Chapter 45 An Unexpected Surprise-Time to Spend Some Points!

Clang!

Magnus Vane immediately felt the difference through the Stone Sledgehammer.

Instead of collapsing like the cheap motel walls before it, the surface in front of him had barely dented under the blow, and when he scraped away the broken plaster, a sheet of metal appeared underneath.

It wasn’t especially thick, but it had clearly been reinforced enough to resist an ordinary person with hand tools.

Magnus smiled as soon as he saw it.

“Found you.” The yellow quest marker was practically sitting on the other side of Room 214, so there was no reason to keep smashing through the reinforced wall.

Magnus dragged the Stone Sledgehammer back into the corridor and approached the room’s actual entrance instead.

Just as his fingers touched the doorknob, however, a chorus of dry, guttural growls erupted around him.

Magnus slowly withdrew his hand and rested it on the hammer handle.

“Right.

Should’ve remembered what game this system came from.” Movement appeared above both ends of the corridor.

Walkers that had been hidden in damaged ceiling spaces and dark corners began dropping onto the second-floor walkway, hitting the floor in awkward heaps before forcing themselves upright.

7 Days to Die had always loved hiding enemies in places no sane person would expect them, and apparently the system had carried that habit into the real world.

Magnus counted the figures approaching from both directions and tightened his grip.

There were enough of them to make the hallway dangerous, but not enough to make him retreat.

The first walker staggered into range.

Magnus swung.

The Stone Sledgehammer slammed into the side of its head with such force that the skull snapped around almost completely backward.

Rotten tissue and damaged vertebrae were the only things keeping the head attached as the body began to collapse, but Magnus stepped forward before it hit the floor.

He planted one boot hard against the walker’s chest and used the corpse like a temporary platform.

Magnus launched himself upward.

Then he came down with all his weight.

Crack!

Crack!

Bones collapsed under his boot as the walker’s upper body folded beneath him, its ruined head driven down into its own chest.

Magnus landed cleanly, turned the Stone Sledgehammer sideways, and braced the long handle against the corpse before it could fall away.

With Strength Lv7 surging through his arms, he drove forward and used the dead body like a battering ram.

Several walkers crashed into one another.

Magnus kept pushing.

The resistance grew heavier as more bodies piled against the front, but he continued forcing the mass backward until he reached the stairwell.

Then, with one final burst of power, he twisted the sledgehammer and dumped the front walker onto the floor.

The others stumbled over it, tangling themselves together and giving Magnus exactly the space he wanted.

He took one deep breath.

His stamina bar was already recovering.

Then Magnus charged.

The first walker’s skull exploded beneath a downward swing.

The second went down before the hammer had fully completed its return arc.

Magnus pivoted, let the momentum carry the weapon across his body, and crushed the third through the temple.

His newly upgraded Strength and Skull Crusher perk worked together almost perfectly, allowing him to redirect the massive weapon far faster than anyone looking at it would expect.

The narrow motel corridor became a place where the walkers’ numbers worked against them instead of for them.

One after another, they fell.

Magnus moved through the hallway like a wrecking ball with legs.

Every time a walker entered striking distance, the Stone Sledgehammer found its head.

The increased headshot effectiveness from Strength Lv7 was obvious now; blows that might once have landed across shoulders or jaws seemed naturally drawn toward the most destructive angles.

Bone fractured, skulls collapsed, and bodies piled against the walls until the corridor finally became quiet again.

Magnus stopped with the Stone Sledgehammer held low.

His chest rose and fell rapidly.

“That’s about the limit.” He wasn’t injured, but fighting multiple walkers at once while ensuring none got close enough to grab him had burned through a noticeable amount of stamina.

Ordinary groups of walkers were becoming much less threatening than before, but Magnus wasn’t arrogant enough to mistake that for invincibility.

A larger herd could still surround him, and one bad slip could erase every advantage he had built.

After waiting until his stamina recovered, Magnus returned to Room 214.

The hallway behind him was covered in corpses.

He placed one hand on the doorknob.

Click.

There was a moment of resistance, almost as though the lock were still engaged, but then the mechanism abruptly relaxed.

Magnus heard the latch retract, followed by several small metallic clicks from inside the lock.

The reinforced white door opened far more easily than he expected.

Magnus pushed it inward.

Then stopped.

Something inside occupied almost two-thirds of the small room.

His eyes widened.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” The system could apparently spawn that too.

Magnus stepped inside.

For a long while, he didn’t come back out.

When Magnus finally emerged from the treasure room, the Stone Sledgehammer looked noticeably different.

Several tight loops of vicious metal barbs had been wrapped around the hammerhead and the reinforced section beneath it.

The modification turned an already brutal weapon into something that looked genuinely unpleasant to stand near, much less get hit by.

Magnus slowly rotated the sledgehammer in one hand and admired the result.

[Barbed Wire Mod] [Weapon Modification — Blunt Weapon] [Effect: 20% chance to inflict Bleeding] [Effect: 40% increased chance to strike a weak point with a powerful blow] Magnus read the description twice.

