After Gbenga and his group left the skyscraper, they headed toward Victoria Island. They learnt on their way there that the undead were not to be alerted at any cost as they would swarm anyone they saw. The flying monster that they saw was also a cause for them to be more cautious.

They made it to the Island after travelling for a day and discovered that the place had a high concentration of undead. Bisola came up with an idea similar to the one the terrorist used; they baited the undead with noise. They started a fire in one of the building that the undead hadn’t occupied and put all the batteries they could find into the fire.

The exploding batteries were loud and attracted a good number of undead to the building, what the undead and they didn’t expect was that the building caught fire and burned a good number of undead, while they snuck into the Island.

They decided to stay in a convenience store they found for the night. They silently cleared out any undead in the area of the store and when they decided to rest they heard the door of the store open and footsteps entering.

They silently approached the entrance of the store and they saw a woman looking around.

Encountering an armed person in a convenience store brought back some PTSD of the time they spent with the terrorist. They almost killed the woman on the spot, but then they realized she wasn’t a famed murderer they relaxed a bit.

The woman was surprised to see a group of teenagers and an adult surviving within the undead and monster territory. The woman told them that there was an underground shelter where people were staying that the undead hadn’t found. She told them what she knew about what happened on the Island, which she found out from talking to survivors.

The class realized that the Island was far more dangerous than the mainland as the woman mentioned that there were about 28 monsters on the island, and those were the ones they knew of while on the mainland the terrorist had only encountered one monster and they had killed two monsters already.

Along with the larger land mass of the mainland, which provided many hiding spots, the mainland posed a far lesser threat than the island, but why did the island have more monsters? They didn’t know. They could only assume it was because of rich people lived here. Hence it was more secure hence more monsters were attracted to it.

The met up with Ife’s father at the underground shelter and told the people there what they knew; about how the island was more dangerous than the mainland. From that point on the people that made up the leading council of the survivors had been consulting their teacher, Bisola, on the plans to leave the island.

Two days had passed since they had gotten to the underground shelter (they spent a day at the convenience store) and now there was unrest throughout the shelter due to the voices people were hearing in their head.

When they arrived they were required to submit their weapons to ensure safety. Weapons were not allowed in the shelter; only people who were going out to get food or scout for survivors were allowed to carry weapons when they went on these missions.

Gbenga was not happy with this as he felt he had earned the weapon and should not be parted from it, but alas he had to give them the guns as he needed to stay in the shelter.

At the end of the day, in the evening, the people were calmed. Gbenga had spent the most part of the day questioning the IP on its purpose and after finding it was supposed to give him information he didn’t have, he asked how to get stronger and learned about en-code.

He deduced that the En-code that the IP spoke about was the reason for the sudden improvement he and the people who fought the undead with him experienced. The IP said that before they had the IP the en-code was distributed to each stat equally.

The leaders of the sanctuary announced that they were working on a plan to leave the island quickly. Gbenga found their decision unpleasant now that he knew that killing the undead would make people stronger.

He complained to the leadership about their decision but they told him that the safety of the people came first before anything else and that the IP could be lying and could just be a type of monster that tries to bait them into killing themselves by making them fight monsters.

Gbenga felt different, he knew that the IP was not lying, he had experienced the improvement before, but when he told the leaders that, they told him he was just a child and didn’t know what he was saying, they said that he was imagining things that it couldn’t be true. Gbenga wondered what the point of living was if he was to live in constant fear and powerlessness.

‘The leaders don’t know what they’re doing, if what is happening to us is happening to everyone, then some people will certainly improve their strength or even evolve by challenging the odds. If we encounter such people and they have hostile intentions we would be helpless…

Wait! If I go by what the IP said then Jade must have become very strong by now, he may have even evolved. He killed two powerful monsters by himself. *sigh* I’m the one who is to blame; I should not have given them my gun no matter what.

Regardless, I’m not leaving this island until I’m strong enough to protect myself without anyone’s help. I never want to be in a situation where I am powerless again’ Gbenga thought.

He looked at the illusion in front of him that outlined his En-code state

[En-code state:

Strength: 371/100

Agility: 239/100

Stamina: 381/100

Durability: 319/100

Intelligence: 589/10,000

Senses: 285/100

Unattributed: 0/10,500]

‘I’ve involuntarily used some en-code to improve when I fought the undead in the skyscraper’ Gbenga thought ‘I came here not for safety but to get new gen weapons, if they won’t give it to me, I just have to take it by myself.

I hate to have to steal but we gave them valuable information which we got at the cost of our lives, that should be enough payment and besides I’m tired of being forced to do what they think is right, I have the right to make my own choices.

I can’t do this alone though, I’m sure Bella will be on board with my plan. I’ll have to look for people who are like minded to work with me’

Gbenga then started planning a heist as he pondered on who else he could tell about his plans.

In another place, Jola’s sanctuary, the appearance of the IPs caused less of an uproar as Jola had already told the people it would happen a day before. He gave them the general information that Jade gave him about the monsters and told the people that they needed to get stronger quickly before the monsters started expanding into their territory; while the monsters fought against themselves.

He distributed the new gen weapons that he had kept in his armory and began to teach everyone how to use them with Demola while Anita gave missions to those who could already handle new gen weapons.

The missions involved them silently ambushing the undead and that had separated from the main horde or that were in buildings or scouting for such groups of undead.

The aim of the sanctuary was to understand how the en-code system worked.

…

The world had changed greatly since the apocalypse. All the governments had fallen, monsters and undead roamed the streets, law and order had no effect as long as one had the power to kill.

Now that everyone had an IP, the smart ones knew now that there was a way for them to get stronger than the average person, people with ambitions challenged the odds and fought undead with the hope of getting stronger and increasing their Rank.

Most of these people fought undead as most monsters were far too strong for them at the moment. Most monsters too did not actively seek to end human life as they couldn’t get stronger by killing weak humans anymore, giving the humans who had survived up till this point the ample opportunity to gain strength while the monsters fought among themselves for territory, en-code and Rank. It was the calm before the storm.

The timid people were too afraid to converse with their IP as it was a foreign entity to them, even those who did converse with it were too afraid to follow its advice to leave their safe and comfortable zone to get power.

On the other hand, although the governments had gone to trash, the major winners of this apocalypse were the criminal organizations that were hidden all over the world.

Most of them didn’t have as much fire power as the police force or military around them, so they weren’t targeted by monsters on the first week even though they had more power than the average person.

They came out of the shadows, killed the undead, secured territory for themselves and provided sanctuary to people that were willing to work for them. When the IPs came about they realized that they had a head start unlike other people from the en-code they had acquired when killing the undead.

The greatest part of the IP for them though, one that Jade didn’t know about when he spoke to Jola, was that en-code could be exchanged as long as the owner of the en-code willed it. En-code became the world currency from February 25th, 2082.