The silence inside Lecture Hall B was heavier than the darkness outside.
Five minutes had passed since Kaelen reinforced the doors. The scratching on the other side had stopped, but no one dared to speak. The only sounds were the ragged breathing of twenty terrified students and the low, pained groans of Mark.
The linebacker was slumped against the podium at the front of the room. His leg was a mess. The Imp's bite had torn through his jeans and into the calf muscle. The blood looked black in the dim light of the cell phones.
"It burns," Mark hissed, his teeth gritted. "It feels like... like ice."
Dr. Halloway was kneeling beside him, using his tie as a tourniquet. The professor's hands were shaking. "We need an ambulance. We need to call someone."
"Phones are dead, Prof," a girl said from the back. She was curled into a ball on top of a desk, hugging her knees. "Everything is dead."
Kaelen wasn't looking at Mark. He was looking at the door.
A timer hovered over the wood in his vision.
[ REINFORCEMENT: 180 SECONDS REMAINING ]
"We don't have time to panic," Kaelen said. His voice sounded calm, but his heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He walked over to the first row of seating—those long, curved tables bolted to the floor.
He placed his hand on the laminated wood.
"We need barricades," Kaelen said. "When that silver light fades, those doors turn back to regular oak. And regular oak won't stop a second wave."
"How?" a student asked. "These desks are bolted down."
Kaelen looked at the bolt. To anyone else, it was a rusted piece of steel. To his Structural Analysis, it was a glowing red stress point.
[ Object: Lecture Desk (Row 1) ]
[ Material: Particle Board / Steel ]
[ Integrity: 100% ]
[ Structural Flaw Detected: Anchor Bolt 3 is corroded. ]
"I can break them," Kaelen said.
He didn't pull. He didn't smash. He simply applied pressure to the exact spot the System highlighted. He struck the base of the desk with the heel of his palm.
CRACK.
The metal sheared perfectly. The desk wobbled, completely detached from the concrete floor.
Kaelen felt a strange sensation in his chest—a tiny ping of satisfaction, like a register drawer opening.
[ SYSTEM MESSAGE: ]
[ SKILL UNLOCKED: Salvage (Lvl 1) ]
[ You have identified the most efficient method of destruction. ]
[ Deconstructing environmental objects yields Mana Coins (Currency) and restores minimal MP (Mental Power). ]
Kaelen blinked. Currency?
He grabbed the desk with both hands and wrenched the tabletop from the steel frame. As the wood separated, it didn't just break—it dissolved slightly at the fractured edges. A wisp of blue light flowed from the wreckage, splitting in two.
One part solidified into two glowing, physical silver coins that dropped onto the floor with a heavy clink. The other part, a cool, refreshing mist, absorbed straight into Kaelen's chest.
The dull headache from casting Minor Reinforce eased a fraction.
[ +2 Mana Coins ]
[ +1 MP ]
[ MP: 81/100 ]
Kaelen stared at the coins. He understood now. MP was his internal battery, used to cast spells. Mana Coins were physical, spendable loot.
"Move," he commanded the students sitting nearby. "Get up. Now."
They scrambled away.
Kaelen went down the row. Strike. Crack. Salvage. He moved with the rhythm of a machine. With every desk he dismantled, physical coins hit the floor, and his internal MP battery ticked up slightly.
"Help him!" a voice cut through the room. It was Sarah, a physics major Kaelen recognized. She grabbed a detached tabletop. "Drag these to the door! Stack them up!"
The students mobilized. Fear was paralyzing, but work was an antidote. They began hauling the debris Kaelen created, piling it against the double doors.
"Kaelen," Dr. Halloway called out, panic lacing his voice. "Mark is... he's turning grey."
Kaelen stopped. He wiped sweat from his forehead. He had dismantled three rows of desks. His MP was back up to [ 92/100 ]. He scooped up the last of the physical loot, bringing his pocketed total to 40 Mana Coins.
He walked over to Mark.
