[Ding! Congratulations! You have completed part of the quest!]
[Ding! You have successfully destroyed 100 Sound Devices!]
John let out a long, weary exhale, leaning heavily on the hilt of his long sword. It had been ten hours since he left the relative safety of the team’s area. Ten hours of navigating a world that wanted to rot his flesh and shatter his mind.
"Tsk... I fought and killed over a thousand of these bastards, and there are still more of them around!" He spat into the dark, his eyes narrowed at the shifting shadows just beyond the light.
The density of the Fog Seeker population was staggering. If he had harboured any doubts before, he was certain now: this black fog was not just an environntal hazard; it was their holand, and he was the intruder.
"I can’t stay here any longer," he muttered, his gaze sweeping the periter. He spotted more than thirty shadows flickering at the edge of the expansive safe zone he had carved out with his cores. He knew the drill. If he left them, they would swarm the area the mont he lowered his guard to focus on his work.
Despite the exhaustion threatening to buckle his knees, he forced himself into a sprint. He spent the next half-hour in a state of violence, ventured deep into the fog around the large area and thinned the herd. He created a series of smaller safe zones to act as buffers, ensuring he wouldn’t be snuck up on from the rear.
"I’ve lost count of how many I’ve put down," he whispered, returning to the centre of the largest clearing where the hundredth device had sat. His hands were growing numb, the vibration of his sword strikes still echoing in his bones. "Let’s do this and get back. I have to expect the sa gruelling fight on the way back to them."
In his hours of wandering, his Fra Recognition and directional sense had revealed sothing interesting: he had been moving in a massive circle. Despite the ti spent in the dark fog, he wasn’t actually that far from the team’s coordinates. The journey back would be dangerous, but short.
He opened his Shell interface after doing a handshake with the last device, turning it to a MP Pulse Fragnt. He took the ninety-nine MP Pulse Fragnts from his inventory and placed them in a wide circle around his feet.
As they touched the ground, they didn’t remain physical objects; they dissolved into nothing, sucked into the coding window of his ability.
"I’ll multiply the base paraters by the hundredfold and see if I can successfully code it on the first try," John thought.
He noticed that his Shell window sucked the entire hundred MP Pulse Fragnts, leaving none behind. It was a good sign, or bad, according to the final result. It ant he either had hit the exact threshold required for coding the final product, or he lacked a few more pieces to finalise the coding.
"Enter!"
He gave the command both ntally and verbally, with imnse anticipation in his voice. This was by far his biggest coding attempt since coming to Athanasia. The world seed to stutter for a heartbeat. Then, the silence of the world was broken by a triumphant ringing and a series of notifications.
[Ding! Congratulations! You have succeeded in coding the MP Pulse!]
[Ding! Coding Forging Proficiency is now unlocked!]
[Ding! You have gained 20 points in Coding Forging Proficiency!]
A new object materialised on the ground before him. It was a massive piece of roughly five tis the size of the initial white UFO-shaped sound devices. It lacked the microphones of the sirens; instead, it featured a sleek, aerodynamic hull with a small gap on one side that looked like a venting port or a charging slot.
To John’s unique vision, it was a masterpiece. The structure was a brilliant, dense green code, reinforced by one hundred white clusters of anchor-code that were equally distributed along the body of the item.
"Let’s see what this thing can actually do," he said, touching the smooth, cool surface.
[MP Pulse: Normal Grade]
[Description: A high-density device rich in ntal Power. Placing it near the user facilitates a rapid MP regeneration of 10 per hour!]
[Area Coverage: 50 ters. Can recharge any individual within range, provided they have a ’Friendly’ status with the owner.]
[Duration: 48 hours of continuous MP Regeneration before the internal battery is depleted.]
[Recharge: Requires 5 hours of direct sunlight exposure—or can be powered by an external fuel battery.]
"It’s a mobile ntal Point recharging station," John breathed, his eyes wide. He lifted it from the ground, surprised by how heavy it felt despite its bulk. This changed everything.
In the ga world, MP regeneration had been a slow, agonising process. This device provided a rate that was significantly higher, and the fact that it could work for his entire team made it an invaluable asset for long-term survival.
His thoughts even drifted back to Athanasia. Perhaps he didn’t see a sun yet in this black world, but back in the ga, he could easily put it next to him when sleeping, recharging his MP overnight by almost triple what he could before, and then place it in his window to recharge when he was out in classes! Yet he needed first to return to Athansia before dreaming about doing any of that.
He felt a rare mont of ease. Piece by piece, the fundantal problems of this world—vision, attributes, and now the ntal Points regeneration problem—were falling before him.
*Roar!*
"Tsk! Always loving to ruin my monts," John snapped.
The silhouettes were back, drawn to his temporary distraction. He didn’t have ti to savour the victory. He snatched the MP Pulse and stored it in his inventory, his fingers already curling around his sword hilt.
"It’s ti to go back to my friends!"
The journey back had been a gruelling marathon of attrition. For nearly three hours, John had carved a bloody wake through the black fog, his ears ringing with the dissonant, overlapping roars of monsters.
He followed the breadcrumb trail he left before using his cores. Then, when he was close enough, he had navigated purely by the echoes of violence—the heavy, rhythmic thuds of Luke’s club and the sharp, tallic clangs of Cissel’s, Ricky’s, and Elena’s blades vibrating through the heavy air.
When he finally breached the periter of the team’s expanded territory, he skidded to a halt, his eyes widening from what welcod him.
"What happened here?!!"
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