As the leader and his right-hand man collapsed Jules was filled with delight. He could not wait to finally reap the rewards of his fight.
It wasn’t long before his wish was fulfilled. Jules could feel lots of energy making its way into his body from each of the corpses. His bacteria were replicating within the corpses and seemingly absorbing huge quantities of this unknown power. This power would make its way to Jules and be quickly absorbed by his heart, brain, and body.
As the energy flowed within Jules it created a very warm and pleasurable feeling. This sensation surpassed anything that he had experienced in his previous life. If he wasn’t careful, he felt he could easily get addicted to it.
Soon enough he got another slight surprise. The energy flowing from the leader and his right-hand man felt much purer and stronger. It felt significantly more pleasurable when flowing through his body.
Jules could feel it all getting absorbed within him as if his body were a bottomless pit. This, however, did not seem to be the case for his heart. He could feel the energy build up within it at an extremely rapid pace with no signs of slowing down despite approaching its limit. Feeling slightly worried that something dangerous could happen if it kept filling up after reaching full capacity. Jules tried to stop the energy from entering it using his will. Surprisingly this turned out to be effective to some degree. The energy was now entering much more slowly which made him rather satisfied in himself.
This moment sadly did not last for long as the powerful energy from the leader broke through the dam and resumed filling up his heart. The best Jules could do in this situation was to prevent normal energy from entering.
Within a dozen seconds or so his heart was full to the bring with that unknown energy. And as Jules had feared it showed no signs of stopping. He felt his heart inflate gradually, slowly expanding beyond its limits. The whole process did not hurt due to his zombie body however it felt deeply uncomfortable. He could actually feel his heart expanding within his own body.
Within no time it had already reached the size of a melon and kept growing. He was really hoping it would stop at this stage. Sadly, it paid no mind to what Jules was thinking. His heart expanded and expanded until it physically could not anymore within his rib cage.
At this point, the energy supply from the bodies had stopped and all that remained was what still lingered unabsorbed within his body.
In a last effort, Jules’ heart quickly swallowed all of the remaining energy that it could before suddenly and violently expanding. This growth spurt was very brief yet very powerful. It was strong enough to instantly breach through the back of Jules’ ribcage and skin. Some of his heart had breached through and the rest soon followed. Jules felt relieved as the pressure within his rib cage gradually decreased. However, the fact that it was leaving his body still freaked him out.
Quickly enough a pulsating red mass that had reached the size of a watermelon could be seen on Jules’ back. With every pulse, the heart released a small wisp of black smoke that gently dissipated within the air.
This whole situation with the sudden growth of his heart had left Jules stressed out. He was worried it would have burst or somehow killed him in another way. The fact that he was still alive reassured him. Now that he could calmly reflect on this event, Jules realized that he had developed a plague heart! He had previously learned about this zombie evolution from Todd’s memories but had been too panicked to think about it when it happened. Surprisingly he did not have the 10 zombies required to evolve, and only the energy from the leader and his right-hand man had made its way into his heart. That should have by no means been enough for him to evolve.
‘The leader and his right-hand man had high-quality energy in large quantities, could this be related to it? Could this better energy possibly be related to their high vitality as well?’ He thought.
Temporarily disregarding this matter, he called out to Xena.
‘Xena, what are my stats now?’
‘[Beep! Name: Anne Martel (Jules Argent). Species: Zombie (Strand). Body statistics: Strength – 2.5, Vitality – 3.0, Agility – 2.4. Mind statistics: Intelligence – 1.4, Perception – 2.0 (5.5).]’
Unsurprisingly, this improved heart caused Jules’ vitality to go through the roof and increase by a whole 2.9! On the other hand, his strength, agility, and perception had all increased by roughly 1. What actually surprised Jules the most was that his intelligence had increased from 1.3 to 1.4! It seemed that the energy going to his brain made him more intelligent. This would mean that the more zombies he got, the smarter he would get!
Within a short amount of time, all of the bandits had risen once again, except they were now all zombies. Within their midst was a short chubby zombie, bringing their numbers to nine. A few meters from the group stood the figure of a woman with what seemed to be a huge pulsating heart emerging from her back.
Jules had gotten Xena to scan all of their memories. As she was scanning them Jules thought back to the time, he got access to Todd’s memories. Looking back at what it felt like it seemed that Xena was storing the memories and giving him access to them. Curious about this matter Jules asked her.
‘Xena, are you storing the memories of the zombies and then giving me access to them?’
‘[Beep! Affirmative.]’ A female robotic voice replied.
‘Damn! How much storage space do you have?’ Jules replied with surprise. Afterall recoding one’s whole life must take up a lot of space.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
‘[Beep! Storage size is of 126 Zettabytes. 15 Petabytes currently in use.]’
“Holy shit!” Jules exclaimed. 126 Zettabytes was a tremendously huge figure, essentially a Zettabyte was equal to roughly one trillion Gigabytes! This meant that Xena had enough storage to store the entire internet about one hundred thousand times! The only reason that Jules knew of this absurd measure was that he had previously heard it as a fun fact it in one of his computer science lectures.
If Jules estimated that one person’s memories were roughly equal to 5 Petabytes since Xena had stored his own, Anne’s and Todd’s, then Xena would be able to store over 20 thousand people’s worth of memories! With this much storage, the memories of those eight bandits would not take up much space. Still in awe at Xena’s ability, Jules thought up of a good idea.
