Words appeared in his vision as the crystal, by far larger than the ring, vanished in the shiny metal.
> Equipment Mastery:
>
> Silver Ring (Common) – Accentuate the shape of your fingers. Equipment Mastery Bonus: Slightly improves Abilities that originate from the vicinity of the ring.
>
> -> Fearful Silver Ring (Uncommon) – Level 0 – Accentuate the shape of your fingers.
> Ability: Fearful Roar – Sentience and Monsters around you will fear you. The greater the initial fear the stronger the effect. While the ability is not on cooldown you are slightly resistant against fear effects.
> Attribute: Soul + 1
> Cooldown: 12 hours
> Equipment Mastery Bonus: Slightly improves Abilities that originate in the vicinity of the ring. Improves casting Fear-Based Abilities that originate from the vicinity of the ring.
Max grinned as he felt and read the changes. Much like his sprinting ability he felt a new trigger in his mind. This time, it wasn’t bound to any restrictions. He wasn’t required to be already running. Instead, he could trigger it at any point.
He liked the ability. Striking fear into opponents’ hearts could have all sorts of applications. He still remembered the hesitation he’d felt when fighting the aberrant chicken – not that it had done it any good. But he wasn’t planning on fighting other people. The additional effect of resistance against fear effects could only be useful in the future.
Even better, he had somehow gained an additional point for his Soul attribute. What that did he couldn’t say, but it would surely be helpful.
He switched his attention to the pitchfork on the ground next to him.
He really hoped that the core of a mini-boss with water abilities would get rid of the dung on it. It felt reasonable. He considered what sort of abilities a pitchfork with waterpowers could give him. He saw himself throwing out torrents of water, clad in water armor, and surfing with his bare feet on a wave.
Ginning he activated the prompt to infuse the mini-boss core.
> Equipment Mastery:
>
> Soiled Pitchfork (Common) – A tool used for labor, with minor combat abilities.
> Equipment Mastery Bonus: The stain work has left behind cannot be removed. Has a chance to inflict minor debuffs on targets.
>
> -> Dung Sweeper (Rare) – Level 0 – No longer a tool of labor but a precursor of pestilence.
> Passive: Drawing Blood with Dung Sweeper can inflict the target with Visual Impairment, Nauseous Gag, and Parasitic Infection in order of likelihood. Has a small likelihood of inflicting random debuffs.
> Attribute: Might + 1
> Equipment Mastery Bonus: Debuffs inflicted by Dung Sweeper have a diminishing chance to afflict the target multiple times increasing the effect.
As an unpleasant smell began to originate from the upgraded Pitchfork Max’s face contorted. He didn’t have any time to focus on the lightness that permeated his body, all he could do was keep it at an arm-length distance.
When a bit of dung dripped he heaved and retched, almost puking.
“Bullshit!” he cursed. Throwing the pitchfork away in annoyance. He had gained upgrades for sure. Ones he knew would be game-changers. He’d hoped for armor, but given the previous ability Dung Sweeper had had, he should have expected something else. Maybe if he had used the water core on his boots and pants. But it was too late now.
> Equipment Mastery: Equipment decay imminent. Equipment Mastery requires physical contact for 24 hours to stabilize Dung Sweeper.
Cursing internally before he grabbed the still dung-laden pitchfork. He’d have to keep the disgusting thing with him for the next 24 hours. He didn’t know if he could manage. But it was his only weapon thus far, so he would have to try.
He did repeat the same thing with the ring.
> Equipment Mastery: Equipment decay imminent. Equipment Mastery requires physical contact for 12 hours to stabilize Fearful Silver Ring.
He shrugged. Just his luck that the disgusting thing takes longer.
“It’s probably the rarity, right?” he growled. “I hate this.”
Annoyed to no end, he made his way away from Jamie, towards the forest in the distance. He’d promised her to be careful, and he would be. That meant not entering the forest, and skirting combat as best as he could. And just in general don’t go anywhere that looked a bit special, like the valleys and hilltops.
As he thought that, he knew it was a lie. He’d never been big on combat, but with an actual chance of upgrading his abilities, a magical ring, and a disgusting pitchfork he just had to experiment. If it came to the worst, he could simply sprint away. He’d not measured his speed gain properly yet, but he had to be at least half as fast again as anything humanly possible before, and that was before the might increase. With the right opponent chosen, he would be guaranteed an escape.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
###
Much to Max’s annoyance there was effectively zero shrubbery and sticks around the forest he’d picked out. Thus far he had moved two valleys over from where he and Jamie had started. Effectively two hill ridges away from where he’d left Jamie. He’d sneaked around the two groups of monsters in the valleys. Each time evaluating his chances of taking them.
