Draven spent around ten minutes moving from corpse to corpse, searching for blood crystals.
After going through the six zombie corpses inside the room, Draven was only able to harvest three blood crystals.
When he questioned Aria about it, her response was that blood crystals were quite uncommon among Tier I undead as most of them had not completely developed one yet.
She even mentioned that amongst the three blood crystals he had obtained, only one of them was fully developed and it belonged to the zombie closest to the door — the one that had wounded him earlier.
Draven stored the blood crystals inside his backpack.
He went into the bathroom attached to his dorm to wash the rotten stain off his hands and then returned to put on his clothes. He geared up with his backpack and grasped the soul blade.
"Sigh!"
With a final sigh and a quick scan of the dorm that held three years of memories, Draven strolled out of the room.
....
"Everyone, please calm down!"
Inside the spacious gymnasium filled with students and a few teachers of Starmap Academy, a loud masculine voice echoed.
A tall dark-haired young man with a bulky muscular build stood on an elevated platform and announced at the top of his lungs to the messy crowd gathered in the gymnasium.
Unfortunately, his voice was unable to calm the chaotic atmosphere.
Everyone in the gymnasium was visibly troubled by the new state of the world, and they all had varying reactions.
A small group of young men could be seen discussing loudly among themselves, making all sorts of absurd conspiracies about the changed world.
"I knew the government was going to do something like this seven years ago. The pandemic was a sign that the government is trying to reduce the ever growing population."
"How can you spit out such bullshit with a straight face? This is clearly Armageddon! The world has ended!"
"All of you are wrong. I'm an avid reader of science fiction and I'll hold your balls when I tell you that our world has merged with a videogame."
"What the heck are you saying, small-dicked nerd!"
"You all are stupid!"
"Fuck you!"
"Your father!"
Not so far away from their noisy chatter, a group of young female students were on their knees praying, tears streaming down their eyes as their mouths shivered in fervent prayers.
Others were simply tearing up.
A large number of students could be seen either standing immobile or squatting against the wall, shivering fearfully — these were the people affected the most by the new state of the world.
Rafael observed the current state of the gymnasium with a deep frown on his face.
These were the total number of people he managed to rescue from the chilly hands of the chaos outside.
When the world suddenly turned dark, Rafael, who was the only one exercising in the gym, imagined that it was about to rain heavily. But that quickly changed when he heard loud screams from his surroundings.
He rushed outside the gym and was greeted with the new apocalyptic world. The dark sky and crimson clouds were a thing of horror, but not half as horrifying as the scenario that took place before him.
At first, Rafael thought some kind of prank was being played until one of the strange staggering creatures lunged at him and tried eating him. Only then did he realize the severity of the situation.
Fortunately, with brute strength from his bulky muscles, he punched his walking dead foe to final death and survived being devoured by it.
After realizing the situation, a heroic instinct sparked within him and he rushed out, risking his own safety to save as many students as he could. Gathering them inside the gymnasium before locking it up and barricading the door with lots of heavy dumbbells and gym equipment to prevent the walking dead from entering.
Unfortunately, everyone was already shaken by the scene outside, making it difficult for him to calm them down.
"Worrying this much won't save anyone," he grumbled, "Very soon they would even run out of energy to continue worrying."
As Rafael was the one who rescued them, he felt responsible for their survival.
"Everyone, please calm down!"
He roared at the top of his lungs again.
This time, the noise inside the spacious gymnasium reduced a little bit and only a few heads turned in his direction.
The group of young students cooking up conspiracies continued brandishing their fallacy against one another, greatly annoying Rafael.
Rafael stepped down from the elevated platform and stomped towards them. Because they were too deep cooking all sorts of absurd theories, they failed to notice his arrival.
When Rafael arrived, he grabbed the head of the two whose backs were facing him and without mercy, he made both hands clash against each other causing a loud knock noise to erupt.
"Ouch!"
"My head!"
The two unfortunate dudes, one a nerd wearing glasses with a tiny build and the other with a slim athletic physique, were immediately greeted with a strong migraine upon the sudden collision.
They both lost composure from the pain and fell on the ground, their eyes quickly meeting the fierce gaze of Rafael hovering above them.
"Senior Rafael..."
The other noisemakers kept their mouths shut immediately after spotting him.
"Do you want me to send you back outside? I brought you in, I can as well kick you all out since you refuse to maintain decorum." Rafael barked at the two weaklings on the ground.
Both of them gulped nervously and tried apologizing before Rafael roared for them to keep their mouths shut.
Rafael was one of the most feared students before the apocalypse, hence why none of the boys dared to protest. Who would dare to protest against someone as big as him?
Naturally, the commotion between Rafael and the noisemakers drew the attention of the other people in the room.
While this was not the way Rafael wanted to capture their attention, he was still happy about it.
"Now that I've managed to get everyone's attention, let's discuss."
Rafael spoke in a loud voice as he strolled back to the elevated platform. He climbed it and turned to the crowd who watched him with varying expressions.
"As we all know, the world is no longer the same and we need to be extremely careful to survive. I do not know exactly what is going on but I can tell that it would continue for a very long time."
Addressing the small gathering was not a difficult task for Rafael as he was used to speaking to even bigger gatherings — he was very well-spoken. His muscular build and fame among the students made it easier for him to control them.
The entire gymnasium was silent as he addressed them for about two minutes.
After he was done, he began to discuss certain plans to aid the survival of the people in the room.
"I need three of you to volunteer to come with me. We would go to the cafeteria not too far from here and hoard as much food as we can. Do not worry, whatever those ugly things roaming outside are, they are no match for my muscles."
Saying the last statement, Rafael flexed his muscular arms and smiled.
The gymnasium was silent for some time as the students exchanged worried looks among themselves — none of them were willing to go back outside after all the gore they had experienced.
Some of them even began to move backward to avoid getting picked to go outside.
Seeing their reactions, Rafael shook his head pitifully.
"Fine, I'll pick since no one volunteered."
His eyes traced down to the noisemakers earlier.
Feeling his gaze, they shivered and instantly regretted their earlier actions. Now they would have to go outside to face those horrifying creatures because of it.
While the small group of noisemakers were busy conversing amongst themselves, Rafael experienced something extraordinary in the form of a holographic window.
A series of text were written on the floating windows.
[ Your actions have been graded, your heroism and confidence have paved a way. ]
[ You've awakened special clas... ]