I knew that simply explaining the "Holy Triad" wouldn't be enough to mold this group into the weapon I needed. If I wanted them to be more than just meat-shields, I had to give them an edge that most survivors wouldn't discover for months.
I decided to drop another "bomb" over their heads—a piece of information that could fundamentally transform a person's trajectory from the very earliest moments of the apocalypse.
"You don't just have to rely on your base stats," I said, my voice cutting through the sounds of the crackling fires. "You can also learn a thing or two from the very monsters we're currently butchering."
Their faces were a mask of collective shock, quickly followed by the dull fog of confusion. They looked at the mangled, hideous corpses at my feet and then back at me as if I'd suggested they eat the rotting flesh.
"Open your market interfaces again," I commanded, pulling up my own glowing blue screen.
The Market was a treasure trove for the initiated, but a labyrinth of distractions for the ignorant. Beyond the basic weapons and the overpriced consumables, there were tabs buried at the top of the interface—options that the system intentionally kept small to reward the curious and the bold.
"See the 'Packages' tab at the top? The one with the icons that look like sealed crates?" I pointed into the air, tracing the layout for them. "Select the 'Additional Custom Package' option. It's the third one from the left."
They hesitated at first. The font was tiny, almost a footnote in the grand design of the UI, and the icons were nondescript. But after a few frantic whispers and some fumbling with their menus, they finally found the path.
"We're in," Isabella announced. She had naturally stepped into the role of my second-in-command, her voice projecting a calm authority that kept the others focused.
"Search for an item called a 'Copy Gadget,'" I said. I didn't select it for myself. It held zero benefit for me; my path was already set, and my knowledge of future skills was far superior to what these low-level monsters could offer. However, for a group of terrified novices, it was the ultimate game-changer.
"What? One hundred coins?!" John's voice rang out in an indignant squawk. That stingy little brat. I knew for a fact he was sitting on a decent pile of currency, yet he acted like every coin was a drop of his own blood. "A hundred coins for a 'gadget' that doesn't even have a description?"
"Just buy it," I snapped, not even bothering to look at him. "It's worth every penny you're clutching so tightly. If you die in the next ten minutes because you were too cheap to adapt, don't expect me to bury you."
Reluctantly, and with a great deal of huffing, he complied. Fortunately, he was the only one holding back. The others, driven by a cocktail of fear and trust in my bizarre expertise, bought the item instantly.
As they confirmed the purchase, a small object materialised in each of their hands. It looked like a modern temporary tattoo, a dark ink design pressed between two transparent, plastic-like layers.
"What now? Do we just hold it?" Isabella asked, turning the slip of plastic over in her hand.
"Place it against your skin," I instructed, demonstrating the motion without actually using one. "First, rub the layers together vigorously. You need to generate enough friction-heat for the adhesive to activate. Once it's warm, peel away the bottom layer and press the tattoo firmly against the skin. Rub it again for a full minute. The heat will melt the top protective layer, bonding the ink directly into your epidermis."
"This simple?" Sara, the blue-haired girl, remarked. She looked at the small slip of ink. "It's like those cheap press-on tattoos they sell at festivals."
I offered a thin, knowing smile but said nothing. I watched as they began the process. Sara chose the side of her chest, just above her heart—a brief flash of skin that felt strangely normal in the middle of a nightmare.
Isabella, ever the pragmatist, chose the back of her hand, where she could see it. The tattoo she had received was shaped like a coiled serpent, looking both hideous and lethal against her pale skin.
In my long years in the apocalypse, I had learned a hard truth: appearances were a lie. Things that looked peaceful were often the most predatory, while the most grotesque tools often provided the only path to salvation.
"Now, find a monster," I said, gesturing to the field of corpses. "Place both hands over the body. But listen carefully: only select the ones that weren't charred by the fire. You need a specimen with its limbs and nervous system mostly intact."
"And then?" John asked, still sounding bitter about his 'lost' hundred coins.
"Then, close your eyes and focus on an attack you saw them use. Think about the way they moved, the way they struck." This was the secret that made the seemingly useless tattoo a god-like tool.
"The gadget will bridge the gap between your mind and the monster's residual muscle memory. Any skill used by these creatures will be imprinted on you. And if you were the one who delivered the killing blow, your starting proficiency in that skill will be significantly higher."
"How... how do you know all of this?"
The question hung in the air, heavy with suspicion. Nineteen pairs of eyes gazed at me with a mix of awe and burgeoning doubt. I didn't give them the satisfaction of an answer. I simply turned my back on them and knelt over a fresh carcass, my blade ready to move.
"Hurry up," I said, my voice carrying a teasing edge that masked my internal urgency. "I'm not delaying the timeline for you to play around. We have less than five minutes before the next quest begins, and I still need to hit my five-thousand-coin threshold."
The group stood stupefied for a heartbeat, but as soon as they saw me rip a glowing core from a monster's chest, the spell broke. They scrambled like starving animals, lunging at the intact corpses to claim their skills.
