Chapter 97

  After a minute, Jake finished reading. He didn’t e across anything particurly iing, though. The survivor he’d just killed turned out to be a loner who avoided tact with others out of fear of being attacked and robbed. He’d been fog on sying mutants, leveling up, pleting occasional missions, and colleg supplies.

  The only valuable information Jake gained was that the survivor had a stash where he had some supplies stored. There might be more mana ables there. However, he didn’t let his hopes get up, being well aware that survivors usually used mana ables upon discovery rather than carrying them around or stashing them away.

  After cheg the map on the PDA to locate the survivor’s stash, Jake dropped the device. He felt a twinge of disappoi as he hadn’t discovered any new information about the System or any new features it provided fur survivors. While he preferred to limit his iions with humans as much as possible, it could be beneficial to uand how the System operated fur survivors.

  Sure, since he had been human once, he had a pretty good idea of how the system worked for them. However, as they progressed through this game-like world, leveling up and upgrading their handheld puters, new features became avaible for them. For instance, back when he was human, he’d unlocked a crafting system at some point, but he never had the opportunity to learn how it worked. Even now, he remained unaware of its funality. To his knowledge, all the survivors he’d entered so far relied solely on sging for survival. So he had yet to learn how the crafting system worked for survivors.

  For a moment, Jake pted using the AskMeAnything app on the survivor’s PDA to learn something new about the System. Maybe he could even find out what the hell happeo him and why he was transformed into a mutant. In the end, he decided against it. As he already knew, writing was a nearly impossible task for him. Even posing a single simple word required a tremendous amount of time and effort, draining him physically aally. Moreover, it also depleted a signifit amount of his mana reserves, and he couldn’t afford to squahat valuable magical energy mindlessly.

  Jake itted the precise location of the killed survivor’s stash to memory—it was just a few bloorth of the building he was currently in. He looked at the rucksaore time. It held some ed food, bottled water, shotgun shells, stimpaks, and some other stuff. None of the items in the rucksack were useful to him, as they were all meant for survivors, not a mutant like him. He only needed mana ables as they taihe magical energy essential for his survival. Perhaps he might find some in the dead survivor’s stash if luck was on his side, although he wasn’t ting on it.

  Before leaving the building, he decided to check his stats. Unlike survivors, he didn’t need a PDA or any other device to check his attributes, abilities, skills, and other stats. He could call up his stats any time he wanted with a mere thought. He closed his eyes and did so.

  Name: Jake Turner

  Race: Ex-Human Morphus

  Evolution Stage 1: “Primordial Form”

  Level: 12

  HP: 100%

  XP: 1350/1625

  SP: 0

  MP: 3,735

  Body: 3

  Mind: 1

  Magick: 1

  Cws: Rank II (39%) (Upgrades: 2 of 3) (on)

  Swords: Rank I (24%) (Upgrades: 1 of 3) (on)

  Bded Tentacles: Rank I (17%) (Upgrades: 0 of 3) (on)

  Enhanced Senses: Rank II (77%) (Upgrades: 0 of 3) (on)

  Enhanced Agility: Rank II (96%) (Upgrades: 2 of 3) (on)

  Enhanced Intelligence: Rank II (64%) (Upgrades: 0 of 3) (on)

  After finishing the seventh floor, Jake had received the intermediate reward that allowed him to upgrade Cws to Rank II, bypassing the requirement of having Body at 5. He hadn’t had a free skill point at that time to perform the upgrade, though. At some point during the final stages of the tower-climb challenge alongside Isra and Frank, he leveled up to 12 and ied his skill point in upgrading Cws to Rank II, making his cws somewhat more powerful than they already were. After that, the progress of this bat ability reset to zero and began advang agai was in active use, albeit at a slower papared to when it was at Rank I.

  He noticed that he now had enough MP to acquire some new skills and abilities from the Geic Development Interface, but it was a matter for a ter time. He first wao get to the survivor’s stash to check if there were any more mana ables. There was never enough mana around here.

  As he was crossing the room to the exit, his gaze fell on the body of the survivor he’d killed moments earlier. Not too long ago, he had been a survivor too until he ulled into the mysterious anomaly known as The Dark Void, where he underwent the transformation that turned him into a mutant. Jake was no longer human; he was now a magical being known as a morphus.

  Uher former humans transformed into mutants, Jake retained his self-awareness and itive abilities. However, survivors were unaware of this fact, viewing him solely as another ex-human mutant to kill for XP. At first g least. While he could attempt to unicate with them, as he had doh Frank’s group, success was not guaranteed. unig with survivors was difficult for Jake, given the ck of reliable means to establish clear unication with them.

  Another for Jake was his inner beast, which stirred at the st of human blood whe was drawn. He found it really difficult to restrain the dark impulses of his monster nature. If not reined in, his inner beast could take full trol of his body and mind, turning him into a plete monster. He was resolved to do everything within his power to protect the remaining shreds of his humanity. This was why he decided to avoid unnecessary iions with humans from now on.

  It didn’t take Jake long to arrive at the stash of the survivor he’d retly killed. As anticipated, there was nothing of use for him there, not even a single mana able. Despite his expectations, a tinge of disappoi washed over him. The fallen survivor had possessed a rge mana crystal in his backpack, leading Jake to wonder if another rare item might be hidden iash. No such luck this time, though.

  Standing in the room where the survivor oe, Jake examihe belongings left behind—a sleeping bag, provisions of ed food, extra ammunition and ons, and other items. Refleg on his past as a survivor, he remembered establishing several simir hideouts of his own. He’d collected quite a lot of various things, but none of his hideouts tained any mana ables, so there was no reason to revisit them.

  A thought crossed his mind that perhaps other survivors had e across some of his secret stashes and taken items from them. It didn’t bother Jake. He didn’t care about losing possessions he no longer he only valuable item he’d ever owned was a rare assault rifle, which was given to him upon pleting a mission. But he lost the on before being pulled into the Dark Void to be transformed into a morphus.

  Finally, he got out of the building, having found nothing of use in the survivor’s stash. The streets were shrouded in darkness. Midnight was just around the er, which meant the System was about to reset the world, reviving mutants and respawning loot. Most of the survivors would hole up for the night while Jake would be out hunting for mana.

  Seleg a random dire, he tinued his journey.