Ayame's Awakening!
Hearing Ayame's questions, Winston patiently answered, "From what my father told me, direct consumption is suggested. Just swallow it directly."
"The evolution crystal contains pure viral energy so even if it came from the brain of the E-rank zombie, it will neutralize the zombie virus on it. However, if you can't resist the viral energy contained within the evolution crystal, it will overwrite your DNA and mutate you in a bad direction. Hence, failure means becoming a zombie."
Winston was living up to his role as a special NPC.
Even other players and NPCs wouldn't know about this. Even if they killed an E-rank zombie, they would likely not know of the evolution crystal's existence.
Only those weirdos who read too many zombie apocalypse novels will believe that zombies will have evolution cores or crystals and only they would dissect a zombie just to find it.
But the average normal person would be ignorant of the evolution crystal's existence so Ayame and Kayden had the advantage of having a knowledgeable special NPC.
Weiss wasn't worried about exposing his identity since even if players played this game again, as long as they could earn Winston's trust, Winston wouldn't conceal this from them.
After receiving Winston's answer, Ayame no longer hesitated and directly threw the evolution crystal inside her mouth and swallowed it!
Opening her player status screen, Ayame could see that her humanity attribute was decreasing at a constant pace.
<Player Status>
Player Name: Shiro Ayame
Age: 17
Physique: E+
Strength: E+
Agility: E+
Humanity: 96%
Virus: Currently In Awakening Phase
Special Event Item: None
Surviving Players: 421/1000
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From what she could see, the Virus stat which was previously "Null" was now in "Currently In Awakening Phase".
Shiro Ayame wasn't certain whether this meant that she had consumed enough evolution crystal to awaken or not.
But she could feel that her body temperature slightly rose at a moderate pace and she started to have a headache.
There was an urge to eat flesh popping up in her mind but Ayame immediately sat in a lotus position, meditated, and resisted it.
As a martial arts master, Ayame had great discipline and a strong mental fortitude, or else she wouldn't be able to withstand those grueling physical training during the process of improving her physical body's strength as well as improving her martial arts.
At this time, Kayden hadn't come down yet and was still surveying the surroundings outside the mansion from the balcony using binoculars.
On the other hand, Winston was protecting Ayame in case a zombie ever entered the mansion's area. After all, Ayame was currently defenseless and all of her attention was focused on resisting the viral energy.
From Weiss' development, the awakening phase would be successful if a human consumed enough evolution crystals and resisted the viral energy. As long as they were conscious during the awakening phase and successfully resisted the desire to eat flesh, they would successfully become an Awakener.
Weiss could control the outcome of awakening using his game authorities and could even influence what superpower a player or NPC would awaken.
However, he didn't want to interfere much since the game mechanism for awakening was set to "awaken the superpower suited for that individual".
So for a musclehead with a straightforward attack method such as using purely brute force, it would be more suited for them to awaken a superpower that increased their physical strength temporarily.
But if Weiss were to use his authority to change that musclehead's ability into that of an elemental ability, then the musclehead whose intelligence was that of a retard couldn't make use of the elemental ability's full potential.
Because of that, Weiss wouldn't interfere with any awakening unless he believed that he needed to.
While Weiss was protecting Ayame using Winston, he saw a zombie climbing up from the zombie corpse blockade, and entering the mansion's area.
"With the existence of E-rank zombies, the mansion gate can no longer stop them. Even if I repair it, another E-rank zombie might break the mansion gate and invade the mansion."
Winston commented as he took out his two pistols and shot that zombie to death.
After thirty minutes had passed, Winston noticed that Ayame opened her eyes. However, Ayame didn't become a zombie which meant that the awakening phase was successful.
Winston felt a powerful aura being constantly released by Ayame and the surrounding space became heavier as if gravity had increased.
Opening her palm, a violet-colored orb appeared on top of it. Ayame threw it towards the zombie corpse hill and it obliterated the zombie corpses.
Examining her current power increase, Ayame breathed a sigh of relief that her awakening was successful.
"Thank you, Winston."
Ayame didn't forget to thank Winston for not only giving her the E-rank evolution crystal but also for protecting her while she was in her awakening phase.
Otherwise, if a zombie were to interfere with her awakening phase, then it would undoubtedly fail since she focused all her attention on suppressing the rampaging viral energy inside her body.
"No need to thank me. Since you have successfully awakened, then killing those E-rank zombies will be a lot more convenient."
Even if Winston didn't make it sound like a big deal, Ayame still decided that she would try her best to protect Winston even if Winston was just an NPC.
Checking on her progress, Ayame summoned the player status.
<Player Status>
Player Name: Shiro Ayame
Age: 17
Physique: D-
Strength: D-
Agility: D-
Humanity: 72%
Virus: E-rank
Ability: Space Manipulation
Special Event Item: None
Surviving Players: 402/1000
<——————— >