Jake navigated through the city by leaping from roof to roof. By that point, he’d become quite proficient at that. With just a single glance, he could assess which gaps between buildings he could easily jump over and which ones were still too tough for him. For now, he couldn’t leap too far and occasionally needed to take detours along his path. He believed that by investing more points into Body and perhaps acquiring some more agility- or acrobatic-related skills and upgrades, he could improve his jumping abilities. Still, even at his current level, he could leap considerably farther than any human athlete, no matter how physically fit, would ever have been able to accomplish.

He was well aware that each of his mana-infused jumps depleted some of the precious magical energy stored within him. When engaged in active physical activity, his body always consumed mana at an accelerated rate. To conserve the precious energy, he could descend to street level and traverse the city as before, moving at a brisk jog. Moving in that manner significantly reduced the amount of mana his body consumed. Yet, now that he’d found a new way of traversing the city, reverting to the old way felt like a step backward. Jogging through the streets was much less appealing to him than leaping from roof to roof.

Jake knew that if he wanted to stick to his preferred way of traveling, he needed to gain more mana than he normally did. As he’d already noticed, relying solely on scavenging was not providing him with enough mana to sustain himself and accumulate enough to unlock new skills and abilities. Just like with XP, he needed to figure out how to gain more mana in a day than he typically did. Perhaps in the next location, mana consumables would be more easily obtainable. So yeah, discovering the next location could be the solution to both of these problems.

Lost in thoughts, Jake continued to traverse the rooftops, moving at a constant sprint and leaping over the gaps between buildings. His expanded field of vision allowed him to quickly spot the buildings that stood at the right height. He tried to stick to the same movement direction, but occasionally, he came across buildings too tall to jump to or gaps too wide to leap across. It prompted him to make slight adjustments to the direction of his movement. Still, by his estimation, he was certain he would reach his destination pretty soon.

Now that it was morning, he could detect increased activity in the streets below. More often than not, he noticed a vehicle maneuvering through streets overgrown with vegetation or groups of survivors engaging in battles with mutants. Despite having a bird’s-eye view of everything below, he didn’t pause even for a moment. He remained focused on his mission; watching regular survivors do their thing would only prove to be a waste of time for him.

As Jake leaped across a gap to reach another building, he seemed to notice something ahead. Hovering in the air above the center of the rooftop was what looked like a semi-transparent sphere that was distorting the light passing through it. Jake immediately recognized it as a magical anomaly. As a survivor, he’d come across enough of those to know how dangerous they were. But it was the very first time he’d encountered an anomaly on the roof of a high-rise building. The thought that anomalies could be situated on rooftops never even crossed his mind.

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He kept sprinting toward it. Running at a rapid pace, he found it impossible to halt abruptly. One of the three upgrades available for Enhanced Agility would have let him quickly change direction while sprinting at full speed. Only he hadn’t obtained that upgrade yet. Propelled by the momentum of his body, he drew nearer to the anomaly, but he’d shed most of his speed. Moving now at a much slower pace, he was sure he could steer clear of the anomaly just fine.

While he jogged around the anomaly, giving it a wide berth, he took the opportunity to examine it closely. Back when he was a survivor, he could gather valuable information about anomalies by scanning them with his PDA. Now as a mutant, he could acquire info on mutants with just a thought. He wondered if he could do the same with anomalies. After all, his Enhanced Intelligence skill seemed to have replaced the PDA he used to have as a survivor. He gave it a try, and it worked—the details about the anomaly immediately flooded into his mind.

Name: Pulsar

Description: Pulls everything within its reach toward itself, then forcefully expels it in random directions. Activates every few seconds.

Effective range: 30 yards

Duration: 5 seconds

Cooldown: 10 seconds

Danger Level: 15 (Medium)

Upon reading the description of the anomaly, Jake quickly grasped the gravity of the situation he’d found himself in. Most anomalies were triggered by something. Some of them were activated if somebody or something got too close to them. Some of the others were triggered by loud sounds. But there were also anomalies that autonomously activated at regular intervals. Although rare, such anomalies existed, and he was unfortunate enough to have stumbled across one of them.

He knew he had to get out of there ASAP. The level of this anomaly was almost twice his own. Its effective range was thirty meters, and the dimensions of the rooftop he was on were approximately the same. Which meant he had to get to the roof of another building to be at a safe distance from the anomaly.

Jake sprinted toward the nearest edge of the roof. Up ahead, he could see another building that stood at the same height as the one he was on. The gap between the buildings was a little too wide for his liking, but he was pretty sure he could make that jump. Had to if he wanted to get out of his predicament unscathed. In his expanded field of vision, he spotted another building, which was much closer to his. However, to get there, he would need to turn to the right and run around the anomaly. He had no time for that as the magical anomaly suddenly began to pulsate.

Before Jake could react, a powerful force yanked him back toward the anomaly. His legs lifted off the ground, and he was propelled toward the Pulsar as its force pulled him in. He clawed at the air, unable to do anything to arrest his movement. A moment later, he was sucked into the semi-transparent sphere of the anomaly. For a few seconds, he just helplessly floated in there, feeling it pulsate around him.

Then a force much more powerful than the one that had pulled him in propelled him outside. He barreled through the air, helplessly watching the roof of the building move away from him at great speed. Then gravity took hold, and Jake began to plummet toward the street ten stories below.