He lunged forward and wrenched the assault rifle from Moira's grip. Tossing the weapon aside, he grabbed her by the shoulders. Even in his human form, his passive skills, like Enhanced Agility and Enhanced Reflexes, were still in effect, turning him into a blur of rapid movement.

Before Moira had a chance to process what was happening, he forcefully spun her around to face the group of armed guards behind her. He wrapped his left arm around her neck while using his right hand to draw the heavy-caliber pistol from its holster on her right hip.

Pointing the pistol at the first guard in line, he pulled the trigger. The pistol boomed in his fist, and the person's head snapped back.

It all happened so quickly that the others didn't have a chance to react at all. It wasn't until Jake shot another guard dead that they finally sprang into action. With Moira as a human shield, they hesitated to fire at him for fear of hitting their leader.

They scattered, seeking cover. Unfortunately, the only available cover was the helicopters, which were parked at various spots throughout the vast hangar, far from the center where Jake stood.

They ran in panic, ducking their heads low to present as small a target as possible. Unfortunately for them, Jake's skills, which greatly improved his accuracy, speed, and reflexes, rendered their efforts to be difficult targets ineffective. Every shot he fired found its mark, inflicting mortal wounds on the fleeing guards.

One by one, they dropped like flies. Then, some of the remaining bandits realized they needed to take action to save themselves, so they finally opened fire on him, no longer concerned about their leader being held in front of him.

Moira's body jerked as bullets tore into it. Then Jake felt her body go limp as she died, but thanks to his inhuman strength, he had no trouble holding her upright at all.

He continued firing shot after shot, taking down the remaining guards. Once they were all dead, he finally let go of Moira's body, allowing it to slump to the floor.

He pressed the magazine release button, and the mostly empty mag slipped out of his handgun. Leaning down, he picked up a fresh magazine from Moira's body and inserted it into his pistol.

After securing the pistol in the small of his back, he picked up Moira's assault rifle and slung it over his shoulder, the barrel pointing toward the ground.

He knew he didn't really need to maintain his disguise any longer, but he chose to do so anyway to sow confusion. So far, Skullface, who was undoubtedly watching the events unfold in the hangar, only knew that the pilot named Omar had just killed several of his people for no apparent reason.

So Jake kept his disguise, intending to make Skullface wrack his brains, trying to figure out why Omar had turned against his allies all of a sudden.

He took a quick glance around. Before the guards arrived, he had set explosive magical traps on three helicopters. Now, he focused on the remaining two. One by one, he placed a magical trap beneath each of the two.

He then took a moment to add a tracking spell to each of the five helicopters. Now, even if Skullface tried to flee and somehow detected and disarmed an explosive trap on his selected aircraft, Jake would always know where he went thanks to the tracking spell.

Unlike the explosive traps, the tracking spells were nearly undetectable, so Jake was confident Skullface wouldn't be able to spot them. The tracking spells he had cast could remain active for only twenty-four hours, but that was fine, as Jake was certain it would take him much less time to clear the mines of the bandits.

So, he had cast five explosive magical traps and five tracking spells, one trap and one spell for each of the five helicopters. Both an explosive magical trap and a tracking spell cost 10,000 MP, meaning Jake was down 100,000 MP. He had also expended a significant amount of mana while writing the text message on Omar's PDA during the flight to the main base.

While he wasn't critically low on mana at that moment, he could definitely use a refill. He had several mana crystals stored in his inventory, but he usually reserved them for emergencies when he had no other means to replenish his mana, which was not the case right now.

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He took a moment to decide where he should best replenish his mana reserves: in the room on Level A where mana crystals obtained in the mines were stored, or in the mines themselves, which should have plenty of mana reserves as well.

For one thing, he didn't really want to take mana from the mana storage, as it would make Skullface wonder what Omar needed so much mana for. On the other hand, Jake decided it didn't really matter since he wasn't going to keep his disguise up for much longer anyway. Besides, Skullface might just assume that Omar had plenty of magical spells under his belt that required a lot of mana to cast.

Jake made his way back to the elevator. While on his way across the hangar, he picked up an impo-grenade from the web gear of one of the dead guards.

