Eli got off the bed and went to the bathroom to take care of morning hygiene. When he was about to habitually shave, he saw the smooth glossy skin on his face and smiled bitterly. It seems like he won't be needing to shave for a long time...
Eli then went for a morning run, some stretches, and had breakfast. After being done with these, Eli switched the morning news on. On the news, the human trafficking racket massacre was reported as a police bust on human trafficking. Eli was glad that it ended like this. This means that the police started actively covering for him! Who cares if the police claimed credit for it or not as long as he is not troubled by it!
After watching the news a bit, Eli booked a hotel room near the target, just next to Manhattan. Eli did not hold back and booked an expensive suite costing 150$ a night for 2 days for a total of 300$. The first reason was that he wanted to relax more, and the second reason was that he was 'hungry' now. No action for almost two months would do it to you.
Eli locked the house, hailed a cab, and arrived at the place after a few hours. The place was called Comfort Inn & suites. Not a bad place, considering all the extra services provided such as breakfast and a gym. The room he booked had a king-sized bed too.
After checking in and going to his room and unpacking everything, it was now 10 in the morning. He then remembered that he wanted to check if he got any time on his Time Stipend now, and lo and behold. He had 3 minutes. It appears that every morning it regenerates.
Eli now had 17 points left. He only needs 10 points for an upgrade in the evening. That means he can now use 7 points freely. He wanted to upgrade firearm mastery.
Firearm Mastery lvl 0: Obtain increased proficiency in all types of firearms, as if trained for 3 months as a professional soldier. If already proficient, it will increase proficiency further.
He wanted to test it and see how good this skill can get. lvl 0 cost 2 points, and he confirmed the purchase. Immediately felt information cramming into his head and even into his muscle memories in the subconscious mind. It was very uncomfortable, and he also got a headache after. He immediately felt like his proficiency with guns improved by a notch. It was not too much, since he was already proficient, to begin with. But if he was confident that before he could get 3 10 pointers and 7 9 pointers in a 100-yard range with a pistol, he could now hit 4 or 5 10 pointers instead. Also, he even got knowledge about many firearms that he had never used! It even taught him how to maintain them! Even sci-fi weapons that he never saw or heard of were included!
Eli wanted to try and get the lvl 1 upgrade, and see what would happen, so he checked the skill shop, but now, it was greyed out. Eli thought that it was maybe just like the case in evolving himself, and it had a cooldown, so to avoid harming the brain. He then reasoned, "I guess the brain will need to be more powerful to handle suddenly cramming more knowledge inside it. Let's first get Nerves and then Cognition after that..."
After Eli was done, he had 15 points left. He then contemplated on what to do now. After thinking for a while, he decided to get a proper haircut from a barber and some higher class clothing and shoes, as well as new cologne and deodorant. It was not to just hit on girls, it was also for the new year celebration at Ramón's place. The clothes, shoes, and cologne he currently had were really just too poor and shabby.
Eli first walked to a barbershop and got a decent haircut in Los boricuas barbershop. It was nearby and was also highly recommended, so he tried it and was satisfied. He then went to get some clothes and shoes in the 3rd Ave. street. He window-shopped in a few shops before he got all the clothing he needed. He did not get himself clothes too high class or fancy, just articles that were good enough for small celebrations and picking up girls casually. He spent a total of 970$ dollars on everything. On a side note, he got 2 phone numbers slipped into his pants by two cute shop attendants. And he wasn't even trying! He figured out that it was because of vitality. It made him even more handsome than before, and now he was a literal chick magnet! The two girls looked like a 7, so if he didn't manage to get a better catch, then he would have a fallback plan.
When he finished all that, he went back to the apartment and started learning the basics of gambling. Eli never gambled before, but he planned on doing so in Vegas. While there was a native American casino in NYC, it was all mechanical. He wanted to play with a real dealer since he believed that machines are tilted in the end, and will never let him truly win big time.
He wasted time until 18:30, and when he checked the evolution upgrades option, it was white again. He selected then selected the Nerve upgrade option.
Nerves lvl 1: Increases nerve capacity, nerve flexibility, nerve toughness, and Maximum Nerve transmission speed.