The opponents he’d spotted in the next valley over had been a group of five pangolins. The small creatures looked pretty cute to Max’s eyes. But that wasn’t the issue. He had a piercing weapon. And pangolins seemed to be fairly well defended against that sort of attack. Maybe if he had more experience they would be a decent encounter, currently, it was an unnecessary risk. He did step closer though to see what his ability said about them.
> Brittle Pangolin – Floor One
None of the five knee-tall creatures had a level. Max assumed that meant they were weaker but couldn’t be sure either way. And even if that was the case, he didn’t feel certain of his victory there. To ensure the best outcome possible he moved on.
After he’d crossed the next saddle, he scouted out the next valley. He didn’t like what he saw at all. A pair of bears and three cubs – Max thought that was an excessively high number of bears – were moving around in the valley.
He turned around quickly and vanished back into the pangolin’s valley. He was not going to take any risk of fighting bears. Especially not with cubs around. That sounded like a guaranteed death, that was very avoidable.
He really just wanted to jog over the closest hill and not take the few kilometers detour walking around it entailed. Reason prevailed. Though he regretted the time he would waste just walking around the bears.
The next valley over, on the opposite side of the bear territory held another group of foes. However, in comparison, they paled. Only as he got closer could he determine what they were. Their size was not exceeding weasels by much. They had long and agile-seeming bodies, covered in brown and white striped fur. And unlike most valleys, he had seen thus far, its features stood out. Maybe as a stroke of luck, or just by virtue of being close to a forest, it held copious amounts of deadwood.
The only issue was that he couldn’t be sure that he knew of all the monsters within. As he approached, he counted four of the small creatures at once. Usually, he only saw one or two though.
When he got sufficiently close, he cast his Analyze ability.
> Swiftclaw – Floor One
They didn’t look like a huge threat and had no level. If his observations and deductions from those were correct, the creatures shouldn’t have any special abilities or traits like the chickens had. That alone wasn’t enough to guarantee his victory but given the size difference alone he felt confident.
What are they going to do? Try to swarm me? Actually. On second thought… Yeah, that could be a problem. Max regretted not having brought the chickens from earlier with him at this point. They might have been a solid distraction for some of the swiftclaws. That wasn’t an issue though. If he was willing to go all out, he could retrieve a couple of dead chickens in an hour or less.
Max stood in the same spot roughly forty minutes later, two deceased chickens in his left hand, with a grimace expressing how gross he found the entire situation. Truth be told he had not thought much about carrying them for this long, but when the first bone snapped from the constant swinging of his arm that had changed.
The next steps were obvious. He approached the nesting ground whenever he couldn’t see a swiftclaw. Whenever they were in sight he stopped moving and just waited. He’d actually grown impressed after another ten or so minutes. Their incessant running around had to cost a lot of energy.
When he deemed himself to be close enough, he threw one of the chickens as far as he could, maybe fifty meters away from the borrow, and dropped the other twice as far away as he retreated.
Not a minute later, as Max had retreated a bit further, did the first of the small creatures dashed out of the wooden pile in the center of the valley towards the chicken’s corpse. As it began dragging it back to what seemed to be a nest another joined.
Instead of helping, the little guy bit its brother before jumping back a pace and observing the bitten swiftclaw. It had hunched the moment it had felt its companion’s teeth. But not act in any significant way. When the newcomer charged in again the chicken carrier twitched its head once, and in a display of formidable strength hurled the chicken at the attacker. Both observed the flight path, zooming closer to the attacker. At the last moment, the newcomer zoomed out of the flight path. Before standing still again.
Max had thus far been just observing. Seeing the swiftclaw's irate behavior and potential rivalry he headed back down intent on joining the fray.
With both creatures locked in a stalemate of moving, jumping, and charging without ever actually attacking their opponent, he felt like he learned a lot about the swiftclaws. Each burst of speed interrupted by a sudden halt of movement that felt more choreographed than improvised. Then as though there had never been a break in action, the two adversaries broke the stalemate and moved in unpredictable patterns.
Max was less than impressed by anything the two creatures had shown thus far. The exception was the insane amounts of agility the small bodies allowed for. He might be able to take one out in a straight fight. Not immediately but after several tries.
The weasel-like monsters still paid no heed to Max when he had gotten within 10 meters of the two. They had glanced at his way once or twice. But each time the other had used that moment to engage in a hectic round of charging around the other and pawing at the distracted.
In his spare time at the zoo – which hadn’t been a lot – Max had spent a few hours on idle things occupations. He’d catapulted animal dung onto the composting pile – as one does –, had tried to teach the monkeys to catch their feed with their mouth – something they were infuriatingly better at than he was – and most important of all, hurled his pitchfork into piles or straw. It had been a natural development from someone who’d been forced to do the javelin in the previous track season.
The weight distribution had been a little off and the flight was less stable. Countless hours of boredom, annoyance, and trying to skirt his duties had made him somewhat adept.
Adept enough to warrant confidence in his throw.