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

as he walked from corpse to corpse, tapping the teal orbs to gather Mana Crystals - he didn't know what the hell for, but better to find out later with the Crystals than without them, he figured. After looting all the trash mobs, Garath had a massive pile of gold Naga weapons and tiaras - and each member of the Party had gained 9 of the Mana Crystals, whatever they were for.

He and the Flayer made their way around to the massive corpse of S'thys Zor. The teal orb hovering above his lifeless carcass was significantly larger than the ones they had gathered from the trash mobs. When Garath tapped it a quarter of the orb entered his chest.

You have received 3.75 Mana Crystal(s). Mana Crystals will be stored in your Items panel until spent, traded, or until you die.

Even though he didn't know what he could buy with these Mana Crystals or where to spend them, Garath whistled appreciatively as the Crystals were split four ways - the rest of the Naga had only given one each. The Necrologist bent to pick up one of S'thys Zor's massive tridents. Garath was able to lift the oversized fork, but only barely. He looked at the item description one with eyebrow raised at the listed requirements.

S’thys Tear

Attack Damage: 29-51 (Physical)

Attack Speed: 3.25

DPS (damage per second): 12.307

Durability: 50/50

Item Score: 39

Two-handed weapon

Type: Polearm

Quality: Impressive

Rarity: Epic

+30 Strength

+30 Maximum Stamina

+10% Stamina recovery rate

-10% Stamina depletion rate

Item Requirements:

Level: 18

Strength: 40

Dexterity: 25

‘Of course the first named weapon I find isn't for my Class and has a Strength requirement I'll never meet,’Garath thought with chagrin.

The Necrologist stored the enormous trident, along with most of the items fetched by the Fel Hound - excluding a diadem and staff for Sharon - in his Items panel. He didn't know if he would ever find a use for the Epic weapon, but if he did it would be waiting for him in his perfect little storage system.

The Items panel was better than any game inventory Garath had ever seen. Whenever the last grid square was filled with an item, another three empty rows would appear on the panel below it. The size and weight of the items stored were completely irrelevant, as each item took up only one grid space and, once inside the panel, the items stored were held outside the plane of existence where size and weight held any value. In essence, the Items panel appeared to be a limitless, secure storage device.

The Flayer approached the corpse of the downed dungeon boss, then looked hopefully at Garath.

"What, you're hungry again?" he asked it.

The little devil didn't respond verbally. Instead, it climbed onto the chest of S'thys Zor and pointed at the lifeless heart beneath the blue skin. Garath understood exactly what the little demon wanted, and decided to oblige it. He removed a regular sized trident from his inventory and split the Naga champion’s chest open for the Flayer to get at the heart. The demon screamed savagely and ripped away the severed ribs and blue puss to wrap his boney fingers around his meal.

After repeating the gag inducing process of using both hands to literally stuff the heart down its throat, the demon's skin took on a blue-ish tint and it grew in size again. The difference in its size was even more dramatic than after it had eaten a Pikeman's heart in the cave. Now the Flayer was almost the size of the Fel Hound and its wings grew to match - not that the little devil was using them. Gorged on the heart of the dungeon boss, the Flayer lie curled up in S'thys Zor's chest cavity, blanketed cozily with a thick layer of shiny blue puss.

Before long Warrion reported that the entrance cave looked much the same as it had when they arrived and, still in crow form, flew over Garath on the central platform to meet Athios and Sharon on the track of Statues beyond. Garath could hear them discussing the puzzle over the Party communication channel, but his mind was elsewhere.

He willed his Community panel into existence and was searching for any mention of a murdering Necrologist or the Plague debuff, but came up empty. He decided to post a thread of his own to warn other survivors in the area, and hopefully provoke a response from whoever was responsible.

Thread Title:

Danger in Everett - Plague?

Thread Body:

Our group of survivors at the red brick building near the high school has been taking damage for the last several hours from a debuff called Plague. We know the source and are attempting to destroy it but, at least for now, avoid coming within 100 meters of the high school for your own safety.

If you have any information about the Plague, please respond to this thread or send me a private message.

Thanks,

Garath

Post Thread? Yes or No

He chose yes and the thread was live. Within seconds, he received a private message.

Private Message from Leviathan to Garath - 00/00/06 @ 12:13:

Ha! "attempting to destroy it" That's cute. Thanks for all your forum posts, Garath. I was looking for larger groups to farm closer to Seattle, but when I saw your post calling people to safety I knew exactly where my next stop would be. Almost two hundred people taking damage from my Plague just feels SO good and I owe it all to you. I haven't seen you around though, where ya hiding?

Garath read the message, stunned. His emotions were all over the place. This mother fucker had just thanked him. Butterflies filled his stomach and chest with the fear and excitement of an upcoming confrontation, then gave way to anger, which then gave way to reason. His first instinct was to respond with a threat like, "you and me, flag pole, three o'clock," but he managed to control himself. His response was simple and to the point.

Private Message from Garath to Leviathan - 00/00/06 @ 12:13:

I'll see you soon.

When he finally closed his MENU