It was with a great amount of experimentation, that Brock realised the sheer variety of purpose his Augment afforded him. A week had passed by since he experienced his fateful encounter with the horrifying crocodilian Treant, and he hadn’t dared to slack in his growth in the meantime.

While he was restricted in power for the most part until he found another one of those ‘Treasures’, Brock had found that he was yet to fully understand the new entirely new avenue of power he was presented with, and it opened a whole new category of strength for him to pursue.

Through days of careful investigation and even a journey back to a less dense, more safe part of the jungle city, Brock was hit with a plethora of discoveries - and breakthroughs in finer control - involving his newly acquired Augment of Sparks. It ranged wildly from combat applications to just all-around helpful uses, one such use being the ability to cook his food, something that was invaluable with the apparent citywide failure of electricity.

If not for his Augment, Brock would still be eating cold cans of beans and raw vegetables. Like a caveman.

Aside from the obvious assistance it gave toward his food department, it also allowed him to fear his dwindling water situation far less. Currently, his stocks of water were brimming, with many shops remaining undestroyed and somewhat intact in the city. But, in the case he got lost, or was even forced to drop everything and flee last minute, he could boil water he found in the abundant puddles around the area with a controlled flame, ridding it of potential bacteria within, though it probably wouldn’t taste all that great.

He might not even need to fear bacteria now with his enhanced body, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

As for the combat aspects he had found his Augment to be applicable in, they had left Brock giddy when he had accomplished them. Setting his simple fiery explosion aside, something he had found to be the direct result of an abrupt lack of flow control, he also managed to imbue his knife with the Augment, the odd energies at play forcing the blade to heat up until it was red-hot. It almost always rendered the knife to unusable slag in the process, however, but it was an invaluable addition during combat, especially in the more difficult fights Brock had been embroiled in over the past week.

He had tried to apply that same sub-ability to just his hand by itself, thinking of exploiting the way the Augment never seemed to harm him even when he touched one of his scorching blades directly, but it had resulted in a reaction that matched its namesake perfectly; that being, sparks. His hand managed to heat up only a little before the Augment fizzled out of his fingertips in a burst of light.

The simple flame mentioned beforehand was almost useless in combat, but it had been shown to possess the potential to pave the way to fireballs. It required him to apply an extreme amount of compression to the flame, and even then, what he had achieved so far was nowhere near enough to let it travel more than a meter without dissipating into the atmosphere, let alone actually damage something,

Brock was hopeful though. The time when he could become a fireball-slinging Wizard was nigh upon him.

It was following all this that Brock had decidedly pinned either his large amount of Intelligence or slightly smaller count of Wisdom on being the party responsible for the undisputable power of his Augment. The name aside, he didn’t think it was meant to be that powerful, at least not in a base capacity. He was sure his Stats had influenced it somehow, and that only made him even more eager to grow them.

Just wish it was easier to.

Discarding all his insights and learnings for the moment, Brock cracked open a heated can of beans and downed its contents in one large gulp, burping loudly in the wake of its consumption. Currently, the man found himself within one of the buildings he had made into his ‘base camp’ of sorts. It was located in an area of relative safety, one where he could kill almost any of the demonic denizens around without getting a single injury, and the structure itself looked to be one of the most stable for a long while.

His original outfit had been thrown out the window, literally, having been torn up beyond being mere rags, and instead replaced with another suit he had found in the wardrobe of a distinguished gentleman he was certain wouldn’t mind assisting a fellow suit wearer. While a suit and tie with polished leather shoes definitely weren’t the best attire to wear during combat, the familiarity and ridiculousness of it all helped keep Brock sane, at least partially.

He hadn’t really felt it until halfway through the week, but he had finally realised he was alone. He had no idea how long it would be until he heard the voice of another human being, or if he would even hear one before he died at all. The ceaseless thoughts on it had been taxing his mental state heavily. It was just him on the streets, no help, no one to turn to. Just Brock Carter and his own survival. His stress had climbed these past few days.

In fact, it had hit him so hard one day that he had actually sought out a series of fights with the invasive natives, to help work his way through the feelings he was experiencing. Normally, he’d only fight them if they were in between him and potential supplies, despite the fact he could kill most in one blow, but that day, it had been different. It was liberating, and Brock was shocked to realise that he knew it wouldn’t be the last occasion.

In all the time that had passed, he still hadn’t made any headway to the location of the Source, nor had he headed deeper for fear of meeting a beast like the Croco-Treant, or God forbid something like the bird that had preyed upon it. He wouldn’t even see something like that coming before he would be claimed by the grubby mitts of the grim reaper.

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He knew he had to get to it, especially since he had wasted an entire week out of the four or so he had just consolidating a single gain he’d made, but it was the fear that held him back. He knew he was going to die if he did nothing, but he would rather turn to nothingness peacefully than be torn limb from limb by ravenous monsters.

