Is it Wrong to Copy Abilities in Apocalypse?

03:06, 21 July, 20XY.

Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India.

The past few days had been quite relaxing, at least for the people in the Muzaffarnagar zone—the one that had its minor demon killed.

They didn't have to do much, and they had little to no pressure on their heads.

Many people had already started to make houses for themselves using wood and left out concrete.

Some would make it far away from the red zones, while some would make it anywhere they found comfortable, but the humans were trying to get comfortable with whatever they had.

What they didn't know was that apocalypse was not something comforting.

How can houses made of wood and broken concrete stop monsters with a strength of level 15 or 20?

Many people, who had thought that they could live a happy life even in this apocalyptic world, were killed by some roaming beast.

This again sent a wave of dread throughout the humans.

Can they never even hope to live a normal life?

All of them wanted an answer to that question, even though they knew the answer.

But still, the people who were adjusting to the apocalypse as it was without trying to find comfort in it, were better off than those guys who died in the house they constructed for themselves.

In this apocalypse, there was no guarantee when you would have a beast knocking on your door or where a new red zone would spawn.

What if in the next round, a higher-leveled zone spawned right next to their house?

What would they do then?

Cry to God?

Beg the mindless beast to let them go?

That was when a new saying rose in those days: Move your legs or lose your legs.

In this ever-changing world, where anything can happen anywhere, people prefer to keep moving.

That way, at least they know the world better; they could understand it better.

But again, just when the humans started to gain some confidence, they were slapped across their faces by the system, which kept increasing the price of the compulsory food supply.

It was 10 on the first day—14th July—which was the day the tutorial period ended and the real scenarios started.

Then 20 on 15th, 30 on 16th, 40 on 17th, 50 on 18th, 60 on 19th, and 70 on 20th.

The humans were still fine, as the amount they needed to pay wasn't that high. What made them anxious was the increasing trend of the coins.

Was it going to keep increasing like that?

Will they have to pay taxes for every day alive on their own planet?

If that was not enough, even the coins one needed to pay were not something many had.

But there were some people who weren't much affected by all of this; they had enough coins to pay for themselves without a problem.

One such person was Alex, who was sitting on top of the bodies of two women and one man piled up on each other, staring at the number of coins he had collected.

[Coins: 22046.]

With that amount of coins in this apocalyptic world, he could be called a rich guy with a lot of money to waste.

The number of coins he had was probably one of the highest in the world, if not the highest.

But that was not all he had collected from two complete days of hunting.

He had upgraded almost all of his skills up to level 20 at least.

Due to that, he also found out that the skills, unlike levels, don't have caps; they could be upgraded as high as one wanted them to.

He found that out by upgrading his basic royal medical arts to level 25, which didn't cost much as it was a common-ranked ability.

The one that he upgraded the least, and yet it cost the most, was the skill with its rank still unknown—Analytic Eyes.

It took 5400 coins just to get it from level 6 to level 15.

The other skills, such as the mythical ranked 'Sovereign of Weapons', the legendary ranked 'Deathbringer's Gaze', and the rare ranked 'Unnamed Battle Art', took a big chunk out of his stock as well, with it being 3900, 3500, and 1650 coins, respectively.

The 'Alchemical Enchantment', another rare-ranked skill that was at its lowest level, was also pushed up to level 20 by Alex, and as he tried to create potions after that, he found it hard to believe that the quality of the potions had increased a bit along with the required mana supply for the skill being lowered.

The last one was the skill that worked as a base for the Alchemical Enhancement, Basic Royal Medical Arts, and as said before, it was upgraded to level 25 by the expense of 1950.

Now, as he sat upon the soft bodies of the humans, he pondered about what he should do.

Should he save these coins? Or should he just keep pushing his skill levels higher?

As for how those bodies came there, well, it was obvious that Alex killed them.

Like Alex had thought before he left the shelter: No matter who it was, if they tried to approach him, then he would give them a bit of time to move away, and if they didn't and kept following him, then he would simply kill them off—exactly what he had done to these guys.

By now, almost everyone in this area knew of Alex going around killing anyone who tried getting closer to him, and that was why they would just look at Alex from afar and not try approaching him.

That was just what Alex wanted, and although he had to kill some humans to achieve his goal, he didn't really care about it.

It was not like he had achieved his complete goal, as the humans were still talking about him; the chats were a bit different from before, but they were still talking about him.

[Rumi: Why is Alex so distant and cold…? T T]

[Jogesh: Yeah, I heard he killed those who persistently followed him.]

[Zayad: Well, it was their fault for trying to invade his personal space.]

[Sophie: Yeah, but do you guys have any idea about the next scenario.]

[Gaurav: If we could guess the system's moves, then why would we be this miserable, huh?]

[Tripti: Sigh... I just don't want to die...]

[Rumi: Who wants to die, dumb bitch?]

Yes, there were a lot of chats about the next scenario as well, as there was not much time left before the next scenario.

Although the demon was dead and the difficulty of the scenario wasn't raised, the initial difficulty was still there, right?

That was why the atmosphere all over the world was tense, especially the zones that had a minor demon still alive and moving.

*Tap**Tap*

Alex, on the other hand, jumped down the bodies before he placed his palm over the back of the girl that was placed highest among them, and the next second...

*Fwoosh*

A huge mass of purple flames appeared from between his palm and her back before the fire engulfed her whole, slowly taking in the guy and the other girl as well.

'Time to hunt a bit more.'

He thought inwardly, as more coins would never be bad, and he could have to use more coins any moment in this apocalypse.

*Step**Step*...

So, without even sparing a glance at the dead people, he walked away from the area.

It was time to get ready for the next tutorial.