"Hm... As expected, no warnings. Let's check the Cognition just in case..."
Cognition lvl 1: Increases the overall Cognition of the brain. Dampens effects of senses on judgment capacity. Allows learning either 5 lvl 0 skills or 1 lvl 1 skill per day. Warning: Without Nerves lvl 1, the nerves might get strained and fried.
"As expected... But why is it just giving a warning instead of limiting the person? Won't people just kill themselves if they stupidly select something without reading the instructions?"
Just as Eli said that, suddenly, Cognition grayed out! Not just Cognition, but toughness, agility, and senses also grayed out! Next to the prices, requirements were present now too!
[Strength Upgrade lvl 1 price: 10, Requires Vitality lvl 1]
[Vitality Upgrade lvl 2 price: 100 points, 5 lvl 1 monster crystals]
[Toughness Upgrade lvl 1 price: 10, Requires Strength lvl 1]
[Agility Upgrade lvl 1 price: 10, Requires Cognition lvl 1, Dexterity lvl 1]
[Dexterity Upgrade lvl 1 price: 10]
[Cognition Upgrade lvl 1 price: 10, Requires Nerves lvl 1]
[Nerves Upgrade lvl 1 price: 10]
[Senses Upgrade lvl 1 price: 10, Requires Cognition lvl 1]
[Instinct Upgrade lvl 2 price: 100 points, 5 lvl 1 monster crystals]
[Immunity Upgrade lvl 2 price: 100 points, 5 lvl 1 monster crystals]
[Mana Conductivity Upgrade lvl 1 price: 10]
[Mana Core Upgrade lvl 1 price: 10]
[Mana Sense Upgrade lvl 1 price: 10]
"What the heck is going on? Could it be... The system just learned from what I just said and patched itself?! Then why is it not communicating with me if it has intelligence? Is it a self-learning algorithm or something?"
Eli scratched his head, trying to figure out what the heck just happened. After a few minutes, he gave up and decided to just upgrade Nerves to lvl 1. After he confirmed the purchase, he lost consciousness. His mind just shut down to protect itself from the inhuman pain. 2 minutes later, Eli regained consciousness. In all honesty, he did not feel different at all, and he did not expect to feel different. Upgrading the nerves just laid the groundwork for Cognition, nothing else.
Eli checked the clock, and it was not 18:50. He thought for a minute, before checking the battery life of the stealth-boy. Out of the 3-hour battery life, it had 2:40 hours charged. It was more than enough. Eli wanted to finish this quickly so he can get laid tonight.
I think you need to clarify WHY things aren't working. Is it just because the fundamental rules of nature stopped working? Or is it because they're just not worth it anymore?
You've done a really good job of setting up a believable world here, with realistic requirements for the upgrades and very human reactions from people, so if you suddenly start throwing in unrealistic changes without proper explanations it'll be a jarring transition. Someone already pointed out that if nukes stop working the sun would go out, there are differences between fusion and fission, but they're still right in principle. This also extends to gunpowder and electricity, I don't know enough about the chemical processes in gunpowder to properly point out the problems with changing chemical reactions, but it wouldn't stop at guns. If electricity stopped working on a fundamental level, magnets would stop working, so the magnetosphere would go away, so the sun would turn the earth into a lifeless rock as a start.
I would strongly advise against messing with the science, but there are other options. The system just kicked cancer's ass, why not make nukes and bullets useless that way? You'd probably need a level 2 or 3 upgrade to survive the blast, but most of the deaths are from the radiation. You don't need to change the rules of nature to force people back to the dark ages, it's called "the apocalypse", so a series of small earthquakes taking out power lines and power stations across the world isn't out of the question.
I'd think that normal firearms would just become ineffective against the new mana based lifeforms, maybe work for lvl 0 creatures but anything more and it just doesnt work. Mana could interfere with radio and electrical signals too. But let's just see what the author does.
