Max was reluctant to stop paying attention to his friend given her potentially dire circumstances. But upon her prodding he did. And when he did, he was surprised.
> You have made significant progress with increasing Pitchfork Wielding (Beginner) in proficiency.
>
> You have made significant progress with increasing Sprint (Beginner) in proficiency.
He hadn’t expected this much. But then, any progress here was appreciated; he wasn’t sure whether he actually felt change with the skill and ability. But odds were that that was how it was supposed to be, flawless integration into his capabilities.
The growth did make some minor sense too. He had slightly understood what worked with the pitchfork and how it could be used, that seemingly counted for something.
He shared his findings with Jamie, who smiled after his explanation. She began sharing what had happened on her side with clenched teeth.
> Mixed Martial Arts (Novice) – Through repeated hardships and a savage fighting style you have increased your mastery of combat to that of a novice and expanded your capabilities. Increases the effects of Endurance on knuckles, elbows, knees, and soles. Slightly strengthens bones in the appendages.
>
> Auxiliary Hit (Beginner) – Follow up a heavy hit with a secondary hit that is sure to hit a vital spot with reduced force.
“That’s good,” Max said. He was truly excited that she had gained a means of doing damage in a world that seemingly forced everyone to be more offensive. But only for a second. As he laid his eyes back on her, his heart dropped. She won’t be able to use it, will she?
To his confusion, she looked almost healthy and relieved.
“But that’s not all. I’ve received another prompt too.” This time she grinned.
> You have received an automated one-time message.
>
> You have sustained significant Injury during your stay in THE CRAWL.
>
> As a reward for daring to challenge the galaxies best and most prepared, you are given a single reconstitution token. These may be used to completely heal your body to its prime condition upon ascending a floor.
>
> Reconstitution Token: 1/1
Max breathed out. “I guess that means we just have to make it to the tower, right?”
He received a nod in confirmation.
In truth, it wasn’t all they had to do. They had secured a temporary source of water but had nothing to carry it with them. They had secured some form of sustenance – though without fire, Max wasn’t sure if either of them would attempt to eat. Fire was potentially not that far away though. There was a forest a few hills over.
The most important priority was to make sure that Jamie wouldn’t bleed out. Then there were minor things. He needed to make sure the rest of the hill was safe, for at least a little while. See if the water in the pond was going to come back or if the deer had spilled everything. See if there was anything edible on the bushes crowning the hill. And maybe there would be a treasure chest somewhere on this hill. As a reward for finishing the boss – a flimsy hope.
###
Max stood over the mini-boss’ corpse sometime later. For some reason, he felt as though more should have happened than a simple system message of increasing proficiency. Where was the notification telling him about experience gained, levels increased, and new skills gained? Now that he needed to watch out for two people, he needed something of the sort to up his chances of survival. Jamie had fallen asleep after drinking some water from the stream. He’d left his shirt with her too, hoping that it would help keep her warm. He’d considered giving her his pants too. But he’d not like coming across any of the four trillion people that should be here with them, just wearing underpants.
Running around in underwear was just asking for trouble.
As much as he disliked the idea, he began feeling about the downed mini-boss’ corpse. He wanted to see if it differed slightly from the other deer’s just in more than just size. Max was totally not avoiding tearing the chicken’s skin open to see what was hiding under its skin and required a magic skill to analyze.
After minutes of softly gliding his hands over the deer’s skin, he found a protrusion that was not present on the others in much the same position as on the chicken. The bump below the chest felt similar to the one on the chicken, though it seemed a little larger.
Given that it promised some sort of magic, Max felt it prudent to get his hands on it, even if he couldn’t find out what they were used for. Someone might have a good use for them in the future. He stared at the creature for a good few minutes before turning around and walking to the chicken.
If I damage something best damage the less important thing first.
With disgust he began stabbing the chicken’s chest, trying to dislodge whatever magic that lay within the chest cavity.
Minutes later Max stood over a torn and butchered corpse, holding a blood-caked, milky white shard the size of half his pinky. Before further inspecting it, Max grasped it firmly, making his way to the stream. As it shifted in his grip, it clanked against the silver ring Jamie had given him.
The system chimed.
