Mutagen

<strong>Day 30 – 10:52 AM – Mount Malabito, General Nakar, Quezon</strong>

The night had passed and now, Mark was watching everyone test their newly acquired abilities as Evolvers. Fortunately, none of them needed Mark's, Hallie's or even Jollene's intervention in order to succeed like how Mark helped Iola back then. Everyone made it smoothly though they suffered from pain and fever for almost half of the day.

During their period of suffering, Mark was able to observe more things about how human evolution with Mutagen being the catalyst proceeded.

Like he theorized before, the span of time a person needed to finish the enhancements of their bodies varied but it was not all. Even the pain and temperature of fever also varied depending on the abilities they were developing at that time. Back then, he only observed the changes of Mei and Iola which evolved at different times creating the deficit of information. Now however, he was able to observe three people ongoing with their evolution inside one confined space.

During their changes, Trisha unexpectedly had the worst time. Her whole body was shivering and she was even moaning horribly of pain. From time to time, she even trashed her body around. This caused him to get off from his intended work and go back to help with the situation. Even though his empathic ability was not fully recovered yet, in the least, he could alleviate the pain she was feeling by channeling that white positive energy he could emit and transfer by direct contact.

Nicole also had a rather painful one. Her legs were shivering as she lay down. Even though her forehead was dripping of sweat, her condition was way better than Trisha.

Huey on the other hand was rather too peaceful. If not for Huey's fever, Mark would have thought that he failed. It was rather strange but it seemed that he was only occasionally moving his head in pain as he undergone his evolution.

Now, they were conducting tests on their abilities just about a distance away from the mountain base.

Hallie's ability had already been seen but was still not tested in action. This time, she was planting her palm on the surface of a dead tree. The process took time as her palm accumulated enough heat but it could be seen that during the process, the part of the tree she was touching started to emit smoke. At the end of the process, that part she was touching burst into flames.

At what Mark had seen, her ability was not that useful in combat since she needed to charge her ability for a bit but in terms of livelihood and survival, it was excellent. She could control the heat of her palms to from a warm fever temperature to a degree were she could burst the oxygen in the air. If the temperature was maintained to a tolerable degree, she might be able to handle shortening the process needed in drying food, meat and even the hides. One more important thing was that she would be able to remove moisture inside needed materials with her ability making Mark able to produce more weapon and equipment that was not only made of [Blood Metal].

Turning towards Nicole, her body especially her lower limbs was strengthened. Her mobility, strength, jumping height, flexibility and impact absorption of her legs and feet was fully enhanced. In terms of jumping height, she could even jump higher than Mark even if he supplemented his body with adrenaline. Furthermore, she could land either hardly or softly if she wanted to.

If trained properly, she would be a good scout. Along with her new pet, she could class up from a normal Evolver into a Beast Tamer in one go! There was a huge problem though. She was rather bad at falling and jumping down at great heights. The first thing the she needed to improve on was enduring not to shout in fear as she fall down since her body knew how to land properly by reflex after all.

Huey who had undergone a peaceful time Evolving actually had an amazing change. In his physical aspect, he improved a bit but his changes did not lie on strength or speed. It was with his five senses. Taste, Smell, Touch, Sight and Hearing, all of these five was enhanced. [Heightened Sensory Perception], it sounded like a side effect of an illegal drug but it was the best words that could describe Huey's ability.

Because of this, Mark could leave the guarding of the base to him as his perception, especially his hearing and sight, could cover up to a hundred diameter area around him. With the base having about fifty by fifty meters area, he could basically cover the whole base under his perception and still have another fifty meters outside the base to detect intruders and enemies.

And last was Trisha, who unexpectedly received an overall increase in physical aspects. Although the increase did not reach the level of Nicole's ability, Trisha's lower limbs had about half of Nicole's strength, jumping ability and speed. Trisha's physical strength, speed and metabolism were fully enhanced overall at the same level. The most important part however was how her senses perception around her was also enhanced. Not at Huey's level and was way weaker but it would be able to help at most situations.

In terms of fighting aspects, she was an all-rounder and would be effective in position in a group whether she needed to fight in close combat or fight in the rear.

In Mark's eyes, these guys were good seedling to be nurtured. It could be said that the members of this group were characters in a very efficient and well balanced RPG party.

Nicole as scout, Jollene as the main fighter, Huey as the Support, Trisha as the all-rounder and Hallie as the magician, that was the structure of their party.

Amihan on his shoulder watched the results of her Lord's activities with gleaming eyes. Although she did not voice it, she also wanted one but Mark did not want to give her a [Physical Crystal]. The reason was because it was a high concentration of Mutagen and was suited for human use. Amihan on the other hand was not human and her body was too small.

