The morning light filtered weakly through the apartment windows as Elric reviewed his system notifications from the previous night.
[DING. Reward Unlocked: 300 bags of white long-grain rice (10 lbs each)]
[Source: Grace - Remaining monthly unlocks: 6/18]
[DING. Reward Unlocked: 1 Devil Fruit Trial Ticket]
[Source: Elsa - Remaining monthly unlocks: 18/22]
Everyone else's rewards had produced supplies—food, water, essential survival resources that would keep them alive for months.
But Elsa's reward was fundamentally different.
Not resources. Power.
A Devil Fruit Trial Ticket—temporary experience points that could be allocated to any of his existing abilities to push them toward the next breakthrough threshold.
Elric didn't hesitate. He activated the ticket immediately.
[Devil Fruit Trial Ticket Consumed]
[Select ability to enhance:]
"Surgical Fruit," Elric said aloud.
[PROCESSING...]
The energy flooded into him like a clean, sharp blade of white light cutting through his entire nervous system. Knowledge, muscle memory, refined control—all of it integrated seamlessly into his existing foundation.
[Surgical Fruit Ability: Level 2 (4/20) → Level 2 (8/20)]
But he wasn't finished.
Elric reached into his dimensional storage and withdrew a crimson core crystal—the corrupted energy core he'd extracted after killing that massive mutated spider on the campus rooftop several days ago. He'd been saving it for exactly this purpose.
He held the crystal in his palm for only a moment before crushing it.
The crystal dissolved into liquid fire, pouring into his body like molten power being absorbed directly into his cells.
Another surge of energy. Another leap forward.
[Surgical Fruit Ability: Level 2 (8/20) → Level 2 (12/20)]
Almost halfway to Level 3 now.
Once it reached Level 3, the power increase would be qualitatively different—not just incremental improvement, but a fundamental expansion. Domain range would triple. Precision would become surgical down to the cellular level. Energy control would allow for sustained combat operations.
He could almost feel the threshold approaching.
By the time he finished his morning preparations, it was already 8:00 AM.
The weak morning sun rose behind the colored mist that now permanently shrouded the world, scattering through the fog with an iridescent, almost dreamlike glow. Even at the end of civilization, the campus shimmered with strange beauty—broken, quiet, haunting in its abandoned ruin.
Elric stood at the apartment window, his gaze moving immediately to the massive cocoon structure visible in the courtyard plaza below.
It had grown. Again.
Where it had been barely fifteen meters long when he first noticed it a week ago, it now stretched over three hundred meters—sprawling across what was once the main school plaza and extending into the first floor of the teaching hall like a cancerous growth.
The fibrous webbing wrapping the exterior was visibly thinning.
And beneath the weakening layers, he could now clearly see patches of the creature's actual surface.
Gray-brown coloration.
Textured like rough, ancient tree bark.
Not scales. Not chitin. Not flesh.
Bark.
A tree, Elric realized with cold certainty. But a tree that grows flesh. A tree with teeth, tendrils, and hunger. Something that fundamentally should not exist in nature.
His eyes narrowed with tactical assessment.
They needed to leave immediately—before that abomination finished its metamorphosis and emerged fully active.
Breakfast was quick and efficient—preserved meats, rice, water. Pure function, no luxury.
The five women each carried a backpack containing clothes, additional preserved food, medical supplies, and anything else useful that wasn't already stored inside Elric's dimensional inventory system.
Elric himself carried only one physical item:
The 1.5-meter black combat blade he'd taken from Olivia during their rooftop confrontation.
It felt perfectly balanced in his grip. Cold. Absolute. Professional military craftsmanship.
If his Surgical Fruit ability continued leveling at this pace, he could actually begin wielding it like Trafalgar Law—using ROOM to slice through space itself, dismembering enemies without even touching them.
That thought pleased him immensely.
They were just about to leave when Elric's phone suddenly buzzed in his pocket.
A new friend request notification.
Normally, he ignored these completely—most were desperate people begging for help, favors, protection, or resources they had no way to repay.
But this particular request made him pause.
The attached profile photo looked genuine—no filters, no heavy editing, no artificial polish or makeup enhancement. Just natural lighting and honest presentation.
A young woman in a simple white dress.
About 5'6" tall based on proportions.
Half-blonde wavy hair falling loosely to her shoulders in natural curls.
Light hazel eyes that seemed thoughtful and intelligent.
A soft, almost gentle expression—not the forced glamorous pout of an influencer, but the refined, cultured poise of someone raised around classical music and arts.
She was holding a cello in the photograph, positioned like someone comfortable with performance.
She looked like a student from the University Arts Conservatory—possibly mixed-race European and American heritage.
Her beauty level was easily on par with Elsa.
Which meant one critical thing:
System-compatible.
Elric's heartbeat didn't change—his expression remained neutral—but his eyes sharpened with predatory focus.
This was not some random desperate survivor.
This was an opportunity.
He accepted the friend request.
Almost instantly, a message appeared.
Nina Walker: Hi! My name is Nina Walker. Are you really Elric? I heard from someone in a campus group chat that you have uncontaminated food and clean water supplies?
Elric replied without hesitation, his fingers moving quickly across the screen.
Elric: Yes. I have sufficient supplies—but only for women who meet the standard.
Nina Walker: What... "standard"? Can you look at my photos to see if I qualify?