> Equipment Mastery: Would you like to infuse Chicken of Prey – Aberrant Core into Silver Ring (Common)?
>
> Yes/No
He stopped mid-stride as the prompt appeared in his vision. He’d not been very excited about his own ability when he first learned about Jamie’s. Now he wasn’t so sure if that had been the right call. If he could somehow infuse magic into his equipment, it might increase their thus far weak ability.
He turned around and strode back towards the deer. Going through the same procedure as with the chicken.
> Equipment Mastery: Would you like to infuse Sunken Roe Deer – Mini-Boss Core into Silver Ring (Common)?
>
> Yes/No
He quickly ran along the hill to the stream. After cleaning the cores, he compared them. The mini-boss core was thicker and slightly longer. Approximately the size of his thumb. For some reason it didn’t share the same shading of the chicken’s core. Its edges seemed to have a light shimmer of the rainbow and it was clearer.
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He tried a few things with the cores at hand. He confirmed that he could use his Traits ability on each of his items. His boots and trousers didn’t qualify as their own items though, rather just as work attire, as was displayed in his status.
That left him with a total of six options. His Soiled Pitchfork, Standard Human Workman Attire, and the Silver Ring.
Given the state of the attire and how half of it was currently used by Jamie, he felt like it would be a poor choice to invest one of the cores into it. That left Jamie’s silver ring and his weapon. He considered waking Jamie before making a decision. After all, they were partially her spoils too and the ring belonged to her in the first place.
But he had some things he wanted to accomplish before Jamie would wake up, and he could use a small power-up before streaking out into the wild. Dying and leaving Jamie behind alone wouldn’t do anyone any good.
To be safe, he would use his ability on the less useful item and potentially weaker core first.
> Equipment Mastery: Would you like to infuse Chicken of Prey – Aberrant Core into Silver Ring (Common)?
>
> Yes/No
###
“Ga’Thron of the Fire,” the disembodied voice spoke loudly. “How did you manage to convince all of Sol-3 to enter THE CRAWL?”
The furred mammal took a few steps forward. Then raised a paw in greeting.
“Assimilator,” Ga’Thron began. She had considered coming up with an excuse. Telling a half-truth or omitting some facts. Things that members of her clan would have done. She was different. Had thought herself to be different. Maybe that had been an illusion. She had acted not like a gardener, but an impatient child.
There was no use in lying to the assimilator either. They were doing an important job and needed all the information they could gain. Best to make it quick.
“I lost my patience. I tried to approach the ruling elite first, as one does to quickly distribute news. But they only ever paid lip service. Thinking me a curiosity, a means or ploy by a rival to diminish their standing. I tried every government throughout my first decade. This much was expected, and I thought if I managed to get one on board the others would soon follow. The smaller ones thought that if I were telling the truth I would have approached the larger ones first. The larger ones that believed me just didn’t entertain me. A few tried to remove me.”
“You never demonstrated your abilities.” It wasn’t a question. A statement. Inferred by standard cycles of surveys and reports. “A not unwise decision if you want to leave a civilization to be a blank slate. Humans of Sol-3 are not that. They have developed in a manner more extreme than others. They need a different approach.”
“I saw that too. I tried a few things after that. Approaching the next powerful entities, cooperations, and so forth was only slightly more insightful. I thought one of them wanted to create a digital animation to spread my word. In the end, I had been lied to. They wanted me to play a cat in a movie about cats.”
“I’ll spare you the details, but let’s suffice it to say, that I withheld the chance of entering the tutorial from the human for no good reason.”
“You did grant them 0.01 seconds,” another voice chuckled amused – the raspy croaking too similar to the Aphasans to not be one. “It’s very close to skirting the rules. Your actions have been quite amusing. Humans were given a second trait too. I doubt you’ve heard it yet. Primal. It lifts the age restrictions on system events.”
Ga’Thron’s pupils widened, consuming the vibrant red and green of her eyes. The delicate tufts of fur on her ears flattened against her head, and her body tensed, ready to pounce.
“Yes, their young entered the crawl too,” came the confirmation from the shadows. Ga’Thron barely managed to keep her composure. Her thoughts spiraled; had she just doomed an entire generation of humans to their death? “They are not without protection though. Ones under a certain age have been placed with combatants. The crawl allowed for larger team sizes than two in those scenarios.”