Brock hadn’t made any strides in understanding the process of his glitch ‘ability’ either. It was entirely unpredictable, occurring several dozen times one day, then ceasing to have any activity for days at a time. Though, he did notice that on the days he killed something, its activity was drastically lower. His discovery didn’t make it any less annoying when it happened though, especially that time when it had made him drop his last Subway cookie on the dirty ground.

He had cursed for a good five minutes when that had happened. I... still miss it...

Tossing the empty can of beans he’d just devoured aside, Brock made his way over to the window of the top floor he housed himself on and gazed down at the street below. Slowly, he built up the nerve to continue onward. While he didn’t want to be torn to bits, it was better to take a chance at life and die than just let it happen, even if it was assumed to be the more peaceful option.

Although, for all he knew, destabilisation could be akin to having the flesh flayed from your bones as your molecules fell apart. So, in the end, it was all a bit of a gamble.

“Come on, Brock.” He muttered to himself, “You... you got this...”

He slapped himself on the cheek. Just get on with it mate.

Cursing the world out, Brock finally listened to his own advice and forced his now slightly muscled frame to walk down the stairs and out the front door, bathing his immaculate suit and tie in the midday sunlight and illuminating their crisp white and black contrast magnificently. The air was refreshing as it lapped against his face, the ambient energy revitalising him in ways he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

His attention was shifted over to his left as a low growl reached his ears, that from a bristling Pontiac as it prowled toward him, its yellowed fangs barred and its black nose twitching in anticipation. Snorting at the creature as it snarled and charged him, Brock sidestepped it clumsily, dodging the lunge and subsequent chomp from the beast, its speed no longer anything to write home about.

He moved in toward it as it landed and punched down at the back of its neck, digging his strengthened fingers into its matted coat and channelling his Augment into his palm. Controlling it precisely, Brock watched as a thumb width explosion occurred, barely enough to cause a bang, and instantly erased a considerable portion of the creature’s neck.

Its killer let the body flop to the ground, slightly luminous crimson blood oozing freely out of the hole left behind. Its body shuddered, and its legs twitched, before it finally went limp.

He found a grim sort of satisfaction in observing how effortless it now was for him to kill the beasts. They had once required him to fight for his life, sustaining injury and agony, and now, he could kill them in one hit without even having to break a sweat.

Sparing the sorry wolf one more glance as energy left his body in wisps, Brock looked up and located the turn off he had mentally marked as the one leading further in before he began strolling toward it, not even bothering to pretend to be cautious. Not in this area at least.

Idly, as he walked, Brock entertained the idea of wielding two Augments instead of just one. The thought was one he truly hoped could come to fruition, as it would assist his journey even further. Not to mention the potential of using both at once and making some sort of new effect, like lava, from fire and earth, or something like that.

He wondered whether it would be possible to gain another one outside of the use of a Treasure like the one he had found, since they seemed like they were either extremely rare, or only a by-product of the deaths of stronger beasts, like the Shards of Awakening appeared to be. And quite frankly, while he loved the prospect of a much-needed power boost, he did not like the one of killing powerful beasts or scavenging loot off the aftermath of fights. It's not a bad idea, just a really unrealistic one.

The trek continued, and Brock was forced to kill another handful of Treants and Pontiacs, even a few of either simultaneously on some occasions, before he finally noticed a distinct change in his surroundings. Pinning the battle between the titans as far in the north diagonally - if he used his firm's relative position in the east as reference - Brock had opted to go the complete other way, though as the emerald flora slowly began to shift to violet, he wondered if that choice had been a terrible mistake.

Brock wasn’t allowed the luxury of turning back, however, as a swirling wall of purple flashed up behind him, rebounding his fists as he experimentally pounded on it. It seemed to be just like the one he had found at the city boundary. Gulping, Brock stepped away from the wall and looked to the purple variant of his location as it stretched on before him.

Especially further on, the place appeared to be far darker within the canopies than where Brock had arrived from, even though said canopies seemed to be realms thinner in the leaf department in comparison. The trees themselves looked almost identical to the ones before, if only with a changed colour palate to that of bright purple leaves and foliage, and trunks of a deep brown speckled with black.

From where he stood, right down in the depths of the current street there looked to be lumbering beasts within, accents of pulsing violet tracing out their movement in the thin haze of darkness. Even his improved senses couldn’t truly pick apart the exact details, but they seemed to be a variant of the common Treants he had seen so far, though the limited light made it hard to tell for sure.

Almost absentmindedly in the face of everything else, Brock noticed the sky above the canopies appeared to be in a state of night-time, speckled with stars that provided no illumination to the dark jungle beneath it. A quick look behind showed Brock that it was still day where he had come from, causing him to furrow his brows in confusion.

"What the...?"

All that was somehow overshadowed instantly, however, as a ding resounded, and a screen flashed to life before his eyes.

[Local Resonance Detected.]

[Sub-Quest issued.]

Trophy Hunter: Approach the centre of this domain and slay the Alpha and his pack. Reward: Unique title, hidden reward, hidden reward. (0/2)

* Failure will result in the Source becoming permanently inaccessible to you.

Brock read the prompt and merely blinked in response. “You’ve got to be fucking joking.”