Unexpectedly, Mark had not told her about the [Mental Crystals] yet. It was not because he was being secretive but rather, he was being stingy.

The number of [Mental Crystals] was too few and only one crystal could be created once a year. Even though he had ideas he wanted to experiment in order to have more [Mental Crystals] he was not able to try it yet. However, if he succeeded, Mark would not hesitate even if he needed to give Amihan two.

He never told anyone but he had suspected that Psychic Infected would appear in the future, no, not only infected but also humans. Because of that, he needed a few extra [Mental Crystals] in order to "harvest" their abilities especially the psychic abilities the hostile humans had.

As for Freed's request to find the inheritors and retrieve the psychic abilities when being used in evil ways, he was not worried about lacking [Mental Crystals] from them. He only needed to kill them to make the ability lose its host and use the [Psycrystal] to turn the ability back into its crystal vessel. After all, it came from the crystal. It was the same for him. If he died, the [Psycrystal] would retrieve the ability he inherited from Freed before the [Psycrystal] would fly off to find the inheritor of Keeper who was Iola according to Freed.

***

While Hallie's group was happy about the bounty they received, the two men back at the mountain base felt rather left out.

"We're alone together again aren't we?"

Ron could not help but sigh looking around the base that was devoid of people except for him and Ed.

Yesterday, for some reason, Mark called unto everyone excluding these two men.

"You're at it again?"

Ed asked since this was not the first time Ron was moping around about being lonely and left out.

Ron looked at Ed with an awkward expression. Although he was aware of it, he could not stop and would occasionally remark about these things.

He was a person with a thin presence and was always left out by other people. It was not like they did not see or avoided him but they just tend to forget him most of the time. With a life like that, it was already a miracle that he was able to marry and have a child. His little girl was seven this year and he took them to a vacation but ended up being caught up in this mess of a zombie apocalypse.

In the end after the outbreak first struck the hotel, he lost his wife and child. They were about to check out in the lobby that morning when they saw a lot of people who seemed to be waiting for their busses and at the same time, the commotion started. Bloody, shocked and afraid, they were able to escape back into their room in the first floor of the hotel. However, it was already late. His beloved wife and child were bleeding with bites on their arms and shoulder.

The moment he closed the door of the room, his wife attacked him and her child soon after. At that time, he could not kill his wife and child that had already turned and thus, escaped and trapped her turned family inside that same room they spent their nights during this vacation trip.

His family did not make it but Ron was still alive. He decided to live and keep the memories of his family alive in his mind.

"Escape. Don't die."

"Daddy, it's painful."

Those two sentences were the last words they said to him. Thinking about it made him feel lonelier.

"Stop making that face alright?" Ed tried to cheer Ron up. "We're on the same boat here. Unlike those five, we're on a different standing. The only thing we can do is to work wholeheartedly and gain their trust. That way, they won't leave us out like this anymore."

"How naïve."

Ron smiled at Ed.

"Yeah, I get that a lot." Ed let out a single laugh. "Well, at least it's likely to work. Besides, I don't think that you're a bad person so it will work out."

Then, Ed's expression turned serious.

"Actually, I wanted to stay here not because I have nowhere to go or afraid of dying. Dying while fighting… I think that it's better than living a dog's life. However, my guts tell me that I will earn more staying here than leaving."

Ed then turned his head towards the direction where the others were supposed to be training while Ron earnestly listened to him.

"Boss Mark… He's a strange but a strong existence don't you think?"

"Yeah. He got that fairy, those slime children, he's not just strong physically but also had superpowers. He's really strange but strong."

Ron replied while Ed nodded.

"He's strange while he had the strength but he never forced us on unreasonable things. He also did not force himself to the girls unlike how Jefferson behaved. If you ask me, he's a rather good person. He had the ability to dominate but he never misused his powers. Still, he's a scary person but it did not mean that it's bad to stay here. If we go to other places, I don't think that well have a good time and encounter someone like him."

Ed stood up and picked up his shovel.

"Come on. We still have to dig more holes."

"Alright."

Unknown to the two… Everything they talked about was heard by Huey. Huey suddenly smiled. If this was the case, it was good that the people in the base wanted everything to work out.

Mark already told them that he would be leaving in about two or three days and that was why they put importance in their training under him. His boss was going to the settlement where they initially wanted to go to see the situation and find more people to work at the base if he was able to. During that time, the security and management of the base would fall in his hands. He should not disappoint his benefactor.

"Jollene, let's spar!"

Huey enthusiastically called unto Jollene. Since his perception was enhanced, he should at least be able to keep up to her movements.

"Are you sure?"

Jollene asked with both worry and enthusiasm.

"Sure! I'm ready to go."

The two sparred for a bit and Huey was defeated miserably after moves.