Note I use the translator
Suggestion
Weapons only work after the apocalypse for weak monsters
Because monsters strengthen themselves with mana
The stronger the beast became, the more weapons would not work with them, because the weapons had no mana
(Humans have the same principle)
-----
In terms of nuclear weapons, if launched, the Earth will recover from radiation due to mana
Or let nuclear weapons not work due to mana interference
---
I hope it helps you
I am using the translator so it is quite possible that the message will appear strange but I hope it is possible to understand, in my opinion the powdered weapons should stop working but the nuclear ones for the sake of logic, because if nuclear fission is not possible for consequently nuclear fusion would also not be and with that the sun goes out. I like your story please keep it up
Yeah like you can always argue that dropping a bomb onto a whole city would not be worth it, was well as higher class monsters having some sort of regenerative ability. Furthermore, the apocalypse will be stressful for a lot of government officials, and could try to help people instead of bombing them (would not be American style tho haha)
@Traphorst Currently existing nuclear bombs would all be level 0, and so with enough Vitality and Toughness, one could stand in the explosion and be unharmed, and any amount of higher levels would be enough to reduce the lethality zone of how close you can be to a nuke. For Eli's part, he has to save up enough time in the following year on his stipend to escape the blast zone of any incoming ICBM.
The government would have to get its engineers and scientists to start taking Skills required to build higher level infrastructure, which would be very expensive and time-consuming even with the mind-data-dumps to help with everything. They'd have to replace the entire vertical integration with lv1 stuff. And they'll be vulnerable to anybody who can get a lot of upgrades quickly and knows to attack these research sites before the military can catch up to the changes the apocalypse brings and secures it.
Instead of nerfing the military, how about we just make it so such a bloated organization can't adapt fast enough and gets destroyed by individuals that can adapt to the change quicker? And plus, chances are, enough of the military gets zombified that the hierarchy completely collapses anyway. Changing mundane physics is completely unnecessary.
$150 a night is a cheap NYC hotel. If he's splurging I would up the cost to at least a grand a night
PS Americans put the dollar sign before the number, we wright our days month/day/year, people are measured in feet and inches and a military guy would get up a Oh Five Hundred not five in the morning or 23 hundred instead of 11pm
Thx for the info.
Also, $150 is not cheap in the Bronx area and is considered very expensive. It honestly costs even less there currently.
Nerves lvl 1: Increases nerve capacity, nerve flexibility, and nerve toughness.
I think you could add "nerve transmission speed in there too", in my previous rant i mentioned that human neurons are capped at around 120m/s. At our current size its just right and almost instantaneous but when he upgrades his body further he might notice a slight lag.
Good point, I will fix that now.
I know there have been plenty of discussion on the limiting of firearms, among other things but a few things:
1. If any ranged weapons work after the apocalypse, then fundamentally firearms, as a concept should still work. What is archery? It is a big spring, whether bow or crossbow, that stores energy and when released launches something at high speed to inflict damage on something. What is a firearm? It is a tube that has energy stored that when released causes an explosion to push a piece of shrapnel in a direction.
At a fundamental level, neither actually relies on the user to release the energy. Sure archery requires the user to generally input energy, either via pulling the string or using a crank, but what is launching the object is the mechanical power of a spring being released, not the user's power. Thus if a firearm isn't working, then at most you just need to figure out what to replace the stored energy or explosion with. From what you've given us, the easiest candidate is magic, probably fire or explosion magic with the tube acting as a force concentrator and director, and possibly enhancer with enchantments.
So if other ranged weapons work, then firearms should fundamentally work as well, just the world may need to research to adapt them. If you want them limited, give a plausible reason, such as it being expensive/hard to make effective ones, or the cost to effectiveness ratio being hard to match the cheapness of bows or effectiveness of regular magic.
2. The system is already offering firearms and ammo beyond level 0. If firearms were going to be limited after the apocalypse, there is no reason to offer firearms beyond what we already have.
3. The system is offering firearm skills beyond level 0 and even level 0 is offering skills on advanced weapons that likely don't exist outside the system. Again, why offer skills higher than what's needed to survive until the apocalypse, if they are going to be moot afterwards?
I agree with the above comment but I will say to frie all electronics not made after the apocalypse event and say it was a huge surge of mana that acted as a foreign energy frieing all current technologies based around electronics.
Well, atleast we won't have a mad president who attempts to start a nuclear war for levels.
