Choose Your Apocalypse (A LitRPG Apocalypse, Progression, System Fantasy) [CYA]

<Alex, Endure - Secure, High School Gymnasium>

Alex was ready to test his first ever permanent magical symbol.

He took a deep breath and did his best to use Basic Mana Manipulation to gently move mana down his three fingers, one in the center of each spiral on the odd symbol.

As it was a generic strengthening symbol, it shouldn't be able to go catastrophically wrong.

As it turned out, yes, in fact, it could.

Alex wasn't sure—even in the immediate aftermath—where the pressure that acted on the bit of wood came from, but something about his impartment of mana was uneven, or the symbol wasn't as even as he'd thought it was.

Regardless, the wood exploded.

He blinked fast enough that none got in his eyes. Physical Agility for the win.

There was a grand total of three mana in the whole thing, so the 'explosion' wasn't that energetic. In fact, it was more like the whole chunk simply turned to fragments.

Still, he had a host of splinters embedded across his face and hand.

Thankfully, it only took a minute for his enhanced healing to push them out, relieving the incredibly uncomfortable feeling.

It actually took Alex a moment to realize that the explosion had been virtually silent. There had been ripples in the mana of the area, but somehow the only sound had been that of the wood striking surfaces around him.

He pulled the book back up and read the entry again. "It says to grant the impartment evenly… Wait… Why is 'grant' italicized?"

He flipped to the back of the book where there was blessedly an index. He found the term 'grant' and flipped to near the front of the book where it was first mentioned.

As he reread the section he groaned. "I have to keep the function of the symbol in mind, and try to push my intention along with the mana? Are you kidding me?"

Apparently not.

Grumbling, he began his work again, carving another chunk of wood with the symbol.

It went much faster this time, even if it still wasn't a quick process.

Finally—roughly fifteen minutes later—he got the symbol finished yet again.

"Well, let's do this, then." He placed his fingers appropriately, and slowly began to funnel in the mana. All the while, he specifically thought of the exact description of the effect the symbol was supposed to create.

He braced himself, but nothing bad happened.

To his surprise, it seemed to work.

The symbol almost seemed to glow with a color that wasn't in the visible spectrum. Then, the flows of mana around him, the very magic in the air shifted just a bit to incorporate the wooden piece.

And that was it.

He looked closely, trying to confirm that it had worked. No matter how he looked, he couldn't really tell.

He could sort of see that there was power to the symbol—much like there was power in the symbols on the flesh golem bones if to a far lesser degree—but that was about it.

He placed his hand on the symbol and concentrated, trying to use his Basic Mana Sense to get something—anything—from the magic within.

After a bit, he thought he felt a sense of… waiting?

Huh, alright then. With measured motions, he placed his thumbs in the middle of the wood—centered on the symbol—with his fingers gripping either side.

Slowly increasing the force he was using, he tried to break the wood in half.

As he ramped up the strength he was exerting, he found himself surprised at the resistance. If it kept up like this it—

The board snapped.

There was a tiny puff of mana as it broke, and Alex got a feeling of loss, as if the magic was sad that it hadn't been able to resist.

That's odd.

He picked up an unmodified bit of wood, virtually identical to the first, and tried to break it in the same way.

It didn't break easily, but it did break.

"Interesting… roughly…" He laughed. "Yeah, I can't actually measure pressure exerted to a very fine degree."

He shook his head. Still, it had been noticeably harder to break the symbol carved board, and that was with the carving theoretically weakening it through the removal of material.

As for a percentage? He had no idea, but he seemed to remember reading somewhere that humans had a difficult time determining differences of less than ten percent, so he figured it was at least that.

A ten percent increase was significant, but not enough to make him want to attempt to make armor out of the wooden pieces.

So, it's not a fix-all, but it can make anything better, if used properly.

That was probably a gross overgeneralization, but it did seem like it was enough to prove the worth of proceeding.

Yes, because my amateur attempt went okay, I will put my stamp of approval on an entire branch of magic. He gave a self-deprecating smile at the arrogance of the idea.

He was about to dive back in, but before he did, he stopped himself.

He should figure out what was going on in general and see if Kaylee needed any help from him.

He briefly checked on Grant, finding the man resting well from everything Alex could determine.

You know, a diagnostic ability could be really nice…

But… he had one. Detect Life was a pretty blunt instrument, but it might be able to help him, here.

It was cheap enough, regardless, so he braced himself and cast the spell.