The athlete looked bad. The veins around the bite wound were turning a dark, frostbitten blue. The infection was spreading visibly, crawling up his leg toward his thigh.
[ Status Analysis: ]
[ Target: Mark ]
[ Affliction: Void Rot (Tier 1 Infection) ]
[ Prognosis: Systemic Failure in 2 hours. ]
"He needs a Healer," Halloway pleaded. "Do we have a Cleric? Anyone?"
Silence.
"I got 'Ranger'," a guy said.
"I got 'Bard'," another whispered, looking at his hands in despair.
Kaelen looked at Mark's stats. Then he looked at the blue air in front of him.
"System Store," Kaelen said aloud.
A holographic menu expanded in his vision. It was a grid of icons, most of them greyed out and locked behind level requirements, but the 'Basic' tab was glowing.
[ MARKETPLACE - FLOOR 1 (BASIC) ]
[ Current Balance: 40 Mana Coins ]
Clean Water (1 Liter): 5 Coins
Ration Bar (Nutrient Paste): 10 Coins
Basic Bandage: 20 Coins
Minor Antidote: 50 Coins
Heat Crystal (Small): 50 Coins
"I need an antidote," Kaelen muttered. "It's fifty coins. I'm ten short."
"I have... I have ten," Sarah said, stepping forward. She opened her palm, revealing ten silver Mana Coins. "I killed one of those... those rat things outside before I ran in."
"Transfer them," Kaelen ordered. "Focus on my name. Say 'Transfer'."
Sarah closed her eyes, clutching the coins. "Transfer ten coins to Kaelen."
The coins in her hand dissolved into blue light, shooting across the space between them and materializing in Kaelen's pocket. A ding sounded in his head. [ Balance: 50 Coins ].
He navigated the menu with a thought. He selected the Minor Antidote.
[ 50 Coins Deducted. ]
A flash of light. A small glass vial containing a bubbling green liquid materialized directly into his hand.
"Drink," Kaelen said, uncorking it and pressing it to Mark's pale lips.
Mark sputtered, coughing as he swallowed the bitter liquid. Almost instantly, the dark blue veins on his leg stopped spreading. The black, necrotic color of the wound faded to an angry, bruised purple. Mark let out a long, shuddering breath, his eyes rolling back as he passed out.
"Stabilized," Kaelen said, checking the HUD. "He'll live. But he won't be walking for a while."
"You bought that?" Halloway looked at Kaelen, his jaw slack. "With points?"
"Mana," Kaelen corrected, pocketing the empty vial. "It's money. It's the only economy that matters now. We earn it, we live. We don't, we die."
CREAAAK.
The silver sheen on the heavy oak doors vanished. The Minor Reinforce timer had hit zero.
The massive pile of desks and chairs they had stacked against it shifted slightly under its own weight, but it held firm. Kaelen knew it was only a temporary fix.
He sat down on the floor, leaning back against the podium. He was exhausted. Using Reinforce drained his mental energy, but using Salvage took raw, physical stamina.
As he sat there, he noticed something else.
He could see his breath.
"Is it getting colder?" Sarah asked, hugging her arms and rubbing her shoulders.
Kaelen looked at the floating System Clock in the corner of his vision.
[ Time to Nightfall: N/A ]
[ Ambient Temperature: 45°F (7°C) ]
[ Trend: Rapidly Dropping ]
"The insulation is gone," Kaelen realized, looking up at the acoustic tiles of the ceiling, knowing what lay beyond the roof. "The stone ceiling above the city... it's cold. It's a massive heat sink. It's sucking the thermal energy right out of the atmosphere."
He opened the System Store menu again.
Heat Crystal (Small): 50 Coins.
He was broke. His balance was zero.
"We need more furniture," Kaelen said, forcing himself to stand back up. He gripped a heavy metal chair leg he'd snapped off earlier. "And we need to block the windows. The glass is bleeding heat."
He looked at the shivering, terrified students.
"Class is in session," Kaelen said grimly. "Everyone grab a hammer."