TL;DR version: It doesn't matter if nuclear, gunpowder, and electricity still work because all the people required to mine and transport the raw materials and operate the machinery will be dead, all the scientists and engineers who know how the technology and factories are run will be dead, all governments will have completely collapsed, and deadly monsters and animals will roam the entire planet except for tiny pockets of resistance that will run out of bullets in about 2 hours, leaving children to inherit most of the Earth with new special powers.
Long version:
You already established that 87% of people above the age of 13 are gonna turn into some kind of monster when the apocalypse hits. For that reason alone, it's fine to keep everything working the same. The logistical and supply line disruptions introduced by losing even 10% of a population overnight are already substantial, but when the apocalypse happens, not only are humans losing a mind-boggling *87%* of their adult and teenage population, those lost are being turned into vicious monsters of animal-level intelligence that will immediately attack the remaining 13%.
In other words, the only adults surviving are those who happen to be relatively alone or in a small group where nobody turns AND already located in a defensible position to fight off the nearby monsters long enough to group up with other survivors. That's going to be an absolutely minuscule number, even with the chance of positive evolutions it's easily less than 1%. It's not a stretch to say that virtually all human knowledge and organizational structure is wiped out in a matter of minutes. Government can't have power if everybody running it is dead!
Even if electricity, gunpowder, and nuclear energy all still work, it does no good until the upcoming generations of kids (54% of which you've said will survive this apocalypse with newly-evolved powers) can do the science to figure it out all over again. Bullets will run out very quickly with nobody alive to make more gunpowder. If they're lucky, some surviving kid's dad will have downloaded all of Wikipedia onto a laptop with a hand-cranked charger and can get a head start on recovering the most basic levels of information, but unless System-based powers can accelerate the process of building out usable infrastructure again, multiple generations will likely pass before anything close to modern amenities can be manufactured again.
You know what? You hit a spot there. I think I will need to reduce the initial outbreak by a large margin. Maybe make it so that about 30-50% of the population turns initially?
@bignt 30% of adults would be pretty severely crippling. Even in military bases, most of the soldiers don't have guns readily available, so many of them would be killed in the barracks by their mutated brethren before they can even fight back. A family of four living in a house has a good to fair chance of at least one of the parents turning and killing the other, then possibly the kids before breaking out a window to run through the neighborhood. Apartment complexes will have it worse with potentially dozens of rooms on a floor turning out whole packs that will start tearing down doors to get to the people that didn't turn. Most cities will become practically uninhabitable overnight.
By setting it to 50%, however, I think you could turn this into a new goal for the MC. They could maybe see a what-if documentary on what would really happen if Thanos snapped away 50% of humans (because that article exists on Fandom, you can find it with a search, they consulted a professor), then extrapolate on "How much worse would it be if that 50% was instantly turned into ravenous monsters?" In between killing murderers and rapists and human traffickers, our guy could go around partnering with people to receive mutation-vaccines for them to man fortified positions in most major cities around the world to ensure more people are able to survive. I don't remember how expensive the mutation-immunizer is, it could be fairly cheap to make this a viable strategy. He'd easily need thousands of doses just to get one or two strongholds established in most cities before the apocalypse hits. Could also utilize the existing hideouts of the gangs he'd be going after anyway.
@Onihikage Hmm... We are talking about slow-moving zombies, right? Also, the zombies won't turn immediately, it would take them a few minutes time to mutate completely. Also, every person would get 10 initial points. Please consider this in the equation. An unarmed person can get armed right away as long as he is smart enough. And don't forget the quest system that can warn the people. Basically.
@bignt Well, if they're slow-moving zombies that take a few minutes to transform and survivors get the system right away, the knock-on effects are greatly reduced, so we'd just be left with the problems of not having enough people to keep existing infrastructure going. Governments would still mostly collapse because we're still talking about 3-4 billion zombies to kill and a loss of many logistical personnel. Most places would quickly run out of bullets and not have electricity, food, or water except what they could get from the system.
I do think that enemies ought to quickly become resilient against mundane weaponry and technology, so it's not like still having those parts of physics work after the apocalypse has to be a problem.
@Onihikage And let's not forget that there are also mutated animals out there, that will not only eat humans but zombies as well.