Chapter 43

  For the few hours, he searched the city for mana ables. Occasionally, he came autants but mao evade frontation. Since his body was promised by the maion, Jake knew he couldn’t fight at full strength. His body appeared to have a safeguard meism that restricted his movement to serve mana. Currently, the remaining magical energy in his body was solely dedicated to sustaining basis, causing him to move slower and feel weaker. In his promised state, even low-level walkers and leapers posed a threat to him.

  The memories of what had occurred when the elite walker took a huge bite out of his shoulder were still fresh in his mind. While being severely wounded had been an unfortunate event, it had taught him a valuable lesson. He had learhat he could bleed. His new body did not seem to have blood, but it could still “bleed.” Operating on mana, his body lost signifit amounts of this preagical energy when severely ihat was another reason Jake wasn’t willing to battle mutants at the moment. In his weakeate, he roo getting injured, and sustaining a serious wound would be really bad news for him. Losing more mana was something he couldn’t afford; after all, he only had about 150 MP left.

  Jake sged for mana for a few hours, expl one abandoned building after another. He promptly extracted the magical energy from every mana able he found. Mana beads held 100 mana points, mana marbles tained 250 MP, and mana shards had 500 MP. These were all on items. He assumed there should be rarer mana ables out there, but so far, he had only e across on ones.

  At some point, Jake realized he was finding his way around the city surprisingly well despite not having his PDA with a map. He always knew where he was, memorizing the yout of the city without any trouble. He navigated through the city just as well as when he had a map app at his disposal, and perhaps eveer, as he no longer o stantly refer to the map to know where he was. Enhanced Intelligence tio demonstrate its incredible usefulness. It not only sharpened his itive abilities but also signifitly improved his memory. Thanks to this skill, he was gifted with a mental map of the city.

  When he was a regur survivor, he’d established several hideouts and stashes where he rested and stored his supplies, marking them on the map on his PDA. Even without the device, he could recall the precise whereabouts of all his stashes and find his way to any of them with ease. However, he chose not to revisit them. As a survivor, he had immediately ed the magical energy from mana ables upon finding them, leaving none in his stashes. He had stocked plenty of ed food, bottled water, ammo, and other survival items, but after he became a mutant, they had lost their value to him.

  It took him about an hour to find three mana beads, colleg enough mana for the safety meism of his body to disengage. His movements were as fast as before, allowing him to operate at his best once more. Still, he kept searg for more mana. There never seemed to be enough of it. It took him a few hours to find two mana marbles and one mana shard, bringing him up to 1450 MP. Figuring it should be enough to st him for a while, he cluded his searow, he could go back to fighting mutants.

  However, he decided to rest for a bit while cheg his stats and pting the best way tress further. He found a room in the building he was in and closed his eyes. First, he checked his stats. Not much had ged since his st check, so he quickly switched to the Geic Development Interface.

  He examihe list of skills and abilities avaible for purchase. The cheapest one cost 2,000 MP, which was more than he had at the moment. This made him ponder. Most of the mana he collected was ed by his body. It presented him with a dilemma. Mana served as both fuel for his body and currency, but the spawn rate of mana ables was extremely low. He wasn’t finding nearly enough mana ables for both sustaining himself and acquiring new skills. There should definitely be better and more effit ways to acquire mana than just relying on sging alone.

  Jake pondered all of this for about an hour. Then, he realized that his inhuman mind was helping him keep track of time. He didn’t need a watch or any other tool to measure time. His mind took care of it, assisting him in calg the time that epsed from one specifient to ahis discovery amazed him. Enhanced Intelligeurned out to be an incredibly useful skill. In a way, it repced the PDA he couldn’t live without as a regur survivor. It helped him memorize the yout of the city, keep track of time, and who knew what else his inhuman mind was noable of. It was truly impressive.

  Jake checked how much MP his body had ed over the past hour he’d spent rexing and thinking, which turned out to be only 5 MP. He then multiplied it by twenty-four: 120 MP. This was the amount his body ed in an idle state in a day. He doubted he would spend many days entirely idle, but it was still good to know his minimum daily mana ption needs.

  After that, he opened his eyes and stood up from the floor. Now it would be a good idea to figure out how much mana his body would e while being active for an hour. Whe out of the building, daylight had already begun to fill the streets. Jake went on a hunt for ex-humans. Over the hour, he traversed the city, expl buildings, and engaging in stant battles. After an hour of intense physical activity, he checked how much mana he’d lost, which amouo 45 MP. Multiplying the value by twenty-four yielded a daily total of 1080 MP. Jake leasantly surprised by his ability to quickly perform such a plex calcution in his mind.

  When he checked his stats one more time, he also noticed a substantial improvement in Enhanced Intelligence. Previously at 28%, the skill had surged to 67%. Engaging in problem-solving tasks and multiplying big numbers in his head had proven to be quite effective in leveling up Enhanced Intelligence.

  So, the minimum amount of mana he needed daily was 120 MP. In a highly active state, his body could e about 1080 MP in a day. This information was quite useful. However, he had a feeling that the numbers would tio increase as his body demanded more and more mana daily as he grew stronger.

  Jake tio explore the city, battling occasional mutants he came across. In one of the abandoned buildings, he stumbled upon replication pods hanging from the ceiling. He decided to destroy them for XP. However, when he neared one of them and was about to ssh it with his ciece of info popped up in his mind.

  New Mutation Research!

  Objective: Analyze replication pods with three different types of mutants within.

  Reward: Bded Tentacles (the ability will be added to the Geic Development Interface upon pleting the mutation research)

  Accept: Y/N

  Jake lowered his cwed hand. The system offered him another quest. It differed from the st one he had pleted. The reward was also different. After finishing the hunt that required him to locate and eliminate ae walker, he had received a point in Body and a free upgrade for Cws. The reward for this quest, called mutation research, was a new ability called Bded Tentacles. The prospect of obtaining a new ability excited him a great deal. Without hesitation, he selected YES.