ll go straight to the point. For those of you who want to read more of my stories, I bring both good news and bad news (depending on your point of view). You can read whichever one you want to first.


    Spoiler: The Good News<input class="spoilerButton" type="button" value="Show">


    Removed due to two 0.5 star ratings on the new fiction within 36h of release </img>This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    Spoiler: The Bad News<input class="spoilerButton" type="button" value="Show">


    I am not planning on continuing this story in the forseeable future. I feel like this story has been poorly put together and doesn''t make too much sense at times. The idea for it came to me one day and I had pretty much started writing it the next one without any ideas of what I was doing.


    However, i understand that its concept is really interesting. So, if any of you want to use it for your own story, perhaps even reusing some aspects of the world I depicted, feel free to do so. If you''re also interested to see that notes I had made regarding various aspects of the story, feel free to message me and I''ll send them to you.


    Anyway, thank you all for having read this story of mine. I hope you have a great day!