Chapter 51
Jake attacked another ex-human walker with his cws, shredding the mutant’s throat. Dark blood poured from the ragged wound as the mutant tumbled forward. Jake leaped out of the falling creature’s path and immediately shed out at another walker. Over a dozen ex-humans surrounded him, but they were powerless against him. Among them were only walkers and leapers, and by that point, Jake was capable of dealing with these two types of mutants with little effort, if any. He felt like he could defeat them with his eyes closed.
After disc the edge of the city, he’d been battling mutants for a few hours straight. At some point, he realized that with his Enhanced Intelligenow at Rank II, he could trate on bat and simultaneously think about something altogether different. He utilized this newfound ability to refle his progression. While he engaged in bat in a vast room of an abandoned building, he was thinking about his abilities and skills. Currently, he possessed one ability, Cws, along with three skills: Enhanced Senses, Enhanced Agility, and Enhanced Intelligence.
As he had noticed some time before, Cws progressed only when he used them in bat. When he simply wandered around with his hands transformed into cws, the ability didn’t progress at all. He currently didn’t have any other abilities, but he figured the same most likely went for other abilities, or at least for bat ohe skills, oher hand, seemed tress all the time, albeit at a slower pace. This was due to his stant activity, whether traversing the city or battling mutants, all the while paying attention to his surroundings and p on various matters.
From the er of his eye, Jake spotted a leaper coil its body as it prepared to jump toward him. His expanded field of vision allowed him to watch the mutant even without having to turn his head. He jumped to the side just as the mutant leaped toward him. His talons shed out at the leaper, tearing deeply into the side of the mutant. With a wail of pain, the creature colpsed to the ground. Before it could eve up from the floor, Jake stomped on its exposed throat, crushing it underh his hardened foot. The creature was still alive, its hands g at him but doing little to no damage to him. While the leaper thrashed arouh his foot, a walker lurched at him, but Jake swatted its outstretched hands aside before sshing at its throat. With the walker dealt with, he finished off the leaper by stomping on its throat a few times. There were still plenty of mutants to deal with, and after a quick look around, Jake luoward the one.
While he fought the remaining enemies, he thought about what he’d learned about mutants so far. There were two types of them, regur ae. Most of the time, he had to deal with the former ones because the tter were less ur mutants were pretty weak and usually didn’t have any special abilities. Elite mutants were stronger versions ur ones and possessed at least one special ability.
The other day, Jake had leveled up three times. However, each level-up required more XP tha tress further. So it could be a good thing to start looking for more powerful enemies with higher XP rewards because it was being harder and harder to level up. He had spent most of the night fighting mutants but hadn’t leveled up yet. He was only level 8, but he found that mutants of higher levels, such as shamblers or whippers, already presented no real challenge for him. He would love to ignore low-level mutants and focus his attention on more powerful foes, but he was unaware of where he could find more of them. Shamblers and whippers were pretty scarce. He usually only entered a few of them in a day.
Jake summed up in his mind what kind of mutants he’d entered so far. A walker was a level 1 mutant a for only 10 XP. A leaper was level 5 and worth 25 XP. Leapers were somewhat scarcer than walkers. Out of ten ex-humans he came across, nine of them were walkers and only one was a leaper. Both a shambler and a whipper were level 10, but the former o for 50 XP while the tter one was worth 75 XP. Unfortunately, each of these two kinds of mutants was really hard to find.
In order to level up faster, he o find a locatiohe majority of enemies were bigger and nastier, rewarding with more XP. The city was huge, but he’d already explored most of it and everywhere he was, he entered only these four types of mutants. In the Gameverse, a woverned by video game logic, this city appeared to serve as a starting location for new pyers. To find more powerful enemies, he most likely ress to the location, likely another city. But where was it and how could he get there?
A few hours earlier, he’d reached the outskirts of the city. He’d seen what y beyond its limits—a seemingly endless wastend. Before venturing beyond the city’s borders, he had to learn the location of the city and obtain the means to get there, such as some kind of powerful off-road vehicle or perhaps some abilities that would enable him to easily move through the wastend. By his estimation, he could currently get enough XP to level up once a day. However, he expected that after reag level 20 or so, the rate of leveling up would drastically slow down. It would bee really hard for him to level up in his current location, so by the time he leveled up to 20, he o have found the location with more powerful enemies.
Finally, Jake finished off the remaining mutants. For a moment, he just stood in the middle of the room, looking at the scattered dead mutants. Despite killing so many of them in the past several hours, he had yet to level up to 9. He really o find a more effit method of leveling up.
It was then that he remembered something. As a survivor, he’d one across a se of the city where rge cracks split the streets, revealing glimpses of the strange creatures lurking in the sewers below. He’d never learned what they were, because he’d never dared to desd into the city’s depths. Perhaps it was time to veo the sewers. Being a morphus, he was no longer afraid to do so.
When Jake emerged onto the roof of the building, he was greeted by the rays of the m sun. A new day had begun. He looked around, searg for the se of the city where the streets split by the huge cracks were. It didn’t take him long to remember where he o go. Turning to face the right dire, Jake broke into a sprint. Reag the edge of the roof, he jumped toward the building.
