Chapter 405
Chapter 405
Each of Jake’s three attributes governed one of his vital stats. With Body at 250, he had a total of 350,000 hit points. With Magick at 300, his mana pool reached 400,000 points.
As for Mind, it was at 207, which resulted in 318 command points, also known as creature points. Each of Jake’s creatures required a certain number of command points (CP) to maintain, depending on their type and strength.
The total number of larvae he could have was determined by the Rank of the lair they belonged to. At Rank VIII, his ten‑story lair and the Apex Hollow could each support up to 75 larvae.
The three basic creatures, the spider, the roach, and the fly, didn’t require any CP at all. This was likely because they were very weak and served mainly as basic starting forms for developing more advanced monsters.
As for the creatures Jake designed and evolved himself, such as the Ten‑legged Acid‑spitting Crawler, the Wingclaw, the Arachnnox, and the others, each used up a certain number of command points. His very first crawler was small and closely resembled the spider it was developed from, so it didn’t require any CP at all at that stage.
But after its evolution into more advanced forms, the crawler’s command point requirement rose from 1 to 2 and now stood at 3 CP per crawler. Wingclaws also required 3 CP each, while managatherers and tentacle traps needed 2 CP per creature.
So, CP basically meant his total “creature capacity”. Each type of creature took up a certain number of CP within his limit, depending on how powerful or large it was: small creatures consumed 1 CP each, medium-sized creatures 2 CP, and large beasts 3 CP.
In other words, CP functioned like a deployment cost or unit value, limiting how many forces he could field at once. It stood to reason that even bigger creatures, like the Kaiju-like monster he planned to develop, would require even more CP.
At the moment, Jake had a maximum capacity of 318 CP, and the combined CP requirements of all his creatures could not exceed that limit. The total CP for all the creatures under his command was currently 253, leaving him with just 65 CP before hitting his maximum. It definitely wasn’t a large amount to work with.
But reducing the number of Managatherers or Arachnnoxes wasn’t an option, as they were vital to his lairs, gathering mana and biomatter, respectively. The same was true for creatures assigned to guard his lairs or spy on humans. While these roles consumed a significant portion of his available CP, they were too important to cut back on.
So, considering he had only 65 CP available, his active army of monsters could consist of only 21 creatures, given that the unit value of his main combat forces, crawlers and wingclaws, was 3 each. To expand the size of his active army and increase the total number of creatures he could control at any given time, he would need to invest more points into his Mind attribute, which determined his overall Command Point capacity.
Anyway, having lost every combat unit in the recent fight against the Mantiscor, he now needed to rebuild his forces. Closing his eyes, he reached out through the mental link to every Nexus Hive in his lairs, instructing them to develop ten crawlers and eleven wingclaws, a total of twenty-one beasts ready to serve him. The orders echoed across the network, setting his creation engines into motion.
It was time to invoke Restoration to allow his body to slip into slumber while the hives worked tirelessly. By the time he awoke, the new combat units would have been developed and ready for action.
Jake was just about to activate the skill when the steady thrum of rotor blades cut through the air, low and deliberate. A helicopter swept over the rooftop of his lair. It was nothing unheard of, of course, and probably unrelated to him. Yet curiosity gnawed at him. He had to know where it was going. Without hesitation, he ascended the upper floors until he emerged onto the windswept roof.
Upon scanning his surroundings, he spotted two choppers moving away from his lair in a northeast direction. Even though by that point, the helicopters had already put some distance between themselves and his lair, his exceptional sight allowed him to make out a red emblem painted on their sides, two arrows enclosed within a circle.
It was the symbol Catalina had created for her group. By now, each of the three strongholds had its own distinctive emblem to set them apart. Melissa’s group bore a simple dark‑blue image of a clenched fist, while Samantha’s group displayed an orange torch. Each leader marked all of their vehicles with their respective emblems, and many members also wore them proudly, sewn or painted onto their clothing, most often on the back.
Jake’s eyes followed the two helicopters from Catalina’s group as they cut through the night sky. Where could they be heading at this hour? The world above was a blanket of black, dotted with countless stars, and the distant hum of rotors was swallowed by the stillness.
Driven by curiosity, he sprinted across the rooftop at his top speed. At the building’s edge, he launched himself across the gap, landing with barely a sound on the adjacent roof. Without pause, he bolted toward the next roof, channeling mana into his powerful legs as he readied himself for another long jump.
For a little while, he followed the two helicopters, leaping from building to building and keeping pace with them. Soon, he began to get a sense of where the two choppers were headed. They were definitely moving toward a section of the city swallowed by the Ravage Contamination.
Jake knew that if their destination lay deep inside that blighted zone, he would have great difficulty keeping up with them. The region was infested with nests. He knew that once he drew near, the nests would awaken, unleashing swarms of ravagespawn to intercept him. Even if he resisted the urge to fight, their sheer numbers would bog him down, threatening to slow down his pursuit.
Fortunately, the two helicopters showed no intention of pushing far into the contaminated zone. Instead, they eased their speed as they neared a newly formed nest on the edge of the contamination zone.
The choppers came to a hover at a safe distance from the nest, which had once been a five‑story, box‑shaped building. Now twisted and claimed by the infection’s blight, the building was engulfed by the living tissue that clung to every surface. The organic matter throbbed with an eerie rhythm as if the infection itself had a heartbeat.
Jake realized the helicopters were going to try to destroy the nest. Curious to see if they would succeed, he found a perch along the edge of a building half a block away from the nest and the two helicopters hovering above it and settled in to watch as the scene prepared to erupt into action.