Chapter 49

  He closed his eyes and pulled up his character sheet. As he climbed the ten-story building aed mutants on each floor, he leveled up to 8, earning another SP. So he now had four skill points at his disposal. First of all, he checked his attributes.

  Body: 3

  Mind: 1

  Magick: 1

  As he already knew, in order to advan ability or skill to the rank, specific attribute requirements o be met. He shifted his attention to the list of his abilities and skills.

  Cws: Rank I (100%) (Upgrades: 1 of 3) (on)

  Enhanced Senses: Rank I (100%) (Upgrades: 0 of 3) (on)

  Enhanced Agility: Rank I (100%) (Upgrades: 0 of 3) (on)

  Enhanced Intelligence: Rank I (100%) (Upgrades: 0 of 3) (on)

  He focused on the rank of the Cws ability, and a piece of additional information emerged.

  A raise to the Rank is avaible.

  Requirements: Body 5

  Cost: 1 SP

  Raise to Rank II: Y/N

  So he couldn’t raise his Cws ability to Rank II just yet because his Body attribute was 3. He checked the rest of his skills. For a raise to be performed, Enhanced Senses required Mind to be at level 1, Enhanced Agility needed Body to be at level 2, and Enhanced Intelligeneeded Mind to be at level 1. With all the attribute requirements satisfied, he could advance all of his skills to Rank II. One by one, he did so with each of the three skills. He now had only one skill poi. Since he couldn’t use it to advance Cws to the rank, he wao find another use for it. He could allocate it to Body or another of his attributes, but he decided to wait until he leveled up again. Perhaps there was a more beneficial use for it at the moment.

  He shifted his attention to another line in his stats to see how much mana he currently had.

  MP: 2,150

  He pulled up the Geic Development Interface to refresh his memory on what he o acquire the Bded Tentacles ability. The requirements were Body at 2 and Magick at 1. Obtaining the ability didn’t require a skill point; instead, he o pay 3,000 MP to unlock it. Which was more than he currently had. Even if he had the exact amount of mana, he wouldn’t have used it to buy the ability, sihat precious energy served not only as currency for acquiring new abilities and skills but as sustenance as well. He figured he o accumute at least 4,000 MP before purchasing Bded Tentacles so that he would have 1,000 MP left for his body to feed on.

  So he could use the remaining skill point to either increase one of his attributes or acquire an upgrade for one of his skills. He got back to his character sheet aurned his attention to the list of his abilities and skills. He’d already acquired one upgrade for Cws, so this time he decided to get an upgrade for another skill. After giving the matter some thought, he chose to upgrade Enhanced Agility. He pulled up the list of upgrades currently avaible for this skill.

  Ability: Enhanced Agility

  Upgrade Options (on):

  1 - Master acrobatic skills for climbing, jumping, perf aerial maneuvers, and navigating challenging terrain. Cost: 1 SP

  2 - Enhance body coordination for faster movement and speed by 20% as well as exeg rapid direal ges. Cost: 1 SP

  3 - Sharpen reflexes for quicker reas in bat, enabling agile dodges, swift maneuvers, and precise terattacks. Cost: 1 SP

  Each of these three upgrades sounded amazing. He wao get all three of them since eae would surely prove to be extremely useful. Right now, he could acquire only one of them, however, and after giving the matter some thought, he decided to go with the first oo master his acrobatic skills. With a thought, he acquired the upgrade, spending his st skill point. Jake was eager to put his newly acquired acrobatic skills to good use and couldn’t wait to test them out. However, with all the ret updates, he decided to take a moment to review his stats once more before closing them.

  Name: Jake Turner

  Race: Ex-Human Morphus

  Evolution Stage 1: “Primordial Form”

  Level: 8

  HP: 100%

  XP: 30/1125

  SP: 0

  MP: 2,150

  Body: 3

  Mind: 1

  Magick: 1

  Cws: Rank I (100%) (Upgrades: 1 of 3) (on)

  Enhanced Senses: Rank II (0%) (Upgrades: 0 of 3) (on)

  Enhanced Agility: Rank II (0%) (Upgrades: 1 of 3) (on)

  Enhanced Intelligence: Rank II (0%) (Upgrades: 0 of 3) (on)

  He noticed that advang a skill to the rank didn’t provide additional upgrades. Each of his current skills and abilities still had a total of three upgrades. It seemed that it was either the maximum number of upgrades allotted to each skill or that more upgrades would bee avaible when a skill was advao the rarity level.

  Anyway, it was time to move on. Jake opened his eyes, causing all the information to vanish. As the sun tio set, it cast the world into darkness. He’d just advanced each of his three skills to Rank II, and it was already noticeable. For a moment, Jake just stood at the same spot, feeling a surge of energy pulse through his veins as his upgraded senses kicked in, sharpening his vision, smell, and hearing to the level. Feeling the power c through his veins, he flexed his muscles a his mutated body effortlessly respond to his ands. Every movement was smoother, quicker, and more precise than he had ever experienced. His mind, too, had been advao the level, making his thoughts race through his brain at lightning speed with startling crity.

  Jake was about to desd the building when a daring idea came to his mind. Instead of taking the stairs down, he decided to try something different. He walked to the edge of the roof, staring at the surrounding buildings covered in foliage. The dipidated buildings stretched as far as the eye could see, with some neighb roofs standing at the same level as his. Having just acquired an upgrade for Enhanced Agility, improving his acrobatic abilities, it was now time to put them to the test. Jake gazed at the gap between his building and the neighb oimating the distance.

  He took a few steps back, then broke into a sprint, his muscles propelling him forward with incredible power and speed. Reag the edge of the roof, he leaped across the gap betweewo buildings.