Mutagen

<strong>Day 29 – 1:15 AM – Mountain Base, Mount Malabito, General Nakar, Quezon</strong>

"Can you three see what is happening?"

Hallie asked.

Inside the women's quarters, Hallie, Nicole, Trisha and Jollene carefully peeked out of the window to see the situation outside their house. It was mostly Jollene and Hallie's idea though after hearing the sound of fighting from outside. After all, it was the routine told to them by Mark. In the case that the walls were broken through especially in a surprise attack, he would be the one to deal with it while they all hide. Unless that Mark was defeated, only then they would fight as they would have no other choice left.

It was because even though the walls were still unfinished, it was still sturdy enough to block weaker kinds of evolved animals and common infected. The ones able to break it or even scale the walls in a very short period of time were those enemies that could not be handled by a group of a single evolver, three injured people and three normal people. It would be better for Mark to handle those kinds of threat.

Now that they could hear sounds of fighting, Mark was surely out there dealing with the threat. It pushed their curiosity to the limit because they never seen Mark fight seriously before. They wanted to know the abilities of the leader of this base and watch him fight.

However, after the lightning strikes stopped and the clouds blanketed the sky, the surroundings became darker and harder for them to see. It was due to the fact that they did not put constant lighting at the vicinity of the base to prevent more animals, especially insects, from being attracted to the base in the middle of the night. They planned to continue this until the walls were done building.

"I can see a little."

Jollene said with a slight twinkle in her eyes.

Even though she could not see clearly, she could see the faint silhouette of Mark wielding his katana and was dealing with the only shaped humanoid silhouettes. She managed to see Mark vanishing and turning into mist before appearing somewhere else. Jollene also managed to catch a glimpse of the fight between Mark and the predator infected before the surroundings of the infected was covered with dark mist.

Even though she did not see what happened in the middle of the mist, she saw when the infected turned to escape only to get killed by Mark.

"OH! There's light! It's still blurry though."

Hallie exclaimed in disappointment when a source of light appeared after Mark created a [Physical Crystal] and made it absorb the ability of the predator infected.

"Hallie, it's blurry because you forgot to wear your glasses."

Nicole reprimanded her airheaded friend.

"Ah! Right! Where did I put it again?"

Hallie hurriedly went to find her glasses. She did not want to miss the next scenes.

The same was happening in the male's quarters and the three men also tried to watch what was happening outside but were not able to see anything clear.

Now that there was some source of light, they became more excited.

Amihan on the other hand saw everything and could not help but feel amazed by her Lord's prowess. She could not help but think if this was the reason why that phenomenon happened. After all, she never saw Mark use that kind of ability before and this time, he was fully relying on that ability making it feel that he was testing it.

***

Mark stood starting at the fused infected with the [Physical Crystal] behind him illuminating the surroundings as it absorbed the ability of the killed predator infected. This time, he was going to try something else as direct attacks was ineffective as this infected was not only agile with its fused body but its eyesight could cover three different directions at the same time due to its three heads.

Clenching his right fist, Mark concentrated on the [PsyCrystal] embedded on his wrist. It flashed with a glow and two purple colored crystals with glowing orbs inside flew out and rotated around his arm. One crystal had white glowing orb inside while the other had a bright bluish while orb inside with traces of electricity. The first one was the [Mental Crystal] with the military spy, Alderick's ability stored. The latter was the newly formed crystal which contained traces of lightning energy.

The arm, now with a faintly glowing crystal and two marble crystals rotating around it, was outstretched forward. With a flick of his mind, the [Mental Crystal] containing the [Photokinesis] ability flew and stopped as it suspended in front of Mark's arm before emitting a flash of blinding light.

The next thing that happened…

There was nothing.

Mark vanished from his position without any traces left.

The fused infected felt the threat and hurriedly exerted all its three heads in searching where the enemy was but found nothing. It could hear faint footsteps and the dirt, stone and the grasses rustling around but could not pinpoint were the source of sound was. It could hear in with its three heads and each head was facing a different direction. Its three pair of ears now became a disability as it could not find where the sounds were truly coming from.

As the three heads hear the sound coming from different directions, its body froze. Each of the head tried to control the body to respond to where the sounds was coming from but instead clashed with the commands of the other heads causing the body to unable to respond correctly. Instead, it caused it to twist its body parts in different directions.

CRACKLE!!! THOOM!!!

A loud crackling sound followed by a loud roar sounded as a rough jagged streak of bluish white light flashed heading towards the body of the infected. The light came from several meters away from the infected's right side. The infected managed to react and turn to face the attack but it was still late. That streak of high-voltage electricity hit the infected at the center of its body.