Another voice began talking over the previous.
“Of course, this trait will have to be remedied for the young ones and needs to be removed from the genome. Two traits cannot be allowed in a first-stage civilization. How the system will resolve this when people enter the next floor we cannot tell yet.”
“In the first two hours none of the humans have managed to ascend a floor,” another voice that had not spoken yet came from the darkness above her. A prey species. A burg or tress potentially. Best ignore it. “That’s poor performance. All the other races managed that. Casualties are exceedingly high. 4% died in the first two hours. Due to your negligence. I vote for a special assignment. Let the ‘Garden’ nurture, as she claims to be the best.”
“We will discuss this later. Child,” the dark hall which she had entered began shedding its shadows and revealed a figure not fifteen meters away from her. A shelled, figure many dozen times her size. A head and six appendages anchoring it to the ground. “You have been honest, but you failed. A virtue and a vice. We had hoped you would succeed in integrating humans without underhanded means. But you did not manage this time. Your promotion will have to wait for another hundred standard cycles or until the system deems you acceptable.”
Silence reigned through the shadow-clad hall. Then the voice from above spoke again.
“I decree you to social work. To see whether you can be trusted further, we will put you in charge of tutoring some of the first humans to reach the third floor.”
As her instructions finished, she found herself in a black void. The system transport was unnerving, but it gave her a few seconds to think.
A test.
She was good at those. Usually.
Maybe humans earned a second chance. As an apology at least.
###
The six-legged creature turned its head upwards, exclaiming both in frustration and joy.
“Aartax, do you know what you have done?”
“Yes,” the on-the-ceiling hanging creature responded. “And once she realizes it, I will be joyful for a cycle. She is of the flame, not of the garden and she will soon realize.”
It summoned a three-dimensional array of light, untold pixels of light illuminated the room as they showed dozens of encounters of humans. A team was fighting an aberrant monster, eight-legged shelled and with a horn that shot off every few seconds. The fight took ages, but the two humans fighting managed to use the terrain to their advantage and flipped the creature. They found stones and sticks and used those to finish the creature off. Leaving the body behind, not extracting the cores, not swallowing, not enabling themselves to gain a class.
The scene repeated itself several times, each time slightly varying from each other. Most of the encounters were with aberrant monsters, though some teams had managed to take on mini-bosses as well. Anything stronger was dangerous unless one reached the first level. And almost each time the humans disregarded the monster’s corpses entirely. A few retrieved the cores, but non ate the cores or otherwise prepared them.
A shame. Maybe the system will inform them in-between floors.
In another illusion two humans battling a quadruped mammal that had some minor control over the supportive and distribute aspect of water. If they hadn’t finished the supportive monsters with such speed, they would have surely perished as soon as all the monsters shared each other’s stats to a minor degree.
But something about the encounter made no sense. One of the humans had a weapon. And usually, entities were stripped of all such items before entering the crawl.
More curious, it showed the glint of magic on it and the rest of the equipment worn by the human. How that was possible V’kes had no idea. But his face contorted as the unarmed humans sustained a significant injury. After defeating the mini-boss her companion tended for her in a shoddy manner, but she would probably live if she survived the night. If they managed to survive to the second floor, they would both be a force to be reckoned with merely because of their level advantage and accelerated speed.
But as in all of the illusions before, the humans made a similar mistake. Instead of ingesting or otherwise preparing the monster core, no monster cores – the humans had two –, the human infused them somehow into his equipment.
“A weird trait,” V’kes stated. “Is it internal?”
“It’s a hybrid,” Aartax responded snarling. “It binds itself to the equipment he has on him, and they empower each other.”
“That’s rare. Fascinating. Any projections?"
“I’ve not seen it before. It’s strong. Potential not yet determined. It’ll highly depend on his class and what the system deems to be a good fit. I project that the majority of available classes will be crafting-related instead of combat. That might get him to floor twenty with a good party, but I doubt any further. If it's anything else, it might be better.”
“How far could his party go if they find a good replacement? You think he could create an ascender team?”
“Far. I would not exclude it. If they figure out a bunch of stuff.”
“That’s good to hear. I’m ready to have any kind of win by now.”