They were lucky. Even though these initial monsters were weak, their base abilities were the building blocks of survival.
I watched them work, knowing that the 'Night Vision' skill they were about to absorb was mandatory for the pitch-black horror of the next stage. Even the 'Strength Dash'—a simple, explosive burst of speed—would be the difference between life and death for those built for power.
Despite the success of the Copy Gadgets, I noticed a growing imbalance in the group's composition. While the warriors were thriving, the potential magic-users were hitting a wall.
The low-level monsters littering the clearing were physical bruisers; they possessed plenty of raw violence but lacked even a spark of magical aptitude. I had to step in before my primary assets wasted their potential.
I held up a hand, stopping five members of the team—Sara and Gerry at the top of the list—just as they were being showered in the faint, ghostly white light of a successful skill absorption.
"Stop," I said firmly. "You won't get anything else of value from these creatures. Their genetics only carry strength-based skills. For someone with your attributes, those skills are little more than clutter. They won't help you when the real trials begin."
"But we could just buy swords and use the strength skills to fight until we find magic," Sara argued. She looked reluctant, her hand gripping the short, humble wooden staff she had already purchased from the market.
"Don't dilute your potential," I countered. "It's better to save your focus and purchase pure magic skills from the market. They are expensive—dangerously so—but they are the only way to scale your power properly. A basic Fireball skill will run you two hundred coins. It's a steep entry price, but it's a long-range necessity."
I turned my focus to Gerry, who was looking increasingly pale as he checked his balance. "And you, Gerry. You need the single-target Healing skill. The system lists it at three hundred coins. It's a ransom, I know, but without it, you're just a man with a stick in a world of monsters."
Sara's expression remained unbothered; she clearly had a comfortable cushion of currency from her performance in the first quest. But Gerry and the others looked like they had been punched in the gut. Their faces twisted into unsightly expressions of despair as they realised how truly poor they were in this new economy.
"That's exactly why you can't afford to waste another second," I said, gesturing toward the sea of carcasses. "Stop playing at being warriors. Start salvaging everything—teeth, hide, eyes, anything the system will put a price on. Scrape these monsters clean and sell the parts back to the market."
My words acted like a spark in a dry forest. Their despair vanished, replaced by a frantic, bright-eyed greed as they scrambled toward the fallen monsters. While I had already harvested more than half of the high-value cores, there was still a literal ton of raw material left. They descended on the remains like vultures.
However, I noticed Sara wasn't joining the scavengers. Instead, she was leaning over a particularly large monster, her hand glowing with the activation of her copying tattoo.
"Where are you going with that?" I asked, my brow furrowing. "I thought I told you these skills were useless for you."
"I don't need to scrap for coins as they do," she said, glancing back at me with a playful, slightly chilling chuckle. "I've got enough in the bank to buy a sword and a full set of body armour right now if I wanted to."
I felt a jolt of genuine surprise. Crazy. To have that kind of confidence, she must have walked out of the first quest with over a thousand coins. For me, that was a rounding error, but for a "newbie," it was a staggering sum. No one else in this group could even come close to that level of wealth.
I watched her for a heartbeat as she closed her eyes, her face a mask of intense concentration. She wasn't looking for a magic skill; she was siphoning the raw, physical essence of the beast.
A magician siphoning strength skills? I shook my head, a sense of unease settling in my stomach. Even in my previous life, such a hybrid build was unheard of. It defied the logic of the future I knew. It made me realise, with a sinking feeling, that perhaps I didn't know this world as well as I thought.
Was humanity's potential truly unlimited? And if so, how did we still end up in the pathetic, dying state I remembered from decades later?
I pushed the philosophical questions aside. I had my own threshold to cross. I returned to the grisly work of core extraction, my movements a blur of practised efficiency. As the four-minute mark approached, I felt the final core dissolve into my inventory, and my balance finally flipped over the magic number.
"Phew... five thousand. At last," I muttered, the weight of the stress finally lifting from my shoulders.
"Five thousand what?"
The sound of my voice had carried. Nineteen pairs of eyes snapped toward me, filled with a mix of curiosity and suspicion.
"Nothing," I said, shrugging them off with a practised air of indifference. I didn't have time to explain. I hurriedly navigated the market interface, bypassing the basic gear and the skill scrolls. I went straight back to the 'Packages' tab and selected the one I had been eyeing since the moment I woke up in this timeline.
[Do you want to purchase and activate the "Beginner's Foundation" Package?]
The system message blinked in my field of vision. I didn't hesitate for a microsecond. Bring that damn package to me!
In an instant, my hard-earned five-thousand-coin balance plummeted, leaving me with a measly two hundred coins. It was a staggering loss. Most people who stumbled upon this package in the early days would have laughed at the price and closed the window. It seemed like a scam—a massive investment for a singular, passive benefit.
[The "Beginner's Foundation" package is now active.][Passive Effect Unlocked: You will now gain a permanent increase in base attributes through coin accumulation.][Current Exchange Rate: 2,000 Coins = 1 Stat Point.]
