Deep within the underground graveyard of a dead city, a man woke up from the dead.

This time however, he wasn't surprised or in denial about it. In fact, he'd been quite prepared all said and done. Wade immediately rolled right onto his feet and sprinted straight for cover into the first home he could find. He'd been lucky to start in the alleyways.

Because out there was a level 122 Golem who would be very surprised and upset to find its victim somehow still running around.

The magic learning session with Zin had continued well into 8pm, at which point the demon excused himself to go tend to Play's new whims and Wade really needed to go to sleep. His shifts usually started in the early morning, so an early bedtime was what he was used to.

Wade had cycled through about twenty uses of the healing ring under supervision, each cycle drawing out 4 to 5 mana, pooling it into the ring, and letting it do its thing for roughly the same number of seconds before it ran out of mana. The ring hadn't completely healed Wade yet, and he'd exhausted the mana potion cube's power just as he reached 91/125 on his mana meter.

In total, the healing ring had been active for about a minute and a half. Not enough to heal Wade's pinched neck nerve completely, but wow, it already made him feel a whole lot better. Maybe just another minute or two of exposure and his neck pain would be gone entirely.

His mana should have been around 102 total after all the time he'd spent, but he'd noticed the numbers slowly declining on their own. That must be his body's natural healing at work.

The rate it decreased was roughly ten per hour by his estimation, and he had no idea whether his vitality affected that or not. Ten per hour could be a racial limit instead, considering it was standard practice for races to train once per day. At ten per hour, after eleven or twelve hours, the body would be mostly healed. Which would mean it was time to continue training.

What he was certain of was that mana wasn't dealing damage to his health pool, so there was no way to cheat or speed up the system by healing his health instead. Shame. He hadn't been idle with Zin either. While the demon had told him he was allergic to fair deals and would get hives at the thought of giving anything for free, Wade still had options to squeeze more information out of Zin.

So that night when he crawled into bed, he made sure his smartphone was in his pants, along with good solid boots and resilient pants. A modern backpack filled with bottled water, a first aid kit he hadn't opened in years, his only flashlight (given to him for free a few years ago), and food like granola bars.

Also a fully loaded Glock 19 Gen 5 pistol, with seven magazines stuffed in his pockets, plus a kevlar vest, helmet, and a bandolier of high-impact grenades with some thermite for fun.

Or so he wished.

In reality, Zin wasn't going to be able to fence him all that stuff in under a few hours on such short notice, and the demon demanded even more mana potions in return. A frankly unreasonable amount, but he did say he'd start the process of moving things around so that when Wade came back with the proper payment, his black market dealer would have the goods ready.

It was a terrible deal, of course. Mana potions were already a huge source of funds as it was. He could make a lot more money healing random people in exchange for cash, which he could then buy all his illicit weaponry with directly. The moment he quit all his gigs, he'd have plenty of time to become a full-time miracle healer after all.

The grenades and thermite might require the demon's connections, but a simple gun would be good enough. The legal issues could be trickier, but he wanted to give it a try first - this was Los Angeles, after all. Plenty of shady places to search. Illy was also part of some fancy military estate; she could probably get him an AMR or something. And she wouldn't demand mana potions in return. Probably.

Mana crystals seemed to be what the demon actually wanted from Wade and the potions were just a means to an end.

Better than eating Play's hair and gagging on that, according to Zin, but not quite as good as a genuine solid mana crystal. So as soon as Wade figured out how to get crystals back or could reliably promise some, Zin's arsenal would open up.

He considered bringing a kitchen knife with him but laughed when he realized how that puny little thing would fare against something like the golems or blackrot-infested creatures. Illy had disposable daggers she could loan him, after all.

No, for now his current strategy was making use of the Skyviper Archer boon, rocks, and the Blackrot. He'd permanently unlocked that boon, so it would always be a reliable backup. That would pair perfectly with a Glock or something with high-penetration bullets for maximum initial damage.

This little boon was going to be his bread and butter for a long while until he picked up a better combo, and it would free up his dependency on strength as a stat point. He could experiment with the other stats now.

For now, however, rocks it was. All he had to do was find that weasel and have it maul his arms and legs a bit more. Then somehow keep it alive or trapped so he could return each round for another fix. Nothing could possibly go wrong abusing blackrot like that each round, right?

At least until he got his hands on some good old American pride and didn't need blackrot anymore.

He hadn't yet decided what to do with the scroll, but he'd keep it for now.

Tomorrow he'd dedicate the day to running around different shops in LA to get all the equipment he could use for these excursions—or he'd do that after lunch with Jason.

