Chapter 100
Multiple enemies killed. +235 XP
Jake stood among the dead bodies of the mutants he’d just sin. He surveyed the area to make sure there were no more eo kill. There were no. Aen-story building had been cleared of mutants, from the roof all the way down to the ground floor. During a battle on one of the upper levels, he’d leveled up to 25 but hadn’t allocated the skill poi.
It was time to return to the rooftop. He pivoted and crossed the room to the staircase. He quickly asded them, bounding up the steps, taking several at a time. He moved so fast he reached the roof in uhirty seds.
There were e mutants ical anomalies on the roof. Before leaping to the building, Jake wao allocate the skill point he’d retly received. He po use it to advance Cws to Rank III. It should take him just a sed to do so. Once done, he would resume hunting mutants for XP.
He closed his eyes and summoned his stats, trating on the Rank of his Cws ability.
A raise to the Rank is avaible.
Requirements: Body 5
Cost: 1 SP
Raise to Rank III: Y/N
His Body attribute was at 5, so he could advance Cws to the Rank. Or so he thought. When he mentally said “Yes”, instead of receiving a notification about the Rank of Cws increasing, a warning message appeared.
The rarity level o be increased to Unon before Cws be raised to Rank III.
After reading the message, Jake dismissed it and g the other skills in his stats. Enhanced Senses, Enhanced Agility, and Enhanced Intelligence had all reached 100%, making them ready to be advao Rank III too. One by one, he tried to ihe skill point into each of them to increase their Rank, but sure enough, the same message popped up each time. Just like his Cws ability, he o advahem to the rarity level before he could level them up. He had obtained all three avaible upgrades for Enhanced Agility, but it looked like it didn’t matter. It appeared that a skill could advao the rarity level even without any upgrades. The crucial requirement for advang a skill to a specifik was that it o be at a certain rarity level.
Okay then, Jake thought. How do I advance Cws to the rarity level?
He focused on the word on in the description of the Cws ability, and another message was dispyed to him.
To increase the rarity of the ability from on to Unon, you o evolve to Stage 2.
For a moment, Jake just stared at the message.
So, it’s finally time to evolve to the stage, huh?
Jake felt a surge of excitement wash over him. He didn’t know what he o do to evolve, though. Many days ago, he tried to summon relevant information, but nothing happened. However, now that he was almost meeting the requirements to evolve to the stage, the system provided him with the information.
Requirements for evolving to Stage 2
Level: 25
Attributes: Body 5, Mind 5, Magick 5
Skills:
Enhanced Senses - Rank II
Enhanced Agility - Rank II
Enhanced Intelligence - Rank II
Enhanced Reflexes - Rank I
Enharength - Rank I
Enhanced Regeion - Rank I
Feral Instincts - Rank I
Evolve: Y/N
Even though Jake knew he couldn’t evolve right now, he thought, “Yes.” Instantly, a warning message fshed through his mind.
You ot evolve to Stage 2 at this moment due to some u requirements.
Jake examihe list of requirements one more time. He only o iwo skill points into Mind, increasing it from 3 to 5, and acquire three more skills: Enharength, Enhanced Regeion, and Feral Instincts. All the other requirements were already satisfied: his level was 25, both his Body and Magick were at 5, and all the old skills had already reached the necessary ranks. He figured it should take him no more than a couple of days to level up one more time and colleough mana to obtain Enharength, Enhanced Regeion, and Feral Instincts. He summohe skill menu to check if he was correct.
Geic Development Interface
Evolution Stage 1: “Primordial Form”
Abilities: 3 of 4
Skills: 3 of 7
Ability: Smashfists
Requirements: Body 2
Cost: 2,000 MP
Skill: Enharength
Requirements: Body 5
Cost: 3,000 MP
Skill: Feral Instincts
Requirements: Mind 5, Magick 3
Cost: 4,000 MP
Skill: Enhanced Regeion
Requirements: Body 7, Magick 5, Mind 3
Cost: 5,000 MP
Skill: Enhanced Senses
Requirements: None
Cost: Already Owned
Skill: Enhanced Agility
Requirements: None
Cost: Already Owned
Skill: Enhanced Intelligence
Requirements: None
Cost: Already Owned
Skill: Enhanced Reflexes
Requirements: Body 5, Mind 3
Cost: Already Owned
Ability: Cws
Requirements: Body 1
Cost: Already Owned
Ability: Swords
Requirements: Body 3
Cost: Already Owned
Ability: Bded Tentacles
Requirements: Body 2, Magick 1
Cost: Already Owned
Enharength cost 3,000 MP, Enhanced Regeion 5,000 MP, and Feral Instincts 4,000 MP. Therefore, he needed a total of 12,000 MP to acquire all three skills, which was quite a lot. Since he currently had a little over 10,000 MP, he could have opted to purchase some of the skills right away, but he chose not to. Some days back, he’d made the decision to always keep a minimum of 10,000 MP stored inside his body for critical situations such as post-battle healing after sustaining severe injuries.
To obtain Feral Instincts he o increase Mind to 5, which was fine as he was going to put the wo skill points into that attribute anyway. He also realized that to obtain Enhanced Regeion, he o increase Body to 7. This meant that he o level up three more times rather than just one before he would be able to evolve to the stage.
So it would likely take him a bit lohawo days he initially anticipated to fulfill all the requirements for evolving. He figured that by the time he had leveled up three times and increased Mind to 5 and Body to 7, he would have collected enough mana to obtain the necessary skills. It was a good thing that Enharength, Enhanced Regeion, and Feral Instincts only o be at Rank I. This meant he wouldn’t have to wait for them tress to the Rank. Instead, he would be able to evolve to Stage 2 as soon as he acquired the three skills.
With a thought, Jake allocated the skill point to Mind, increasing it from 3 to 4. He po assign the skill point to the same attribute, followed by the subsequent two points to Body. Ohis was done, he would acquire the three necessary skills and evolve to Stage 2.
Jake hadn’t obtained Enharength before because he saw no reason to do so. He didn’t feel he o get stronger. Ditto for Enhanced Regeion. As for Feral Instincts, from its description he’d learhat this skill could provide him with some kind of Spidey-sense, alerting him to immi dangers.
Jake didn’t feel the need for that skill because he primarily fought mutants, so they were always close to him, which allowed him to keep them within his expanded field of vision at all times, preventing them from ambushing him.
Also, thanks to Enhanced Reflexes as well as the upgrade he’d acquired for Enhanced Agility, improving his ability to dodge enemies’ attacks, mutants no longer could nd hits on him. This was another reason he refrained from spending mana to get Enhanced Regeion.
Why betting it when mutants couldn’t even infliy kind of damage on him anymore? At least, it was the case until now. However, while he hadn’t felt he o get these skills before, in order to evolve to Stage 2, he would now have to acquire all of them.
Finally, Jake snapped open his eyes, and all the information disappeared. He pivoted, dashed across the rooftop, and leaped onto a neighb building.
Hey everyone! Since Jake will soon be ready to evolve into the stage, I thought we could take a moment to make some predis! :)
With each level of evolution, Jake bees more powerful but loses some part of his humanity. So what do you think—or hope—would eventually happen to Jake?
Option 1. He will be able to retain some of his humanity, going berserk only on bad guys while proteg the weak, thus finding some sort of baween his human and monster sides.
Option 2. He will lose his humanity entirely, throwing away all human morals and being a cold-blooded monster in both body and mind, g only about himself and his own survival.
