Chapter 70: Unspent Points

Something clicked in his mind while Michael was still typing.

It might have looked like he was the one handing out the lifeline — telling Johannes how to survive, what to watch for, what to hoard. But it was the other way around. Johannes's words had done something to him first.

Not a revelation, really. More like a memory surfacing after being buried on purpose. Right at the start of the apocalypse, before all the fighting, he'd already understood it — level fast, don't waste time, take the crystals for himself before anyone else worked out what they were worth. He'd known all of that early on. And then he'd set it down and walked away from it, because the only thing that had mattered after that was reaching his family.

*I think I'm still one of the strongest even at level eight.* He ducked behind the burned frame of a car as a monster shrieked somewhere off to his left, giving himself two seconds that weren't about to cost him anything. Glass crunched under his boots as he shifted his weight, and somewhere past the hood a body hit the ground hard enough that he felt it through the pavement. *How much stronger could I have been, if that was all I'd focused on?*

He didn’t chase the thought any further. What came instead was an unexpected relief. He no longer had to feel forced to reach his family and protect them. He didn’t have to worry about their safety anymore, at least not about the ones who had survived. And he didn’t have to keep neglecting his original goals. No more pretending the leveling didn’t matter while it quietly did. No more guilt about wanting to know whether he was getting stronger. It was simply a fact, out in the open now, and the fact was that he wanted this and needed this, and there was nothing left to feel bad about. He closed his hand into a fist and felt something stir under his skin, low and steady, as if his own blood had weight to it now.

*I have some catching up to do. I need an actual strategy.*

He looked at his Status-Window. Two thousand experience points to reach level nine. He had one thousand and fifty of it already, and enough mana left for three more jumps if it came to that. *Call it twenty level-three monsters, fewer if I run into something higher along the way. But I don't know if I can take down another level five without a jump. Three jumps isn't much to work with if more of those things are out there.*

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He stopped himself mid-thought. He recalled an unused source of power.

*Wait. What am I doing. I still have thirty-one points sitting unused.*

He pulled up his status without moving from behind the car, Julian's spear still audible somewhere ahead of him, metal ringing against something that screamed back.

> [ STATUS WINDOW ]

>

> Name: Michael Todes

> Level: 8

> Class: Champion of Humanity

> Path: Space

>

> [ATTRIBUTES]

> - Strength: 12

> - Agility: 14

> - Vitality: 12

> - Mana: 13

> - Willpower: 22

>

> Available Attribute Points: 31

>

> [TALENTS]

> - Iron Will

> [SKILLS]

> - Teleportation [(Space Path) (35%)]

> Available Skill Points: 7

*My numbers have already gone up a lot. And I'm still sitting on thirty-one free points.*

*Mana first.* Ten points went into mana.

Something shifted low in his chest, a reservoir he hadn't known he had. It was moving all over his body and went through every cell and every organ. Warmth spread down through his arms, into his hands, settling there. He felt so much greater. It was not physical power but he still felt powerful, invincibly powerful. Mana climbed from thirteen to twenty-three. *That's — that actually feels incredible.*

*I can't keep leaning on my skill either. It's the only one I've got.* He distributed another ten points, into agility this time.

This one felt different. Not a reservoir filling — something working its way outward instead, sinking into muscle and tendon and the places where bone met bone, tightening everything by degrees he could feel happening in real time. Once more, the change came with a sense of invinciblity. His agility went from fourteen to twenty-four.

*A little more.* What followed were five points into strength. The same feeling again, but quieter this time, like an echo of the last one rather than something new.

He flexed his hand once, testing it, and felt the difference settle into his body — heavier, tighter, ready in a way it hadn't been thirty seconds ago. The exhaustion was still there, but it felt smaller now, further away, like his body had simply decided it had better things to deal with.

*Aaaahh. This is unbelievable.* He almost laughed, crouched there behind a burned-out car with a battle still going on twenty feet away. *This is going to be addictive. I feel like I could do anything right now.*

He had spent twenty-five points. Six still sitting there, waiting, and he'd get to those later — right now there wasn't time to think it through properly, and he didn't want to rush it just to empty the pool. He stood up out of cover, rolled his shoulder once, and felt the new weight of his own body settle into place.

Whatever was coming next, he wasn't walking into it the way he had an hour ago.

Something came around the wreck of the car before he'd taken two steps — low, fast, claws already reaching. He didn't bother stepping aside this time. As always, he perceived the monster’s movements like time had slowed down. Until now, he lacked physical speed on his own in order to maximize the gains of his high perception speed. He couldn’t react as fast as he perceived his surroundings. But for the first time he could move fast enough to counter attack; not just barely enough to evade like always. He caught the monster by the throat with his free hand, his speed carrying his arm there before he'd finished deciding to move, and drove the sword through its chest with the other. The strength behind it surprised even him; the blade went through bone like it wasn't there, and the thing was dead before it finished struggling. He let it drop and didn't check what level it had been.

He went to find Julian, moving faster than he had all day.