GENE DEVOURER
Chapter 42: Gauging Strength

Chapter 42: Gauging Strength

Marcus equipped his dagger as he sat on the fluffy bed in the room he chose to stay in for the night.

Even at Cai Fiora’s absurd request for the girls to use the prominent suites, the men went for the other ones without any hesitation, after all, it was only a temporary stay.

"This is nice, nothing beats luxuriousness"

The cool and luxurious atmosphere of the hotel was in contrast with the apocalyptic one outside and for a moment, Marcus’ mind felt at rest.

"When I think about it now, I realize I have been so active since the time I entered this beast zone"

"Well, I can’t let down guard"

From the time he had entered the beast zone, Marcus had concentrated so hard, he had been on his guard, even when he saw the swarm of mutant fire ants, crawling down from the building holes, he was nervous for a moment.

Marcus twirled the dagger around his fingers.

[+50 Poison]

[+10 Crit]

[+1 Perception]

"I don’t know how effective my first skill, venom dance, is"

Marcus gazed intently at the menacing dagger, he could remember the battle with the Rogue Ant, the system said it would take six stings to kill him, however, in the dagger’s case: "let me check its info"

[Stinger Blade Dagger]

[Uncommon Item]

[An item compatible with Awakened with poison powers]

[+50 Poison]

[+10 Crit]

[+1 Perception]

His poison reserve was 100 according to the system, and this dagger granted +50 poison when equipped, which meant, now he had a total of 150 poison in his reserve.

[Evolved Skills]

[Venom dance]

[Rank 1: move unpredictably around enemies while dealing full stack of poison damage]

[Poison reserve: 150]

[Cooldown: 0.00 sec]

[Skill points: 2/5]

And he could deal a full stack of poison damage.

However, something was troubling Marcus, in the case of the mutant fire ant, their poison reserve is in their poison gland, and he had no idea the amount of poison damage they deal, was it the same as his reserve when he equipped the dagger? Was it a lot more than that, that enabled them to kill at the sixth time with mere stings?

"No, there will be plenty of factors, like the higher the level of the opponent, their protective armor power"

Wait a minute, a thought wandered into Marcus’ mind, "At that time, I had manifested my exoskeleton.."

Did that mean that without his exoskeleton, it would take the Rogue Ant maybe one or two stings to kill him?

"This is bad, am I not overestimating my strength? And I will need to kill the area boss, how the hell am I supposed to do that in this my level?"

"Anyway, I have to try"

Marcus stood immediately and started thrusting the dagger forward, terrifyingly wielding the dagger.

"Since I now have this dagger, I should be able to do something about the boss, at that time, I was fighting empty-handed after my shark teeth dagger broke"

Come to think of it, Marcus wished to at least see the worth of this dagger crafted by the system in reality. He then went to the PC in the room and started typing away.

"The network this computer is connected to is so fast that I’m starting to get jealous of luxury life,"

After entering the website, Marcus scanned the dagger, and all its digital schematics were displayed and sent forward. Marcus had chosen a private beast gear factory, so the process was quite smooth, and he didn’t need to fill out any forms about his ID or other personal info in order to enter the appraisal section of the website.

"You got to be kidding me!!"

Marcus yelled unconsciously when he saw the value the stinger blade dagger was worth.

"250 mi-mi-million??"

He checked the dagger again, apart from its menacing appearance, especially the jagged ends of the blade that ended in four black tips that Marcus guessed to be the stingers, he never thought it would be this costly.

But now that he calmed down and checked the materials used to craft the gear, he realized why.

~Chitinous hair-like structures identical to the sense organs of insects, enabling nerve-to-nerve connection with wielder and greatly enhancing their perception~

~Unknown and very strong and durable alloy that contains zinc, iron, magnesium, calcium, and potassium~

~Black tips of jagged blades similar to the stinger of a fire ant but capable of falling an elephant with a mere scratch~

"I-i see"

Marcus was bewildered, even the system didn’t say all this about the dagger, and all he wanted to check was its value.

"So this is the power of a weapon that cost five gene tokens in my system?"

Now that he thought of it, he quickly dropped the dagger like it was a repulsive object.

"I shouldn’t let the black tips touch me"

Something that was capable of falling an elephant with mere scratch wasn’t a joke, however, Marcus summoned enough courage and took back his weapon.

"It seems dependable tho"

"I pray it fall the area boss in one scratch too"

Well, Marcus knew that was far from being possible, especially in mutant beast case, and considering the fact that the mutant beast have protective exoskeleton.

"+10 Crit, it will also increase my chance of dealing extra damage? How dependable"

Just then, Marcus heard his phone rang, then he viewed the notification, it was a message from Ming, and it said he should meet her at the hotel ballroom.

"What did she want? Was it only me that she notified? Well, I will have to see for myself"

Marcus left the room and went to the ballroom, to his surprise, every other members had also gathered there.

"I’m late again, well she notified me last, wasn’t it that she shared the message at once to all the members? Perhaps she hesitated to notify me at the last moment"

With this, Marcus fully realised that he was completely underestimated or more correctly belittled since they haven’t seen what he was capable of.

Well, he also knew he couldn’t overestimate himself since he knew he was still weak compare to some Awakened.

"If I should say, my strength is probably on par with a low tier B rank"