The Journey Continues

20 minutes after Jade was told to sit, Jola returned with 2 other people and the door was closed. Jola took his seat at the head of the table, Jade and a man sat on his left while a woman sat on his right.

Jola introduced the people he came with saying "This is my friend Demola we worked together at Fluxtech" he said as he gestured to the man beside Jade. "And this is Anita my wife and personal assistant" he said as he gestured toward the woman. He explained his relationship to Jade "Jade was my roommate 4 years ago, that's how we know each other, we've been friends since then".

"When the undead and monsters started appearing, I was at home on leave, I came here because this was where I kept a stash of weapons. Don't ask me why I was illegally keeping weapons; it's a long story. We distributed the weapons among the people here, that's how we survived up till now. And that's the summary of how we got to this point" Jola said

Jade asked "Have you killed any monsters?" Jola responded "No, there are some groups of monsters and undead at various locations around us but they haven't come here. Ever since the power outage 2 days ago the monsters and undead have stopped wondering about" Jola answered.

Jade thought 'I wonder why they're behaving like this, I thought by now humanity would be on the edge of extinction' the IP responded '99.9999675% of monsters are territorial, most of them cannot get enough En-code by killing humans so they fight among themselves if humans don't trespass on their territory'

The answer surprised Jade 'I thought you gave me all the information that was available, you still had more?' the IP responded 'You were only given the necessary information at that moment'

Jade then asked 'What are the important information about monsters that you haven't told me about?' the IP answered 'The basic abilities and traits of monsters you have encountered that are below your current Rank, the full description of the monsters you have killed and the special privilege of Rank 7 monsters'

Jade told the IP to give him all the information on the special privilege and explained what he had gone through while listening to the IP simultaneously. He told them about, how he got to where he was the evolution, ranks, En-code and the mass release of the IP that was scheduled for tomorrow.

Finally he told them about the special privilege of Rank 7 monsters "When monsters reach Rank 7 they will be able to create spawns. Spawns are basically way less powerful doppelgangers of their creators.

Hence, if you keep seating on your ass in your little safe haven the monsters will become too powerful for you to stop and expand their territory into yours. I advise that you actively kill undead to get more En-code, if you can kill monsters that would be great too… just be cautious when it comes to killing them, even though they give great reward as someone who has evolved I know killing something as strong as me will be a very dangerous goal to accomplish" Jade said as Anita kept jotting down the important points while Demola and Jola kept staring at him in shock at the information he had just dumped on them.

Jade got up and said "I'll be leaving now" Jola asked "Where to?" Jade replied "to Lagos Central hospital, I'm going to need some equipment there" "Now that I think about it, you said you took the corpse of a giant lion, I don't see it anywhere" Jola asked in puzzlement.

The report he got when he was setting up the meeting stated that a group of patrol men saw Jade carrying a giant sac made of what Jola now assumed was the lion's skin, but now it was nowhere in sight. Jade answered "There's no need for you to worry about that, just get stronger as quick as possible"

Jade left the sanctuary carrying only the suitcase, when he was out of the view from the sanctuary he put the suitcase down, faced the part of the suitcase that had a screen to himself.

On the screen was a grid with a picture in each square; it was the interface of the Dimensional suitcase, one of Jade's spatial manipulation devices, it acts as a gateway: the suit case is connected to many stable (unchanging) vacuums of closed space called rooms. The each room is 28.34m3 in volume and time still passed in the rooms. The suit case could access 27 rooms.

He selected a square that had a picture of the lion's skin on it. A portal opened up before the suitcase, the portal was about 3 meters high and wide, it was devoid of light completely black.

Jade put his hand into the portal and brought out a piece of the lion's skin. After that he brought out 2 swords, a spear and a dagger all made from the lion's corpse. He then closed the portal and continued heading toward the central hospital.

On his way he saw a group of undead, which he avoided; he didn't want to be tired when he got to the hospital. When he arrived at the area near the hospital, he saw a huge crowd of undead. He thought 'A monster must have made this place its territory, just my luck. Why? Can't there be no obstacles when I'm going somewhere?'

