Jake remained rooted to the spot, his gaze fixed on the anomaly above the fountain. The magic of the spell he’d just cast was slowly but gradually closing the anomaly. Despite the progress, he could perceive a hint of defiance emanating from the anomaly, trying to resist his attempts to seal it shut. He kept his gaze fixed solely on the entity hovering above the fountain, refusing to look away even for a moment. Every ounce of his concentration was dedicated to the deadly phenomenon before him, leaving no room for any other thoughts or distractions at that crucial moment. Jake was well aware that any distraction could result in the anomaly breaking free from the spell’s grasp. So he kept focusing the magical energy on the anomaly, keeping the link intact and sensing the anomaly slowly succumbing to the power of the spell.
About sixty seconds later, it finally ceased to exist. The shimmering and warping air above the fountain dissipated, leaving behind an empty space where the anomaly once was. It was gone for good, and Jake finally allowed himself to relax. His PDA beeped with a notification, prompting him to take out the device. For completing the mission to close the anomaly, he received quite a lot of credits and a good amount of experience points.
Curious about his total earnings, he checked his account balance.
Credits: 94,500
With just a small amount left to accumulate, Jake would soon have enough funds to purchase another upgrade for his PDA, priced at a whopping 100,000 credits. The next upgrade for the device would unlock an app called AskMeAnything, which supposedly could answer any question related to the Gameverse, the System, or anything else that had to do with this game-like world. The app was expected to be incredibly useful, so Jake couldn’t wait to collect enough money for the next PDA upgrade.
Now that the anomaly was gone, he didn’t need to worry about how much noise he made. Jake walked around the atrium, looking for loot. Little remained of the dead survivors and mutants, just pulpy pieces of flesh. Most of the items had been destroyed or rendered useless. However, he did discover a few things that had withstood the anomaly’s destructive force. Scattered about were mana marbles and shards, which Jake knew from experience to be indestructible. Nothing seemed capable of damaging them. Collecting all the mana consumables, he immediately used them, absorbing the magical energy they contained.
He then stumbled upon a magic scroll. Similar to mana consumables, magic scrolls were remarkably resilient. Despite their ancient and decrepit appearance, they could not be torn or burned. The scroll he had discovered contained another spell for sealing an anomaly. So the group of survivors actually had the means to seal the anomaly. If they had detected it in time, they could potentially have survived.
Jake picked up the scroll and unrolled it. He looked at the mysterious symbols and read them. In a quick burst of light, the runes vanished, and the spell contained within was now his to wield. He could seal one more future anomaly he would surely encounter at some point. It was a good thing because closing an anomaly rewarded him with a substantial amount of XP.
The handheld computers belonging to the survivors had also survived. Jake had discovered over the past few days that those rugged devices were built to operate in harsh usage environments and could withstand almost anything. So he wasn’t surprised to discover that all the devices were still in working order. He collected them all, including the one that belonged to the stranger he’d killed. Sitting on a nearby bench, he stacked the devices beside him.
One of the previous upgrades that he had acquired for his PDA granted him access to an app that allowed him to hack into other people’s portable computers. The hacking was carried out by playing a mini-game. In order to hack into someone else’s PDA, he had to solve a puzzle on his own device. The puzzle was challenging, and he had a limited amount of time to solve it. And he only had one attempt. If he failed to hack into another person’s PDA on the first try, the device got locked forever.
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Jake opened the hacking app on his PDA, and within seconds, a list of nearby portable devices popped up on the screen. He connected to each device one by one and attempted to solve the hacking puzzles. For the next ten minutes or so, he was fully engrossed in hacking into the stolen handheld computers. Unfortunately, he was only able to unlock one out of all the devices. He brushed the rest off the bench, causing them to drop to the floor.
Picking up the device he had successfully unlocked using the hacking app, he examined the screen. It appeared to have belonged to the leader of the group of survivors. Jake began by transferring all the money from the guy’s account to his own. Unfortunately, the leader only had a couple of thousand credits on him. Still, it was better than nothing. He was now just shy of 100,000 credits. He then checked the map to see if the owner of the device had marked any points of interest. And indeed, he had. Jake noticed a pin labeled Hideout/Stash on the map, indicating a location on the opposite side of the city. This must be the group’s secret hideout where they rested and stored their supplies. Jake pinned the same spot on the map on his own device and labeled it as To-Check.
He then accessed the leader’s Diary. As he knew from his own experience, new entries appeared in a survivor’s Diary once or twice a day, describing notable events that took place on those particular days. Every entry was concise, usually consisting of just a few sentences. If nothing worth mentioning occurred, no entries were made for that day. The process was entirely automatic; one couldn’t add, edit, or delete entries manually.
So Jake was aware that everything written in the gang leader’s Diary was authentic. From the entries, he learned that the group of survivors who had recently perished due to the anomaly had been really bad guys. The owner of the device had established a gang a few days earlier, and since then, they had ambushed and killed plenty of other people. Their targets were always loners or smaller groups of survivors. So yeah, those assholes totally deserved what had happened to them. They had died a terrible death, but they had it coming. The grim fate they had met could be seen as a form of retribution for their evil deeds. Finding nothing else of interest on the leader’s PDA, he dropped the device.
He proceeded to search the body of the stranger he had killed. Because the anomaly was dormant at the time of the killing, all the items the stranger carried remained undamaged. Jake gathered all the supplies and ammunition from the dead guy before inspecting the assault rifle that he had been armed with. Unsurprisingly, his own rare assault rifle was much better, so he chose to leave the stranger’s weapon untouched. He also found a revolver on the stranger but opted not to take it either, as he didn’t want to unnecessarily burden himself with additional firearms. He was already equipped with a heavy-caliber pistol that was pretty reliable and powerful.
After that, Jake finally left the mall. Exiting the building, he made his way back to his pickup truck. As he settled in behind the steering wheel, the radio suddenly crackled to life, broadcasting details of a mission to seal shut another anomaly. As he was aware, missions were usually straightforward and repetitive, so encountering another similar mission didn’t surprise him. Jake retrieved his PDA and promptly accepted the new mission.
The anomaly he had to close now was level 10, making it more dangerous than the one he had just dealt with. Despite the increased risk, he was confident that he could handle it. Once he completed the mission, he would have the funds needed to upgrade his PDA and unlock the AskMeAnything app. He usually completed one or two missions in a day. So after completing the second mission, he would visit the survivors’ place to search through their stash. After that, he would head back to one of his own hideouts to wrap up this eventful day.
After consulting the map for the mission location, Jake shifted the truck into drive and pulled out of the mall’s parking lot, unaware that his life was about to take another unexpected turn.