Pursuit

Jumping between tree branches, a small glimmer could be seen in the early morning.

*Bzzzz*

*Clang*

Brandon was jumping between trees, propelling himself with the power of thunder, and attacking at times.

It all started in the early morning with Brandon resting on a branch. He started doing an exercise he learned at summer school that allowed one to sleep while remaining semi-conscious.

It was obvious that he lacked experience since he could be seen sleeping soundly.

Deep in his dream, Brandon heard buzzing that he didn't know where it was coming from. Suddenly, he opened his eyes.

Making as little noise as possible, he leaned his body towards the edge of the branch and looked down.

A group of bees that were no smaller than him in size could be seen. He had forgotten a fundamental rule, "Blood and corpses attract more beasts".

He took his backpack without making much noise and put on his mask. He was going to stay still, as they might leave, but he preferred to be safe and have everything in case something happened.

As if it was a blessing from heaven, while looking down, a bee approached him from behind. A chill ran down his spine and when he turned his body to look, he found the bee buzzing towards him.

This bee had blue and black stripes, distinguishing it as a low-class beast due to its blue stripes.

The bee attacked with its stinger, causing Brandon to recoil and fall out of the branch.

*Creak*

The branch where Brandon was located broke, making a noise that alerted the others.

In free fall, he turned his body in the air and landed on a branch, giving him an impulse to start running.

If they were crickets, he could ideate a plan and attack, but these were bees that were faster and more powerful than crickets, and at the same time, they could fly.

Brandon reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. This was the card that was given to him at the general market. Imbuing his energy into the card, it activated and brought with it a compass.

He was told at the general market that on the first floor of the hunting dimension, they had several headquarters in different shelters.

Brandon adjusted the direction he was jumping in to head towards where the compass was pointing.

Soon he was caught up by the bees, so he had to worry about running, dodging, and attacking.

When a bee approached, he attacked, but more and more bees kept coming. They were slowly cornering him.

He noticed this, so he used more energy to get a bigger impulse. He was able to get further away from the pursuers, but only the blue-striped bees were left behind.

More than 20 red-striped bees were chasing Brandon, but suddenly 3 yellow-striped bees positioned themselves in front of the red-striped bees.

"High-level bees, and three of them," Brandon was amazed. If he wasn't sure if he could win against the bees before, now he was even more sure that he couldn't do it. 'Luzbel 20 agility points and 20 strength points'.

[20 points assigned to Agility]

[20 points assigned to Strength]

Brandon felt more power running through his body. He could feel that the speed he was going at wasn't even half of what he could reach.

He smiled and kicked the ground with force, propelling himself forward even faster. He was watching as the red-striped bees fell behind.

But his moment of joy ended soon. Two pairs of wings grew on the back of the yellow-striped bees and they accelerated and started attacking.

He had to activate his ocular power at maximum potency to be able to see and dodge the attack. Even dodging the first two, the third one managed to wound a side of his abdomen.

"Agh!" Brandon gritted his teeth and started to run faster, using more energy in his eyes and lightning to move faster.

He could feel their energy draining at an astonishing speed, if he kept going like this he wouldn't survive.

"Luzbel 10 points to resistance, remaining points to energy." Although it was a thought, he said it in such a way that it seemed like they were shouting.

He could feel the previous sting of the bee starting to irritate them, which meant they were poisoned.

[10 points assigned to Resistance]

[11 points assigned to Energy]

The energy of the surroundings started swirling around Brandon's body and merging into him. He could feel as if a small glass was turning into a pitcher.

He was full of energy again and could intuitively feel how to use their power better to regulate energy expenditure and achieve better results in combat.

════════Data Panel════════

Name: Brandon Sanchez

Race: Human

Lower class

Awakening: Digitized (29%) [...] Thunder (3%)

══════════Attributes══════════

Health: 10 (500)

Strength: 35

Agility: 35

Resistance: 20

Energy: 30 (600)

Control: 30

Attitude: 160

══════════Skills══════════

Cold Mind Level 2 (73%)

Lightning Manifestation Level 1 (8%)

The wound he previously had closed, but the poison had not disappeared. Brandon was desperate to reach the refuge, he couldn't die here.

[Request permission from master for bodily modification]

"Bodily modification?" he asked. But before thinking too much about it, he simply accepted, he couldn't lose focus on the pursuit.

[Request approved]

[Modifying genetic code]

[Programming antibodies... Complete]

[Modifying code... Complete]

[Intoxication eliminated]

Brandon no longer felt affected by the poison, he had even felt a bit dizzy before, but now he was back to normal. He wanted to ask about this, but kept moving forward and would ask later.

He heard a noise not far away. "A river," he said excitedly. Brandon thought he could go to the river to get rid of the bees.

[Jumping into the river could be more lethal than running on land, recommended to keep running]

Brandon hadn't thought about this, there were unknown beasts in the river too, and he would have less advantage in the water.

Sigh.

He could only use his last option, he didn't know how it would end, but it was better than nothing.

He sent a large amount of energy to his feet, turning it into lightning, and kicked the ground with great force.

His body shot up into the air at high speed as he ascended.

Even above the giant trees. 'This was the worst idea I've had.'

His body kept flying, but soon he stopped accelerating and began to fall. The feeling of weightlessness made the blood in his body churn.

Being only a few seconds away from the ground, he grabbed his backpack with his right hand to spiral and turn his body to fall on his back on top of it.

His body hit the sand and jumped to keep rolling and spinning. His supplies scattered all over the sandy desert.

Fortunately, the desert sand cushioned his fall, but he still had wounds on his body and some broken bones. He only landed like that because he made his body spin to distribute the impact in different parts of his body.

He couldn't say what would happen if he fell on another type of ground. 'Luzbel, status.'

[Report: 3 broken ribs, one fractured leg, and some damaged organs]

[Report: -Organ repair protocol initiated- Remaining time, 1 hour 23 minutes]

Brandon didn't think much about it. Luzbel had been able to modify his antibodies to counteract the poison, so it wouldn't surprise him if he could heal some of his wounds.

But he could only heal the organ wounds, not completely. With the skill compatibility he had, he could barely modify himself in the slightest.

He had nothing else to do, so he decided to talk to Luzbel to find out how much he knew about his ability. 'How do you know how to do these things?' he asked.

[I am connected to the master's source code, the master is a modifiable code, it is only restricted to his imagination]

He was excited to hear this and said, "I can modify my strength and become extremely strong, right?"

To his disappointment, it wasn't as he thought. [Although you can modify your statistics, your strength won't increase. Think of it as modifying values in a browser, but in reality, it only changes them for the view, not the source]

[But it's not impossible, maybe in your next evolutions, you'll be able to do it]

"By the way, do you know why when I transfer my power to another being, I can see them as data?" he asked. When he got his power, he had seen how the hunter's corpse was structured, but this was only after making contact.

[Insufficient data, I think the master's power can somehow influence foreign properties]

With a smile, he said, "Then maybe I could start some businesses, like healing, for example." He was planning on how to make money and approach powers to copy their powers.

He didn't know what the maximum power capacity he could copy was, so he hadn't copied other powers. He hoped to be able to get the most famous ones.