Then looked at the hammer.

“If this hits somebody…” He clicked his tongue.

“Yeah.

That’s gonna hurt.” Even without changing the Stone Sledgehammer’s basic structure, the modification altered the weapon’s handling just enough for Magnus to notice.

The barbed wire gave the head a nastier bite against flesh while making glancing hits more likely to tear rather than simply bounce away.

Combined with Skull Crusher Lv4, the weapon had become considerably more dangerous than the Quality 2 sledgehammer he had originally received after the first Blood Moon.

The rest of the treasure room had also been worthwhile.

Magnus stored several basic first-aid supplies in his system inventory, along with three bags of potato chips and multiple system-generated ready-to-eat meals that wouldn’t spoil while stored in the backpack.

There was also a completely black Stalker Hood — Quality 1, which joined his existing Quality 3 Stalker Gloves.

None of those items, however, were what had made Magnus stare when he first entered the room.

One much larger item occupied an entire inventory slot by itself.

It couldn’t be stacked.

Magnus looked at the icon again and smiled.

That was the real treasure.

Before he could examine it further, two brilliant golden flashes filled his vision.

[Apocalypse Quest Completed] [Experience Reward Acquired] [Level Increased: Lv13 → Lv15] [Skill Points Gained: +2] [Available Skill Points: 3] Magnus froze.

Then grinned.

“Now that’s a reward.” The walkers he had cleared throughout the motel had already pushed his Level 13 experience bar close to the next threshold.

The large quest reward finished Level 14 and carried him directly into Level 15, leaving him with three available skill points when combined with the one he had saved earlier.

Magnus immediately opened the Strength tree.

Strength Lv7 had already changed his body dramatically.

The next rank cost two points.

Magnus didn’t hesitate.

“System.” He selected the upgrade.

[Strength Lv8/10 — Bodybuilder] [Strength and Headshot Damage greatly increased] [Your physical power has entered an exceptional range.] The change spread through Magnus almost immediately.

It wasn’t violent pain.

It felt more like pressure expanding through every muscle at once, filling his arms, shoulders, back, chest, and legs with a deeper reserve of power.

His body didn’t suddenly grow larger, yet everything inside seemed denser and more responsive.

Magnus flexed his fingers around the Stone Sledgehammer.

The weapon felt wrong.

Too light.

He lifted it with one hand and rotated it experimentally.

Before, the Stone Sledgehammer had become manageable because of his enhanced Strength.

Now it felt almost like an oversized wooden club rather than a brutally heavy weapon made of stone, leather, wood, and metal.

Magnus swung it once through empty air and felt the head accelerate with surprising ease.

His smile widened.

“Strength Level Eight.” The improvement felt almost like another doubling from the earlier stages.

Magnus didn’t know exactly how the system translated attributes into real physical force, but it was obvious that the later ranks were vastly more valuable than the early ones.

If Lv8 already felt like this, imagining Lv9 and Lv10 was almost absurd.

Then he checked the requirements.

His smile faded slightly.

The final two Strength levels each demanded three skill points.

Worse, Skull Crusher Lv5 remained locked until Strength reached Lv10.

Magnus sighed.

“Of course.” The Strength tree had turned into a skill-point furnace.

Still, he couldn’t complain too much.

Every point he spent transformed directly into something he could feel and use, and staying alive mattered more than staring at unused numbers on a menu.

Magnus had one point remaining, which wasn’t enough for the next Strength rank anyway.

So he examined the smaller related skills.

One immediately caught his attention.

[Heavy Weapon Handling] [Raw strength means little if your weapon can’t keep up with you.] [Improves handling and swing speed with clubs, hammers, and other heavy blunt weapons.] [Maximum Level: 3] Magnus’s eyebrows rose.

That was exactly what he needed.

His Stone Sledgehammer could already destroy almost anything he struck, so improving how quickly he could recover and swing again would multiply the value of his Strength rather than simply adding more power.

Against a single walker it wouldn’t matter much, but in a crowded hallway like the one he had just fought through, faster attacks could be the difference between controlling the fight and being grabbed between swings.

Magnus spent the final point.

[Heavy Weapon Handling Lv1/3 — Bulging Biceps] [Heavy blunt weapon swing speed increased by 10%] [Available Skill Points: 0] Magnus tested the Stone Sledgehammer again.

Whoosh!

The barbed hammerhead cut through the air faster than before.

His eyes lit up.

Strength Lv8 had made the weapon feel lighter, and Heavy Weapon Handling had made his movements noticeably quicker on top of that.

Combined with Skull Crusher Lv4 and the new Barbed Wire Mod, the Stone Sledgehammer had evolved into something completely different from the crude Horse-Bone Sledgehammer he had crafted back in Atlanta.

Magnus rested the modified weapon across one shoulder.

Then he looked back toward the treasure room.

There was still one system-generated item he hadn’t properly dealt with yet.

And compared with everything else he had found today, that unexpected surprise was the thing he was looking forward to most.

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