Chapter 52

  Jake navigated through the city by leaping from roof to roof. By that point, he’d bee quite profit at that. With just a single gnce, he could assess which gaps between buildings he could easily jump over and whies were still too tough for him. For now, he couldn’t leap too far and occasionally o take detours along his path. He believed that by iing more points into Body and perhaps acquiring some mility- or acrobatic-reted skills and upgrades, he could improve his jumping abilities. Still, even at his current level, he could leap siderably farther than any human athlete, no matter how physically fit, would ever have been able to aplish.

  He was well aware that each of his mana-infused jumps depleted some of the preagical energy stored within him. When engaged in active physical activity, his body always ed mana at an accelerated rate. To serve the precious energy, he could desd to street level and traverse the city as before, moving at a brisk jog. Moving in that manner signifitly reduced the amount of mana his body ed. Yet, now that he’d found a new way of traversing the city, reverting to the old way felt like a step backward. Jogging through the streets was much less appealing to him than leaping from roof to roof.

  Jake khat if he wao stick to his preferred way of traveling, he o gain more mana than he normally did. As he’d already noticed, relying solely on sging was not providing him with enough mana to sustain himself and accumute enough to unloew skills and abilities. Just like with XP, he o figure out how to gain more mana in a day thaypically did. Perhaps in the loana ables would be more easily obtainable. So yeah, disc the location could be the solution to both of these problems.

  Lost in thoughts, Jake tio traverse the rooftops, moving at a stant sprint and leaping over the gaps between buildings. His expanded field of vision allowed him to quickly spot the buildings that stood at the right height. He tried to stick to the same movement dire, but occasionally, he came across buildings too tall to jump taps too wide to leap across. It prompted him to make slight adjustments to the dire of his movement. Still, by his estimation, he was certain he would reach his destinatioy soon.

  Now that it was m, he could detecreased activity ireets below. More often than not, he noticed a vehicle maneuvering through streets rown with vegetatiroups of survivors engaging in battles with mutants. Despite having a bird’s-eye view of everything below, he didn’t pause even for a moment. He remained focused on his mission; watg regur survivors do their thing would only prove to be a waste of time for him.

  As Jake leaped across a gap to reaother building, he seemed to notiething ahead. H in the air above the ter of the rooftop was what looked like a semi-transparent sphere that was dist the light passing through it. Jake immediately reized it as a magical anomaly. As a survivor, he’d e across enough of those to know how dangerous they were. But it was the very first time he’d entered an anomaly on the roof of a high-rise building. The thought that anomalies could be situated on rooftops never even crossed his mind.

  He kept sprinting toward it. Running at a rapid pace, he found it impossible to halt abruptly. One of the three upgrades avaible for Enhanced Agility would have let him quickly ge dire while sprinting at full speed. Only he hadn’t obtaihat upgrade yet. Propelled by the momentum of his body, he drew o the anomaly, but he’d shed most of his speed. Moving now at a much slower pace, he was sure he could steer clear of the anomaly just fine.

  While he jogged around the anomaly, giving it a wide berth, he took the opportunity to exami closely. Back when he was a survivor, he could gather valuable information about anomalies by sing them with his PDA. Now as a mutant, he could acquire info on mutants with just a thought. He wondered if he could do the same with anomalies. After all, his Enhanced Intelligence skill seemed to have repced the PDA he used to have as a survivor. He gave it a try, and it worked—the details about the anomaly immediately flooded into his mind.

  Name: Pulsar

  Description: Pulls everything within its reach toward itself, then forcefully expels it in random dires. Activates every few seds.

  Effective range: 30 meters

  Duration: 5 seds

  Cooldown: 10 seds

  Danger Level: 15 (Medium)

  Upon reading the description of the anomaly, Jake quickly grasped the gravity of the situation he’d found himself in. Most anomalies were triggered by something. Some of them were activated if somebody or something got too close to them. Some of the others were triggered by loud sounds. But there were also anomalies that autonomously activated at regur intervals. Although rare, suomalies existed, and he was unfortunate enough to have stumbled across one of them.

  He knew he had to get out of there ASAP. The level of this anomaly was almost twice his own. Its effective range was thirty meters, and the dimensions of the rooftop he was on were approximately the same. Which meant he had to get to the roof of another building to be at a safe distance from the anomaly.

  Jake sprioward the edge of the roof. Up ahead, he could see another building that stood at the same height as the one he was on. The gap between the buildings was a little too wide for his liking, but he retty sure he could make that jump. Had to if he wao get out of his predit unscathed. In his expanded field of vision, he spotted another building, which was much closer to his. However, to get there, he would o turn to the right and run around the anomaly. He had no time for that as the magical anomaly suddenly began to pulsate.

  Before Jake could react, a powerful force yanked him back toward the anomaly. His legs lifted off the ground, and he ropelled toward the Pulsar as its force pulled him in. He cwed at the air, uo do anything to arrest his movement. A moment ter, he was sucked into the semi-transparent sphere of the anomaly. For a few seds, he just helplessly floated in there, feeling it pulsate around him.

  Then a force much more powerful than the ohat had pulled him in propelled him outside. He barreled through the air, helplessly watg the roof of the building move away from him at great speed. Then gravity took hold, and Jake began to plummet toward the street ten stories below.