Job Hunt and Research

Within Merlin's laboratory, Merlin is doing some final checks on the method he finally picked for releasing the seal on Earth's mana.

"This is the best I can do in a disaster like this. I can only make it so that the majority of mana will gather in these points and the general populace won't be too affected by the mana. The mana will increase over time no matter what, but at least putting a few floodgates in front of it will be better than hoping some fool can make a magical ark again when the ocean of mana bursts out of that dam. I can't believe they thought that was a good idea at the time. 'Making sure all species survive' seems like a noble goal until you realize that all the tastiest species aren't going to survive that journey. Imbeciles."-Merlin sighs while muttering to himself.

Powering his laptop on, Matt checks his HeadNovel news feed. Just as a force of habit, he quickly scrolls through recent posts to see how everything is doing. He sees a lot of Get Well Soon messages from friends and family. He also notices a couple of friend requests from the Johnson's that he accepts immediately since they seemed to be nice people. On the side of his page is an ad for a large news station. The ad talks about mysterious disappearances around the world that may be linked to the occult. Normally such ads would be ignored by Matt, but with recent experiences he begins to skim through the article.

It looks like the disappearances started yesterday. Weird, why did they start on the same day I got hit by a car? I hope there's no relation between these strange events and that guy hitting me with his car. I'm also curious if they caught that guy, he is a public danger and needs to be locked up. He not only nearly killed me and Alice, but he ran from the scene too. How can any human treat another like this? People like this are animals, not humans. As his thoughts started to wander from the article, Matt sees another article about local disappearances. It seems even here there have been an increase in disappearances, not that this area has ever been considerably safe. Matt was born and raised in Miami, Florida. It has changed a lot over the years, with some areas being safer than others as is the case with most major cities. But even in the relatively safer areas of his city, the number of missing people under mysterious circumstances are high. I wonder if I should investigate this? There is a possibility that my friends and family could be affected if I don't and it's not like I'm a normal person anymore anyways.

*Ding* New Chain Mission Unlocked

Investigate the disappearances in your city.

Reward: Mystery Box x 5

That's just another reason for me to check it out. A normal person would probably be scared to do something like this, it's a bit strange for me to rush into it. Is that hardened mind perk affecting my mentality?

Appraisal

Hardened Mind- The strengthening of one's mentality. What others would consider a hard choice and hesitate over, you will quickly decide in a way that minimizes any regret you would feel over it. Increases base courage and adds resistance to mental debuff skills such as insanity and fear. Currently at stage 1.

Appraisal has leveled up to level 3. I've noticed that I get a more in depth description from appraisal now, that must be from leveling it up. I still need to put out some applications that will help me grow faster. I hate to say it but maybe my best bet is to join the cup heads in the war. That would definitely help me level up and I do have some bullet resistance but I would be stuck there for a couple years at the least. I could also go the route of a cop and it would help me investigate for my new mission. There's also the possibility of pest extermination, even if it wouldn't get me high quality in terms of XP it would make up for it with quantity right? *Sigh* What to do?