From the sixteen dead animals, only eleven were good enough for Roberion to harvest. The explosion was too much, their bodies transformed into minced meat and broken bones, only the claws had only a small degradation. Yet, there was a wonderful surprised to be had. After Roberion harvest the first cat, Percival approaches him, silent, waiting.

Roberion gets up, seeing Percival expression of happiness and anxiety. “Hey Percival, did something happen?”

Percival perks up, “Indeed sir, it happened as I was preparing the traps. Oh, they are already prepared. You don’t need to get preoccupied with those cursed cats coming back, although I had to use them sparingly, nonetheless they will need to show up to attack us. Their previous sordid surprise attack won’t happen again. Excuse me, going to the previous topic of conversation. Sir, you asked of me to call you when I felt a resonance, an attraction to a magical material, for that I felt a sudden interest in these horrendous claws, and these beast’s bones. It’s a strange feeling, like the feeling of testing a splendid blade, of masterwork craft”. Percival's eagerness is palpable.

“Hum I got you. That’s great, but should I harvest first or you?”

“I…I dont know sir”

“Yes, that is what I thought. System, do you know how and how much time Percival would take to harvest the claws and bones? Are they compatible?”, he feels a hotness in nape.

“Mundane materials: peak-stage flexible bones; peak-stage magic conductive claws; Acceptable materials for integration in weapon composition.

“These damn wildcats had magic? That corrosion didn’t seem magical. Damn, system, how do I learn magic?”, what answered him was only silence.

“Godammit. Hey system, you didn’t answer my question, how much time for the integration?

“Unknown”

"Ok”. I can’t lie to myself. Percival is the heavy hitter here in melee combat. I still need the rifle to do some damage, and with almost half of my ammo gone, I need to improve. With conviction Roberion looks at Percival.

“I will be first. Be on guard. I will try to be fast as possible”. Percival gives a small salute. This battle had shown how weak Roberion true was. He was no marksman, he was no warrior. It was time to change that, but improving his body comes first.

The harvesting of the magic felines goes without much problems, already accustomed to the pain of upgrading himself. Roberion focus on his next steps. It was about time for him to get the initiative. Hopefully, these stats would catapult his development, his harvest upgrades didn’t show a loss in stats during the process, hoping that it would keep that way seemed naive.

At the end of his harvest, he felt a weird feeling in his brain. If he was capable of magic, he didn’t know, and the system wouldn’t help him. “Alright, let’s take a look at these stats.”

STATS

Level

15

Strength

17

Dexterity

51

Intelligence

37

Endurance

18 (+7)

Knowledge

20

Social

10

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“Not bad, not bad. Maybe I could be at least a little faster than these cats”. Saying that Roberion tries to run and do some moves, he didn’t look like an acrobat, but if a professional acrobat had seemed that, they would at least say he was good material for a student. His dexterity made an incredible jump. Now he could be fast in a melee, not depending only on Percival and his gun. The problem was a weapon. The improvised hammer was too heavy for a more fast fighting style. He needed a way to change his weapon soon, but that was a problem for later. His armor was barely holding up, and there was still Percival upgrade. He didn’t know what to do with the armor, but the die upgrade would give their team an incredible power jump.

There was an upgrade to his knowledge and social. As far as Roberion knew, these stats were merely to measure how much he know and how much he was good at talking. The knowledge must be because of his tries to understand the system, his social is probably because of his interactions with Percival. Dimissing that, he looks for Percival.

“Alright Percival, I’m finished, now is your time”. As Percival approaches, Roberion attention goes back to the system.

“System, proceed with the harvesting process for Percival.”

“Denied, composition change requires weapon deactivation”.

“Makes sense I guess. Percival see ya”.

“Yes sir”, Percival vanishes with a small salute.

The die goes back to Roberion’s hand. “System start Last gamble of the Round Table harvest".

“Proceeding with improvement of weapon, Last gamble of the Round Table, composition”.

