PUD

They entered the helicopter on the school grounds itself. Having located on the soccer field.

"So what do I do? I haven't asked mom and dad first?" Yuan asked perturbed. He didn't know what to do.

"I will handle it myself. We will tell your parents later, as for now, we will hurry up to the academy," he said to him a hurry.

Yuan then entered the helicopter and they closed the door with a slam. The swats then watched him in curiosity. On his tablet, he was watching the lists of prospective students of the academy.

"Yuan Subaru Smith. The genius copycat? Is that really you?" asked their IT.

Yuan just raised his shoulders and his hands leveled on his head. The soldiers soon were chuckling.

They soon flew towards the Academy and they passed by the cities. Yuan saw on the window side the running civilians and zombies scattered like ants below. Others were pouncing and leaping at humans as they ate their flesh.

"Oh, my Dad and mom! Are they safe? I forgot about asking for their safety!" Yuan protested.

"They are safe, we already rescued them," assured the Captain.

"The others?" he asked.

"Well, we can't save everyone with our numbers. Just the students and their parents, We are already evacuating half the people of our country to the underground shelters. But the ones under infected areas, well we are sorry for them. And it is just the first day of infection. How much more of a week? A month? Nobody knows," he said with a weak voice.

They soon arrived at the academy. Turns out, it was an island. Barricaded with high walls all around.

They soon landed and then saw the school. It was more of a military camp than a school.

Yuan arrived and walked out of the helicopter then saw his fellow candidates. Well, they were mostly his age and some were looking at him with a proud looks. Thinking that they can beat him up or talent that they possess too.

Many individuals were already exercising and were sweating out their boredom. Yuan was impressed with how hard-working they were.

It was then, a woman in a suit approached him. Carried a tablet with her then fixed her eyeglasses.

The helicopter then started to rev its rotor blades and left. Maybe more were still going to be recruited. Yuan went to the side as it was windy with the helicopter leaving. She then guided him inside the building.

"I am Islinda, you are Yuan Subaru Smith right?" she asked politely.

"Yeah," Yuan said in a hesitant voice.

"And you are a genius copycat?" she was curious.

"I don't know how that rumor has reached you. All I did was beat all the athletes in our school. Whether it be on physical sports or mental sports," Yuan was a bit hesitant to tell more.

"Ah, I see, well as there are still more to arrive. Please sit," she said then the lights went on.

He saw a room full of chairs and it looked like a briefing room if Yuan won't make a mistake.

"I will give you a device that will help you while killing zombies. Killing more, the better. It will absorb the essence from the zombies you killed and convert it to upgrade points like stats. Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Focus. I suggest that you have to treasure each point," she then gave him a rugged phone that was built for bad weather.

"What do I do with this?" Yuan asked.

"Looks like a rugged phone,"

"I present you the PUD. It is called a Personal Upgrade Device. It will collect Zombie essence from your body and upgrade your stats. It is called the upgrade phenomenon where your absorbed zombie essence is converted.

"And the zombies have essences that are discovered by our research team. It was a tremendous discovery that gave us hope to fight this plague," She said.

Islinda paused and grabbed a device that looks like a smartphone. He handed it to Yuan and Yuan grabbed it. It looks like a thick device that has a camera and a screen. In its back was a miniature solar panel.

"How do I use this? What is this PUD in the first place?" Yuan asked him knowing that it was not a smartphone.

"Press the fingerprint sensor and it will be automatically registering you as the owner," She explained.

"Okay that is easy," Yuan said then pressed the circular button on its front screen just at the bottom.

To Yuan, it was like a home button. He pressed it and he was stung by a needle in the forefinger.

"Ouch! What is that?" He shouted as he lets go of the device.

Blood was spilled on the fingerprint button and Yuan sucked his finger.

"It registered your blood to imprint you as the user by your DNA itself," Islinda explained.

Marlin was impressed and then looked at the PUD. He saw a profile sheet on the screen and entered his name, age, and blood type.

"It was handed from the Inventors faction to the other friendly factions fighting this plague. It will serve as your ID and companion.

