He closed his eyes and pulled up his character sheet. As he climbed the ten-story building and defeated mutants on each floor, he leveled up to 8, earning another SP. So he now had four skill points at his disposal. First of all, he checked his attributes.
Body: 3
Mind: 1
Magick: 1
As he already knew, in order to advance an ability or skill to the next rank, specific attribute requirements needed to be met. He shifted his attention to the list of his abilities and skills.
Claws: Rank I (100%) (Upgrades: 1 of 3) (Common)
Enhanced Senses: Rank I (100%) (Upgrades: 0 of 3) (Common)
Enhanced Agility: Rank I (100%) (Upgrades: 0 of 3) (Common)
Enhanced Intelligence: Rank I (100%) (Upgrades: 0 of 3) (Common)
He focused on the rank of the Claws ability, and a piece of additional information emerged.
A raise to the next Rank is available.
Requirements: Body 5
Cost: 1 SP
Raise to Rank II: Y/N
So he couldn’t raise his Claws ability to Rank II just yet because his Body attribute was 3. He checked the rest of his skills. For a raise to be performed, Enhanced Senses required Mind to be at level 1, Enhanced Agility needed Body to be at level 2, and Enhanced Intelligence needed Mind to be at level 1. With all the attribute requirements satisfied, he could advance all of his skills to Rank II. One by one, he did so with each of the three skills. He now had only one skill point left. Since he couldn’t use it to advance Claws to the next rank, he wanted to find another use for it. He could allocate it to Body or another of his attributes, but he decided to wait until he leveled up again. Perhaps there was a more beneficial use for it at the moment.
He shifted his attention to another line in his stats to see how much mana he currently had.
MP: 2,150
He pulled up the Genetic Development Interface to refresh his memory on what he needed to acquire the Bladed Tentacles ability. The requirements were Body at 2 and Magick at 1. Obtaining the ability didn’t require a skill point; instead, he needed to pay 3,000 MP to unlock it. Which was more than he currently had. Even if he had the exact amount of mana, he wouldn’t have used it to buy the ability, since that precious energy served not only as currency for acquiring new abilities and skills but as sustenance as well. He figured he needed to accumulate at least 4,000 MP before purchasing Bladed Tentacles so that he would have 1,000 MP left for his body to feed on.
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So he could use the remaining skill point to either increase one of his attributes or acquire an upgrade for one of his skills. He got back to his character sheet and returned his attention to the list of his abilities and skills. He’d already acquired one upgrade for Claws, so this time he decided to get an upgrade for another skill. After giving the matter some thought, he chose to upgrade Enhanced Agility. He pulled up the list of upgrades currently available for this skill.
Ability: Enhanced Agility
Upgrade Options (Common):
1 - Master acrobatic skills for climbing, jumping, performing aerial maneuvers, and navigating challenging terrain. Cost: 1 SP
2 - Enhance body coordination for faster movement and speed by 20% as well as executing rapid directional changes. Cost: 1 SP
3 - Sharpen reflexes for quicker reactions in combat, enabling agile dodges, swift maneuvers, and precise counterattacks. Cost: 1 SP
Each of these three upgrades sounded amazing. He wanted to get all three of them since each one would surely prove to be extremely useful. Right now, he could acquire only one of them, however, and after giving the matter some thought, he decided to go with the first one to master his acrobatic skills. With a thought, he acquired the upgrade, spending his last skill point. Jake was eager to put his newly acquired acrobatic skills to good use and couldn’t wait to test them out. However, with all the recent updates, he decided to take a moment to review his stats once more before closing them.
Name: Jake Turner
Race: Ex-Human Morphus
Evolution Stage 1: “Primordial Form”
Level: 8
HP: 100%
XP: 30/1125
SP: 0
MP: 2,150
Body: 3
Mind: 1
Magick: 1
Claws: Rank I (100%) (Upgrades: 1 of 3) (Common)
Enhanced Senses: Rank II (0%) (Upgrades: 0 of 3) (Common)
Enhanced Agility: Rank II (0%) (Upgrades: 1 of 3) (Common)
Enhanced Intelligence: Rank II (0%) (Upgrades: 0 of 3) (Common)
He noticed that advancing a skill to the next rank didn’t provide additional upgrades. Each of his current skills and abilities still had a total of three upgrades. It seemed that it was either the maximum number of upgrades allotted to each skill or that more upgrades would become available when a skill was advanced to the next rarity level.
Anyway, it was time to move on. Jake opened his eyes, causing all the information to vanish. As the sun continued to set, it cast the world into darkness. He’d just advanced each of his three skills to Rank II, and it was already noticeable. For a moment, Jake just stood at the same spot, feeling a surge of energy pulse through his veins as his upgraded senses kicked in, sharpening his vision, smell, and hearing to the next level. Feeling the power coursing through his veins, he flexed his muscles and felt his mutated body effortlessly respond to his commands. Every movement was smoother, quicker, and more precise than he had ever experienced. His mind, too, had been advanced to the next level, making his thoughts race through his brain at lightning speed with startling clarity.
Jake was about to descend the building when a daring idea came to his mind. Instead of taking the stairs down, he decided to try something different. He walked to the edge of the roof, staring at the surrounding buildings covered in foliage. The dilapidated buildings stretched as far as the eye could see, with some neighboring roofs standing at the same level as his. Having just acquired an upgrade for Enhanced Agility, improving his acrobatic abilities, it was now time to put them to the test. Jake gazed at the gap between his building and the neighboring one, estimating the distance.
He took a few steps back, then broke into a sprint, his muscles propelling him forward with incredible power and speed. Reaching the edge of the roof, he leaped across the gap between the two buildings.