The One Luna

After cleaning up and getting a change of clothes, they went around the neighbor hood looking for survivors, including the houses of friends and acquaintances in the area, only to find them as zombies. During this time, they gave the regular zombie kills to Mabini, Apple, Maria, and Clara, boosting them to level 7 each.

They found 5 more evolved zombies, but this time they weren't separated, they were actually in the same vicinity. Luna figured this would be a good opportunity to practice team fighting. Boni took the lead, his <Holy Aura> made the evolved zombies instinctively want to get rid of him, leading them to tunnel vision towards him. Boni also wanted to take this opportunity to test just how sturdy he is.

With his 26 base VIT and +5 Bonus from his Mace, along with the 10% mitigation from his passive, each hit still took 3% of his health.

Luna told Mabini to guard Apple from any surprise attacks, as she was channeling <Chain Lightning> doing periodical damage to all 5 zombies, as they were staggered, Maria and Clara each went for one.

Clara got the last hit on hers, but Apple's <Chain Lightning> managed to get the kill on Maria's target.

Luna and Sura both killed the last three, both master and summon shared exp, resulting in them leveling up to 10.

Clara and Apple got level 7 only a few zombies back, so they were still short of the next level.

After reaching level 10, Luna got a flood of new information, he was curious and excited at the same time, but considering that they were out in the open, he opted to wait until they got back to his place before sharing it with everyone.

"Let's head back. Reaching level 10 has given me, or rather us, some exciting new benefits!"

The moment they got back home, they were so excited that they decided to put off sleep for another few minutes to hear the good news from Luna.

"Alright, bear with me, I haven't quite looked over all the info yet, but I'll tell you guys the ones that benefit you first." Luna collected his thoughts before continuing, "First and foremost, reaching level 10 has introduced the <Nation> system. It's similar to a Guild system, with a few key differences. Do you guys wanna hear the pros first, or the cons?" Luna looked at everybody, waiting for their opinion.

"You know I like my desserts first. PROS!" Boni enthusiastically replied. The rest of the team couldn't help but giggle at his reply.

Luna couldn't help but give Boni a look of disbelief. Was this guy so tired he's hyper? But he has the highest VIT in this room!

"Alright well, the good news is, anybody within the same <Nation> can opt to evenly share Exp on kills with whoever they want to, at any given time, as long as they are within a mile of each other. This makes it so we don't worry too much about who to give EXP to, and allows us to cover more ground, and grind EXP more efficiently, but exp can only be shared by at most, 1000 people at a time, with the ability to name a certain group."

He allowed the rest to take in this new information before continuing.

"There is also no member limit. I'm not sure what the goal is with this <Nation> system, but if it works like a regular Guild system in an MMORPG, it was built to encourage competition. The fact that there is no member limit, means that enough people can join to raise armies, with an efficient means of leveling them up enough to defend themselves as a squad." Luna cleared his throat before continuing as the others quietly waited for him to proceed.

"Each kill also taxes the members of their VIS Coins and puts it into the <National Bank> only accessible to the Leader. When killing zombies that only drop 1 coin, it takes every other coin. If you have two or more members in your even EXP share group, it gives the first coin to member A, then the <National Bank>, then member B so on and so forth. We don't know what these coins are for, but I have a feeling that we'll unlock whatever it is in the later levels. Now, for the Cons."

"Yikes. Now we're about to get the Veggies." Boni commented. The rest of the group didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this guy, can he think of anything other than food? What's he gonna tell us next? That zombies look appetizing?

As everybody was thinking the same thing, Boni, right on queue spoke the unspeakable "I wonder if you ate sterilized zombies, would you get more EXP since you're digesting them naturally?"

Simultaneous facepalming sounds resounded across the living room. This guy.

"Boni, you... nevermind FOCUS BONI!" Luna was filled with disbelief at this guy, he definitely needed some sleep, so Luna continued right away just so he could get it over with.

"The only Con, depending on how you look at it, is that if someone kills the leader, that person's current <Nation> he is affiliated with, absorbs all currency. If the killer doesn't belong to a <Nation> the currency is absorbed into his personal inventory." Hearing this, the room tensed up a bit, being the leader of a <Nation>, if somebody found out, basically puts a huge target on your back.

"We need to consider this more after a good night's sleep. This isn't something we can rush." Apple suggested, the rest of the team nodded in agreement.

"Very well. The personal advantages of reaching level 10, is that you get 10 more stat points to distribute, instead of the usual 1." surprised and excited expressions rang across the room, it was evident that reaching level 10 was quite a huge power spike.

"Alright, that's it for now, we'll discuss distribution regarding the skill books we got earlier, tomorrow. Everyone get some much needed rest, security systems are online, so if anything or anyone even tries to get inside this house, the blaring alarms will wake us all up."

Everyone was exhausted after today, especially after everything that's happened. Despite all that, the best thing to come out of this whole situation wasn't, besides Luna hitting level 10, was that this whole team now felt like family. Especially Apple and Mabini, who were mere strangers who had lost their parents before, now felt a renewed sense of purpose.

They were all going to become as strong as they possibly could, and set up a foundation no one could destroy. The pain of losing loved ones, each and every one of these people now knew how it felt. They would never let that happen ever again.

Meanwhile, when everybody was sleeping, unbeknownst to everybody, including himself, Luna's body was "glowing" black with another red outer glow.

Sensing this, Sura, who was sleeping on Luna's bed, suddenly woke up, and silently snuggled beside him on the sofa, as the glow now enveloped them both. As if nothing strange happened, she comfortably fell right back to sleep.