It was an enigmatic thing.

Colloquially, I could guess what Level Up meant — getting stronger or upgrading — and there were also the countless skills my UI had granted me over these past six months. They had been leveling up, too.

This, however, I wasn’t sure what to make of.

>Current EXP: 63

Species, Insectile: 63

>Genome Compatibilities (1/3):

Modifier (8.2):

(IF!) Allocated,

Cryak Warrior (Male) 517/500 EXP…

Genome Upgrade, Available

Proceed (y/n)…

Some three hundred years of life, and I had never once heard of genomes being upgraded post integration. Then again, genomes being upgraded at all, no matter the state, synthetically or naturally, was exceptionally rare.

What I had done some five months ago, with my own mods and Myla’s, had been nearly as strange as returning to my past life. This was just another freak case in a series of anomalies.

The System had a plan for me. That much was certain by now. It had wanted me to come here, it had wanted me to harvest those insects, and now, it wanted me to integrate with whatever I had gotten from them: the EXP. The question remained why.

To make me strong enough to save the world?

To another rattle of the Transporter around me, I raised my gaze towards the cargo space below. We were rapidly approaching our destination, and from where I sat, on the railing leading up to the cockpit, I could see the entirety of our crew’s preparations. Only Jenna was missing, out of view somewhere behind me, piloting the ship through the violent turbulence produced by our super-sonic speed.

We had all gotten used to the bumps and rattling by now.

Mikayes was down there with Suno and Drudgery, standing in a sea of opened boxes and potential edible bribes, preparing for the coming negotiations with our Migmian tribe. Neither of the late Mr. Biggins’ assistants seemed too upset over the diplomat’s sudden passing.

If anything, Drudgery seemed excited about returning to the Migmian tribe, allowing him to document more about this planet’s sole sentient species without his superior’s interference.

Meanwhile, Kassem, along with the rest of the Slobber Knuckles, were arming up, preparing for the off case where negotiations didn’t go well. We only had three days to see this through, and if the use of force became necessary, we would have to cross that bridge when we came to it, as swiftly and pain freely as possible.

Georgie was there among them as well, but in what I could only assume was an act of courtesy on Kassem’s part, the hairy man had remained as far away from me as possible during our journey. A courtesy I had answered by only keeping my new coil gun rested over my shoulder; loaded, but not aimed.

The remainder of the Ruskel company – whenever they weren’t, bitterly and not so quietly, chittering about how they would blow up Adortha Vidris’ stealth craft to send off their fallen brother in booming glory – remained busy studying the mess that was the labyrinthian maze stretching out just underneath the planet’s surface.

Mikayes had already pointed out that, with a high likely hood, we would be making our way down there before this was all over. Arus had already informed the rest of the crew of the ill feelings he’d gotten from those senseless tunnels we had wandered for days. If we were to seek down alien Artifacts, what better place to start than the most alien looking of all?

Even with the sonars up and Arus’ firsthand experience, however, I could tell from how the ginger Ruskel kept scratching his beard that they weren’t making great progress. Or maybe it was just all the ointments Suno had smeared him with that were itching.

Despite having worn armor and never being beaten half as badly as I was, the company leader remained wrapped in twice as many bandages as myself. When all was said and done, it seemed my body’s regeneration was working in my favor.

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Even if the food-bills made Mikayes weep.

Stronger as I had become, I still remained highly reliant on my human metabolism to function — which, for now, had been a steady supply of calorie bars — and I didn’t see any way of changing that in the near future. Unless a Level Up fundamentally restructures how my genome works…

I let my eyes fall to the last members of our crew.

Out of all of us, the Gethrogs seemed to be the least fazed by Adortha Vidris’ arrival. Then again, maybe it was merely their body language that remained impossible to read, and that they would fuss with their assistants the same way until the sky came crumbling down upon them.

Even now, as the rest of us scrambled to save our skins, they remained hauled up in their own corner of the cargo space, being fanned by electric devices that only seemed handheld to be a pain for the assistants who wielded them, and munching on the insectile remains that I had left behind upon the Cratered Plains during our first night here.

Glancing down at my UI, I gave a faint nod.

Before I made any hasty decisions, I needed to know what EXP actually was. With off-world communication cut off, if anyone could tell me, it would be them.

𐫰 𐫰 𐫰

With the Transporter landed and most of the cargo hold emptied out, I made my way over towards the Gethrog cohort. For me, it hadn’t been hard to blame my delay on my recent injuries, even if they were mostly healed, and they didn’t seem to hold any interest in any Migmian negotiations.

