(1) Skill Upgrade Core — Basic
Upgrade a basic class skill to the next rank.
My eyes read over the description a second time before I dismissed it. I hovered there, staring at the line in my inventory, mentally poised to activate it. If only to see what would happen next.
Then I forcibly shifted my attention away. No, I had enough to worry about at the moment. Like looking through this long list of items. Or figuring out why it was Crunch even had them in the first place...
Though actually, I think I had a good idea on that front.
When Crunch had killed the human Miguel, I’d received some experience, but no cores or other items. But when I was the one to kill Crunch, I’d received all his possessions.
It stood to reason that Crunch in turn must have received every item that Miguel had been carrying. And, likely, the items of every other human that the pack had stumbled upon before I encountered them. Which went a long way towards explaining the high number of cores. Crunch likely converted everything he’d collected at some point, not knowing (or caring) about their usefulness.
If that was the case, couldn’t he at least have had the decency of refusing the cores I’d given him??? It felt like such a waste now. Sigh...
Oh well. No sense crying over spilt sausage. Especially when it tasted just as good licked off the floor.
I started to go through the long list of items, but couldn’t. My attention kept returning to the core. I’d glance up, realize what I was doing, snap my attention back to reading the list, then glance up again.
Eventually, I surrendered. I just had to know.
Would you like to activate Skill Upgrade Core now?
Uh, yeah. I very much would. Impatiently, I confirmed, only to receive an angry message in reply.
Error: Skill levels insufficient to activate this core.
Dog darn it! I reviewed over my stat sheet and saw that Claw Slash was listed at five. How many common cores would it take before I could activate this upgrade? Fifty? A hundred? More? That felt like such a waste...
Except that I’d just received a large windfall of cores, including twelve uncommon variety. Right! Thank you, Crunch! You may have tried to kill me, but without that I’d never have learned about being able to upgrade our skills. I suppose that sort of evened it out, in the end.
I kept spending uncommon cores one at a time, then trying the upgrade again, to little result.
Level six? No.
Seven? No.
Eight? No.
Nine?
... I think you know the answer.
Finally, once I reached Claw Slash 10, I didn’t receive the error message. Instead, the skill core disappeared from my inventory. An entirely new message appeared in my vision.
List of skill upgrades populating. Please wait...
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More options, like when I’d selected the skill in the first place? That was a pleasant surprise. I’d just assumed an upgrade would increase the damage or something.
Since it appeared I had some time to kill, I returned to my inventory list, for serious this time.
My first order of business was sorting through all of the useless junk—of which there was a LOT.
Most of the items that had come out of Crunch’s box were meant for humans. And just like when I’d sorted through all of Prometheus’s hand-me-downs, I kept seeing the same message whenever I tried to inspect anything.
Warning: This item is incompatible with your assigned race.
I kept hoping that one or two of the items might change while I looked at them like my bandana had, but no such luck. In the end, I did the only thing I could—I junked them and turned them into cores.
Except for the chainmail. That I kept on the off-chance Riley might be able to use it one day. But everything else? Cores. Even the shotgun. Especially the shotgun. No way I was handing a tool of mass destruction to someone who was barely housebroken.
In total, I got another forty-seven cores out of the process. Honestly, not a bad win. Especially since I had more equipment than I could wear already.
Speaking of which...
I focused on a particular item, pulling up its description to see if anything had changed. Surprisingly, not much had.
Indomitable Choke Chain
Level 12
A memoir from another life, another dog. Memories mix with reality when you look upon this chain. Are they good? Are they bad? Probably a bit of both.
This equipment provides the following bonuses: +24 to Power, and immunity to all stun, fear, and knockback-based effects.
Note: This is a growth item and cannot be improved to higher levels via cores or other methods.
Would you like to equip this now?
Interesting. The description was more or less as I remembered it, though to be fair, it did feel like it applied to me now as well as it had Crunch. I felt a welling of mixed emotions looking over the description. Was I really thinking of equipping the same collar that Crunch had almost used to kill me?
Yes. Because at the end of the day, I wanted that boost in Power. And while I didn’t fully understand what it meant by growth item, at least the collar no longer appeared to be soul bound.
Unfortunately, equipping the choke chain meant giving up my current collar. Which I didn’t mind at all, except for what was attached to it. I glanced lovingly at my Triple Chance Dog Collar... it had literally saved my life on multiple occasions, and I had no way to move it.
Or did I? I had some suspicions about potential methods, but... later. I’d get to those later.
For now, I slipped off my worn collar and attached the chain instead.
Unparalleled strength flushed through me as my total Power more than doubled. I gasped at the sudden influx, my muscles shaky to the point I thought I wouldn’t be able to remain standing.
It took all my willpower to keep my legs under me, and a few minutes later the heady rush subsided. I glanced down at my legs, wondering if I would see more muscle or some other sign of such an immense change, but... nothing. Same ol’ me.
Still, I felt stronger, and that counted for a lot.
And because of the Indomitable Choke Chain, my Power was finally above thirty. I’d been debating this next decision for a while, so I already knew what I was planning to do. Unequipping, my Bracelet of Minor Replication, I attached the Static Field Generator in its place.
Yes, I was losing another valuable tool, just like with my collar, but the way I saw it, if I remained so afraid to lose what I already had that I didn’t even bother to test new tools, I’d be no better than Crunch and the others, constantly afraid of what they didn’t understand. I wouldn’t let myself go down that path. Better to risk a few tests and decide what combination of gear worked best.
A few cores later, I’d upgraded the generator to level twelve, which improved its slowdown to a hearty 35%. Feeling rather proud of my upgrades, I reviewed over my interface in totality.
Name: Bubba
Race: Canid (Advanced)
Class: Wildling
Level: 7
XP: 4,400/4,500
-Equipment-
Collar: Indomitable Choke Chain (lv 12)(G)
Left Front Leg: Wand of Stupefy (lv 8) (+5)
Right Front Leg: Wand of Stupefy (lv 8) (+5)
Left Back Leg: Static Field Generator (lv 12)(+2)
Right Back Leg: Bandana of Cleverness (lv 9) (+5)
-Racial Skills-
Skill 1: Night Vision
Skill 2: Enhanced Smell
Skill 3: Song of the Night
Skill 4: Pack Loyalty
-Class Skills-
Skill 1: Claw Slash 10 (32%)
-Stats-
Power: 47 (+24)
Speed: 5 (-5)
Agility: 15
Presence: 3
Mind: 23 (+18)
Points Available: 0
Still no sign of that skill upgrade, but the night was young... and, while I still had some work to do sorting out the rest of my inventory, I could wait no longer. I had new toys, and I wanted to test them.
Luckily, I’d left one small monster nest alone for just such an occasion. It was full of enemies far too weak to level from, but they’d be just perfect for seeing what the Static Field could do.
Padding back through the main room, I checked that Riley and Zapper were still asleep. Satisfied, and with the safe zone still in place, I slipped out into the night.