Chapter 36
Closing his eyes did the trick. Wheried to summon his stats with his eyes shut, the data immediately appeared in his mind.
Name: Jake Turner
Race: Ex-Human Morphus
Evolution Stage 1: “Primordial Form”
Level: 1
HP: 94%
XP: 0/100
SP: 1
MP: 1,825
Body: 0
Mind: 0
Magick: 0
None
Enhanced Senses: Rank I (16%) (on)
Enhanced Agility: Rank I (24%) (on)
Enhanced Intelligence: Rank I (11%) (on)
Jake opened his eyes, and his stats vanished. He closed his eyes again and called them up with a thought. The info immediately became avaible to him once more. It seemed that he could access his stats only when his eyes were closed.
Duly noted.
With that matter resolved, Jake returned his attention to his stats, studying each line of text one by one.
Name: Jake Turner
It was his name, and there was nothing more to it than just that. He shifted his attention to the line.
Race: Ex-Human Morphus
So he officially wasn’t human anymore. If there were any doubts about that before, they were now repced with a sense of crity. He was now a mutant known as a morphus. It got him thinking. As a survivor, he had never entered such a mutant before. Were there others like him, or was he the only one of his kind? Jake didn’t know yet, but he might find out at some point.
Ohing was for sure, though. Regur mutants couldn’t get XP and level up. They weren’t intelligent creatures either. Whatever had happeo him in the Dark Void was far from normal. The anomaly should have either killed him or turned him into a brainless mutant. Yet due to blind luck or some system glitch, he hadn’t been stripped of his intelligenot only that, he had also been granted a unique system that allowed him to get XP and level up just like any ordinary survivor. With no expnation for this turn of events, he decided to set the matter aside for the time being.
He shifted his gaze to the line of text in his stats.
Evolution Stage 1: “Primordial Form”
That was iing. It meant he could evolve into a more dangerous form at some point. Sure enough, specifiditions had to be met before this evolution could take pce. He tried fog on the line of text, hoping to get some additional info and learn more about how the evolution process worked, but no useful tips popped up. That was fine. He figured he would discover the details firsthand when the moment to evolve arrived.
Level: 1
Jake had been level 15 before being drawn into the Dark Void. Now, as a mutant, he had to start leveling up from scratch. It didn’t bother him much, though.
Beats being dead, he thought as he turned his focus to the line of text.
HP: 94%
It was his health points also known as hit points. Only then did Jake remember the wound the walker had inflicted on him. He opened his eyes, and the stats vanished. He g his injured left shoulder. While he wasn’t in pain, he had a sensation indig that his flesh was damaged in that particur area of his body. Across his shoulder was a ssh left by one of the ex-human’s long talons. The wound retty deep, but it wasn’t bleeding. Instead, there was some bluish light that seemed to emanate from the gash. It looked very simir to the magical energy tained in marbles, shards, and other mana ables.
The sight puzzled Jake. Did his new body not have regur blood? Was it filled with mana instead? It sure looked that way. And he seemed to lose it as it was seeping through the gash and vanishing into thin air.
Then he realized something else. The wound on his shoulder was healing. Slowly but gradually, it was closing before his eyes. Jake watched the ssh for about a minute more until it finally sealed, leaving no trace as if he had never been wou all. His body’s regeive abilities were far superior to those of a typical human being, that was for damn sure.
He closed his eyes and called up his stats again, cheg his hit points one more time.
HP: 100%
He was back to full health, having fully recovered. The sensation of damaged flesh in his shoulder area had vanished as well.
He then shifted his gaze to the line of text.
XP: 0/100
Jake remembered gaining ten experience points and leveling up from 0 to 1 after killing the walker. After that, his experience ter must have reset to zero. To level up to the level, he o kill ten walkers. Or four leapers because, as he remembered, they were worth 25 XP each. Though he probably would stick to hunting down walkers for now, unwilling to take on stroypes of mutants for the time being.
SP: 1
It was his skill points. He had gained oer killing the walker and leveling up to 1. He wondered if he would be getting only one skill point per level all the time. Just one point per level seemed like too little. Maybe he would gain ara skill point every fifth or tenth level? Well, he would have to wait and see wheime came.
MP: 1,755
It was mana points. As a survivor, he had needed mana to cast a magic spell. But he first o acquire one from a scroll. Every spell learned from a scroll could only be used ohough. He remembered being disappointed by it as a survivor. Now that he was a mutant, he wondered if he could cast magic spells whenever he pleased once he learhem. Time would tell.
Then Jake realized something else. When he just called up his stats, his MP had been at 1,825. However, now it had dropped to 1,755. The exceptional memory of his inhuman mind allowed him to recall this little detail. He wondered where the 70 mana points had disappeared to. He guessed they were probably used to heal him. Or was he right whehought his wounds bled mana like regur people lost blood? He wasn’t sure yet. Maybe it was both.
Jake moved on to the hree lines of text.
Body: 0
Mind: 0
Magick: 0
Those should be his attributes. It was time for him to figure out how his progression system worked and choose which attribute to allocate his skill point to.
