Chapter 22
Jake drove around the post-apocalyptic city in his vehicle, occasionally pulling up near various buildings to search for useful items. During his exploratioumbled upon a police station at one point. He went inside, expeg to find a neon or at least some ammo in there. However, to his surprise, he entered something ued—what looked like an ATM mae ositioned just ihe entra appeared brand-new, catg his attention, but before walking up to it, he gnced around to make sure there were no enemies nearby.
To his surprise, upon closer iion, Jake discovered that it was no ATM at all but rather some sort of vending mae, and it was fully operational. Intrigued by this ued find, he casually slung the shotgun over his shoulder and reached out to touch the s, scrolling through the list of items for sale with curiosity. The vending mae offered a wide array of items, including various types of ammunition, ed food, water bottles in different sizes, healing autoiors, clothing, backpacks, sleeping bags, tents, web gear, holsters, tactical belts, and more. Despite the plethora of useful items avaible for purchase, Jake noticed that everything was incredibly expensive. He was taken aback by the high prices, noting that even the most basic item, such as a pistol magazine, cost a whopping thousand credits. For a moment, he pted whether or not to make a purchase. However, his attention was soon drawn to something intriguing at the very bottom of the list.
LEVEL 2 PDA UPGRADE. COST: 10,000 CREDITS
LEVEL 3 PDA UPGRADE. COST: 25,000 CREDITS
His PDA’s level was 1. Yesterday, Jake had pleted a mission, earnihousand credits, so he now had just enough funds to upgrade his PDA to Level 2. He couldn’t help but notice that the upgrade to Level 3 cost even more money. It appeared the cost of every subsequent upgrade rose expoially.
The vending mae had only two upgrades. Where could he get more? Maybe some other vending maes sold them? He was sure there was more than one vending mae iy—he just hadn’t found others yet. Or maybe Level 4+ upgrades would appear for sale ter on? Jake figured he would find out at a ter time. For now, he could afford only one upgrade anyway.
He tapped on the s, and a piece of additional info popped up.
NAME: LEVEL 2 PDA UPGRADE.
DESCRIPTION: THIS UPGRADE UNLOEW FEATURES FOR YOUR PDA SUCH AS HEALTH S, WORLD MAP, AND THE ABILITY TO S LEVEL 11-20 MAGICAL ANOMALIES.
COST: 10,000 CREDITS
YOU HAVE ENOUGH CREDITS TO PURCHASE THIS ITEM. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY IT: YES / NO
Jake tapped the Yes button. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PURCHASE! His PDA emitted a beeping sound, aook out the device. He looked at the s ahe notification he’d just received. LEVEL 2 SOFTWARE UPGRADE HAS JUST BEEN DOWNLOADED. DO YOU WANT TO INSTALL IT: YES / NO. Jake selected Yes, and for the several seds, his device was installing the software upgrade. Then a new message appeared on the s. LEVEL 2 UPGRADE HAS JUST BEEN INSTALLED. THREE NEW FEATURES HAVE BEEN UNLOCKED: HEALTH S, WORLD MAP, AND THE ABILITY TO S LEVEL 11-20 MAGICAL ANOMALIES.
Jake aowledged the information with a tap and looked at the interface of his device. Sure enough, there was a ab along the bottom of the s now. It was called Health, and wheapped on it, an outline of a human body appeared on the s. o each part of the body was a numerical value. Jake realized the Health s allowed him to check the status of his injuries and overall health. This s provided a detailed overview of the dition of each part of his body, highlighting any injuries or ailments he might have sustained.
The Health s definitely was very useful, and Jake decided to take a moment to study it more carefully. As he already noticed, in the middle of the s was dispyed an outline of a human body. o each part of the body—head, torso, arms, ahere ertage value indig the health status of that specific body part. The pertage reflected the level of damage or injury sustained in that area.
His legs were at 100%, but his torso and arms were in somewhat less than perfect dition. Wheapped on them, a list of injuries appeared—a few bruises and scratches on his arms and torso that he had sustained yesterday while battling a massive mutant known as a shambler and some other ex-humans during his mission. The s also dispyed some treatment options. It indicated that his current injuries—the old scratches and bruises—would pletely heal in just a few days. The Health s could also show any status effects affeg him, such as radiation poisoning, bleeding, risk of iion, and other temporary debuffs. Currently, he had ive effects impag him.
Overall, the Health s proved to be an incredibly valuable feature. Jake returo the main s. Finding abs avaible, he carefully pced the device bato his jacket pocket. He g the s of the vending mae one more time. There was anrade avaible for sale, but he didn’t have any more money. He made a mental o return to the vending mae to purchase the Level 3 PDA Upgrade once he accumuted twenty-five thousand credits.
He theed the building auro his pickup truck. He swung the driver’s door open and slid behind the steering wheel, p his move. Perhaps he should head back to the building where he had spotted a magical anomaly earlier? With his PDA now upgraded to Level 2, Jake anticipated that he could gather useful information by sing the magical anomaly again. Jake retrieved his PDA and accessed the map, but he couldn’t recall the location of the building with the magical anomaly. Having visited lots of high-rises in the past couple of hours, Jake studied the map ily, wrag his brain to remember which of the buildings held the anomaly, but he simply couldn’t remember.
Theiced something. There were three buttons at the bottom of the Map s—LOCAL, GLOBAL, and WORLD MAP. The Global option was currently active, showing the map of the city. The Local oivated when he was inside a building. Realizing the World Map feature had bee avaible with his PDA’s ret software upgrade to Level 2, he pressed the button, causing the World Map to fill the s.
Jake immediately saw that the map dispyed on his PDA was not the Earth he knew. E least tenfold, the world on the s appeared vastly different and almost unreizable. He studied the map for a few minutes. He spotted peared to be the North Ameri region. He also spotted what looked like Australia. However, he couldn’t identify New Zeand on the map. Jake thought he could make out the general shape of Afri the map, but it appeared to be merged with a much rger alien ti, altering its familiar outline.
Dispyed above the unfamiliar tis was the wAMEVERSE, indig that Earth was now part of a much rger gaming universe, having ied with these massive tis, seamlessly blending in and being a part of a much rger and interected world.
A green dot marked Jake’s position in the ter of what was ohe North Ameri ti on the map. Trying to zoom in on his location with two fingers, he found that the feature was not avaible. Jake hoped that the zoomiure would bee accessible when he upgraded his PDA to a higher level.
The radio in his dashboard suddenly came to life.
“Brave survivors are needed,” Jake heard a voiing from the radio. “A gathering of ex-human mutants otted in a high-rise building. They are suspected to have been replig there for a while now. A o be taken to put ao it.”
After the voice finished speaking, Jake’s PDA, which he still held in his hands, emitted a notification sound. Gng at the s, he saiece of text h in the middle of the dispy.
New mission.
Objective: Destroy 5 replication pods within a particur high-rise building.
Additional objective 1: Kill all the ex-human mutants on each floor of the high-rise building.
Additional objective 2: Kill the elite ex-human mutant on the roof of the high-rise building.
Reward: 2,500 XP, 20,000 credits
Extra reward 1: 30,000 credits
Extra reward 2: A rare on of your choice.
Reended Survivor Level: 5-10
Difficulty: Medium
Accept mission: Y/N
Jake tapped “Yes,” and the text disappeared. He located the marker indig the mission’s location on the map and stowed away the PDA. Starting up the engine, he set off down the road.