Elric: If your photo isn't filtered or heavily edited—then yes. You qualify.
Nina Walker: I promise it's real! No filters, no beauty apps, no photoshop. That's really what I look like.
Nina Walker: Since I qualify... could you please come to the Conservatory campus to pick us up? There are monsters outside the building. My roommates and I are trapped on the third floor. We can't leave safely—we've tried twice and barely made it back alive.
Elric's expression shifted slightly, his jaw tightening.
The College of Fine Arts & Music was a separate satellite campus—located several miles away from the main Houston University grounds across the city.
Going there would mean:
Wasting precious time Completely leaving their planned escape route Risking the cocoon creature fully emerging while he was away Exposing his group to unknown threats in unfamiliar territory
And this morning, when he'd examined the cocoon more carefully, he had seen something deeply disturbing underneath those thinning fibers:
Gray-brown bark-like skin. The texture of ancient wood fused with living tissue. A creature that wasn't spinning a chrysalis—it was growing. Evolving. Metamorphosing into something nightmarish.
Something catastrophically dangerous was very close to awakening.
He could not afford to deviate from the plan now.
Elric: No. We're leaving the university district entirely today. I don't have time to reach the Conservatory campus.
Elric: If you and your roommates manage to escape later, head to Silverleaf Estates on the west side. Find me there.
The typing indicator appeared immediately, blinking urgently.
Nina Walker: Wait—no—please—
Nina Walker: We can't leave on our own! The streets are absolutely full of—
Elric locked his phone screen mid-message.
He didn't answer again. Couldn't afford the distraction.
He turned to face the group of women waiting behind him, all packed and ready.
"Move," he commanded simply. "We're leaving now."
They descended the apartment building stairs and emerged into the thick, multi-colored fog that now permanently blanketed the entire campus like a toxic shroud.
The air smelled metallic and damp—biochemically contaminated in ways that would be lethal to unprotected humans. But those who had been exposed and survived the initial outbreak had developed partial immunity. Their bodies had adapted, evolved, or simply proven resistant enough to endure.
Elric led from the front. He always did.
His Clairvoyance ability cut through the supernatural haze like a scanning radar beam, revealing threats, obstacles, and safe paths that would be completely invisible to normal vision.
Others would walk blindly through this mist and get consumed by the cocoon's questing tendrils or ambushed by mutated creatures.
But Elric saw everything.
Soon, they passed through a small garden walkway—the transitional park area between the main academic campus and the east exit gate that led to the city proper.
Just a little farther, and they would be outside Houston University's grounds entirely.
That was when they encountered it:
A massive crack in the ground—a fissure easily wide enough to swallow a car, splitting the pathway completely.
"Earthquake damage from the initial outbreak?" Grace asked quietly, peering nervously over the edge.
"No," Elric said flatly, activating his Clairvoyance to scan deeper.
Beneath the crack, instead of normal darkness or molten earth or broken infrastructure—
There was light. Cold blue bioluminescent light pulsing rhythmically.
Elric's enhanced vision penetrated deeper, and what he saw made his breath catch.
A structure. Underground. Massive. Symmetrical architecture. Too geometrically perfect to be natural formation.
A palace, he realized with shock. An entire palace buried beneath the campus.
Ancient? Alien? Supernatural? He had no way to know.
The apocalypse hadn't just broken the surface world.
It had revealed hidden layers of reality that had always existed beneath.
He looked away, forcing himself to focus.
They had no time to explore mysterious underground ruins now. Survival took priority over curiosity.
He stepped forward confidently—
And with one smooth motion, activated his spatial displacement ability to swap positions with a large stone on the opposite side of the fissure.
FWIP.
He materialized on the far side instantly.
The others followed using the same technique one after another—practiced, efficient, trusting his lead completely.
Natasha. Grace. Jenna. Elsa. Shay.
They all landed safely on the far side of the crack.
And then Elric suddenly stopped moving, his entire body going rigid.
Because in the small garden area directly ahead—nestled among a grove of weeping willow trees whose branches draped down like curtains—
He saw something extraordinarily rare.
Two fruits.
One was pale white with faint spiral patterns, emitting a soft ethereal glow like captured moonlight.
The other was deep ocean blue with geometric markings, pulsing with slow rhythmic light like a heartbeat made visible.
They hung from separate trees, both clearly unnatural—not part of the original plant life, but parasitic growths that had somehow manifested during the apocalypse.
The women froze as well, all of them recognizing what they were seeing.
Elsa nearly stopped breathing entirely, her eyes going wide with shock and desperate hunger.
"Those are... ability Fruits," she whispered in awe.
Jenna took an involuntary step forward, her athlete's instincts drawn to the promise of power. "Actual ability fruits... just growing wild here...? In the open?"
Natasha exhaled slowly, her analytical mind racing. "This campus... the entire university... it really is fundamentally changing into something else."
Elric's eyes sharpened with predatory calculation, his mind immediately assessing value and distribution.
These fruits—if consumed—would birth entirely new ability users. Create new powers. Expand their group's combat capacity exponentially.
He didn't need to say anything out loud.
Everyone understood instinctively.
This was a jackpot.
The question was: who would eat them?
There is 50 chapter Advance, in my patreon. If you are interested can check it out.
patreon.com/B_A_3439