Either way, it worked out for me. I wished to hold my activities on the down low for now. Even if there was a ceasefire between me and the Slobber Knuckles, the less Kassem knew, the better it was for me.

As I tried approaching the cohort, however, it was only to get shooed away by one of the senior assistants. She was a humanoid alien with four eyes, wrinkly skin, and tentacle-like growths for hair.

“Our lords do not accept any visitors right now,” she said, never bothering to hide the prejudice in her expression as she looked up at me. “If you wanted an appointment, you should have booked it at least two weeks in advance.”

Considering the fact that I hadn’t even met the Gethrogs two weeks ago, and how said ‘lords’ were currently munching on creatures I had killed, I didn’t even bother responding as I brushed past the woman.

With the coil gun rested over my back, secured in place by an adjustable strap, my hands were free to both clear my path forward and to have my harvesting needle safely shoot out of my UI. I had figured the more straight forward I was, the simpler things would be.

Several knives were hurriedly pulled out at the sight of the foot-long needle, but the Gethrogs, whose lazy eyes had finally turned my way stared at my UI in open shock for a moment. Then, the fattest of them spoke, “Ge~brooga!”

The drawn-out syllable had barely finished as that first knife flickered towards my wrist.

Even if I hadn’t just heard the cohort leader order for my hand to be brought to him, the attack was too telegraphed. Without bothering to restrain myself, I pulled back my hand, only to then crack the perpetrating youth across the face with enough force to have the alien girl slide across the floor.

Maybe I should have held back. She didn’t get up after that.

Then again, at least it kept the other assistants from trying their luck, even as the three Gethrogs stared at me with great offense. In their eyes, it was seemingly ridiculous of me not to let them cut off my arm.

“I take it that you know a thing or two about this needle then,” I said, never bothering to switch to their distorted tongue of clucks and gobbles. They would understand either way, even if they pretended not to. “That’s good, because I have a few questions to ask.”

𐫰 𐫰 𐫰

Over that coming hour, I would come to learn several things, the chief one being that I never wanted to deal with a Gethrog ever again. I tried to be polite, I tried to be reasonable, but even so, the first ten minutes of our “talk” was spent with them just yelling and insulting me for not handing them my harvester – hand and UI included – for free.

The next fifteen, as they conceded that I wouldn’t, they spent nagging and threatening me to make them one of their own instead. Apparently, these needles weren’t easy to come by, least of all one like my own.

Which made sense, I supposed. Despite Jenna’s assistance and my System’s guidance, it had taken me months of chasing materials and testing to get it to work.

Then again, even if I had possessed another dozen harvesting needles that were just laying around, I wouldn’t have handed a single one to the Gethrogs. Which, when they realized as much, was followed by another five minutes of them forcefully trying to take mine away from me.

Naturally, they couldn’t, which only seemed to make them even more angry. That anger, however, was directed towards their “useless” assistants.

It wasn’t until the second half of that painful hour that I finally started to see some progress. Though, only by giving in to some of their extortions…

“Give us…Give me…Extract some…Show us…Need to see…Don’t know…” they kept repeating, ad nauseam, in various iterations.

Apparently, just like genetic mods could, it was possible to extract EXP into a physical substance. I only believed it as I found the option upon my interface, and I only did it as I realized things would go nowhere if I refused.

EXP -1

It was a thick, gloopy substance that had barely emerged from the tip of my harvesting needle as the fattest of the Gethrogs abruptly scooted forward upon his palanquin, falling straight to the floor he greedily licked up the droplet to the upset shrieks of the other two.

I was too shocked by the bizarre action to even react, yet worse still was what followed.

Initially, I thought that the immobile Gethrog was having a seizure there upon the floor before me, but then, I realized that he was…well, ejaculating himself into a shivering mess.

By the time I left, their assistants were still wiping the fat alien clean. I wish I could have laughed about it, but the scene was more scarring than anything.

Still, through all of that gibberish clucking and shrieks that followed, I had more or less learned what I came for. The Gethrogs were fully familiar with the concepts my System was working on, if only vaguely.

Even so, it reassured me to know that things were still operating within the realms of the possible. My System was a powerful yet dangerous tool, trying to constantly exert its control over me, but it wasn’t omnipotent.

It was just a weapon that possessed a mind of its own. Now, I would just have to learn to wield before it cut me too deep.