Upon seeing the quickly approaching mutant, his first instinctive reaction was to bring up his shotgun and blast its head off. Only he didn’t have any weapons on him anymore. His powerful shotgun, reliable assault rifle, and heavy-caliber pistol were gone. He had no weapons on him at all now.
However, despite being unarmed, Jake’s heart didn’t skip a beat. He calmly watched the ex-human walker race toward him. The sight of the bloodthirsty creature charging at him didn’t instill much, if any, fear in him.
As the mutant sprinted toward Jake, his heightened intelligence and sharpened senses allowed him to meticulously analyze its every move. He could now detect details in the mutant’s behavior and appearance he hadn’t been aware of when he was just a regular survivor.
He studied the ex-human’s deformed frame, noting its sinewy muscles rippling beneath mottled skin. Despite its wide strides, the mutant’s speed appeared moderate. Each step seemed calculated as if the creature was conserving its energy for a precise strike. When he was a regular survivor, it had always seemed to him that mutants just barreled toward him mindlessly, without giving much thought to their own safety or strategy of taking down their prey. Now, Jake knew it wasn’t entirely true. Ex-human mutants possessed a level of intelligence beyond mere mindless aggression. There was some degree of thought process occurring within their heads. While they weren’t intelligent beings, they weren’t entirely devoid of cognitive abilities.
Jake watched the ex-human’s elongated clawed hands swing menacingly at its sides before abruptly halting in front of its chest, showcasing the deadly talons that gleamed in the daylight. He noted the intricate patterns of blue veins beneath the mutant’s thick skin. With a quick, analytical gaze, he determined the optimal course of action to outsmart and take down the walker.
As he watched the mutant approach, he pondered another thought in his mind. As a survivor, he had relied on his PDA to gather information about new mutant types. Now, without the PDA, he wondered if he would still be able to access the mutant’s stats or if this feature was lost to him forever.
As soon as he thought that, a piece of info flashed through his mind.
Ex-Human Walker – Level 1
Special abilities: None
Jake froze. What had just glimpsed in his mind were the mutant’s stats, the same ones that would appear on his PDA screen if he scanned the mutant with the device. So he was actually able to summon a mutant’s stats with just a thought—no PDA was needed anymore. This discovery filled Jake with excitement. In fact, it thrilled him so much he didn’t realize the mutant had gotten too close to him until it was almost too late.
He remembered about the ex-human only when he saw it right in front of him, lashing out with a clawed hand. Jake instinctively jerked back from the attack. Since the walker was so close to him, Jake didn’t expect to be able to dodge the claws in time. To his great surprise, he managed to steer clear of the mutant’s talons as they raked the empty air before him.
The ex-human seemed taken aback by his agility, grunting in frustration before launching another attack. Once again, Jake ducked under the mutant’s claws as they swiped harmlessly over his head. Unfazed, the mutant lurched at him again, but much to its frustration, Jake once again deftly sidestepped, successfully evading the attack.
For the next several minutes, the ex-human lashed out with its claws, but he danced away from every attack. To him, the mutant appeared to move in slow motion. However, he realized it wasn’t the mutant moving slower than usual; rather, he had become remarkably faster than he ever was as a regular survivor. His increased movement speed altered his perception of time, giving him the sensation that he was moving at his regular pace while everything else slowed down around him.
Jake also noted that the walker was affected by the pull of the Dark Void. Still, they weren’t close enough to the anomaly for it to take full control over the mutant.
Despite his speed, Jake lacked the skill to expertly dodge the mutant’s attacks. While he had successfully avoided its talons by a slim margin so far, it was more a result of his newfound swiftness and quick reflexes than refined dodging technique. He clearly lacked experience in such close hand-to-hand combat.
At some point, the walker managed to catch him with its talons, raking his shoulder. Jake felt no pain, though. Despite feeling the claws tear through his blackened flesh, it wasn’t the typical sensation of pain he experienced. Instead, he simply received a feeling that indicated his left shoulder had been injured.
One way or another, it was time to finish this fight.
He clenched his fists, waited for an opening, and when the mutant lurched at him one more time, he punched the ex-human right in the middle of its face. However, the strike didn’t seem to have much effect, only surprising the mutant without causing any real harm. Despite his heightened agility, Jake’s strength appeared to remain unchanged. Also, being a non-fighter, he lacked combat skills and proper fighting techniques.
So, he’d simply thrown the punch, hitting the mutant in the face. He hadn’t even tried to put all his weight into the blow. Still, while Jake wasn’t exceptionally strong and lacked fighting experience, his obsidian-black skin was as hard as rock. The punch he’d just delivered turned out to be powerful enough to leave the ex-human in a daze for a moment.
Before the walker could recover from the blow to its face, Jake rammed into the mutant, causing them both to tumble to the ground. Pinning his foe’s clawed hands to the ground with his knees, Jake set about hitting the mutant with his tightly clenched fists. At first, he was met with hard resistance, but after landing a few more blows, he felt the creature’s skull give way, and the thuds of his fists striking its head were replaced with wet, pulpy smacks.
Its body went limp beneath him as the mutant finally kicked the bucket. Immediately after that, a brief piece of information flashed through his mind.
Almost immediately after that, another notification popped up in his head.
You have gained enough XP to level up. Your level went up from 0 to 1. You have gained 1 SP.
For a moment, Jake just stared down at the mutant’s dead body, its head a formless mass of pulpy flesh, his arms covered in gore almost up to the elbows. But he wasn’t seeing any of that. He was deep in thought, pondering the words that had just flashed through his mind. They were not like text messages; rather, they felt like foreign thoughts that had been inserted in his head.
As it turned out, he had a system of progression of his own. Despite being transformed into a mutant, he realized he could still gain experience points and level up just like a regular survivor. This revelation filled him with excitement as it meant he wouldn’t merely be prey for other survivors to hunt down for XP, as he had initially feared. Instead, he would have the opportunity to level up and grow stronger as well.
How do I access my stats, though?
He already knew he didn’t need a PDA anymore. The system notifications were now placed directly in his head. So maybe all he had to do to check his stats was to think about them? He tried, but nothing happened. It was weird. Hopefully, he didn’t need another device to access his stats like regular survivors did.
Jake crawled away from the dead mutant and sat down on the grassy ground, deep in thought. He tried to call up his stats using a mental command one more time, but to no avail. He was confused. Something didn’t add up. At some point, he closed his eyes out of frustration. After a moment, he made one more attempt to call up his stats—and to his surprise, it worked this time.