But beating the System was a long way off, and for now, he needed to master his last new skill, [Tentacle Armor].
[This rare skill allows you to graft material within your environment to your body, creating a layer of protection against attack.]
Before he’d broken up with his girlfriend, she’d forced him to watch a ton of nature documentaries. Logan could take them or leave them, but he remembered watching one that featured an octopus who had a strange way to cushion itself from attacks.
The octopus had scrunched itself into a ball and then used its tentacles to gather everything around it. Rocks, empty clams, broken coral—you name it. Its suction cups had latched onto each item, covering its body in a layer of debris, like a cluttered costume of junk.
If this skill did the same, he’d be able to create a shield, something to cushion himself against attack.
The problem was, Logan didn’t have tentacles.
The description of the skill didn’t say it advanced with his Grade level, which meant it had to be similar to his other skills. It would take effort to advance. Concentration. And it wasn’t the same as making his skin transform or breathing underwater. This skill needed external material. It reminded him of that ability he’d seen the woman deploy on the news, that telekinesis skill he’d thought so cool.
And if it was anything like that, that meant Karma.
Logan eyed the sky, checking that he had enough light. There was still enough light to see everything around him, but it was getting too dark to stay by the lake, so he retreated to his makeshift campsite and plopped down on the blankets he’d set on the ground. Shifting, he sat in a lotus position, trying to get into what he considered his ‘Zen’ state of mind.
Somehow, he needed to graft ‘material’ to his body. But what material? Since the skill was supposed to create armour, material made him think of metal. He had two big metal buckets inside his spatial collar, but that couldn’t be right. What, walk around with two buckets sticking out of his chest? It was ridiculous. So ridiculous it was laughable.
Octopuses used the suction cups on their tentacles to grab shells and rocks and then twisted the tentacles around their bodies, creating a shield, but they didn’t swim while doing it. They were stationary. They only used the ability when they were hiding or on the ground, bundled up in a ball. Plus, the thought of a bunch of shells stuck all over his body was as ridiculous as the metal buckets.
Logan eyed the sand on the ground. Maybe it was a matter of starting off small.
Logan mulled over the problem and then knew what he had to do. Visualization. Before the System Integration, he’d never been a big dreamer. Meditation? Concentration? The best he could do was read a few chapters of the latest Spy Thriller before becoming distracted. It was surprising how well he’d adapted to this new world, where power was a matter of imagination, concentration, and sheer persistence rather than a natural ability such as a high IQ or an eidetic memory.
Closing his eyes, he pictured his surroundings, replicating everything he’d seen in his mind. From the pine trees towering towards the sky, to the large boulder that had a layer of moss crawling over the areas exposed to the ground, to the rough fibres of the wool blanket underneath him.
He thought of the lady on the news with the telekinesis skill as he reached. He started with the sand on the edges of his blanket, visualizing it loosening, trickling towards him. At first, it travelled on the ground only, moving towards him as if he were suddenly on an incline. Then, as if each fine grain of sand were an insect, they moved over the blanket. More and more came, pouring over the blanket and gathering into a sand pile next to his crossed legs.
But he couldn’t stop there.
This was the hard part.
Logan continued the visualization, but this time, he pictured one grain of sand rising into the air.
One only. A fine grain of sand was weightless, so featherlight it could fly away in a windstorm. Logan used that knowledge to give himself confidence. This was possible.
Holding out his arm, he visualized that grain of sand lifting from the ground and hovering in the air. His arm was still bare, his skin back to normal, but he pictured his arm not as a regular arm; he twisted his perspective. It was a magnet, sucking in everything around it. But this magnet was designed for one purpose.
To attract sand.
The grain of sand flew towards his arm like a bullet, latching onto his forearm and sticking. It was like a speck of dust, nothing on its own, but he wasn’t stopping at one.
Logan scrunched his eyebrows in concentration as he seized hold of the pile of sand piled up next to his leg, expanding his area of focus and launching hundreds of grains into the air. They lurched, wobbling, before he forced them steady, hovering them in place, before he directed them closer. One after another, like darts landing on a board, they latched onto his arm to create a consistent layer, at least an inch thick.
