Endzone: Simulated Apocalypse

After searching the map for a convenience store, Cyanide settled on one that was closest to his current location, and began heading towards it. He couldn't stop thinking about Luna told him — Blood Shards. Another life.

According to that hooded man's explanation back in the real world, Cyanide had no doubt that if the players were to die in-game, they would be executed in the real world as well. However, with these Blood Shards, the players could keep playing. Keep living. Luna was right — they were invaluable.

But of course, getting one would have to wait until he was Level 50. Right now, he was a mere Level 8, and a homeless guy in search of shelter.

He spent the 10 CP he received, along with the 8 he had stored up, like so:

[STATS]

[Level: 8]

[HP: 80/80]

[STR: 25]

[AGI: 25]

[VIT: 15]

[INT: 5]

[DEX: 5]

[LUC: 1]

[Available CP: 0]

[Available SP: 1]

He decided to start leveling his INT, since he was about to hit Level 10 — which was when Soul Arts would be unlocked. As for DEX, that was actually useful now, since he had a proper weapon — the knife. Besides, according to Luna, firearm and throwable projectile accuracy both depend on DEX, so it was a useful stat to have if Cyanide wanted to use guns in the future.

As for SP, having a proper weapon opened up a lot of possibilities. There were many skills that required a specific weapon archetype to use, and although the knife didn't have many compared to something like a sword, it still had a few useful ones — one of which being the [Knife Throw].

Back on Earth, Cyanide would be able to hit a knife throw without some 'skill', but ever since starting in this new world, he has lost a lot of the proficiency he once had and was capable of due to having his body essentially 'reset' to a standard template of all players, and the only thing that remained with him was his extensive knowledge.

This skill actually had a base DEX requirement of 5, so that was also part of the reason why Cyanide finally decided to level his Dexterity up. What it did was simple — exactly what its name stated — throw a knife with immense speed and accuracy, auto-locking onto a target's head. According to the skill description, it could one-shot Stage One mutants, so long as they were at or below Cyanide's level.

Retrieving the knife after the throw would be a pain, but Luna informed Cyanide that there was an upgrade for this skill titled [Boomerang Knife Throw]. It was basically the same thing, but the knife automatically came back to the thrower after the kill, thus making the cooldown of the skill essentially zero, since he could use said skill whenever he got a knife in his hands. Neat.

Since Cyanide was feeling a bit thirsty, he decided to consume the Mutant Blood he got from all the ones he killed. It felt a bit weird, since they were technically cyborgs on the inside, so how the hell did they have blood? Cyanide decided not to question it and just drink the fluid to postpone the virus in his body.

Once he was finished drinking all 27 vials, an update message appeared before him.

[Update: Virus Status.]

[The Survivor's Curse has been suppressed for 324 hours. Time remaining until death: 347:12:20.]

Cyanide, seeing this, sighed.

"… Now I feel a bit less tense."

By now, the sun had began to set. There was only a little bit more to go before he reached the convenience store.

*****

Luckily, the convenience store was near the outskirts of city, and not many mutants were gathered there. The few that did were all pretty easy to take down, pushing Cyanide up to Level 9.

After promptly slaughtering all the mutants inside the store with a few simple Stealth Takedowns, he had secured himself a new home. The bodies all vanished away on their own, converting into sweet XP for Cyanide.

The only bad thing was that there was no electricity. Just like with the Aterra building, the electricity was off here. However, the warehouse had power — though that was probably due to that Blood Baron supplying it. That's why it was eating all those kitchen utensils — digesting it and converting it into electrical power.

Still, not having power in this place was a pain. It would seem this entire city's electricity was faulty somewhere. Cyanide needed to get that fixed, or just… find an alternative.

"… Luna. Any idea where I can get solar panels?"

"I would advise checking your Almanac, Cyanide," Luna replied with a smile. "You should be able to find what you're looking for there."

Cyanide raised an eyebrow. "I'll find a solar panel in the Almanac?"

"No, but you'll find the knowledge on how to acquire one."

"Huh. All right."

Luna opened up a hologram in front of Cyanide — which, by the way, was a decent source of light — labeled ALMANAC. Judging from the name, Cyanide could already tell what it was — an encyclopedia containing all the different mutants he's come across so far. The layout of the screen was fairly simple, with a tiled-pattern on the left side and a single larger rectangle on the right. Within the tiled-pattern, some displayed pictures of mutants, while others were locked.

But what Cyanide didn't expect, was what was written below the first entry on the list, after tapping on it.

[Civilian Mutant]

[Class: Humanoid]

[Weaknesses: ???]

[Resistances: ???]

[Possible drops:]

[ - Mutant Blood]

[ - Armor Materials (REQ: LUC > 3)]

[ - Weapon Materials (REQ: LUC > 5)]

[ - Wires (REQ: LUC > 7)]

[ - Solar Panels (REQ: LUC > 10)]

[ - Mutant Core (REQ: LUC > 50)]

"… Luck is more important than I thought."

"The other stats should definitely be prioritized over it given your current state and level, but LUC is not useless by any means just because it only affects drops," Luna replied. "Some items are exclusive to certain mutants, so LUC can be exceptionally useful."

Cyanide sighed. "Luna, pull up my character screen."

"Understood," she said with a smile, then did as told, taking away the Almanac. "Keep in mind, all mutants can drop wires and mutant cores, and many can drop solar panels. I trust you know what that entails, Cyanide."

Cyanide nodded as he spent all 10 of his CP from reaching Level 9 into LUC while conserving the 1 SP.

"These mutants… they're solar-powered."