For the first time, he could inspect the harvesting process with a better view. The lines that appear during the process, doesn’t seem like intrusions in reality, but more like if the lines of reality unravelled, showing the threads that made its composition, they were colorful beyond his imaginations. Even seeing it, the sensation he felt as if he was still a blind man trying to see, it was so much beyond his comprehension that gave him a strong headache. Feeling that was a better idea, he started to look around him for possible new threats.

The process of Percival didn’t go with much problem. Reasoning, Roberion reached the conclusion that these animals seems territorials, until other animals reached them for the corpses of the creatures, they would be probably too late to attack them. Nonetheless, Roberion never lowered his guard. By the last corpse, it didn’t take long before the colorful lines vanished and the system answered him with a notification.

“Process complete”

“System, can you show me the weapon changes?”

“Unknown”

For real. Not trying to argue with the system, Roberion activates the die again. Without any other face to select, Percival was summoned, and the die vanishes. This time Percival takes a little more to show up, like the die was trying to create suspense. When he showed up, the difference was noticeable. Percival’s armor doesn’t look like a metallic paper anymore. It was more like someone had made a bone armor and painted it silver. It didn’t look a masterwork, but it wasn’t too shabby.

His shield was still small, but like the armor, it gained a more bone appearance with a silver cover of paint. The shield, though, looked really sturdy. If Percival was shot again by the team of Nulls they would have a harder time to pass its defenses. ‘If they were still the same, but by the hidden quest, I don’t think so.

The weapon that suffered the greatest change was the rapier. It almost looked like a new weapon, like a greater beast than felines had a big thorn. This thorn then used to become a rapier. There are some imperfections though, showing still the silvery color in the thorn. "I guess we need to hunt some wildcats to finish it. It would be a good change for once, but that thorn gave me an idea”.

“Hey Percival, I don’t know how to ask, but do you think you could lend me your weapons for me to fight?”

“Sure sir, but why?”, Percival says confused, but not against the idea.

Roberion says with emotion in his voice, “I need to be a better fighter. I can’t depend on this gun anymore. If I do that, I will waste my ammo too soon. The target of the quest only seems a little closer than before, to reach the destiny, to have a shot at leaving this planet and having a live, I need to get stronger”.

Percival listens with attention and manages a little smile. “Sir, your eagerness to become a warrior, a knight, warms my heart, but first you need to understand, to feel the sword, the weapon could be a danger to its master the same way the weapon is a danger to its enemy. If you give me the honor of teaching you the way of the sword, it would me full of joy…it’s your choice, sir.”

“Alright it’s a deal Percival”, ‘Although his fighting style seems a little weird, dunno if it will be too much useful for me’.

Taking a short break, Percival starts teaching Roberion how to fight like a duelist. During the training, Percival was adamant that his patron would carry the shield, both because of his safety and because of the fighting style he was teaching. The process was hard and weird for Roberion. He never had executed these movements, parrying, thrusting. He felt like he was walking on a tightrope. Even with the supposed help of his dexterity and intelligence, it was still too hard.

That is strange, as Percival was teaching him, he noticed that the dark-red capybara made weird mistakes that he himself had corrected him from making. He remembered Percivals demonstration when he happily ate the mangoes. The way he used his belly was really wrong, too fantastical and comic to be right. Like he wasn’t capable of fighting right by an external factor, nevertheless the training was bearing fruit. But Roberion need much, much training to call himself a duelist.

“That is enough sir, that was splendid for a novice squire. Soon, with my help, I will instruct you daily and make you become the greatest duelist. You can be absolutely sure of that”. After saying that, Percival gave a happy and cute nod, betraying the knight behind it.

Soon after they left the remaining of the corpses alone, Percival and Roberion agreed that they wasted too much time there, leaving the area. What he didn’t know was that was already too late. A big feline head was looking above the trees, sooner or later, it would make its next move.