Ding!
[Tentacle Armor is Level 1!]
Logan opened his eyes.
Covering his forearm and wrist, he now had a layer of light, brown sand. It was as if he’d just dipped his arm in the lake, getting it wet, and then rolled it in sand like dipping it in flour. The difference was, when sand clung to you, it inevitably fell off as soon as you were no longer wet. Logan hadn’t been wet at all.
But it was still just a layer of sand. One flex of his arm could dislodge the whole thing. The sand was sticking together in a piecemeal pattern, staying put due to sheer willpower and the power of the skill, but it wouldn’t be much protection against attack.
Logan needed to do better.
Could he harden the sand? Connect the grains? After all, there was a reason that sandstone existed. Normally, it took hundreds of years, even thousands to transform into stone, but if it were possible in the natural world, it had to be possible with a skill.
Logan shifted in place and took a deep breath to settle his nerves. The fact that he was even trying this showed how far he’d come in just four days. Magic had been something he told his nieces about, things in fairytales. Not something real. If this were real, if an octopus could talk, if a person could turn into an undead fungus zombie, what else was possible? Everything humanity could imagine, no matter how fantastical, could be made into reality.
In the scheme of things, what was one armour skill? If Logan wanted to transform sand into a rock that could flex as he moved, he was going to master the hell out of that shit.
Logan looked down at his arm and concentrated on the layer of sand. Opening his senses, he narrowed in on each grain. It was impossible to see each one, but somehow, like utilizing his [Life Cycle Master] skill, he could sense them.
They were rounded, like pebbles, but some had uneven edges. Edges that could be slotted together. Logan willed the sand into a cohesive whole, commanding it to reform, merge, harden… and yet, be flexible. From his wrist to his forearm, all the way to his elbow. Logan formed a layer of hardened sandstone, molding it, transforming it.
Ding!
[Tentacle Armor is Level 2!]
As he looked down, elation surged through his body, making him want to jump and shout. The only thing holding him back was the possibility it might attract monsters.
He’d formed a forearm guard.
Kick ass.
It looped around his wrist and forearm, hard as rock. An inch thick, this thing had substance. Logan tried to move it, wiggling it, shifting it, but it had formed onto his arm like an exoskeleton. But like an exoskeleton, it didn’t restrict movement, allowing him to flex his wrist and move his arm as if it weren’t there at all. And even better, Logan instinctively knew that as soon as he wanted to remove it, it was just a matter of willing it.
Could he expand the forearm guard? Logan squinted, gazing at it in concentration. If he did, he would need more sand. Expanding his senses, he…
Suddenly, his head grew stuffy, as if his sinuses were tight. Every time this had happened in the past, he’d been close to draining his Karma pool. Logan pulled up his stat sheet and reviewed his Karma pool. He’d rather avoid another….
9/330.
8/330.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
7/330.
6/330.
It was draining as he watched! Clenching his fist in frustration, Logan released the skill, watching his hard-earned forearm guard transform from stone and back into hundreds of grains of sand. Without the skill keeping them in place, they soon fell off his arm, trickling down and pooling at his feet.
Logan waited for his Karma pool to replenish with a scowl. Originally, when he’d only needed Karma for [Life Cycle Master], he’d deemed increasing his Karma pool and Karma regeneration rate lower priority. That was when he thought those stats related to growing trees and vegetables. At the time, he’d needed offensive abilities, not KarmaCoin. But now that he had a skill that could be used in a fight, his attribute priorities had drastically changed.
Logan still had five free attribute points to allocate from his last fight, and until now, it had made sense to hold back on distributing them until he figured out his next priority. Not anymore.
It was just a matter of which attribute to upgrade first. Every additional intelligence point translated into six karma points. Expanding his pool would let him use [Tentacle Armour] longer, but it also meant he’d have to wait the same amount of time to replenish it. On the other hand, each wisdom point translated to a one-to-one ratio. From a strict rate of return consideration, increasing intelligence was way more valuable.