"It can serve as a radio, Gps, clock, alarm, flashlight, heat sensor, and night vision camera.

"It can be attached to your battle suit at the nape, facing the solar panel to the sun to charge while moving. Or attach it in your hand while combatting," Islinda said.

"Wow, that is awesome! This is mine? I love it!" Yuan said in glee.

Looking at its back and front. He smiled like never before.

"It is waterproof and shockproof. Now we are not yet on the best part," She said to them.

Yuan looked at her and was silent. Waiting to know more about the device.

"Go to the Upgrades and press the collect essence," Islinda said.

Marlin without second thoughts, Pressed [Upgrades], and [Collect essence]. Immediately, he felt that something was being sucked from him.

He can see steam getting out of his body and it was sucked by the PUD. After it, he saw that the PUD was getting his essence.

"I have zombie essence?" Yuan blurted out.

"The essence that your body has sucked from the undead will be converted to your enhancements," Islinda explained.

He saw that a bar was getting full and he saw that it went to level one.

[Extraction complete]

A chart of Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, and Focus was just below the bar and it all went up to one.

[Would you like to assign points manually?]

[Yes] or [No?]

[If yes, then you will remain Level one and the rest essence will be saved to your essence points]

[If no, then your essence points will be put into your initial stats]

"Yes is my answer," Marlin puts his fingers on the button.

.....

Statistics

Level 1 [Plus 1 to all stats]

Strength: +1

Dexterity: +1

Endurance: +1

Focus: +1

Essence points: 20

...

Yuan felt lighter than before and his burdens and shackles were all now gone. He was in deep thought and was thinking.

'Twenty points to the essence? That means I will be level 6 if I choose no. Or is it?' Marlin thought.

"What level are you?" Linda asked.

"Level one," Yuan replied.

"So you chose to manually spend it. Well, you can receive points when extracting essence every time you've hit a level. Every level up was four essence points.

"It's up to you if you want to convert it to level or essence points. But every level up was an immediate plus to the stats. Choose carefully when spending your points. It was far more precious than diamonds," Islinda said.

"Well, that wraps it up. Thank you for teaching me. I will save my points. Does my stat means it was only one or it was a plus to my base stat that was what I have currently?" Yuan asked concerned.

"That was just a plus to your stats. You can rest assured that your performance was not lowered but heightened," Islinda said.

"Oh really? Haha, that was reassuring. I can make a necklace out of this," Yuan said.

Yuan tweaked his new device and used all its functions. He examined the explanations of each stat and was reading it.

.....

[Stats explained]

Strength

–the power of muscles in general. It was the stat used when dealing with melee damage or the capacity to carry armor/ backpack/guns/weapons.

Dexterity

–involves the reaction time, attack speed of melee attacks, movement speed, precision, evasion chance, and critical chance.

Endurance

–the capacity to handle pain, health capacity, stamina capacity, defense, and resistance.

Focus

–increases the abilities of the person in critical times. The mental state to be able to work under pressure. Triggering chance of mental ability. Protecting sanity and willpower. The capacity to enhance intelligence. Affecting wits and memory power.

...

He thought of experimenting with the device furthermore. He puts one point each to his stats and his level rose to level two.

....

Statistics

Level 1 [Plus 2 to all stats]

Strength: +2

Dexterity: +2

Vitality: +2

Focus: +2

Essence points: 16

....

[You will Level up every Plus 20 of all stats]

.....

Yuan felt empowered as he put points to his statistics. He felt that something invisible went inside him and he felt lighter.

'So that's it! If the lowest number is two and it was all evenly two. I can make other points and put it all into strength but it will still be level two.

'But if my points are all evenly distributed, it will make my level rise higher. The yes or no button is pretty reasonable, to begin with. It was pretty much the same.

'But if you want to specialize in strength, you can put it all into strength. But your level won't be affected. Wow, this is interesting.

'Now I need to farm more essence. Maybe in the future. Does this device get its battery drained or something? I don't see a plug to charge it like my phone. Well, let's just hope it doesn't get drained,' Yuan said in his mind.