Over the next several hours, Jake searched the city for replication pods. Unfortunately, every time he found some, they produced only regular mutants. To advance his quest, he needed to locate pods that created elite ex-humans.
It took him a while to finally come across such a pod in one building. The cocoon didn’t look much different from the regular pods surrounding it, but when he looked inside and summoned its description, he learned it was in the process of developing an elite walker.
To progress his quest, he needed to analyze an elite wraith instead. He decided to wait. Replication pods selected mutants for development at random, so after the cocoon finished creating the elite walker and released the mutant, there was a small chance that the next one to be developed would be a wraith.
However, Jake quickly realized that mutants developed in elite replication pods were created at a much slower rate than those created in regular replication pods. Regular walkers and leapers took only a few minutes to grow from a single cell into fully developed creatures, while larger mutants like shamblers and whippers took somewhat longer.
But in contrast to regular mutants, elite ex-humans took much longer than just a few minutes to develop. He spent at least a quarter of an hour in the building, but there were hardly any visible changes in the elite mutant developing inside the cocoon. Judging by the rate of development and the current stage of the forming creature, Jake figured it would take a couple more hours for the mutant to be fully created.
Staying in the building for two hours would be a waste of time. Most mutants developing in regular replication pods were low-level walkers and leapers, which provided little XP. Therefore, he would hardly gain any experience if he remained in the same building, slaying low-level mutants that emerged from the pods every few minutes.
Besides, it would be best to spend the next two hours searching for other elite replication pods. If luck smiled on him, he might find some more. So he decided to leave for now, having memorized the location of the building. In a couple of hours, he would return to check if the replication pod had finished developing the elite walker and if it had started working on a new type of mutant.
He spent the next two hours searching the city for other elite replication pods while slaying all the mutants in his path. Gunfire rang out from different corners of the city. Occasionally, the roar of powerful engines could be heard as well. However, Jake managed to avoid getting into any more fights with Los Demonios.
Whenever he heard the rumble of a car nearing his location, he activated Cloak or performed a Gravity Leap, clinging to the side of a nearby building before climbing through one of the windows. He stayed concealed until the vehicle passed out of sight, then resumed his journey.
Every so often, the sound of rotor blades scything through the air could be heard as a helicopter flew over the rooftops. However, the aircraft were too high up to be a concern. He only had to worry about them when traversing the city from above. Now that he was at street level, the Demon helicopters posed no threat to him.
Jake continued his search through the city, taking down every mutant in his path, and eventually, he leveled up to 56, gaining 5 skill points to allocate. Not willing to stay out in the open while allocating his skill points, he decided to hide. After all, with the arrival of Los Demonios, the city had become much more dangerous and active than it had been before.
Initially, he considered entering one of the buildings, but then a different idea came to mind. He performed a Gravity Leap toward the front wall of a nearby building. Upon impact, Adhesive Secretion activated, allowing him to cling to the surface. He crawled a couple of floors up the wall, resembling a giant insect in his movements. Then he paused and activated Cloak. A few seconds later, the disguise ability made him appear transparent, rendering him completely invisible to the naked eye.
Now it was time to allocate his skill points. This time, Jake chose not to raise any of his attributes. Instead, he opted to concentrate on improving his skills and abilities.
He then remembered his intention to upgrade the Mana Vision perk, so he decided to do it now as well. He summoned its stats with a thought and checked them out.
Mana Vision (Rank I) (Common): Allows you to see nearby sources of mana.
Raise to Rank II: Y/N (Cost: 1 SP)
It was a common ability, so it could be upgraded only two more times, up to Rank III. He used two of his skill points to upgrade Mana Vision first to Rank II and then to Rank III. After completing the upgrades, he examined the perk once more.
Mana Vision: Allows you to see nearby sources of mana, such as consumables, mana clouds, and other types of storage.
After upgrading the perk to Rank II, Mana Vision now allowed him to see something called mana clouds. With the upgrade to Rank III, he also acquired the ability to detect different types of mana storages, although he wasn’t quite sure what those storages were.
He had three more skill points, but he decided to hold off on allocating them for now. He first wanted to test out the upgraded Mana Vision perk. He dismissed the information and, with his eyes still closed, activated Mana Vision.
He saw several bluish lights materialize in the distance. However, he identified them as mana consumables. He didn’t spot anything new that could be identified as mana clouds or other types of mana containers, which suggested there were none in the vicinity. Perhaps they were just rarer than typical mana consumables. He figured that sooner or later, he would come across some.
After that, Jake decided it was time to return to the building where an elite walker had been developed in one of the pods. A couple of hours had passed since he left the building, so the replication pod should have finished developing the walker and started working on another elite mutant. Deactivating the Cloak ability, Jake crawled down the front wall of the building and took a moment to get his bearings. Once he identified the right direction, he set off at his usual brisk jog.