He brought out a laser rifle from his suitcase, approached within viewing distance of the undead and began shooting them. Most of the undead were still unhealed and had grey spots. With his superior speed and reaction time Jade hit all of them on their grey spots, which made them pop like balloons.

The undead ran at Jade after noticing him but their charge was pointless since they all died before they could get within arm's reach of him. Jade told his IP 'Bring up the full description of the lion'

The IP showed him a screen:

[High Mineral Lion: A monster of the Mineral monster family. The Mineral monster family consists of monsters with minerals as part or all of their body, they are organic life forms. The Minerals vary from minerals that available on earth to minerals that aren't.

The Mineral monster family mostly uses Aura as their main weapon few use other energy biases. The en-code stat physique of the monsters resembles the en-code stat physique of the creature they are made after. The High Mineral Lion has the en-code stat physique of a Lion except its stats are many times that of a Lion.]

[En-code state:

Strength: 0/100,000,000

Agility: 0/100,000,000

Stamina: 0/100,000,000

Durability: 0/100,000,000

Intelligence: 0/100,000

Senses: 0/100,000,000

Energy: 0/100,000

Unattributed: 0/500,200,000

Body State:

Strength: Low (high)

Agility: Low (high)

Stamina: Low (low)

Durability: Low (low)

Intelligence: Low (low)

Senses: Low (high)

Energy: Low (high)]

Jade thought 'Interesting, even though the skin was so tough the monster had a Low (low) durability. It would have been impossible to kill it if it was any higher and its intelligence en-code is higher than a human's intelligence en-code, it didn't behave very intelligently…'

After about 17 minutes of shooting, the undead never reaching within 20 meters of Jade without dying, the undead made way and a group of about 30 undead consisting of two types of undead. The first were the fully healed undead Jade had seen at the skyscraper, the second were fully healed undead who had grey eyeballs, grey nails and ripped muscles.

The new group charged at Jade more intelligently as they spread out. Jade proceeded to shoot one of the grey eyed undead, which were way faster that a normal human or undead as they ran as fast as the world's top athlete's.

He shot the first one in the head; a perfect shot. The grey eyed undead were faster and better but they couldn't match Jade and they weren't fast enough to dodge the shots either.

The moment Jade shot the grey eyed undead's head, grey blood flowed from the wound and the IP in his head said 'You have killed a Rank 2 Hive soldier'. Jade took note of this and proceeded to dispose of the new comers and resumed killing the other undead.

Jade noticed a change in the undead, they were acting more intelligently than before; they were trying to surround him whereas they were only running at him before. Some were even ducking under the debris of a demolished building on his right and there were Hive soldiers hidden among them.

Jade increased his focus and sensed with his energy sense an undead that was different from the rest; it had a large amount of energy that Jade couldn't recognize concentrated on its head. It was staying within a building on the left side of the road he was on, watching him stealthily from a window.

Jade shot the undead right in the center of its forehead, the IP said 'You have killed a Rank 2 Hive mind'. The moment the Hive mind died the undead resumed their normal behavior and mindlessly charged, all but the hive soldiers who waited behind.

Jade quickly grew bored of the prudence of the Hive soldiers and switched from his laser rifle to the claw sword he had tied to his belt. He leaped toward his right and slaughtered the Hive soldiers hiding among the debris. After which he began killing the undead in frenzy with his sword as he headed toward the hospital.

The undead were helpless against him as they attacks almost never reached him and when they did reach him they did nothing. While every time Jade swung his sword, heads and limbs would go flying.

This continued for a few minutes and Jade became more used to his movements, the undead's attacks couldn't reach him now and his swings became more efficient, cutting more heads than limbs, and Jade was moving toward the hospital faster. Jade thought 'This is so awesome, I'm unstoppable! Evolving was such a blessing'.

The undead suddenly stopped attacking Jade a unanimously retreated as Jade sensed a new energy signature.