The Culling of Man: A litrpg adventure (Peril's Prodigy Book 1) by Craig Kobayashi (ereader android TXT) 📕

Monster respawns will be halted for the next 30 minutes as the next wave is prepared. Rest and hone your skills, human. The Culling continues at 03:00(GST).

The Culling Totals

Global Death Count: 1,809,500,431

Community Death Count: 27,965

Garath shuddered. He didn't know what the system deemed to be his ‘Community’ - but assumed it was likely just the city of Everett... and almost thirty-thousand people had already fallen victim to the unprovoked attack on the human race - over a third of the city’s estimated population. He turned to look at his group, huddled and safe inside their little stronghold. There was so much room in the old brick building. So much room to improve.

"We can do better," he told himself. "We have to do better."

Chapter 10

Growth

Garath knew he had to take advantage of the break before The Culling's next wave - summoning reinforcements for the next wave was definitely a priority. After he put a plan into place to get the word out to the Community about their little stronghold, the Necrologist stole a few minutes to go over his minimized prompts.

Congratulations, Garath! For reaching level(s) 4, 5, and 6, you are awarded 9 Attribute Points (3 per level) and 3 Skill Points (1 per level) points to distribute at your discretion. As a Necrologist, you receive +3 Wisdom, +3 Vitality, and +1 Regeneration per level. You have one week to distribute the points before they are assigned for you based on your chosen class.

Unused Attribute Points: 9

Unused Skill Points: 4

New Skills are now available.

Garath decided to hold off on distributing his stats until he had a look at the newly available Skills. He willed open his MENU panels and opened the Skills tab. The panel encompassed the right third of his vision, bringing up the complicated web of connected and interconnected Skills - his eyes automatically moved to the two new Skills glowing brightly, eager for his attention. The first was in the Death tree and a wild grin spread across Garath’s face as he read the details.

Blight

Active

Cost: 84 Mana (.35x base Mana)

3 Meter Range

Instant

30 Second Cooldown

*Additional Cost: Tainted Soul*

Effect: Infects all enemies in a 3 meter radius with a festering poison, dealing 31 (Death) damage over 15 seconds (1.2x Wisdom Attribute).

*Tainted Soul: the form containing your soul is soiled.*

Cost to Unlock: 1 Skill Point

Total unused Skill Points: 4

Garath felt about as giddy as a school boy in the girl’s locker room after reading the description of the AoE damage over time spell. To be fair, he was a little concerned about the fact that the majority of his Skills seemed to come with that extra cost but he knew he'd have to either find a way around it or maybe just stop being such a pussy. He still didn't quite understand what his form being soiled meant - but he couldn't keep ignoring the Skills with the additional cost. Before any other aspiration, goal, or soul-preservation, he needed to survive the next twenty-four hours. He spent the single Skill Point to unlock Blight, then moved on to the second new Skill, this one in the Blood tree.

Sanguine Ward

Active

Cost: 24 Mana (.1x base Mana) + 24 Health (.1x base Health)

Range: Self

2 Second Cast

2 Minute Cooldown

Effect: Extracts a combination of your Mana and Blood to absorb 80% of all physical damage for 5 seconds.

Cost to Unlock: 1 Skill Point

Total unused Skill Points: 3

Garath purchased the Skill without a second thought, leaving two unused Skill Points for later. A spell shield was EXACTLY what his small but growing repertoire of spells needed.

The Necrologist reread the Skill description for Death Bolt, noting that it now reflected a higher damage value to match his increased Wisdom Attribute. That made him think about something that had bothered him before. When he read the details of exactly what each Attribute Point would provide, he felt like casters got the short end of the stick in this system. Dexterity and Strength directly increased the damage output of physical damage dealing Classes, but the description of Wisdom only said it would increase his maximum Mana by +10. As he thought about it now though, each of his damage-dealing Skills were based on his Wisdom Attribute, yet the costs were calculated using ‘base Mana’. Even though his Profile panel didn’t directly state that increasing his Wisdom would increase the power of his offensive Skills, it was clear that the higher his Wisdom Attribute, the higher the damage reflected in each Skill description would be. And more than that, since the cost was calculated from ‘base Mana’  - which typically excludes Mana gained from invested Attribute Points and any increased Attributes from items (like the +30 to maximum Mana from his Novice Necrologist Cap) - and the damage was based on Wisdom Attribute itself, the damage for each Skill would increase in power as he did - yet the cost wouldn’t increase at the same level. If anything, casters had it even better than other Classes, unless Garath was just missing something.

He still didn’t feel entirely comfortable distributing his Attribute Points, but the correlation he just made between Wisdom and increased spell damage was encouraging and no serious gamer would just leave a potential advantage on the table. With that in mind, Garath dumped four points into Wisdom, three points into Vitality, and the last two points into Regeneration. When he confirmed the changes, a nearly overwhelming feeling of power surged through his veins. Between the two new Skills and substantially improved Attributes, the Necrologist felt on top of the world.

A private message chat box stirred Garath from his excitement. Athios had apparently found what he had asked for and was waiting for him on the roof. He closed his MENU panels, got to his feet, then left to meet her.

***

As the second wave of The Culling loomed closer, Athios and Garath stood atop the roof of