Information cascaded through his head like a waterfall. He did his best to filter it out, focusing only on what it told him about Grant.

He looked… fine? There were some other people that Alex detected whose life seemed a bit off, as if they were a bit sick or hurt in one way or another, but Grant's life seemed stable and robust.

Alright, then. It's not definitive, but it is something.

He pushed up to his feet and walked out into the main gym.

People were moving about with seeming purpose, and the gym, itself, was rather empty in comparison to when he entered.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

There were now three full skeletons of flesh golems in the corner—well, there were enough bones that Alex believed that the bones of all three flesh golems had been gathered. Regardless, each and every one of the bones was deeply carved with brutal symbols, even if one set seemed to have subtle cracks all through them, indicating how Grant's attack had weakened the anti-magical properties so much.

Kaylee noticed his entrance as soon as he stepped onto the polished flooring, waving him over. "Alex!"

He moved her direction without delay. There were several non-Initiates around, whom she seemed to have been giving instructions to. She quickly finished up with them as he drew close. "Hey, Grant's doing just fine. How else can I help?"

She smiled. "That's good to hear. John woke up a bit ago with a terrible headache, he said. All it took was a mana potion to remove it, but we don't have many of those."

Alex grunted. "We could raid the nearby magic shops."

"Your map, yes." She smiled. "We have other priorities that will take a group out of the school regardless, so that would be a good thing to include."

"Other priorities?"

"Yes. Most of the students and teachers either don't have a good grasp on the danger, or are hyper focused on it. In either case, they desperately want to get to their loved ones. Those who have the magical connections in their phones to allow communication without the grid are getting mixed results. Some of those on the other end of the communications are begging for extraction or other types of help, and some are demanding that their child or whoever is here come to them for safety." She rubbed the center of her forehead with one finger in clear consternation.

"So, you need a group to go out, look for survivors—including some specific ones—and gather supplies where we can?"

"Exactly, yes."

"That will be harder with our inventories being so small."

"Agreed, but that is apparently among the easiest aspects of the skill to expand. It's a relatively common skill, at least several of the teachers and nurses have it. They've already given some pointers that I can pass on. Your book could fill in the blanks for you?"

He grunted. "That's fair. I'm definitely game to go out."

He really wanted more levels. He knew that his race and class were supposed to be better even while still being at lower levels, but it was a bit grating to feel like he was behind the curve level-wise.

Quality over quantity, Alex. You know the drill.

Kaylee was already smiling. "That's excellent. Your immunity to the zombieism is really the only reason this would be feasible. How many people do you want to take?"

He frowned at that. "I'd love to take Natasha, John, and Pilar. Maybe one or two of the non-Initiates with the biggest inventories?"

"That's what I was thinking too, yeah. Small group, lots of firepower."

"So, what's the advice?"

"Find something that's just too big to fit in your inventory, and put it in. The closer a fit, the easier it is to do, but the less your inventory will expand."

He raised an eyebrow. "That's it?"

"That's it. A common practice, apparently, is to use pea gravel. Fill your Inventory with the stuff then force in one more little piece at a time. Generally, it's seen as good if you can add a grain every ten seconds or so."

Alex blinked, then groaned, his new mentality giving him a rough estimate. "Isn't that like 5 days of constant work for every cubic foot?"

"It is, yeah. That's considered the 'easy' way, all things considered. You can force in something larger, but it's harder and might not even work. That's the essence of what they told us."

"Alright, thanks."

"When will you be good to go?"

"I'll be magically full in just under three hours. I'd prefer to be so before going out. A nap would be helpful too."

"Then get it done. I'll have the team prep to leave in three hours."

"Thank you." As he turned to leave, his eyes drifted to the pile of bones in the corner. "Kaylee?"

"Hmm? Yeah, Alex?"

"Do we have a measuring tape?"

Five minutes later, Alex had found several bones that could be interlocked to create something that was just barely too long to fit in his Inventory and then others that could be switched in to make the result just barely longer than that. He was going to wedge his Inventory wide, rather than hoping it would slowly expand over time.

If doing it his way caused his nice two foot by two foot by three foot box to go all oddly shaped, he'd find some way to wedge it open at a steady rate.

Off to the side, the man who had given Kaylee the tape measure was talking to her in hushed tones. She pointed Alex's way, and the man thanked her, walking toward Alex.

Alex sighed. Great… what now?

The older man—likely in his early forties—came over, his long, gray ponytail swinging. He had a long beard as well, and a wiry frame that oddly spoke of years of hard labor.

