The shock of watching two people die, and the energy he had spent earlier in the jungle made Lucian understandably tired.

  He passed out on the hospital bed not long after the nurse had finished putting some bandages on his forearm.

  He woke up several hours later, still on the bed. Someone had put a thin blanket over him. He yawned and stretched out under it before sitting up.

  His stomach growled. “Ah. I haven’t eaten anything all day.” Lucian pulled the blanket aside and swung his legs off the bed, hopping to the floor.

  He still felt the level up information lingering at the back of his mind, but he decided not to make decisions on an empty stomach. He made his way out of the room and looked around before heading back to the hospital lobby.

  He could still see some of the police line outside. A few of the officers were in the lobby, along with more civilians who had arrived since he had passed out, and hospital staff. Some of the cops nodded to him when they saw him and he nodded back.

  The nurse who had tended to him earlier walked into the lobby shortly after he did, and came over to him, “Are you doing alright?” she asked as she gave him a once over, “You went out like a light earlier.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Lucian smiled, “I was just tired and… Shaken up, I guess is a good way to put it.”

  “Well I’m glad you’re okay-” The nurse was cut off by the sound of Lucian’s stomach demanding food. “Ah! You must be starving, poor thing. Come with me. The hospital food court has some stuff you can have.” She gestured for him to follow, and he was more than happy to.

  Lucian ended up helping himself to some prepackaged sandwiches. He brought them over to a table and sat down, unwrapping one and taking a large bite. “Mnnm. Not bad…” He mumbled to himself as he ate.

  It didn’t take him long to tear through two turkey sandwiches. He began to review his level ups after he finished the second one.

  He had 6 free points to spend, and a pending skill choice. “I’ll do the skill first.”

  Lucian took a moment to consider the options presented to him. “[Slash] provides synergy with [Penetrating Strike], and leans into what I am already doing. [Arcane Pulse] provides some area of effect damage, which would let me more readily handle several smaller enemies. [Flame Infusion] seems like the worst option. I could channel it on top of my sword but… My instincts are telling me the more stuff you channel the harder it is.”

  He set [Flame Infusion] aside. He also questioned the intelligence of using fire in a jungle, since he planned on going further into it soon.

  He ended up settling on [Slash] after some deliberation. “[Slash] scales with Strength while amplifying the force of an attack. I already use Strength to swing my sword so it’s basically letting me double dip from the stat. The higher my Strength gets, the more pronounced its effect will be - not to mention leveling up the skill itself. AOE would be great but I can’t turn this up…”

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  Yet again, Lucian chose to lean further into his strengths than cover for his weaknesses, picking [Slash]. He briefly felt the skill register in his body.

  Next came the free points - he had 6. He thought that Strength was important, especially now that [Slash] let him get more out of it, but he didn’t want to fall behind in Agility since he relied on movement to stay out of harm's way. He decided to put half of them in Strength and the other half into Agility, bringing him up to 45 in both and bringing his maximum Spirit up to 64.

  With his points allocated, he stood up from the table.

  He took the empty wrappers from his sandwiches to the trash, and left the food court to head back to the lobby.

  “I gotta go get another hoodie… I feel kind of naked.” Lucian thought as he walked back into the entrance area. “If I go back to my apartment I can get some of my other stuff and see if there’s anyone still there who needs help.” Lucian nodded to himself, and with his plan set he began to head to the doors.

  “Hey!” Lucian turned to see the officer who had first brought him inside walking over. “I would tell you to stay safe out there but I think we need that more than you do.” she laughed.

  Lucian chuckled, “I’m sure you’ll be fine. With any luck, more people will get classes. I am curious to know what causes it.” Lucian smiled, “Hopefully you can get an interesting one.”

  The officer smiled back at him, “I hope so too…” she shook her head, “Sorry, I don’t mean to keep you.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I'll probably come back here anyway, especially if I find more people.” Lucian nodded to her as he left the hospital, waving a bit before looking to the mainstreet. “I wonder how fast I can get back…”

  Lucian looked around at the nearby buildings as he made his way down the road. “If I go on top of them and ignore the roads, I could get there faster… but they’re too tall here…” His eyes wandered across the sides of the buildings until he saw what he was looking for.

  He walked up to a residential building and around its side, finding a fire escape. He didn’t bother climbing up the stairs, opting to instead simply jump up with a woosh and grab onto the railing, swinging himself over it and onto the platform.

  He quickly ascended the rest of the escape until he reached the top level. The fire escape didn’t have stairs up to the roof. “Not like that’s a problem…”

  He launched himself up and grabbed onto the edge of the roof, and pulled himself up onto it. “Moving around like this is fun…” he thought to himself as he looked off of the roof. From here, it was a pretty straight path to his apartment building, assuming he could cross entirely on rooftops.

  He cracked his neck and stretched out his legs before taking off along the roof and, at the last moment, launching himself off the edge of the building.

  Lucian sailed through the air and landed squarely on the next building, “Woo!” he laughed and kept going, not wanting to lose the momentum he gathered with the first jump.

  He leapt from rooftop to rooftop, savoring the feeling of the wind rushing past him as he moved.

  Eventually, however, he came to a gap he wasn’t confident in his ability to cross - jumping to a roof across a road. He came to a stop and looked over to it. “Guess I gotta take the boring route.” Lucian mumbled to himself as he turned and began to walk to the edge of the building to start making his way down.

  His ears twitched and the hairs on his neck stood on end. Lucian froze at the edge of the building as a shape flew overhead.

  Lucian pivoted on his heel to watch it fly by him, a great bird-like creature in the sky above him. It looked to have 2 sets of wings and way maybe twice as large as the creature he fought by the hospital, but it was hard to tell since it was in the air above him.

  Looking at it filled Lucian with a mixture of emotions. Fear, but also excitement. Right now, Lucian wouldn’t stand a chance against it - though he felt like if he kept working hard, it wouldn’t be long until he could.

  Lucian watched as it veered sideways and accelerated with a burst of speed, a skill no doubt, heading back towards the massive tree in the center of the jungle.

  “Yet another thing to work towards and look forward to…” Lucian sighed and looked back down over the edge of the building.

  There was no fire escape, but it didn’t take him long to get down climbing between window sills. Lucian landed on the sidewalk and continued on the sidewalk.

  It wasn’t long before he arrived at his apartment building. Lucian was pretty sure most people who were here in the morning had probably left.

  He made his way inside and climbed the staircase up to his room. He grabbed his backpack and put some clothes in it and pulled a new hoodie over his head as well, “That's better…”

  After packing his backpack with the stuff he felt like he really needed he went about checking the other rooms on his floor.

  Each knock was answered with silence. “Figures people would have left already, it has been a while.” Some of the doors were even left unlocked. Lucian sighed, “I hope they’re okay, at least.”

  He decided to check the floors below him as he walked downstairs to the entrance, and again found no one.

  He walked out of the building with his backpack slung over one shoulder and looked back at it, “Guess I’ll have to find somewhere else to live now, huh?” He said as he turned his gaze down the road again. “Well, whatever.”

  Lucian fixed his gaze on the towering tree in the distance once again, “This is more interesting anyway.”