It took a couple of hours for Jake’s eye to grow back. It was great to have full vision again. As for the fingers he’d lost, they had regrown long before that. When he finally stepped out of the building where he had sought refuge, darkness was beginning to set in. The night would arrive in just a few hours.
He spent some time fighting monsters and searching for mana. At some point, he leveled up to 40, earning 5 skill points to allocate. He hid in the darkness of a narrow alley and summoned his stats. As he had planned, he acquired all four available upgrades for the Mind Reader ability.
1 - Allows you to hear sounds within a target’s memories.
2 - Sharpen the clarity of memories to create more vivid visualizations.
3 - Allows you to absorb long memories within just a few seconds of real time.
4 - Allows you to instantly access key moments in a target’s memories.
Since it was an Uncommon ability, it had four upgrades instead of three, and all of them were extremely useful. Thanks to the first one, he could finally discern sounds while viewing someone’s memories. This would be particularly useful, as it would allow him to listen to conversations that took place in a target’s past.
The second upgrade improved the overall clarity of memories, while the third one allowed him to watch lengthy memories in just seconds of real time, which was extremely useful. He recalled how, during his exploration of the helicopter pilot’s memories, the man had pulled a gun on him. If he hadn’t been warned about that through Feral Instincts, the pilot could have shot him. With the second upgrade, he could absorb long memories in mere seconds, fast enough to prevent his target from taking any action while he was engrossed in their memories.
The fourth upgrade was incredibly useful as well. Thanks to it, he wouldn’t need to watch all of a target’s memories, but instead, he would instantly be able to jump to only the important ones. Combined with the third upgrade, viewing someone’s memories could be done extremely quickly—probably in just a couple of seconds of real time.
Jake then checked the status of this ability.
Mind Reader: Rank I (60%) (Upgrades: 4 of 4) (Uncommon)
He had watched the memories of Jovan and Arnaud, advancing his Mind Reader ability by 20% each time. To upgrade the ability to Rank II, he needed to use it two more times.
Jake couldn’t help but notice that there wasn’t a single upgrade for this ability that allowed him to delve into someone’s memories for more than just a few minutes in. So far, he could access only about fifteen minutes of a target’s most recent memories. He suspected that the depth of access was governed by this ability’s rank, meaning he needed to advance Mind Reader to higher ranks to explore deeper into a person’s mind.
The only way to progress this ability was to use it on somebody, and sure enough, the person had to be alive. This posed a bit of a problem for him. Survivors wouldn’t just let him grab them by their heads—or any other parts of their bodies for that matter. They would resist and attack him, and he wanted to avoid unnecessary confrontations.
Then an idea came to him. Could he use this ability on a sleeping person? Would it work? It seemed worth a try. He figured he could probably touch a person’s head lightly without waking them. He decided to give it a shot at some point.
He still had one skill point left to allocate. After giving the matter some thought, he decided to use it to purchase the final upgrade for Claws to make them longer. He remembered that he previously hadn’t wanted to increase their length, because longer claws were less practical for tasks beyond combat. However, in the end, he decided to acquire the upgrade. After all, he only used them in combat, and when he, for example, needed to pick something up, he morphed his claws back into normal hands anyway. Therefore, there was no reason not to acquire this upgrade.
He then reviewed his current stats.
Race: Ex-Human Morphus
Evolution Stage 2: “Savage Ascent”
Claws: Rank III (17%) (Upgrades: 4 of 4) (Uncommon)
Swords: Rank II (13%) (Upgrades: 3 of 3) (Common)
Bladed Tentacles: Rank I (96%) (Upgrades: 3 of 3) (Common)
Mind Reader: Rank I (60%) (Upgrades: 4 of 4) (Uncommon)
Smashfists: Rank I (78%) (Upgrades: 3 of 3) (Common)
Enhanced Senses: Rank III (19%) (Upgrades: 4 of 4) (Uncommon)
Enhanced Agility: Rank III (24%) (Upgrades: 4 of 4) (Uncommon)
Enhanced Intelligence: Rank III (25%) (Upgrades: 4 of 4) (Uncommon)
Enhanced Reflexes: Rank I (98%) (Upgrades: 3 of 3) (Common)
Enhanced Strength: Rank I (35%) (Upgrades: 3 of 3) (Common)
Enhanced Regeneration: Rank I (47%) (Upgrades: 3 of 3) (Common)
Feral Instincts: Rank I (26%) (Upgrades: 3 of 3) (Common)
Enhanced Durability: Rank I (19%) (Upgrades: 3 of 3) (Common)
So he had finally acquired all the upgrades for his current skills and abilities. Once he collected more MP, he planned to purchase some new ones from the second section of the Genetic Development Interface, which had become available after his evolving into the second stage.
Jake then opened his eyes, morphed his hands into claws, and looked at them. They were definitely longer now, but aside from that, they hadn’t changed. He reverted them to normal hands and left the dark alley. Since he decided to use Mind Reader on sleeping humans, he chose to stay at street level instead of going to the rooftops. He spent the rest of the evening and the first half of the night searching for mana consumables.
During his search, he accumulated over fifty thousand MP. He could now buy two or maybe even three skills from the second section of the Genetic Development Interface. He decided to level up first so he would have spare skill points to allocate to his attributes if it became necessary to purchase skills that caught his eye.
It was now the middle of the night, and most survivors were likely fast asleep. The regular world reset had already taken place, so there were plenty of freshly respawned monsters around. This worked to his advantage, making it easier to search for survivors’ hideouts because as he knew from experience, mutants never respawned in buildings where humans sought shelter for the night.
Most of the buildings he entered had ex-humans inside, so he quickly left them. Eventually, he found a structure that seemed devoid of mutants—at least the living ones. He noticed the bodies of dead mutants scattered around, along with plenty of spent brass casings littering the floor. Clear footprints were visible in the layer of dust covering the ground. He followed the tracks to one of the upper floors, where he found himself in a long corridor lined with closed doors on either side.
He crept down the corridor, carefully listening for any sounds—like snoring—that might reveal the presence of sleeping survivors on this floor. It didn’t take him long to hear something, but instead of the sounds of sleeping people, his acute hearing detected several voices engaged in conversation. He froze, crouching low to the floor.
He could tell that the sounds of conversation were coming from a slightly ajar door a few yards down the corridor. Judging by the energy in the voices of those talking, they weren’t going to sleep anytime soon. So instead of waiting for them to turn in, he decided to leave the building and search for another group of survivors.
He was about to turn around and head back to the stairs when he suddenly realized that the survivors were actually talking about him! Intrigued, he decided to stay a little longer to listen in on their conversation.