‘Xena, can you record everything my senses perceive at all times?’
‘[Beep! Instructions received. Beginning recording.]’ She replied.
Jules was rather satisfied hearing this. It meant that he would essentially get a photographic memory but won’t have to be troubled with remembering anything himself! All that he sees hears or even taste would be perfectly remembered by Xena. Since Xena had the ability to let him access these memories or transfer them to him, he essentially would never have to worry about forgetting anything.
After a couple of minutes, Xena’s voice appeared within his mind once more.
‘[Beep! Memory extractions complete. Giving access to host!]’
Like last time Jules felt the memories become accessible to him within his mind. Except for this time, they were far greater in numbers. After all, he had ordered Xena to scan eight individual’s worth of memories.
Jules took his time to look through all of them one by one. In this process, he managed to learn quite a bit about how individuals grew stronger within this world. He also learned about the area surrounding the camp on top of more miscellaneous information. Some of the other information such as their life circumstances were not really important to Jules, however, he could tell they did not have it easy either.
Jules inspected their memories regarding the camp for more details. It seems that amongst the five large tents that were set up three were used for accommodation. One of which belonged to the leader, this was the tent Jules had previously pretended to rest in. Out of the two remaining tents one served as a kitchen and as an eating place during bad weather. Whereas, the last remaining tent served as a storage area for all the large items that the bandits had plundered previously.
Of course, all of the bandits had hidden some of their own valuable items either within their rooms or in the forest near the camp. These items if combined would definitely be worth a significant amount. Within those stashes one stood out a little bit from the others, this one belonged to the right-hand man. However, what really drew Jules’ attention was the leader’s own personal treasure. From what he understood the value of what the leader had accumulated easily exceeded what all of the other bandits owned combined. He had locked this treasure away within a chest inside his tent. The chest had been imbued with magic and therefore was impossible to break if one did not possess the key. The leader always carried the key hidden somewhere on him. Due to this, his underlings had never been able to steal it before. Luckily for Jules, he knew exactly where it was hidden thanks to Xena.
Jules quickly ordered all of the zombies to bring everything of value from the stashes and from the storage to the leader’s tent. Jules had declared this tent be his since it was both more spacious and nicer looking than the others.
As the zombies made their way around the camp frantically collecting the loot, the leader’s zombie made its way to Jules and handed him a key before joining the others. Afterward, Jules quickly made his way to the tent eagerly looking forward to opening the chest. He already knew what was in it and amongst it was something that had piqued his interests.
As he entered the tent he did not spare anytime to look around and instead immediately headed for the chest. The chest in itself looked really simple and uninteresting, it was made of wood and its edges were reinforced with a metal that seemed to be iron. What really stood out about it was the huge symbol that was present on the lid. This symbol looked similar to the one that the arcanist conjured when casting the fireball. This probably was the magic that made the chest extremely sturdy.
In the middle of the symbol was a tiny red bead that emitted a small amount of light. Some of the light seemed to flow along with the carvings within the wood. Those carvings formed an oddly mesmerizing pattern that filled up the symbol. They looked like veins in some areas and like circuit boards in others. The red light originating from the bead would pulse occasionally and send a wave through the carvings. The impulse would then gradually dim as if it was being absorbed by the symbol within the wood before completely disappearing.
Jules pulled out the key and put it inside the lock. The bead seemed to sense the presence of the key. As Jules turned the key the markings began to pulsate more vigorously.
Clank!
The markings suddenly lost all light as the lock opened. Jules grabbed on to the lid and pushed it up. The lid slowly moved out of the way revealing a large number of golden coins. Obviously, the leader had gotten lucky with his robberies in the past. Although wealth was great, it did not have many benefits for Jules since he was a zombie. Trying to get inside a town would have him killed on sight. What really interested him was something else. He proceeded to grab the coins to empty the chest.
Jules found many items within the coins such as gems, necklaces and even a knife that had a golden handle encrusted with gems.
After a few minutes of work, a decent pile of coins was visible beside the chest. Now that it was completely empty Jules had a look inside and proceeded to take the golden knife. His hand gently felt the wooden surface of one of the edges at the bottom of the chest. He searched for a bit before abruptly coming to a stop. Without any second thoughts, he jammed the knife at that specific point and wiggled it around. This caused a small panel at the bottom of the chest that perfectly merged with its surroundings to detach allowing Jules to remove it. Hidden below the panel was a small compartment in which sat a silver ring with a red gem and a small leather pouch.
Jules carefully grabbed the ring and inspected it. It would look like any other jewelry if it wasn’t for the fact that the red gem embedded on it was very much like the one on the chest. On each side of the stone was a small symbol, that were different from each other and yet looked similar. Red veins and circuits spread from the red stone to form patterns within the symbols. However, unlike for the chest, this one was not pulsating, the stone was not emitting any light. According to the leader’s memories, this was a magic item that allowed the user to shoot an extremely powerful laser beam up to three times even if they had never learned how to use magic previously. The laser was supposedly strong enough to blast through multiple trees in one shot. Thus, making it extremely valuable and worthy of being one of the leader’s most valuable possessions.
This was what Jules had been looking for. However, the small pouch was also of interest to him. He picked it up and had a look within. Its contents consisted of five more red gemstones and a smaller yet clearer variant that was many times more valuable.
If Jules was correct, these were magicule crystals!