Universal Power System

Mako ran toward them as fast as his legs would allow him. He pushed through the pain and exhaustion that was causing immense strain on his body and finally arrived in front of the two of them.

Leon was lying face first into the ground covered in blood which was from the injuries he had received from the ape beast guard that Mako had now killed. There was a military virtual transmitter in front of him which showed that Leon probably called for help before passing out.

However, Mako was more concerned about what had happened during the time he was knocked out and where was Victor and the others.

After looking around, Mako was able to spot the knocked-out bodies of the other two guards who were fighting alongside the guard that transformed into the ape beast.

It didn't take long for Mako to put two and two together and figure out that all of the guards had been defeated and Victor was probably on the run.

This was confirmed by him feeling the ground shaking slightly after every couple of moments which seemed to originate from the dark passageway that their opponents first walked out from.

Mako had no energy left to fight so he knew that he would only get in the way and possibly sabotage his own friends who were most like engaged in combat with Victor Voss.

He knelt down beside Angela and hoped that the military would arrive soon to provide backup and stabilize the situation.

However, as he sat beside Angela, he noticed her skin getting paler and the veins in her body showing through her skin. 

Now he had absolutely no medical experience, but he knew the body wasn't supposed to do that. He checked her body and eventually flipped her to find the stab wound that Erin had temporarily covered up with ice.

Seeing as her condition continued to deteriorate, Mako knew he had to do something but what could he do? He had no healing ability. He knew nothing about any medicine or anatomy.

The only time he had done anything medical-related was when he operated on Bill and Leon during the recruitment test and even then he was being spoonfed all of the details of the procedure by the patrolling guard but this time there wasn't anyone who could help him.

After thinking for a bit, Mako knew that panicking would solve anything. He brought the last healing pill that he had in his inventory and fed it to Angela hoping that it would make a difference, not knowing that she had already consumed two and it had minimal effect.

A couple of minutes went by and the distant sound of clashing and shaking was still quite evident, but Mako's focus had shifted completely from the battle and towards Angela who was losing more strength and growing weaker by the minute.

Mako had run out of ideas on what to do as he could really begin to fix the problem when he had no knowledge of what was causing it.

In a moment of desperation, Mako decided to Analyze her. This skill had failed on her before as she was far stronger than him, but usually, the skill would work once the person was unconscious. It was worth a try as he had no other way of understanding what was happening to her.

[Analyze]

[Profile: Angela Wright] (Unconscious) (Poisoned)

[Ability: Fire (Level 7), Fear (Level 6), Shadow (Level 6), Nightmare (Level 4)] ⓘ

Mako was blown away by how many strong and powerful abilities Angela possessed and how high-level each of them was, but that was the thing he was supposed to focus on when analyzing her.

He quickly drew his attention towards her status and that was when he received the shocking revelation.

She wasn't getting any better even with healing pills aiding her because there was a poison in her system that was continuously deteriorating her from the inside out.

Mako had a look of empathy and pain on his face as he got flashbacks to the time Bill was poisoned during the recruitment test and how hard he had to struggle in order to find him an antidote, which made him hate the poison ability.

However this time, there was no trail set up where he could just randomly run around and find a hidden container within that had the antidote to save Angela's life.

Seeing how fast the poison was eating away at her body despite the fact that she was so strong meant that the poison used was to specifically target her and Mako couldn't do anything about it.

"Come on, Come on, Come on... Think!" Mako shouted at himself as he focused really hard to try and come up with a solution but nothing came to mind.

By now, all the effects of the healing pills had concluded with her rate of regression speeding up.

Mako had to do something fast or else Angela would die long before any help or backup could arrive.

Racking his brain, trying to think of a way to save her life, Mako suddenly remembered a different memory from the recruitment test which was also one of the most crucial events that took place throughout the whole thing and that was when he absorbed all of those crystals to prepare himself in order to face Mikhail in the duel.

"THE POISON ABILITY!" Mako exclaimed as he remembered something and opened up the understandings tab which was the sub-tab of his profile to confirm.

[Understandings] ⓘ

[Poison (Level 1): 62%]

[Lightning (Level 6): 5.6%]

[Earth(Level 4): 7%]

[Sound (Level 1): 27%]

Mako hadn't opened up this tab in a while as he had never had the chance to absorb more crystals but looking at it now the understanding had been updated a bit as he had continued to progress through the Lightning and Earth abilities naturally.

When Mako first unlocked this tab he didn't possess the earth ability which was at more than half understanding to obtain level 1 earth ability but now that understanding had shrunk down and Mako only had 7% understanding in it to achieve level 4.

Mako was impressed by his growth but he quickly focused back on the reason why he opened the tab in the first place. He was 62% of the way there to unlocking the poison ability. If he managed to fill the remaining bar and awaken his own poison ability, he should be able to save Angela.

However, this now posed another major issue as Mako had no crystal left that had the poison aura inside of it.

He still had some crystals and more that were later shared by his friends from the haul they earned from each of the five beast waves, but Mako was saving them to research them once he got into military school, particularly how power armor was made using them.

Thinking of any other way that he could obtain those crystals or fill up the bar percentage, Mako turned toward the system for help.

"System, I would like to propose a trade. You can take down some of my EXP or attributes as payment and in return grant me the poison ability," Mako said to the system out loud.

[Invalid Request]

[Proposal Denied]

Big, glaring, hurtful words were displayed in front of his eyes as the system rejected the fluke shot of him trading a piece of himself in order for him to gain the power, but apparently that was not how it worked, he couldn't just randomly trade for something from the system.

"Trade... HUH!" Mako gasped as an idea just clicked inside of his brain. He quickly reverted back to the main menu on the system interface and prayed with all his might that this last resort idea worked out.

He opened the tab that had always been disappointed by whenever he opened it, the shop tab.

The shop tab had been quite underwhelming and disappointing ever since Mako unlocked it as it never displayed anything that caught Mako's interest.

The daily shop would always display items so far out of Mako's reach that he felt that this was the way for the system to taunt him by showing how weak and poor he still was.

Additionally, the main shop always had the worst items for him. These items would have made powerless Mako from 4-5 months ago absolutely crazy but Mako already had the items that were presented in the main shop either of the same quality or better.

However, there was always one thing that did catch Mako's eye and that was that he could purchase the crystals that he had already encountered from time to time. Mako didn't want to spend his precious coins buying something that he might not need so he decided to save up until those things were needed and then he could purchase them from the store.

Mako was praying from the very depth of his soul that the main shop had Poison crystals for sale this time as it had been a while since he last checked the shop.

[Main Shop] ⓘ

[...] (..) ⓘ

[...] (..) ⓘ

[...] (..) ⓘ

[...] (..) ⓘ

[Medium tier Poison Crystal] (2 Bronze Coins) ⓘ