Chapter 97

After a minute, Jake finished reading. He didn’t come across anything particularly interesting, though. The survivor he’d just killed turned out to be a loner who avoided contact with others out of fear of being attacked and robbed. He’d been focusing on slaying mutants, leveling up, completing occasional missions, and collecting 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 consumables there. However, he didn’t let his hopes get up, being well aware that survivors usually used mana consumables upon discovery rather than carrying them around or stashing them away.

After checking the map on the PDA to locate the survivor’s stash, Jake dropped the device. He felt a twinge of disappointment as he hadn’t discovered any new information about the System or any new features it provided for regular survivors. While he preferred to limit his interactions with humans as much as possible, it could be beneficial to understand how the System operated for regular 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 computers, new features became available 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 functionality. To his knowledge, all the survivors he’d encountered so far relied solely on scavenging for survival. So he had yet to learn how the crafting system worked for survivors.

For a moment, Jake contemplated 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 happened to 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 composing a single simple word required a tremendous amount of time and effort, draining him physically and mentally. Moreover, it also depleted a significant amount of his mana reserves, and he couldn’t afford to squander that valuable magical energy mindlessly.

Jake committed the precise location of the killed survivor’s stash to memory—it was just a few blocks north of the building he was currently in. He looked at the rucksack one more time. It held some canned 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 consumables as they contained the 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 counting 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

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SP: 0

MP: 1,735

Body: 3

Mind: 1

Magick: 1

Claws: Rank II (39%) (Upgrades: 2 of 3) (Common)

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

Bladed Tentacles: Rank I (17%) (Upgrades: 0 of 3) (Common)

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

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

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

After finishing the seventh floor, Jake had received the intermediate reward that allowed him to upgrade Claws 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 invested his skill point in upgrading Claws to Rank II, making his claws somewhat more powerful than they already were. After that, the progress of this combat ability reset to zero and began advancing again when it was in active use, albeit at a slower pace compared to when it was at Rank I.

He noticed that he now had enough MP to acquire some new skills and abilities from the Genetic Development Interface, but it was a matter for a later time. He first wanted to get to the survivor’s stash to check if there were any more mana consumables. 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 was pulled 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.

Unlike other former humans transformed into mutants, Jake retained his self-awareness and cognitive abilities. However, survivors were unaware of this fact, viewing him solely as another ex-human mutant to kill for XP. At first glance, at least. While he could attempt to communicate with them, as he had done with Frank’s group, success was not guaranteed. Communicating with survivors was difficult for Jake, given the lack of reliable means to establish clear communication with them.

Another concern for Jake was his inner beast, which stirred at the scent of human blood whenever it 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 control of his body and mind, turning him into a complete 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 interactions with humans from now on.

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

Standing in the room where the survivor once took refuge, Jake examined the belongings left behind—a sleeping bag, provisions of canned food, extra ammunition and weapons, and other items. Reflecting on his past as a survivor, he remembered establishing several similar hideouts of his own. He’d collected quite a lot of various things, but none of his hideouts contained any mana consumables, so there was no reason to revisit them.

A thought crossed his mind that perhaps other survivors had come 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 needed. The only valuable item he’d ever owned was a rare assault rifle, which was given to him upon completing a mission. But he lost the weapon 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 corner, 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.

Selecting a random direction, he continued his journey.