He needed to locate an elite mutant. The problem was that elite ex-humans were much less common than their regular counterparts. He searched the city for a while before he finally came across an elite leaper in one of the high-rise buildings.
The elite leaper was surrounded by a group of regular walkers and leapers. Jake engaged them, making sure to avoid the elite leaper’s attacks. The ex-human was itching for a fight, shoving regular mutants out of the way as it tried to reach Jake. At one point, he launched a cinch net at the elite leaper before turning his full attention to the regular mutants.
When the fight ended, he approached the elite leaper lying on the floor, tightly wrapped in the cinch net. Being much stronger than regular ex-humans, the elite leaper struggled against the restraints with fierce abandon. Still, it couldn’t tear apart the tight cinch net, no matter how hard it tried.
Hoisting the captured mutant over his shoulder, Jake exited the building. As he jogged back to his lair, the elite leaper’s thrashing didn’t stop for even a second. Snarling and hissing, it bucked its body, driving its knees into his chest and slamming its forehead against his back. Jake endured the discomfort with great resilience, though.
Finally, he was back in his lair. He approached the Extractor and shoved the elite leaper into the inner chamber. After the front transparent door slid shut, he called up the structure’s stats.
Subject: Ex-Human Leaper (Elite)
Obtainable Resources:
Predatory Mutant Enzyme (x1) (Unique Material)
Extract Resources: Y/N (Cost: 2,500 MP)
He remembered that a regular walker yielded only 30 Brain Matter and 25 Rigidbone, without any unique materials. He activated the structure, and the extraction process began.
Next, he turned his attention to the Creation Chamber and retrieved the current stats for a ten-legged crawler.
Name: Ten-legged Crawler (Common)
Strength: 16% (Common)
Constitution: 17% (Common)
Agility: 20% (Common)
Intelligence: 19% (Common)
Special abilities: None
He had recently purchased three special abilities that could be imparted to the creature. The chamber within the Creation Chamber was currently empty. To create the next evolution form for the ten-legged crawler, he first needed to create one via the Hive Nexus and then instruct it to crawl inside the Creation Chamber.
Still, Jake wondered if he could add one of the recently unlocked special abilities to the crawler’s stats so that the information would be memorized for further evolution. He decided to try it. However, as soon as he gave the command, a system message surged into his mind.
You can’t just impart a special ability to a creature. It can only be done during the evolution to the next rank, and your creature must be of at least Uncommon rarity to receive its first special ability.
Each time you want to give your creature a new special ability, it needs to be raised to the next rarity level. This requires that all its attributes are of the same rarity level.
Conversely, if you want to evolve your creature to the next Rank without increasing its rarity level, only certain attributes need to be raised to a specific mark. For this, the rarity of those attributes must be upgraded to the next rarity level. Additionally, a specific unique material must be provided.
It made sense that he couldn’t give a specific creature an unlimited amount of special abilities. Even if he could grant his crawler one special ability per Rank, it would’ve ended up with ten abilities, which still seemed excessive for a single creature.
To prevent him from creating an overpowered creature, the System restricted him to assigning only one special ability to a creature per rarity level. The good thing was that he could design as many various types of creatures as he wanted. He was only limited by his imagination and the amount of resources he could gather.
He then checked the requirements that needed to be fulfilled before the ten-legged crawler could be evolved to Rank II.
The ten-legged crawler’s Agility was currently 20%. He needed to raise it to 25% before he could evolve the spider to Rank II. To increase the spider’s Agility beyond the 20% mark, he had to elevate the rarity of this attribute from Common to Uncommon, and to do that, he had to provide a specific unique material.
He wondered if the System could specify which material he needed. He mentally posed the question, and to his pleasant surprise, the answer immediately popped into his head.
Agility: 20% (Common)
Required Material for Rarity Upgrade: Predatory Mutant Enzyme (x3)
The rare material the Extractor was currently obtaining from the elite leaper was indeed the one needed to elevate a creature’s Agility rarity from Common to Uncommon. It made sense that such a material was sourced from a leaper, as leapers were known for their remarkable speed and agility.
Jake turned his attention to the Hive Nexus and instructed it to develop a ten-legged spider. He planned to evolve this creature into its next form after gathering all the required rare materials.
He then glanced back at the Extractor, still extracting materials from the elite leaper. Jake believed there should be a special structure to store various materials obtained from mutants. However, the Extractor had its own inner compartment for storage, similar to how the Biomass Processor could store biomass when no external storage was available.
So when the Extractor finished obtaining the Brain Matter, Rigidbone, and Predatory Mutant Enzymes from the elite leaper, these materials would be stored within the structure for future use.
Confident that various elite mutants yielded different unique materials, Jake chose to venture outside once more. While the Extractor was busy gathering resources from the elite leaper and the Hive Nexus was creating the crawler, he wanted to find more elite mutants to capture.
So he resumed roaming the streets in search of another type of elite mutant. At one point, he received two notifications: one informing him that the Extractor had finished gathering materials from the elite leaper, and the other notifying him that the Hive Nexus had completed the development of the ten-legged crawler.
However, he didn’t want to return to his lair empty-handed, so he continued to scour the city for other types of elite mutants.