After the short battle with those crabs, Winston wasn't sure what was going to happen next, but he had a hunch. He figured that city officials, such as armed guards would come and investigate where those explosions came from. They could reach the remains of the battlefield in half an hour or so, which although alarming, it gave him a bit of time to inch away from the scene, and look for a new spot where officials would, ideally, have it hard to find him.
It was imperative to find a good hiding spot, because if the city officials had already figured out what happened in the mines, and if they found him now, even they, with their small starfish brains could piece the puzzle together and suspect that Winston had something to do with all these recent deaths. He could even be blamed for the deaths of those enslaved workers, which would only make his situation worse for him, even if no one cared about the workers.
Bottom-line, he could not afford to get caught. He kept moving across the coral, sprinting with the 9mm pistol on his hand, and made pit stops at less-than-okay hiding spots to catch his breath, before sprinting again. Distancing himself from the prior battlefield was good, as it would be stupid for him to be caught anywhere near it. He didn't want to risk that, and figured that it was ideal to find the best hiding spot the coral had to offer, and wait there for the potential heat to blow over.
Eventually, he found a spot. He found a massive opening in the coral that led to several smaller tunnel-like openings, and so he got over there, and followed one of the tunnels at random. The tunnel stretched long, and it was attached to other tunnels which made this hiding spot a bit like a maze, but this would only serve his purpose. He was satisfied.
"God fucking damn! I never ran this much in my life!" He grunted, and sat down. "A couple of my organs hurt but I don't know which ones."
The pains faded away eventually, which only confirmed that it wasn't serious. He could relax now. The coral tunnels here reminded him of the mines he left behind, so he was far too uncomfortable to sleep here, but otherwise he was good. He regained his energy eventually, and better yet, he hadn't been found by the city officials, so he had nothing to complain about.
At some point, he remembered a thing that the system had said in the past, so he decided to pester her about it. Bottom-line, he wanted to spend some of his points, but he didn't want to spend it on his two guns, because he thought that the prices of such upgrades would ultimately defeat the purpose of their usefulness. He didn't have too many points to spend, so it was best to be efficient.
"System, call me crazy but I remember you talking about body upgrades before?" He asked. "What do they do? I don't need longer legs specifically, but they could be useful."
[You are confused. I cannot lengthen your legs, at least not directly.] She answered. [Bodily upgrades, otherwise known as secondary upgrades, would give you the option to upgrade your Strength, Speed & Agility, Durability, and IQ. Regarding that matter, your statistics remain as the following…]
[Strength = 3/500]
[Speed & Agility = 10/300]
[Durability = 20/700]
[IQ = 120]
[Would you like to look through your upgrade options? You can tamper with any attribute that you'd like, and they're mostly affordable.]
"Really? I didn't think it would be this easy to convince you." He said. "Okay! Let's see what we got, then. What are the prices?"
The system flashed a new tab in front of him, a dark-pink one that he hadn't seen before, and he found that it was quite easy to understand its contents. He grew more and more excited by the second.
[Strength Level, 3 >>> 10 = 50 system points]
[Speed & Agility Level, 10 >>> 15 = 200 system points]
[Durability Level, 20 >>> 30 = 150 system points]
[Intelligence Quotient (IQ), 120 >>> 130 = 400 system points]
Granted, although these upgrades seemed expensive, especially the IQ upgrade, he still believed that he was being cut a great deal. He could more than double his strength level for example, for a cheap price. He considered himself strong, so he imagined that if he skipped ahead to a higher strength level, he'd be quite difficult for his enemies to handle! His level was low, so he didn't expect major changes, but this was a good deal nonetheless, so he took it.
He said, "Upgrade my strength to level ten, system!"
[Confirmed]
[-50 system points]
[Total points = 380]
Seconds later, Winston felt every muscle in his body tighten! At first he was shocked, as this was the last thing he expected, but he managed to relax afterwards because this upgrade was barely painful. It made sense that it wasn't painful, as his strength level was small regardless of the upgrade. The tightened muscles forced his movements to freeze, though, so he couldn't go anywhere even if he wanted to, but thankfully, the upgrade process was short.
Five minutes later, he could move again, and as his muscles relaxed, he found himself feeling stronger than ever! It almost felt like his arms could move in new directions now, he felt more athletic, but he knew well enough to not push his new strength to the limit. For example, he knew that he didn't have to punch the coral wall behind him to test his strength, because by doing so, he'd hurt himself for no reason. He wasn't immune to pain, he was just stronger now.
"Awesome…" He heaved out. "Totally worth the buy, system. Show me that pink tab again, I wanna see if I can keep upgrading my shit."
[[Strength Level, 10 >>> 15 = 150 system points]
[Speed & Agility Level, 10 >>> 15 = 200 system points]
[Durability Level, 20 >>> 30 = 150 system points]
[Intelligence Quotient (IQ), 120 >>> 130 = 400 system points]
"Hmm…" He pondered, and tried to be calculative. "Looks like I can buy another upgrade and be well off, but the price may not be worthwhile. I still want to have some system points in case I need to upgrade my guns properly, so this is a hard decision..."