To the uninitiated, this looked like a trap. Why spend five thousand coins just for the right to spend more coins later? But I knew the truth. Coins were the lifeblood of the apocalypse, but they were also a lure.
Most survivors fell into a lethal dilemma: they needed coins to get strong, but they needed to be strong to get coins. They would hoard their currency, acting stingy like John, buying only the bare minimum to survive the next ten minutes. But by doing that, they capped their growth. They became stagnant.
Now it's time for me to secure my own edge, I thought. With my remaining coins, I purchased a Copy Gadget from the market. I didn't need the elaborate "beginner" gear the others were fawning over, but I did need a specific utility that would make the next twenty-two hours manageable.
I chose a monster corpse I had specifically set aside—one that had remained relatively intact despite the carnage. I applied the tattoo to the back of my hand, pressing the adhesive until the friction heat melted the protective layer into my skin. It looked deceptively like a bit of gothic flair, but I knew its true value.
I also knew the hidden rules of the system. After this upcoming quest, a new "trap" would be laid—a fundamental shift in the game's mechanics designed to stifle human growth and ensure we remained little more than playthings for the higher powers. If I didn't lock in my advantages now, I would lose the ability to outpace the curve later on.
The system interface didn't make me wait. As soon as my package was confirmed, the blue screen flickered and updated.
[Quest 1, Part 2: Survive the Night]Details: You will face recurrent, escalating attacks from monsters during the next twenty-two hours. Stay alive by any means possible. Rewards: Unlock a dedicated slot for a Divine Blessing. Failure: Death.
The timing was precise. In the future, survivors would learn the hard way that you couldn't activate fundamental growth packages once a multi-part quest was in motion.
These packages were game-changers, but the quests were calibrated based on the group's power level at the start of the sequence.
By activating my "Beginner's Foundation" during the break, I had effectively cheated the system's assessment. We would be facing a quest designed for our weaker selves, while I was now equipped with the potential for infinite scaling.
Still, I doubted the system's architects were truly that incompetent. There was always a catch.
"Looking forward to the next round? Good. You'll need that enthusiasm."
Just as I was cursing the "bastards" behind the screen, the oppressive darkness of the park was shattered by a blinding, celestial radiance. The three "Guides" descended, their forms shimmering with a perfection that felt entirely oily and wrong.
"I can see you've worked quite hard to level up your strengths," the lead Angel said, his voice a melodic chime that set my teeth on edge.
Despite the warmth of his words, his eyes remained cold and calculating. I noticed his gaze linger on the visible tattoos on our hands and arms. He saw our preparations—the Copy Gadgets, the salvaged gear—but I didn't flinch.
I knew they were watching us, scouting for any human who showed too much promise. They were celestial headhunters, looking for threats to neutralise before they could grow into legends.
Unlucky for you, you bastard, I thought, eyeing my group. Every one of these nineteen is a monster in the making. And I'm not letting you touch a single one of them.
"To make things more equal for you, we have brought gifts," the Angel continued, a relieved, almost predatory smile spreading across his face.
My stomach dropped. When an Angel spoke of "gifts," it usually meant a debuff, a cursed item, or a lethal complication. I watched him closely, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Within seconds, I realised the depth of the "dirty hole" he had dug for us.
"Reinforcements?" Allen muttered. He shifted his weight, his new shield feeling heavy on his arm as he squinted into the distance.
I looked up, following his gaze. From the shadows of the surrounding city streets, various groups of humans were walking in haste toward our clearing. Some were bloodied, some were weeping, but all were moving toward the central park like moths to a flame.
"We decided to gather all the survivors in this central location. Consider this our final act of mercy—our limit in helping you out this time," the Angel said.
I looked up at him, my expression one of pure, unadulterated disdain. Mercy? This was a death sentence. By concentrating hundreds of survivors in one spot, he had just turned this clearing into a giant dinner bell for every monster in a five-mile radius. More people didn't mean more safety; it meant more chaos, more mouths to feed, and more targets for the enemy.
"Isabella," I said, stepping close to her and whispering so only she could hear. "Listen to me very carefully. Get our nineteen together. Make them stand in a tight circle. Do not, under any circumstances, let them scatter or mingle with the new arrivals. If you lose cohesion, you die."
Isabella turned to me, her eyes wide with shock. She didn't have my memories, but she had the instincts to know something was wrong.
According to the "official" records of the future, there were supposed to be very few survivors in Central Park—hardly enough to form a hundred-man unit. But the crowd currently pouring in was much larger.
These weren't just local survivors. They had been ferried in from other zones, brought here to dilute our strength and introduce elements of betrayal.
How many traitors did you plant in this crowd? I wondered, my eyes locking onto the central Angel. He seemed to feel the weight of my stare.
He turned his head slightly, and for a brief, flickering second, the mask of the "benevolent guide" slipped. He looked at me with an expression of pure ridicule.
It was a silent challenge. His eyes were screaming: Now show me how you'll survive this, you arrogant little insect.