Jade paused for a moment; he hadn’t expected the always machine like IP to respond like that ‘IP why did you respond like that? That’s so not like you’ Jade asked, but the IP didn’t give him an answer.

‘Oh giving me the silent treatment now, I didn’t know you were such a Tsundere’ Jade thought but as expected he got no reply. The shocking behavior of the IP had made him temporarily forget his despair and calmed him down as he thought ‘The IP is correct, it was Rank 28 so it isn’t something I can never reach. IP, what Rank am I?’ Jade asked and the IP responded ‘Rank 4, you killed a Rank 4 monster’ ‘*sigh* that’s 4 ranks down and 24 to go, this is going to be tough. IP, how can I quickly get stronger?’

The IP responded with an illusion

[The most essential form of improvement is acquiring En-code, which speeds up improvement of your stats the more you have. You currently have 116,023 unattributed encode which can be attributed to improve the development of your stats.

The next form of improvement that is almost just as essential as the one above is utilizing the parts of the monsters you have defeated to make tools to improve your strength.

Improving your understanding and control of energy will also be very helpful. As there are limited uses for unbiased energy, you should look into biasing your energy to make it more useful.

As a result of surviving you encounter with the Rank 28 Infant Ocean Master you can now sense your soul. Gaining and improving the control of your soul will greatly improve your strength beyond its limits]

The IP then gave Jade some understanding about his strengths and weakness. [You are an intelligence and energy focused creature because they are the strongest stats of your race. The absolute quality of a stat, not relative to your race, is directly proportional to the Rank of the stat and the threshold amount of En-code the stat can take.

Hence your Low (high) intelligence quality is far more powerful than your Low (high) senses. Taking this into account you should focus more on improving the way you use your energy than improving your martial prowess.

Due to surviving the encounter with the Rank 28 Infant Ocean Master you are now able to sense your soul. The only information that is accessible about the soul at your Rank is that gaining and improving the control of your soul will strengthen you significantly.

You can choose to evolve when you have acquired the threshold En-code amount or more for all your stats. It is advised that you improve your stats as much as possible before evolving as doing that will give you more access to powerful evolution options.

Do note that improving your stats will consume the En-code that has been allocated to that stat regardless of whether the improvement was voluntary or involuntary.

There are two ways to improve your stats with encode: the first and best method is by training yourself to improve those stats after putting en-code into those stats which will accelerate the improvement depending on the intensity of the training and the amount of en-code added.

This method allows you to improve your stats with excessive en-code cost and takes longer than the second method and is not as efficient at higher stat ranks.

The second method requires you to acquire as much encode as the threshold amount; when the encode you have acquired in a certain stat is equal to the maximum amount you have the option of improving the quality of the stat by one minor Rank (example Low(low) to Low(intermediate)).

The drawback of this method is that the threshold amount for that stat will be increased by 10 fold without the absolute power of the stat changing and it can only get your stats to High (high) Rank and not higher. This method gives instant strength at a go and consumes a low amount of en-code but it hinders future development.]

Jade took his time to sort out the information he was given ‘I don’t have any idea of how to use my energy other than just enhancing stuff with it, which isn’t the most efficient or effective use of energy. I know that, it just sucks that energy is my highest stat overall and I have no idea how to use it properly. But that’s where intelligence comes in, I have to experiment to find out how to use my energy properly and also for the monster corpses’

Jade then used the Distance folding sphere to teleport to his lab. He decided that learning was what he needed to do first and foremost to become stronger.

His lab was a very huge building located under a supermarket. The lab had 5 floors and various experimenting and manufacturing equipment and a nuclear generator which cost Jade a lot of money to buy in the black market. This was where he created the space manipulation technology.

He started the power generator of the lab and began to work.

…

12:00am, 25 February 2082; everyone on earth got an IP.

When Gbenga woke up he heard a voice in his head say ‘Congratulations on surviving up till this point you have been given an Information Personality (IP) as a reward for your efforts’

Gbenga froze in shock, none of what was happening made sense to him ‘Have I gone crazy?’ he thought. The IP answered ‘Your mental state is normal’. Gbenga’s face was filled with foreboding ‘I’ve gone crazy! I need help!’ Gbenga thought and woke Maduro up. “Guy, help me I’m hearing voices in my head” Gbenga said in a worried tone.

Maduro stayed silent and stared into space for a while before turning to Gbenga with a puzzled expression and said “I’m also hearing voices… Did your voice also congratulate you on surviving?” Gbenga nodded.

The two boys woke the remaining members of their class; the others also experienced the same thing. Gbenga went to the room of Ife’s father only to find him pulling out his hair with a face filled of despair. Gbenga quickly relieved the man of his worries by telling him that everyone could hear voices in their head.

Gbenga went out to see the underground shelter they were staying at in total confusion as people were woken up by voices in their heads congratulation them on surviving. Gbenga thought ‘It’s like we can never rest, it always one problem after another’.