Leaned back against the wall, she explained her discovery while simultaneously passing another gem to Little White. There was no sense in holding onto the gems when they could be used to power them up.
"These gems come from Reaper's hearts. I suspect Variants also have them. They contain a concentrated amount of power within them that Reapers and Variants alike can absorb. It's the reason why every time a Reaper gets killed, it attracts a lot of Enraged and Reapers who have better senses. When one of these gems is given to a human, they become a Variant. Rin is an example of that."
Passing one gem each to Lucifer and Rin, she taught them the method to absorb the energy. She was sure that the energy levels had thresholds as well, much like the wuxia novels she loved. They would soon be able to understand what those levels were. According to the novels she had used as reference, the feeling of levelling up is extremely clear and one would feel a qualitative change in their abilities when they leveled up. In fact, she suspected that Little White who was sitting on the side was a level 2 or above himself.
"These gems will likely become the new currency in the world as more and more people discover it's usage. We should get ahead of the curve and begin collecting them as well. So from now on, we are going all in on training and combat. We won't skip a single city that we pass and we will try to eliminate as many Reapers as possible."
Aida came to this decision for three reasons. The first was that she felt a small amount of her power return after absorbing the gems, which made her believe that if she persisted, she could considerably speed up her recovery.
The second reason was that power trumps everything. Before they arrived at City M, they needed to be as strong as possible, even if it meant delaying their arrival a little bit.
The third and final reason was that, despite her strength and her apathy towards mankind, the speed at which the Reapers grew worried her. If she were alone, she wouldn't mind it too much. But now that she had a whole group to care for, she had to cull as many of these Reapers as she could while they were still low leveled and inexperienced. Afterall, she never minded bloodshed anyway.
Glancing at the others, she saw that Yukio was slightly dejected. He was clearly disappointed that he didn't have a superpower yet. Patting his head, she promised that she would find the most amazing gem ever and give him the power as soon as possible. Hearing this, he was immediately pacified and gave a big hug to his big sis before running back to the mat and continuing to meditate. She chuckled at the sight, once again marvelling at how obedient the twins were.
Handing a few gems to both Lucifer and Rin, she brought Little White and Xiao Ai upstairs with her. Everyone with abilities spent the night meditating and absorbing as many gems as they could.
The next morning, Aida opened her eyes with a big smile. She had recovered about 30% of her powers after absorbing all the gems they had. She walked down with the two buns in tow. The leisurely vibe that everyone had before had disappeared. Instead, everyone except Ace was excited about fighting the Reapers. As a result, Ace was assigned to driving duty for the day as everyone else would get down to fight.
Driving only a couple blocks, Aida quickly found the first Reaper. She smiled with a glint in her eyes, "The hunt begins."
Ace shuddered as he quickly ducked before the door, feeling sorry for what was about to happen to the Reapers. The goal was to take down the Reapers as quickly as possible to amass the greatest number of gems. She also reminded them to seal them into a jar as quickly as possible as well.
Their first Reaper was an enhancement type Reaper with enhanced legs. It could jump very high and attacked primarily with its legs. Quickly firing some shots, they noticed that the Reaper seemed slightly in pain but the shots didn't stop it from moving in and attacking. The Reapers were really getting stronger. In the end, Lucifer shot multiple nails towards it at very high speeds which is what allowed them to kill it.
Ace watched Aida's group fight the Reaper from the driver's seat. There was a glint in his eye, no one could tell what he was thinking.
Outside, the team had devised a system. Lucifer was in charge of making the first move. He used his telekinetic abilities to throw something at the Reaper to determine what ability it had. If it was a physical enhancement or animalistic enhancement type, then Light and Rin were the main forces while everyone else acted as support. If it was an elemental type, then Lucifer was the main force and everyone else would be in charge of containment. They had yet to encounter a psychic Reaper, but if they did, their job was to sound the alert for Aida to come and fight.
After defeating a few more Reapers, Aida felt confident in their ability to survive. She tossed radios to each of them and said, "We're splitting up now. Light and the twins are one group, Lucifer is another group and I will bring Xiao Ai and Little White. Ace…. you can guard the RV."
"Yes Master!" Ace responded enthusiastically as he saluted and quickly ran back into the RV.
Rolling her eyes at the response, she continued, "I will tell you all where to go and which Reaper to attack since I can generally tell their strength and ability."
She cautioned, "Remember, don't stray too far from my location or I won't be able to sense where you are."
Nodding, they quickly split up as they went to their assigned targets. Aida was being cautious by bringing Little White with her as she wasn't too sure what was going through his mind. She didn't want Little White to suddenly lose control in the middle of a fight and attack them instead.