It let out an ear-piercing shriek as its body convulsed in pain. However, it did not die. The part of its body hit by the strike was severely burned but it was not fatal. Still, the attack depraved the infected of its movement. The infected fell on the ground convulsing while repeatedly letting out that painful shrieks using its three heads.

After the infected fell down, Mark appeared where the attack came from as if the veil that hid his body was uncovered. [Optical Camouflage], it was the one of the abilities a [Photokinetic] psychic could learn. It was the same ability Alderick used in order to deal with Mark and Odelina in the elementary school but failed miserably. He managed to use it by tapping in the ability stored in the [Mental Crystal] that stored the psychic ability.

The attack on the other hand was could be said as a [Lightning Bolt] Mark referenced in one of his favorite online games. Even though he was not sure about it, the energy that was stored inside a [Mental Crystal] should be a psychic ability. It made him think that he was given a freebie by evolving his ability and now, he had a [Mental Crystal] with [Electrokinesis] ability stored.

However, the lightning attack was surely hard to control. Mark planned to hit the two heads of the infected but hit its torso instead. It was not surprising though. Lightning strikes were always random and it was not his ability to begin with making the difficulty to control it several times harder. It was no wonder a certain [Electrokinetic] was using a coin to direct her long ranged attacks.

This was one of the few abilities of the [PsyCrystal]. As long as he had [Mental Crystals] that had psychic abilities stored, he could tap on the abilities of the crystals to use it. However, there were a lot of deficits in this.

First, he could only use a psychic ability for a limited amount of time. The time varied depending on how the ability was used. Each [Mental Crystal] could store psychic energy and all of them were at the same levels. How the ability stored was used could drain this energy faster or slower.

Second, the [Mental Crystals], once ran out of psychic energy, would need time to recharge and the charging time would also vary depending on the kind of energy it used. The charging time could be hastened if the needed energy was supplied. If left alone, a [Mental Crystal] would be fully charged for one and a half day up to two days. If it was in Eriellis, Freed's planet, however, the charging time would only take for about six hours due to the fact that their planet was filled with psychic energy after their planet had been devastated by the apocalypse.

Third, the psychic abilities were rather hard to control depending on the technique being used and the characteristic of the ability. Like how the [Lightning Bolt] missed his intended target.

Lastly, it the ability was not used correctly, it could damage the user which this time, was him. Actually, even though he was not too affected, his arm felt a little numb after releasing that [Lightning Bolt].

However, Mark was still optimistic of the result. After all, using an ability that was not his in the first place was already good. In the best case, he could just give these abilities to his most trusted people now that he could tap into the [PsyCrystal].

Unfortunately, he could not use the [Physical Crystals] in the same manner. Unlike the psychic abilities in the [Mental Crystals] that concerned more on energies and thinks without physical disturbance, the abilities in the [Physical Crystals] affect the body physically. Even if he tried to, it would not work as it needed mental energy to tap into the [Mental Crystals] but the [Physical Crystals] would not activate in that manner.

Mark looked at the two [Mental Crystals] floating and rotating around his arm. The glows had dimmed significantly but he could still use it in one round. Now, he needed to deal with the infected in front of him that unexpectedly had strong tenacity. Directly getting hit by that attack did not kill it and its charred torso had started to recover already.

If Mark waited for a bit more time, this infected would get back into shape.

"Now then… Let's try something like this."

He held his katana in his right hand pointing at the enemy that had already started to stand back up while staggering. Both crystals floating around his arm glowed at the same time as the last of the energy of both crystals were consumed.

PUFF!

His body vanished into thin dark mist. The wavy mist instantly arrived in front of the infected but Mark only materialized for a near split second before vanishing twice in front and above the infected before fully appearing at the back of the infected.

All that happened almost instantly and three puffs of dark mist exploded around the infected. The first puff suddenly released a beam of light while the second released a streak of electricity. Mark that appeared on the third puff of mist threw his katana forward.

BAM!!!

Three different attacks hit the infected. Each of the attack was aimed at its three heads. The beam of light pierced through its main head, the lightning strike hit the young child's head on its shoulder while the thrown katana pierced through the forehead of the woman's head at the back of the infected.

The three different attacks finally killed the infected that should have been able to contest Mark in a direct fight. Unfortunately, the [Lightning Bolt] Mark did while in [Optical Camouflage] deprived the infected of its ability to move making it a sitting duck waiting to be slaughtered.

Along with a loud thud, the infected fell on the ground.

The [PsyCrystal] flashed a light and stored the two drained [Mental Crystals] before three pebbles tore through the three heads of the infected. All of the pebbles flew into the crystal and created another [Physical Crystal] with another extra pebble.