Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse

Mathew wasn\'t the scholar type. He paid just enough attention in classes to get by without annoying the teachers. The majority of his actual knowledge came from all the books, memes, and videos he consumed in his free time.

The nature of this knowledge was different from what he brought out from the school, giving him a broad view of a variety of topics without providing him with enough background information to properly understand any of them.

In other words, while he could keep a conversation on nearly every topic and maintain the illusion he knew what he was talking about when it came to details, he only had his common sense to rely upon.

And it was exactly the same with his knowledge about radiation.

Mathew knew about nuclear bombs, atomic power plants, and the various disasters that came from the two of those topics… He knew about the so-called devil\'s core and how it came to kill a huge number of people that experimented on it to learn more about radiation.

But when it came to precise knowledge of how exactly radiation brought death upon anyone who was exposed to too much of it?

"Did I cross the line of no return?" Mathew asked, using all of what he knew to arrive at a relatively simple conclusion.

\'If this excessive mana I have works like radiation, then I should be asking for cancer, isn\'t that right?\'

"Not yet," the clone answered, confirming a huge chunk of Mathew\'s guesses. "At the current rate, though, it\'s only a matter of two or three days before all the damage you suffered so far would accumulate to the point your body won\'t be able to keep up with healing it."

\'So it\'s not exactly cancer, huh?\' Mathew thought, breathing a slight sigh of relief.

Cancer. The mutation of the cells, degradation of the very building blocks that made up every last part of the human body. Not exactly a sickness, but also an illness in every possible meaning of the word.

Even with modern medicine, curing cancer was akin to tossing a coin into the air and hoping that fate would settle it in one\'s favor. And just by tossing the coin, or accepting the devastating treatment, one would subject themselves to a world of pain.

But what made cancer even worse in the current state of the world is that with most of the medical practitioners and specialists oriented at cancer treatments now gone and likely turned into zombies, humans lost the ability to even make this one desperate coin toss!

"Yes, it\'s not cancer," Mathew\'s clone once again responded to the man\'s private thoughts. "But you don\'t need to worry about it all that much. While a human body is too primitive to deal with it by itself, as you are now a mana-infused being, it is a threat no greater than the common cold was to your old self."

Mathew raised his eyebrows, taken aback by the information he didn\'t ask for yet welcomed with all his heart.

"It\'s reassuring to know that," he admitted, relaxing by a tiny little bit.

\'Even if I have no means to know whether it\'s true or not, it\'s still nice to hear that cancer will never be a problem to me or any of my wives,\' Mathew thought, fully aware he couldn\'t hide those thoughts from the other party.

"Please, do not stretch my statement that far," the clone suddenly opposed Mathew\'s thoughts. "In order for one\'s body to become capable of dealing with cancer, and most of the other common sicknesses by the way, one needs to reach at least fifty points in their vitality stat, or an equivalent of it in the system they have themselves."

\'So that means… Beatrice? Norbert?\' Mathew quickly connected the dots, realizing the reason for the clone\'s added warning.

And as much as he disliked the fact, having this strange being warn him about the requirements behind this miraculous effect mana would have on one\'s ability to lead a healthy life.

Mathew raised his eyes and took a closer look at his own face currently represented on the clone\'s head.

And it was the clone\'s silence that proved Mathew\'s thoughts were right on point.

"So, in order to avoid the disaster that\'s currently looming over me, I need to pick a class, right?" Mathew then asked, pushing the discussion back to one of the main topics at hand.

"That\'s correct," the clone replied with a slight nod of its head.

"To be fair," Mathew leaned his head over his shoulder while presenting the other party with a slight smile, "seeing how you did nothing over billions of people dying, it\'s pretty damn hard to believe you are concerned about my life so much you would come to warn me in person."

The clone\'s face remained still for a few more moments… only for it to turn to the side as the being clicked its tongue.

"I can tell where you are going with this question," the clone said, turning his eyes back to Mathew\'s face. "So let\'s cut the useless chatter and just spit it out," the being requested as its body took a step closer. "What do you want?"

\'Tsk, you didn\'t even give me a chance to gloat over my ability to deduce it,\' Mathew complained in his thoughts, turning the situation on its head and taking advantage of the other party\'s ability to read his thoughts.

In response, the mouth of the clone twitched, showcasing that this strange being actually held back a smile.

"First, I need all my wives to retain both their status and their current ability to grow," Mathew started as he pulled his right hand forward and then raised his thumb. "Then, keeping up my current strength and the ability to grow as well is a must," he continued as he pushed another finger up.

"The first of your request is acceptable, but the second one is not," the clone interrupted. "I can tell you want to keep up all the stats that you are supposed to have right now rather than just the ones you can use," it pointed out the main point of Mathew\'s small ploy. "But just like I already explained, if you keep all of those stats, you will die."

"What\'s your proposition regarding that point, then?" Mathew inquired, unwilling to just give up and accept how limited his status would be if he accepted just the stats he could actively use right now.

"You can only get about half of what you have," the clone replied while spreading its arms out to the sides. "And that\'s already me stretching what we can do for you," it said before pulling its arms back and putting a small smile on its face. "You can consider it our way of apologizing for letting this problematic situation arise in the first place."

"That\'s..." Mathew hesitated. But he did so only for a short moment.

Between only being able to use about a hundred of each of his stats and then dying and using half of his true stats that he never had proper access to before... the second option didn\'t seem like that much of a bad deal!

"Then, on that point, we can agree," Mathew said with a smile. "Let\'s move on to the next point, shall we?"