Chapter 8: Four Doors

'All right, all preparations are complete. Okay Wilson, let's get started!'

Marcus left the dining room and headed for the room where his most difficult fights had taken place. But now he was much calmer than when he had faced the mage or the skeleton soldiers. After all, this time he had made all the necessary preparations.

Marcus stopped in front of the door to the left of the room and used his [Energy Sense]. As he expected the fourteen presences he detected last time there.

Following the process of the other time, he raised his left arm and fired an energy missile that ended up hitting the hinges of the door.

*Bang!... THUD!*

The energy sphere destroyed the hinges and the metal door fell forward with a thud.

"Gyaaakhh!"

"Kyaaagh!"

"Grrrr"

In the corridor on the other side of the door, shouts, grunts, and shrill screams could be heard. Suddenly a humanoid figure rushed out the door trying to pounce on Marcus.

*Bang!*

But an energy missile slammed into the creature's chest sending it back the way it came. Marcus quickly used his analysis.

================================

Race: Undead

Species: Ghoul.

Rank: 2

Level: 13

================================

'So they were Ghouls... well, we'd better start with the second stage of the plan.'

The Ghouls Marcus had encountered so far were relatively similar to those in the stories he had read on Earth.

Their skin was a pale shade of brown and they possessed no noses or ears. Their muscles, though well defined, showed a gaunt appearance and they had a mouth full of sharp teeth from which dripped saliva with paralyzing effects.

And just like zombies or necrophagous worms, Ghouls attacked any being that was not of their species, so after catching their attention, Marcus began to run back the way he had come.

Following his instinct, the Ghouls came out of the corridor and began to chase him.

*Slash*

But when the first of them reached the dining hall, he was immediately decapitated by a sword that had come flying out of nowhere. The ghouls stopped dead in their tracks for a moment.

In the center of the room was a huge pile at least 5 meters (16.4 ft) high that almost touched the ceiling, which was made up of furniture and the remains of multiple undead including some zombie corpses and ghouls. At the top of it, there was a skeleton in armor with a sword in his right hand.

Marcus made a slight movement with his left hand and suddenly dozens of swords, spears, and axes started levitating around him.

'Hey, guys! Do you like my new spell? It's called [Psychokinesis].'

"Gyaaakhh"

"Kyaaagh!"

The ghouls charged towards the pile of corpses, but before they could get there Marcus made another slight movement with his left hand and the weapons flew straight towards the undead.

*Shik, Slash, Slash*.

Instantly one ghoul was pierced by a spear and impaled on the ground, another had an ax embedded in his head. Two other ghouls had their limbs severed by spinning blades.

The weapons flew and every time they did, some undead with very bad luck lost a limb and there were even some who were impaled or cut in half. Soon the room was no longer a neutral gray color but a putrid green.

'11,12,13... Where's 14?!'

"Gyaaakhh!"

At that moment, the last remaining ghoul scaled the pile of corpses from the right side and within seconds came within inches of Marcus.

*Slash!*

But before he could attack, Marcus made a horizontal slash with his sword cutting through the lid of the ghoul's skull. The undead began to stagger and fell from the mound but not before being impaled by the swords that remained in the air.

....

{You gained 19,221 xp}

....

{You leveled up}

....

{You gained 17 stat points}

....

'It's over pal, I have the high ground...Ah! I should have said that before I killed him... Shit, I ruined a good reference.'

****

It had been almost three weeks since Marcus had arrived at the strange facility below the abandoned village. In that time he had turned the dining room of the place into the base of his operations and had slowly been clearing the place out.

The subterranean facilities were incredibly extensive, not only were there more individual sleeping quarters like the ones he had come across earlier. The place also had a food storage room, an armory, two training rooms, a small treasury, and what had once been a greenhouse.

Of course, after exploring the whole place, Marcus had reaped so many benefits that he couldn't complain about his current situation. Except for just one thing…

....

{ERROR, the user does not meet the requirements to perform this function}.

....

'Sigh...I think I've officially reached the pinnacle of the first realm.' he thought.

In the days he had been exploring the facility, Marcus had encountered multiple monsters among them were skeleton soldiers, warrior zombies (a higher form of zombie), ghouls, and some other undead.

Thanks to all these fights, Marcus went from level 12 to 19 and had managed to accumulate more than 100 stat points!

But when his INT reached 99, the system wouldn't allow him to increase it any further. However, after some research, Marcus found the cause of the problem.

According to the introductory book on magic, magic users ( Wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers) measured their power by the number of rehi layers/rings they had on their bodies.

The more rehi rings the thaumaturge had, the more mana he could store and also the more powerful and complex spells he could cast.

According to this unit of measurement, there were a total of 12 levels, commonly known as rehi realms. Realm zero being the lowest and eleventh realm being the highest.

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But Marcus used the system to skip the stage of realm zero, directly reaching the first realm and reaching the so-called "realm pinnacle" in less than a week. If a native of this world heard about this, he would think Marcus was a genius among magic users.

Unfortunately, while the system might go against some of the natural laws of this world, it still had its own rules and logic that could not be altered by mere mortals.

So, Marcus deduced that he had finally reached the limit of his species and if he wanted to progress in magic, he would have to follow the logic of the system and evolve again.