Today? He planned to see how far he could go and talk shop with Illy and Leon. They'd probably be back here. Maybe if they worked together on Earth, they might have better chances.

So Wade took a breath, got himself comfortable in bed then closed his eyes for a good sleep.

The next time he opened his eyes, he felt oddly well rested and once more in hell.

Ancient Nathir Shelter-city - Slave District #8 Lethal Difficulty

The System welcomed him in, the Lethal Difficulty feeling far more ominous now that he knew just how accurate that was.

He took note of his starting surroundings, the same alleyway where he'd been crushed to death by the golem, which meant Illy and Leon would be around here too. At the very least, Leon for sure.

The second thing he did was remember that there should be a gold lootbox spawning somewhere here again. He'd gotten the first S-tier score in THE GAME, and it said it would spawn a gold lootbox on his next round. And that probably meant the whole compass thing all over again.

When he looked over, he indeed found it.

The gold compass was right there on the alleyway ground, easy pickings. He gave a few glances to make sure a certain golem wasn't sniffing around, then darted out of his hiding spot, snatched it off the ground, before he scurried back into the shadows.

The needle was pointing backwards, but not across the city. That meant it was on his side of the road for once. "At least this run is starting off good."

The third thing he did was check what boon he'd received for the day.

Common Boon gained: Lightning Dodge

Lightning Dodge (Common) - When activated, drain half your maximum stamina and execute a dodge roll, gaining some invulnerability frames. If damage was negated by the use of this boon, your next attack within ten seconds will deal an additional 25% of your normal weapon damage as electric damage.

Shit, Wade had no idea how to actually dodge roll or do any of that. And it looked like the stamina bar was now going to be in play. He'd spent time yesterday trying to train how to roll out of a fall, but still hadn't been able to make it work even with Blackrot healing him up each time he went splat.

"Stats." Wade checked over the important ones.

Mana: 1/125

That made a bit more sense now. The mana he was generating was ambient mana, likely breathed in. Last time it had reached a maximum of nine and didn't increase further. Wade figured that was the saturation point, where his body's natural healing equalized with the current ambient mana level. He'd been wrong about other things before, but he had a hunch this was the correct interpretation.

As for his dodge boon, it ran on stamina, so that stat was now important. As was the debuff affecting it.

Stamina: 6 (7-1)

Chronic Malnutrition - General lack of nutrients. Causes fatigue and slow thinking. Decreases vitality and stamina.

Wade didn't know where the slow thinking came into place, he thought he'd done just fine for himself so far, thank you. But the debuff's main hits were on his vitality and stamina. Which was now a bigger factor since stamina would be needed to run that boon.

He looked over his quest log next, finding almost all the quests gone except for the ones he'd started with.

Survive THE GAME - Defeat or subdue all other players. Rewards: ???

One round won - Survive one full day in Azdrial. Rewards: One storefront coin.

Market's big scheme - Search and extract followers of Market back safely to Earth. Rewards: One storefront coin per follower smuggled into earth. One gold bar per follower smuggled into earth.

He also saw his older regional quests like discovering the fate of the Nathir as a whole, finding the schematics for Project Dying Light, leveling three times in a fight, and selling something from here to a pawn shop all remained on the log. All of them rewarded a coin, with exception to the schematics ones, which rewarded a whopping seven.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

And of course, his actual bargain with an (arch)demon lord. That one had been given on Earth, so maybe it was completely safe from being eliminated?

The rest of the quests he had, like the one to handle blackrot, were all gone. Balls. That meant quests were a precious resource to generate storefront coins, and dying early in a round meant they'd vanish for good. He wasn't sure the criteria yet for when quests stopped or were kept, but best not test that out too much if quests were precious things.

The storefront outright offered a questline option for a coin, which meant the System considered quests important enough.

What he knew right now was that his main goal was to get at least five storefront coins in order to lock in the lightning dodge boon. It might not be great right now, but once he trained himself how to dodge roll, it could potentially be good?

He peaked out the window of the building, looking to see if his old friend and nemesis was still sitting like the toad it was on the middle of the road.

It was.

Level 122 Nathir Security Golem - 57%

It even had the same health as last time, so at least any damage he dealt to that thing was permanent. If Wade came back a few more times and continued to chip away at it, that'd be one giant bag of XP to level up with.

Having fully situated himself, he had a few courses of action from here on. He could go after the gold lootbox, which was almost right at the very top of his priority list, or go looking for his old teammates.

