"What is it, sergeant?" The main commander asked.
"Sir, I was observing the group that you had assigned me and I just observed one of the girls' eyes glow white as she was fighting other cadets!" The sergeant replied.
The entire room went silent as everyone focused on what the sergeant was saying.
"Erin Robinson had resonated her wind and water abilities to obtain the ice ability within the last 24 hours and for some unknown reason, she has already awakened her Mutant Ice Gene too." The sergeant explained.
The silence and shock on everyone's faces showed that this was a pretty serious thing and one that was very rare. A holoscreen instantly appeared in front of the main commander which was showing the replay of the battle that had just occurred, but the footage was mostly focused on Erin.
Right after defeating the first boy, she turned around and could see the blade of fire about to hit Iris. At that moment, her eyes turned white and began to glow and she dashed forward with insane speed toward them and was able to raise an ice wall just in the nick of time to protect Iris.
They watched as Erin's eyes continued to shine brighter as she addressed the three cadets with a threatening tone and then launched a devastating attack with the assistance of her ally and was able to defeat all three of them in one hit.
The footage replay came to an end just as Erin had defeated the three cadets and her eyes returned back to normal. The entire room was still speechless as they couldn't believe that they would see such an advanced-level technique show itself during the recruitment test.
Mutant genes were basically part of a person's DNA that were modified when they learned an ability. This was something that wasn't revealed to the public as it was extremely rare to awaken at such a low level of power and such information would only prompt people to try and forcefully awaken their mutant genes which would cause all sorts of accidents and mishaps.
When a person discovers and learns to control their ability, a part of their DNA is permanently altered, creating a mutation. The specific mutations vary depending on the person and the ability that they have learned, but all of them are represented through the glowing of the eyes.
There are several different stages of utilizing mutant genes and each granting the user a different level of power boost with the first stage being the glowing of the eyes.
The mutant genes remain dormant until the individual has reached a certain level of mastery or understanding over their ability. This mastery is typically achieved through extensive training and practice and requires a deep understanding of their power.
Once the individual has gained this mastery, they can activate their mutant gene, which provides an immense boost in power and ability. This boost allows the individual to perform feats that would otherwise be impossible for them to do at their level of power.
However, activating the mutant gene also came with risks. The immense power and energy unleashed by the mutant gene could be difficult to control and maintain for a long period of time, and their regeneration speed is entirely dependent on the person but is generally quite slow, so people even at the FALCON rank use it as a last resort.
Overall, mutant genes were a very strong and powerful force, allowing individuals to gain incredible abilities and become formidable forces to be reckoned with.
Awakening a mutant gene at the cadet rank was already a great achievement, but what left all the officials scratching their heads was the fact that Erin was able to awaken the mutant gene of the ability that she had obtained just a couple of hours ago.
"It seems that Cadet Grey has surrounded himself with some unique and talented individuals. I can't wait to see what Master Sable thinks of this bunch, once he sees them," The main commander said with a smile.
He relieved the sergeant with the task of watching this group as they had surprised them many times, and from now on the main commander, himself would watch them and see what else did they have in store for him.
*************
Despite their best efforts, the cadets were quickly overwhelmed. One by one, they fell to the ground, defeated. The cadet leader was the last one standing, but even he knew that he couldn't win. He raised his hands in surrender and the group of five surrounded him.
"Okay, okay, I'll tell you what's going on," the cadet leader said, panting heavily. "We were inside the shelter that we built near a stream nearby and about an hour ago, we received a notification through the information tablet,"
"The notification was about a limited-time looting event as a single golden loot crate has appeared somewhere on the west mountain as well as five purple loot crates and fifteen blue loot crates."
"We were running low on supplies and all the weapons that you took from us were the ones that either we brought or found from the regular loot crate and none of them are too good. We were hoping to get a head start and be the first ones here since we were already so close to the mountain and be able to locate the golden loot crate first which would help increase our odds of survival by a lot." The cadet Leader explained.
The group exchanged looks, realizing this was a much bigger deal than they anticipated. They had no idea that an event like this had been initiated and this further cemented the fact that they needed to get a shelter built ASAP. They couldn't just continue to wander around the island while others would receive information through the tablets near their shelter.
"Thanks for telling us," Mako said, lowering his lightning aura. "You could have just told us that from the very beginning and avoided all of this pointless fighting."
The cadet leader nodded, understanding that the group was indeed not lying about anything. They said that they just wanted to know what was going on and as soon as he told them, they backed off. If only he wasn't so aggressive and hostile toward them, then all of them could have come out of this uninjured.
Mako and the rest of the group huddled around each other and began to discuss how they were going to proceed forward because now that they knew that the mountain would become a hotspot for cadets, they had to move even more carefully and reach their destination quickly before it gets claimed by another group.
As the Mako was discussing things with his group, the cadet leader tried to wake up his friends that were knocked out during the fight, but it looked like they were completely knocked out cold with no chance of waking up soon, especially the ones that Erin had dealt with.
Without any delay, several patrolling officers made it to the scene, appearing out of nowhere. They started assembling a couple of those portable stretchers and laid the knocked-out cadets on top of them.
At first, the cadet leader was saddened that all his friends were knocked out and that he would have to stay and guard them until they woke up again which would leave them venerable and behind everyone else, but now his sadness was turning into fear and panic as he realized that he would now be left alone as all seven of his friends were being laid on the stretchers and transported off the island.
The cadet leader tried to plead to the officer to try and let his friends still compete in the test, but he blatantly refused, saying that they all had received internal injuries which required urgent medical attention and he wasn't in the position to provide them all with healing pills.
At record speed, the patrolling officers had done their job and quickly gone out of sight. The cadet was left alone in the woods with no one by his side. He turned toward where Mako's group was before only to see that they had also left the scene as well.
The cadet leader couldn't believe that a single bad decision had made it so that they had completely lost all their advantage in the test and it was likely that he would get eliminated soon as well by either a scary beast or another group of less forgiving cadets.
*************
Mako and the group had decided to pick up the pace and start sprinting up the mountain. The mountain was quite tall and it would have taken a regular human with hiking experience 3-4 hours to climb all the way to the top, but since they were ability users with superior bodies, they were able to reduce that time by a lot.
If the cadet leader was to be believed, then it was still quite early and the majority of people would still be trying to make their way to the mountain which meant that they still had a head start. They would use this time efficiently to make it to their ideal location before anyone else and start constructing their shelter.
With two Earth ability users, the construction wasn't going to take too long, and once they had finished, they could begin looking for the loot crates that were scattered all over the mountain.
Just as everyone was sprinting up the mountain, Mako had the Analyze skill activated which allowed him to read all the different things he was passing by, and it just so happens that a particular prompt caught his attention and forced him to stop running.
Seeing as Mako had stopped running, the others stopped as well, not knowing why but they trusted Mako's judgment as his intuition was never wrong.
[Analyze]
[Purple Tier Loot Crate]