'Well Wilson, that was the first one, which means we still have 3 more gates to go.'

"...."

'Yeah, I'd like to pick up the pace too, but we have no choice but to wait for my MP to fully regenerate... Sigh, I'm seriously starting to doubt my mental health.'

Although Marcus had cleared the subterranean facilities almost completely, he still had four rooms left that he hadn't checked.

This was because by using his [Energy Sense] he had determined that the entities inside those places were much stronger than ordinary undead.

The only exception had been the door where the ghouls were, but he had not opened it because there were too many of them to face without first being fully prepared.

Also, the reason it took Marcus three weeks to kill most of the monsters in the place was his slow mana regeneration. Just for his 999 MP to fully recover, he had to wait almost 17 hours!

But since there was nothing he could do about it, he just used those hours to plan his next moves (along with Wilson) to increase his chances of getting out of there alive.

****

After 17 hours and once it was confirmed that everything was fully prepared, Marcus began to walk through the installations until he stopped in front of a huge rusty iron door.

Finally, after a few minutes of hesitation, Marcus grabbed the handle and slowly opened the door.

*Creack*

The room was another training room, but this one seemed to be intended for archery practice, as it was quite a bit longer than the other two training rooms that Marcus had found in the facility. There were also some practice dummies at the end of the room that still had some arrows in their bodies.

But what caught the eye was the skeleton standing at the end of the shooting range.

The skeleton was incredibly sturdy and stood nearly 3m (10ft) tall. Even if he wasn't using [Analysis], Marcus already knew what being he was dealing with.

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Race: Undead

Species: Large skeleton.

Rank: 2

Level: 17

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Large skeleton.

This had been one of Marcus' options for evolving, but he turned it down because it appeared to be one of the weakest undead on the list.

Marcus deduced that the large skeleton was an undead focused on the stats of strength, defense and possessed great vitality, but also lacked speed.

When the large skeleton finally became aware of Marcus' presence, it began to walk towards where he was.

The higher skeleton monsters, unlike ordinary skeletons, were a bit more sensitive to danger and while they did not attack immediately, they still went on alert when an unknown being came within their detection range.

*Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!*

But before the skeleton could get any closer, it was greeted by a hail of magical projectiles.

Marcus was no idiot and knew that if he wanted to win while suffering as little damage as possible, he had to keep the skeleton from getting too close. So he immediately fired 10 energy missiles.

However what happened next almost made Marcus' mandible drop to the floor.

'¡¿Huh?!'

The large skeleton not only survived the projectiles but also seemed to be almost unharmed.

'Don't tell me... this motherf**ker has [Magic Resistance]!!'

Marcus had originally ruled out the large skeleton as a possible evolution since, aside from his great strength and defense, he didn't seem to have any special abilities and would also be an easy target if he encountered another skeleton mage who could attack from a distance. He didn't expect this guy to be resistant to magic.

The skeleton staggered a bit from the impacts, but recovered quickly and charged at his attacker at full speed.

Marcus immediately put away his sword in the inventory, pulled out a battle mace he had gotten from the armory, and ran towards the skeleton at the same time casting [Self-Reinforcement].

When the huge fist was only a few centimeters away from his skull, Marcus ducked to dodge and hit the skeleton's femur with all his might.

*Crack!*

A cracking sound was heard and a few seconds later a small fissure appeared in the area where the battle mace had impacted. But then the large skeleton's fist hit the floor.

*Baam!*

The sound of the large skeleton's blow spread throughout the room and the force of the fist caused the floor around him to crack.

Marcus was currently only using [Self-Reinforcement], the reason for this was because [Energy Missile] didn't seem to have much effect and [Psychokinesis] required a lot of concentration and practice. The only reason Marcus was able to use it earlier was that he had prepared in advance.

He also didn't activate [Energy Shield] because it consumed a lot of MP.

With the mana Marcus had at the time, he could only maintain the spell for 5 more minutes, but if the big skeleton hit him it would be game over.

Marcus ran at the skeleton and hit it in the spine, then attacked its right femur, and continued to its ribs, humerus, tibia, fibula, and scapulae.

*Crack! Crack! Crack!*

Soon the damage caused by Marcus' attacks began to affect the large skeleton making it slower than it already was.

Although the skeleton was resistant to magic it was still weak against blunt damage.

Marcus had been incredibly careful when striking, when his opponent attacked he would dodge the huge fist and counterattack with the battle mace. But he was running out of time.

The [Self-Reinforcement] would only last another 60 seconds, after that Marcus would lose his advantage and would have no choice but to retreat.

Marcus ran towards the skeleton to attack again, but then he stumbled on one of the cracks in the ground due to the constant attacks of the big skeleton, causing him to lose his balance for a second and...

*Baam!.. Crack!*

The skeleton's right arm hit him in the ribs with such force that it sent him flying, only to then end up crashing into the wall of the room.

[HP: 89/250]

'Ugh... That bastard... he sure hits hard. If he hits me again... I'll be seriously screwed.'

The situation was not good, Marcus only had 24 seconds left before the spell stopped working and he also had all his ribs broken and his armor was almost destroyed. But the other guy didn't have much HP left either.

In short, Marcus was between a rock and a hard place.. Either he killed the large skeleton in what time he had left, or his MP would reach zero and he would die.

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