This guy's one of the teachers?

"Mr. Johnson?"

Alex stood, brushing his hands off on his pants unnecessarily and extending one. "Alex is just fine, but yes, that's me."

"Good to meet you, Alex. I'm Mr. Weston, the head shop teacher here."

Oh, that makes more sense. Alex smiled. "Good to meet you, Mr. Weston. What can I do for you?"

"Well, that lovely young woman tells me you've got yourself an Inventory skill you're hoping to improve, is that the case?"

He frowned but nodded. "It is. May I know why you're asking?"

Mr. Weston gave a warm smile in reply. "Well, shop covers all sorts of skills for the less academically inclined. With our student population, we even had enough funding for a basic skills course, where we would provide the kids with Simple skills and help them grow them until they were beyond even the capacity of most Common variants. It was a part of our 'Real Life Skills' course set. It's something that less affluent students can have as an advantage, as most more affluent folk get storage items of some kind, but even if our students ever get such, those can go into an Inventory, too, where storage items can't hold other storage items."

Alex felt his mouth drop open. In a world like this one, such courses would make sense, but so would a 'Taxes and You' course for his own world, and heaven knew that had rarely happened.

Mr. Weston cleared his throat. "Regardless, we have a set of Inventory expanding boxes. Think of them like reverse nesting dolls. You place the smallest inside and slowly add one after another, forcing your Inventory wider. Expensive for one person to buy, but worth it for years of use."

Alex laughed. "That's exactly what I need." He then frowned. "And that's not 'reverse' that's exactly how nesting dolls work…"

The man shrugged. "We'll have to agree to disagree. As to your need? Good! It seems we're going to be working together to go gather supplies as well, so I want your Inventory to be as big as possible. Is yours the Simple one foot cube? Or is it larger than that?"

"Two foot by two foot by three. How large is yours?" Alex asked without thinking.

A kindly smile came to the man's face. "Now, Alex, you shouldn't compare yourself to others. I've been doing this for decades now. Besides, overall size is less important than how skilled you are with it."

Alex scratched the side of his head, feeling slightly self-conscious. "I was mainly curious. Is that alright?"

"Oh. Then certainly. My Inventory is a one hundred foot cube."

He felt his eye twitch. "What?"

"Well, some of the more advanced expansion methods can use the stretching cubes side by side instead of one inside another, and I had many, many class periods in which to continue to work at it."

"I suppose so…" Alex was a bit shell-shocked.

"It's not the largest by any means. There are quite a few methods for getting effectively infinite Inventories, but they aren't really available for us common folk." Mr. Weston chuckled and patted Alex's shoulder. "So? Are you ready to try?"

"What? Go now?"

"Go? No, son. I've got them in my own Inventory. They're too valuable to leave lying about." He chuckled. "It's effectively a ten foot cube of magically strengthened titanium."

Alex stared. "Maybe you better explain like I'm one of your students."

"Certainly. The central cube is one foot, and that's simple wood, no extra strength needed. Outside of that is a layer of magically locked and reinforced titanium that is a sixteenth of an inch thick, tightly fitting on the wood. Then, outside that is another box made up of plates the same width, tightly fitted around the first. And so on."

Alex frowned. "How do you get them out? How do you even use them?"

Mr. Weston gave an indulgent smile. "When you become proficient with your Inventory, you can remove a single link from a chain without breaking the welds. Inventory manipulation is amazing for all sorts of crafts and physical tasks. It lets you do things that would be otherwise physically impossible. This is the same. I will give you each box, and you will put it into your Inventory around the previous ones."

"Why do they have to be so strong, so magically reinforced?"

"Well, for them to stay in proper shape as I take them out and pass them over, otherwise differential air pressure and various other factors could cause them to distort and not work as well, or they might fail entirely."

That… made sense.

"So, shall we?" The man smiled again, then seemed to remember something. "Oh! You should empty your Inventory over there."

Alex chuckled at that. Yeah, it would have been bad to crush all of this… or whatever would have happened. He shrugged and just asked. "What would have happened?"

Mr. Weston smiled. "It would have depended on your visualization, but most likely, you wouldn't have been able to add the boxes as effectively, if at all."

Alex grunted before thanking the teacher. A moment later, there was an ordered pile of his things from this world beside the three collections of bones.

Mr. Weston had one eyebrow raised. "Well, with control like that, this should go beautifully."

Alex grinned. "I like the sound of that. Shall we?"