Jake spent the rest of the night scouring the city in search of mana. By the time the morning sun began to bathe the streets in its light, he’d accumulated about five thousand and five hundred mana points, which wasn’t bad at all. This amount alone could sustain him for a couple of days, or even longer if he reduced his usual level of activity. He had enough mana to unlock at least one more new ability, but he chose not to do it for the time being. He had recently acquired Swords and Bladed Tentacles, so he first wanted to test them out in combat. After he got the hang of using them, he could acquire another ability.
There were some skills available for purchase in the Genetic Development Interface as well. Unlike abilities, skills were passive, but Jake decided not to spend any more of his MP for now either. For his current level, the five thousand MP he currently possessed wasn’t all that much. He could easily deplete more than half of this amount in a single day if he engaged in overly energetic activities, like constantly running through the deserted city and battling mutants on end. With each level-up, his body and abilities required more energy to support his increased capabilities on a daily basis. Therefore, he should manage his mana reserves very wisely.
As morning arrived, survivors began to emerge from their hideouts to begin a new day of scavenging and fighting mutants. Jake’s keen hearing picked up the sporadic sounds of gunfire echoing from different parts of the city. Given this, he opted to halt his search for mana consumables for the day. During the night, he’d explored many buildings, having found and used quite a lot of mana items. The immense size of the city rendered it impossible for Jake to explore every part of it in a single night, so there were still numerous locations within the city that Jake hadn’t visited during the night. However, with the survivors now roaming the streets too, if he continued to search for mana, encountering them would be unavoidable. Jake wanted to avoid getting into fights with them as much as possible. Not that he was afraid of them or anything. Quite the opposite in fact—he was well aware of how easily he could dispatch human beings. But the only thing he would accomplish by doing so was waking up his inner beast—and that was something he wanted to prevent from happening. His dark impulses had to be kept in check.
Jake made the decision to postpone his search for mana and wait for another nightfall. At midnight, the system would refresh the world, respawning mutants and replenishing it with valuable items once again. That was the best time to search for mana. During the daytime, he could focus on fighting mutants to gain XP, and the best place to do so was the sewers, at least for the time being. The system should’ve respawned all the mutated rats and bear-alligators called devourers in the underground tunnels, so there would be plenty of XP for him to gain below the city. Scouring the city for MP at night and hunting sewer monsters for XP during the daytime seemed like a solid plan to him. For now, it appeared the most productive way to gain mana and XP. And after he made his way to a new location, he would come up with a different plan.
However, before heading to the section of the city that granted access to the sewers, Jake wanted to test out his recently acquired abilities on some weaker types of mutants. He jogged through the city until he chanced upon a high-rise building infested with walkers and leapers. None of the survivors had found and cleared this place during this morning yet, so it was brimming with mutants. Jake extended blades from both his hands and entered the main area on the first floor, spotting replication pods hanging from the ceiling here and there. The place was packed with mutants, a sight that excited him a great deal.
Once ex-humans inside the room spotted Jake, they rushed toward him from every direction. The first one to reach him outstretched its hands to grab him the second he was within reach. One of his blades flicked through the air, chopping off the mutant’s hands at the wrists. Jake then jumped aside, and the mutant, carried by its momentum, fell forward. The mutant struck the floor head first with enough force to smash its own skull open like an overripe melon being hit by a sledgehammer.
Another walker leaped at Jake. He sidestepped its attack as one of his blades struck, opening up its guts. Purple, gore-smeared strands spilled from the gash across its stomach onto the floor, coiling around the creature’s legs. Caught up in its own entrails, the walker awkwardly tried to turn and reach for him again. A second swipe of his blade took the creature’s head from its shoulders to send it bouncing along the floor.
Jake blocked the swiping claws of another walker with one of his blades, severing some of the creature’s elongated fingers in the process. The walker recoiled back from him. Jake shoved one of his blades through its heart. The creature looked down at its chest, then Jake yanked his blade free, and the walker collapsed, dead.
The claws of yet another walker lashed out, swiping toward him. He easily dodged the attack and countered with one of his swords. His right blade flashed through the air, sinking into the flesh of the creature’s arm. Bone crunched, and the mutant’s arm was severed from its body close to the elbow. The arm flopped wetly onto the floor as the creature snarled at him in fury. Jake pressed his attack, closing in for the kill. His left blade lashed out, catching the creature across its throat and opening it up. The mutant’s foul blood splattered over him before the ex-human collapsed.
Jake quickly looked around, hearing howling and screeching sounds in the distance. There were no more mutants in the room, but somewhere in the other parts of the building lurked several more mutants. He could hear the pounding of their footfalls converging on his spot. Jake continued to stand in the middle of the vast room. He didn’t have to wait long. Several more ex-humans emerged from different corridors and charged at him all at once.
The first one to reach him outstretched its clawed hands toward him. Easily evading them, Jake attacked, his right blade entering the creature’s stomach. He then jerked the blade upward, opening up the creature from the sword’s point of entry to the edge of its sternum. The mutant twitched on his blade, trying to tear free of it as spittle flew from its lips, thrashing around more in rage than in pain. Jake jerked his blade free of the mutant’s body. The ex-human flopped onto the floor, making a grab for his ankles despite the amount of damage he’d inflicted on it. He quickly finished it off with a powerful stab through its skull and then spun toward two more walkers as they lunged at him.
His blade split open the nose of one of them and then slashed into the second walker’s snarling mouth on its back swing. The blade of his sword removed several of the walker’s many razor-sharp teeth and part of its open lower jaw. The creature stumbled, tumbling back onto the floor. The other walker shook off the pain from its mangled nose and came at him once more. The blade of his sword entered the underside of the monster’s chin. Its tip emerged through the top of the mutant’s skull, sealing its mouth shut and destroying its brain. He yanked the sword free from the mutant, and its body collapsed to the floor. Jake instantly spun to face the other walkers that came at him.
He continued to fight the remaining ex-humans until there were no more left.
Multiple enemies killed. +325 XP
Jake had killed twenty-eight ex-humans in total without breaking a sweat. The floor was littered with mutilated bodies of the dead mutants. Among them, there were a few leapers, while the rest were walkers. He brought up his swords to take a look at them. They had proved to be quite effective weapons. In one of the future fights, he was going to transform one hand into a sword and the other into claws to test out the effectiveness of this combination. Also, he hadn’t yet utilized his bladed tentacles in combat and was eager to see how it would perform in one of the next fights.
After destroying all the replication pods hanging from the ceiling to earn some additional XP, Jake exited the building and headed for the sewers.