Closing his eyes did the trick. When he tried to summon his stats with his eyes shut, the data immediately appeared in his mind.

Name: Jake Turner

Race: Ex-Human Morphus

Evolution Stage 1: “Primordial Form”

Level: 1

HP: 94%

XP: 0/100

SP: 1

MP: 1,825

Body: 0

Mind: 0

Magick: 0

None

Enhanced Senses: Rank I (16%) (Common)

Enhanced Agility: Rank I (24%) (Common)

Enhanced Intelligence: Rank I (11%) (Common)

Jake opened his eyes, and his stats vanished. He closed his eyes again and called them up with a thought. The info immediately became available to him once more. It seemed that he could access his stats only when his eyes were closed.

Duly noted.

With that matter resolved, Jake returned his attention to his stats, studying each line of text one by one.

Name: Jake Turner

It was his name, and there was nothing more to it than just that. He shifted his attention to the next line.

Race: Ex-Human Morphus

So he officially wasn’t human anymore. If there were any doubts about that before, they were now replaced with a sense of clarity. He was now a mutant known as a morphus. It got him thinking. As a survivor, he had never encountered such a mutant before. Were there others like him, or was he the only one of his kind? Jake didn’t know yet, but he might find out at some point.

One thing was for sure, though. Regular mutants couldn’t get XP and level up. They weren’t intelligent creatures either. Whatever had happened to him in the Dark Void was far from normal. The anomaly should have either killed him or turned him into a brainless mutant. Yet due to blind luck or some system glitch, he hadn’t been stripped of his intelligence. Not only that, he had also been granted a unique system that allowed him to get XP and level up just like any ordinary survivor. With no explanation for this turn of events, he decided to set the matter aside for the time being.

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He shifted his gaze to the next line of text in his stats.

Evolution Stage 1: “Primordial Form”

That was interesting. It meant he could evolve into a more dangerous form at some point. Sure enough, specific conditions had to be met before this evolution could take place. He tried focusing on the line of text, hoping to get some additional info and learn more about how the evolution process worked, but no useful tips popped up. That was fine. He figured he would discover the details firsthand when the moment to evolve arrived.

Level: 1

Jake had been level 15 before being drawn into the Dark Void. Now, as a mutant, he had to start leveling up from scratch. It didn’t bother him much, though.

Beats being dead, he thought as he turned his focus to the next line of text.

HP: 94%

It was his health points also known as hit points. Only then did Jake remember the wound the walker had inflicted on him. He opened his eyes, and the stats vanished. He glanced at his injured left shoulder. While he wasn’t in pain, he had a sensation indicating that his flesh was damaged in that particular area of his body. Across his shoulder was a slash left by one of the ex-human’s long talons. The wound was pretty deep, but it wasn’t bleeding. Instead, there was some bluish light that seemed to emanate from the gash. It looked very similar to the magical energy contained in marbles, shards, and other mana consumables.

The sight puzzled Jake. Did his new body not have regular blood? Was it filled with mana instead? It sure looked that way. And he seemed to lose it as it was seeping through the gash and vanishing into thin air.

Then he realized something else. The wound on his shoulder was healing. Slowly but gradually, it was closing before his eyes. Jake watched the slash for about a minute more until it finally sealed, leaving no trace as if he had never been wounded at all. His body’s regenerative abilities were far superior to those of a typical human being, that was for damn sure.

He closed his eyes and called up his stats again, checking his hit points one more time.

HP: 100%

He was back to full health, having fully recovered. The sensation of damaged flesh in his shoulder area had vanished as well.

He then shifted his gaze to the next line of text.

XP: 0/100

Jake remembered gaining ten experience points and leveling up from 0 to 1 after killing the walker. After that, his experience counter must have reset to zero. To level up to the next level, he needed to kill ten walkers. Or four leapers because, as he remembered, they were worth 25 XP each. Though he probably would stick to hunting down walkers for now, unwilling to take on stronger types of mutants for the time being.

SP: 1

It was his skill points. He had gained one after killing the walker and leveling up to 1. He wondered if he would be getting only one skill point per level all the time. Just one point per level seemed like too little. Maybe he would gain an extra skill point every fifth or tenth level? Well, he would have to wait and see when the time came.

MP: 1,755

It was mana points. As a survivor, he had needed mana to cast a magic spell. But he first needed to acquire one from a scroll. Every spell learned from a scroll could only be used once, though. He remembered being disappointed by it as a survivor. Now that he was a mutant, he wondered if he could cast magic spells whenever he pleased once he learned them. Time would tell.

Then Jake realized something else. When he just called up his stats, his MP had been at 1,825. However, now it had dropped to 1,755. The exceptional memory of his inhuman mind allowed him to recall this little detail. He wondered where the 70 mana points had disappeared to. He guessed they were probably used to heal him. Or was he right when he thought his wounds bled mana like regular people lost blood? He wasn’t sure yet. Maybe it was both.

Jake moved on to the next three lines of text.

Body: 0

Mind: 0

Magick: 0

Those should be his attributes. It was time for him to figure out how his progression system worked and choose which attribute to allocate his skill point to.