The Marquis Minds contacted the Rank 6 Hive Duke Mind, the monster that created them and told it of the situation. The Duke Mind was carried by 5 Rank 5 Brawlers to the location of the Marquis Minds. When it arrived it found the Marquis Minds huddled up together inside a circle of Rank 5 undead.

It did a Psychic wave search of the area, similar to a radar or sonar, and came up with nothing. Mira had left the area, she knew it was pointless to kill all of them; she just needed their forces concentrated in one location, when she saw the huge Duke Mind, which looked like an egg with two groups of tentacles one on its top and one on its bottom, coming towards the Marquis Minds she knew she had succeeded.

She made her way westward, dashing from building to building while avoiding the watchful eyes of the undead that were on the watch, she came out of the undead horde and went to the border of their territory which was now unguarded because of the trouble she had caused.

She entered into the no-man’s (or no-monster’s) land that was just outside the territory of the horde she had been with. She entered a house, went to a room, locked the door and passed out on the floor; she hadn’t slept well throughout her ordeal. During her stay in the undead territory she discovered how to make half her brain sleep while the other half worked, but she wasn’t a dolphin and that was only meant to be a stop gap.

She woke up 5 days later feeling woozy, she weakly got up and prepared herself. She did some stretches, and some light exercise and got herself back on track. She checked her en-code state; she had been putting encode into her stats without checking them, her en-code state was:

[En-code state:

Strength: 231,342/1,000,000

Agility: 341,002/1,000,000

Stamina: 23,891/1,000,000

Durability: 210,329/1,000,000

Intelligence: 673,953/100,000,000

Senses: 344,442/1,000,000

Energy: 23/10,000

Unattributed: 0/105,010,000]

Mira’s eyes almost popped out of her head, she knew the en-code would be consumed as she was pushing herself to the limit but she didn’t expect so little to be left, ‘Huh? How did this happen? I should have made about 27 million from the my last killing spree, how did most of it just disappear? I had even put 18 million out of the about 31 million en-codes I acquired during my weeks of hiding in intelligence and it is almost gone?! I didn’t really use my… Wait, my intelligence en-code draining must be because of the stunts I started pulling; predicting the undead’s movement and stealthily killing them while they made noise also the lack of sleep too but shouldn’t have drained all the en-code so much. Could it be all the danger I was in?’ She thought.

Mira asked her IP ‘Why did my stat en-code reduce so much? It has never happened like this before’. Her IP responded ‘Stat en-code is consumed when members of the Human species exert themselves’. Mira blinked and asked ‘Nothing else?’ her IP responded ‘Species specific information can only be acquired at higher Ranks’. Mira thought ‘This really sucks, I’ll have to assume it was the danger since this is the longest I’ve stayed in such a situation. Or it might be the lack of sleep that was considered as extreme exertion’.

She told her IP to bring up her Body State information:

[Previous State:

Strength: Intermediate (high)

Agility: Intermediate (high)

Stamina: Intermediate (intermediate)

Durability: Intermediate (intermediate)

Intelligence: Intermediate (intermediate)

Senses: Intermediate (high)

Energy: Low (high)]

[Current State:

Strength: High (low)

Agility: High (intermediate)

Stamina: High (low)

Durability: Intermediate (high)

Intelligence: High (low)

Senses: High (intermediate)

Energy: Intermediate (high)]

Mira wanted to scream ‘ALL MY STATS INCREASED!!!’ but she held back and only squealed. She silently jubilated for a while before stopping and calming herself ‘I need to search the island, it is why I came. But I should rest more; the past 3 months have been hell’

She took a walk in the no-man’s land as she chewed on some undead meat, she was running out. She thought as she walked ‘I should ask Jade to make equipment that improve my silent mobility more and let me attack from different angles and with more complexity when I meet him, I would love to ask Deji but I know he can’t make anything compared to Jade and he’s probably flooded with things to do’

Mira heard the sounds of silent footsteps and hid behind a building in front of her. From the sounds alone she could already see a vague image of what was approaching and from it she knew that it had noticed her as it was being even stealthier.

She focused her senses on her surrounds and found that she was surrounded. There were footsteps quickly approaching from behind her, hiding behind buildings and stealthily making their way for probably what was to be a surprise attack.

Mira noticed that they were also sensing her by the sound of her footstep as they never stopped to peek at her. She focused on the things she had learned during the past 3 months and her heart beat slowed down; taking long beats instead of fast ones, same with her footsteps which had become completely silent and her mind became completely focused.

She saw what they planned to do, they were circling her; the buildings in this part of the island were low so staying on roofs would slow them down. She noticed that they had lost her location the moment she focused as their footsteps were a tad hesitant.

Mira then noticed a detail she had ignored; when she focused her mind she began to hear heartbeats along with the footsteps and other information that her brain would have ignored but was now processed into combat information.

She thought ‘They maybe human’ Mira spoke “Stop approaching if you’re human”. The footsteps stopped, their heads swung about, Mira could hear their joints sliding on each other. One of them asked “Are you human?” Mira replied “No, I’m a High Human” hoping that her answer would prove her humanity more than just an ‘I’m human’ response while also expecting the footsteps to be from undead.

Mira heard them talking with sign language, she could hear the wind whooshing from their little hand motions. One of them said to her “I’m coming out now, don’t attack”. Mira saw a 5 foot 10 inch tall boy come out from behind one of the buildings and she said “The rest of you come out slowly, just like this one”

The boy told them “Do it, she’s a High Human” and the rest came out from their hiding spots, there were 5 of them; 2 boys, 2 girls and 1 woman, they had very crude armor and weapons. She thought ‘Funmi would faint if she saw this’. Mira reduced her vigilance when she saw they were all High Humans confirmed by her IP. What amazed her was that they were all Rank 5 (Superior) High Humans.