As much as he wanted that lootbox, the last time he'd gone alone looking for one, the System had decided to be evil. Wade hadn't forgotten. Better be with friends first.

Find Leon first, get the lootbox second.

Plan in mind he nodded to himself, and then checked the boon he'd gotten one more time for any good use cases. Best to have some combat options running before he left safty.

It felt different compared to his skyviper boon. For one, it felt like he could… activate it? This wasn't a passive skill after all. Following the hunch, Wade stood in the gloom of the room, made sure he had plenty of room, and tried to activate the boon.

His body short-circuited. Or at least that's how it felt. He dove forward in a perfect arc, landing on his hands, collapsing together into an equally perfect roll that left him back on his feet, nearly collided with the wall. His breathing was ragged, feeling like he'd run a short sprint just now instead of a single exaggerated roll, but that hadn't been the weird part.

None of that motion had been in his control. It's like something took command of his body, and puppeteered him through every single motion.

"What. The actual. Fuck?" He said, taking a breath in between each.

Okay. So, he filed some information on that, for one he wouldn't need to pay for any parkour training to learn how to properly dodge roll. Apparently the System said using the boon would perform a dodge roll, and by god or against every rule of physics, the dodge roll would be done.

He sat down next, just breathing. Mind racing through the possibilities.

Next test: How long it takes for his stamina to regenerate.

And the answer to that was a good half a minute before he felt like he wasn't winded anymore. The description had said it would cost him half his maximum stamina, which meant if he used these back to back, after the second dodge roll, he'd be unable to move at all, probably so tired he'd collapse on the ground and be an easy sitting duck. More points into stamina would not scale with this, instead he'd need to find some outside method of regenerating stamina after he used it.

So this ability should not be used liberally, and instead left for last second hail mary attempts.

How did the invulnerability frames come into play? In regular video games, those were milliseconds of time right during the dodge roll animations in which nothing could harm the player character. And because devs couldn't code every kind of animation, often times enemies attacking would just swing through the video character's model, and deal no damage.

Was that how the System was going to treat this?

What if he was going to suffer damage from something that wasn't attacking him?

And how long was the invulnerability frame even? One hundred milliseconds?

He needed Leon with him to help test things, a helping hand. But one thing was for certain - if he didn't plan around this boon correctly, he might end up extremely winded right when he needed to be running. At least he could use it right now in a pinch. That would do.

"Right. Leon first. Then more experiments." He nodded, plan in mind, and then got up to start sneaking around his old territory.

Wade crept through the shadows of the Nathir slave district, keeping his back pressed against crumbling walls as he retraced his steps. The security golem remained motionless in the distance.

"All right, where are you big guy," He muttered, scanning the warren of narrow streets.

The alleyway Leon had died in looked the same as any of the other alleys in the dim light, but Wade recognized the distinctive crack in the ground where the golem's fist hand slammed.

Nothing.

Just empty space where Leon's body should have been.

Wade approached cautiously, eyes searching for any sign of his companion.

"Leon?" Wade called softly. Nothing of course, so he kept his movements, until he reached the final place he'd seen Leon.

He knelt, running his fingers over the cracked stone. Then turned to check out the doorway he'd hid behind.

It was closed. He hadn't closed it when he left.

Carefully, he snuck over to it, then knocked.

Something within knocked back.

He heard a voice through the doorway. "Password?" The deep voice rumbled through the door, a hint of amusement cutting through his thick Russian accent.

Wade's knees nearly buckled with relief. His chest tightened, and for a moment, he couldn't speak. The memory of Leon shutting the door on him with flashed through his mind.

But here he was. Alive. Making jokes.

"I'm selling girl scout cookies, premium kind." Wade shot back. "You don't want to miss this deal. One hundred percent genuine mint chocolates."

He heard the deep chuckling he'd grown used to from that big lout. "Okey, can never say no to those."

The doorway creaked, and slid open upwards. The big Russian looked exactly as Wade remembered him. Like a tank, with hands that could crush stone. No evidence of the fatal injuries that had claimed his life just yesterday.

"You made it back," Leon said, giving him a smile.

Wade stared at him, fighting the urge to throw his arms around the big guy in a hug. That would be weird. They barely knew each other technically and yet Wade felt the same depth of friendship with this asshole than he did with Jason. Instead, he punched Leon lightly on the arm, which felt like hitting a brick wall.

"You did too. Turns out this really is exactly like a shitty video game."

"We talk all about it, inside." He said, then looked outside with a head turn. "Big mudak still out there. I see he down to 57% health however, was that you?"