Upon entering the elevator, he took it down to Level A. After emerging from the car, he quickly regained his bearings and headed for the mana storage room. As he jogged down one corridor after another, he encountered guards from time to time. He fired bursts of fire at them to discourage any attempts to intercept him.

Finally, he entered a corridor with a door leading to the mana storage room halfway down. As he jogged toward it, several guards appeared from the opposite side of the corridor. Jake immediately opened fire on them, but one of the guards summoned a magical shield in front of them, and all the bullets Jake fired halted upon impact, flattening against the barrier.

The guards returned fire. Since the shield was one-way only, their bullets passed through it without any trouble. The enemy bullets buzzed past him like angry hornets, with some smacking against his body but dealing little to no real damage.

His assault rifle fired off the last burst before running out of ammo. Dropping the now-empty weapon to the floor, Jake retrieved the impo-grenade and tossed it underhand down the corridor. It clattered against the floor and rolled toward the magical shield, coming to a rest just before it.

In the next instant, the grenade imploded, creating a micro black hole in the air that instantly shattered the energy shield and yanked the guards into its grasp, shredding their bodies to pieces.

Jake entered the mana storage room. After closing the door, he locked it by pressing a button on the control panel set into the nearby wall. There was a surveillance camera mounted on the wall, so Jake shattered it into fragments with a shot from his heavy-caliber pistol.

The walls were lined with shelves, each housing numerous heavy-duty containers filled to the brim with mana crystals. Jake walked along the shelves, grabbing the crystals with both hands and squeezing mana out of them, which was quickly absorbed by his body. Once he topped off his mana reserves, he left the room.

After that, he made his way back to the elevator and pressed the button to descend to the mines below. The doors slid closed, and the soft hum of the elevator filled Jake's ears as it descended deeper into the underground base. He watched as the surveillance camera above the door adjusted its angle to lock onto him. He was being watched.

Suddenly, the elevator jerked to a halt.

The command Jake had given the elevator had obviously been overridden. He quickly focused on the control panel again, attempting to hack into it once more. This time, nothing happened.

For a moment, Jake considered whether he should keep trying. He was confident he could hack the elevator again, but given that Skullface had just added extra security measures, it would surely take more time, although he couldn't tell just how much longer it would take. Skullface had likely already dispatched a fresh team of guards to his location, so instead of attempting to hack the elevator again, Jake opted for a different course of action.

He glanced up, searching for the hatch on the ceiling. After positioning himself beneath it, he reached up. He pried open the hatch, the heavy clang of metal reverberating in the tight space, and then grabbed the edges of the opening to heave himself up.

He pulled himself through the opening onto the roof of the elevator car, feeling the vibrations of machinery pulsing beneath him. The shaft was illuminated by faint lights running along one wall. Jake scanned the area and spotted the ladder set into the wall behind the elevator car.

Jake began his descent down the ladder, climbing down rung by rung. When he arrived just below the elevator car, he glanced down. The bottom of the elevator shaft wasn't too far below, and knowing he would take no fall damage, Jake simply let go of the ladder and jumped.

The world around him blurred as he fell. A moment later, he landed silently, a muted thud barely registering in the vast emptiness. The impact was absorbed by his enhanced physique.

He quickly rose to his feet and moved toward the closed door set into the front wall of the shaft. He pried it open, the heavy metal groaning in protest. He stepped through the threshold and into the dimly lit expanse of the mines.

As his eyes adjusted, Jake surveyed the rocky walls enclosing him. The tunnel ahead snaked into the darkness, carved from the earth, with jagged stones protruding like the teeth of a massive ancient beast. Support beams were bolted into place, wooden and metal reinforcements preventing the tunnel from collapsing.

The flickering lights cast long shadows, illuminating patches of damp earth and glistening rocks that lined the tunnel. The silence was almost deafening, broken only by the distant sound of dripping water and the faint hum of machinery echoing through the labyrinth of tunnels.

Jake scanned his surroundings for any surveillance cameras. The only one he spotted was positioned directly above the door he had just emerged from. Pulling his heavy-caliber pistol from the small of his back, he aimed it at the camera and fired, shattering the device.

Knowing he could no longer be watched, he finally dropped his disguise as the pilot, assuming his mutant form. With a powerful leap, he jumped high up to the rocky ceiling. Clinging to it with his fingers and the tips of his feet, he pressed forward.

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