Wade walked in, hearing the door close behind him. "Yep. And man do I have a story for you about lootboxes."

As it turned out, Leon had woken up not too long ago exactly where he'd died, and the first thing he'd done was to hide where he'd last seen Wade. He planned to stay there for an hour before moving on. If Illy's favorite yank was alive and walking around again, Leon expected him to be coming here to investigate, without a doubt. That hunch had paid off.

Wade settled onto an abandoned metal stool while Leon leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his massive chest.

"Got in contact with smol devushka back home too." Leon said. "She's alive, is wishing you well."

"You mean she insulted me three times over in some way?"

Leon flashed him a smile and a thumbs up. "Same thing."

"How'd you find each other that fast on Earth?"

"Facebook." Leon laughed, "Funny thing, she having your favorite vampire over too. I hear they had good fun, she show me over facetime. You have account? Can add you to a group chat."

Was interesting to know Selena made it to Earth, and Wade was already considering possible ways to wiggle some extra millage out of that. Just what exactly came back with Selena on her own planet to planet hops?

Later. Plenty of time for that. "Don't have Facebook. Don't have any social media, actually."

Well he did, but those accounts weren't under his real name and he didn't even remember the emails he used for them in the first place. No, he'd need to make something completely new again.

Leon's eyebrows shot up. "None? Not even Instagram?"

"No time," Wade shrugged. "Between Hobby Froggy's, the gas station, and my Fiverr gigs, I barely have time to sleep, let alone lose time scrolling through stuff. Every minute I spend on social media is a minute I could be getting money."

"This is sad life, my friend."

"It's a necessary life," Wade countered. "Or at least was a necessary one." A manic little smile and evil laugh started to eek out of his mouth at the thought. He now had exciting future opportunities as a merchant mongler, divine healer or a peddler of highly exotic goods. "But I can make an account. Probably should, actually. We need to coordinate."

Leon nodded, then glanced toward the window. "Illy and Selena die yesterday on other side of road, maybe earlier before I did. They respawn over there. Probably."

"So we're split up."

"Eh, for now." Leon gestured toward the street. "They should be waiting in house closer to road. Either to see us, or run for sewer exit if I make break for it. Supposed to contact each other through smartphone. Went to sleep with it deep in pockets." His eyes looked down to his socks and his pajamas. "Was wearing full clothing, jacket, sportsgear. Woke up here with same pajamas as before instead, and no smartphone." He shook his head, then looked over to Wade.

And realized the American had full boots on, rough practical clothing, a backpack and looked about ready to go hiking out in the wilderness. Just about everything Leon had tried and failed to bring over.

"Market's buff." Wade shrugged. "Same one that lets me translate languages."

"You very lucky man, Wade." Leon said.

"Actually very unlucky according to my stats. Or used to be, until Market found me."

Odd that two gods had found him, but only one was officially part of THE GAME. He'd need to go track down where Market was on earth and talk to that crazy old man at some point to get more info out of him. Might be harder than expected, the only clue Wade had on Market's current location or living arrangements, was that he'd been chased off a park bench by the police.

Could very well be Wade would find Market living in a cardboard box under a bridge. But that was for post-round Wade to handle. Tomorrow.

He looked over the room and spotted something to change the subject. Leon had a hammer right by his hand. Two handed, rather obnoxiously large, and looked well crafted. Different than the slave ones he'd seen.

Minor Enchanted Two Handed Warhammer (Basic quality)

"How'd you find that?"

"Bought it at storefront." Leon said, "Enchanted with random blessing, starter gear." He picked it up and shrugged. "Have not figured out how it's used."

Wade doubled the Identify on the nameplate this time, getting more info the same as he had with his ring.

Warhammer inscribed with runework for stronger impact. Channeling mana through this warhammer will convert that mana into additional damage.

"Well good news and bad news." Wade shrugged. "Good news is I know technically how you can make the enchantment work. Bad news is we don't have the power source it needs and it'll take a while to teach you. Did you buy your old boon, the knockback you had?"

He nodded. "First thing I get. Have it equipped now. New boon I get today is… erm, maybe useful?"

That seems par the course for the System. As Wade found out while talking shop with Leon, the Russian had been given the boon Conjure Sustenance. In that it would duplicate whatever the last meal he ate. Could be used once a day, but had no other limits besides that.

"Harder to go hungry." He shrugged, "Could be worse."

Wade, on the other hand, wanted that boon above almost everything.

"Could be worse? Could be worse?!" He hissed, shaking the russian, or attempting to.

"Do you know what you're sitting on Leon?! A goddamn goldmine!"

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