Decision made, Logan allocated his points.
[Intelligence: 56]
[Intelligence: 57+]
[Intelligence: 60]
Logan’s eyes widened as the change took effect; each time he upgraded it was no less of a rush than the last. By making that change, he’d increased his Karma pool from 330 to 360. While he was considering his options, his pool had started to replenish, and he watched with excitement as it filled.
331/360.
333/360.
336/360.
Soon, his Karma pool was full again at 360, and he could get back to work. First, Logan reformed the armguard, the process of gathering the sand and funneling it onto his arm already easier than before. But this time, he didn’t stop there, wanting to see how far up his arm he could advance it, and how long he could get it to stay before he ran out of Karma.
Logan kept funneling sand, more and more, all the way up to the base of his throat. Then, he expanded his senses so that he could focus on each grain of sand, slotting them together and hardening them into the exoskeleton material.
Done.
Now it was just a matter of timing it to figure out how long the skill could last. He didn’t want to go into his next fight without having a full understanding of his resources. It would be like going into a gunfight without knowing how many bullets you had in a gun.
At the same time, since [Mimicry] didn’t seem to need Karma, he could also practice using more than one skill at once. It was too bad that his new armour couldn’t take on the camouflage features of [Mimicry]. That would be kick-ass to the extreme.
….Wait a minute.
He’d just finished telling himself that anything was possible. He’d already seen other skills merge together. Why couldn’t he do it again?
A flutter of excitement made his feet feel light as he deployed [Mimicry], visualizing that same gravel and sand pattern he’d used before. The skill spread the pattern like a river.
Logan held out his arm and studied his hand, right underneath where the armguard ended. He’d covered it in camouflage, and he also knew that the camouflage had spread underneath his armguard. How could he make the armguard take on that same pattern?
Visualization.
Visualization was his ace in the hole.
Logan took a deep, steadying breath, and this time kept his eyes open. He wanted to focus on the armguard in real-time. Starting with the edge of the guard, he visualized that solid, brown stone taking on a speckled pattern. It was like taking a picture of the gravel and pine needles scattered around his blanket and transposing it directly onto his arm. Logan knew he was activating the skill, but the problem was, he’d just duplicated the same pattern on his arm. The armguard remained a solid brown stone.
Logan thought of the last time he’d broken through a skill. The greenhouse and the image of the towering brick wall. Could he do the same with this skill? Somehow, he knew visualizing a brick wall would get him nowhere. However, he could already sense each grain of sand when he molded the skill and hardened it. There was something here, a way forward.
Logan needed all his focus at his disposal, so he closed his eyes.
The stone forearm guard was now solid rock, but each connected, merged grain of sand remained inside the structure. Sand was nothing but tiny crystals of quartz, which in essence was made out of silica and oxygen. Oxygen could move. And if it moved, he could carve out a space for something else.
Logan pictured [Mimicry] as the base of a grass field. Grass could grow.
Logan pushed, forcing the strands of grass to expand, like reaching for the sun, inserting itself into the forearm guard like vines burying through a weathered stone wall. Each vine looped around a grain of strand, encircling it, covering it with the connected pattern and making something entirely new. Once the process started, like opening floodgates, it continued, until he could no longer distinguish the vines from the sand.
With a popping sound and a sharp stab of pain behind his eyes, he knew he’d made a breakthrough.
Logan opened his eyes.
Ding!
[Skill convergence found!]
[The skill, Tentacle Armour, has been merged with the skill, Mimicry, to form the rare skill, Mimicry Armour! This skill allows you to graft material within your environment to your body, creating a camouflaged layer of protection. Duration of the skill advances with Karma pool growth. Level of the skill advances with the complexity of the material.]
Yes! Logan fist pumped the air in elation and jumped to his feet. His forearm guard was now invisible against a background of sand and pebbles, and what was even more awesome was that this might be the tip of the iceberg. A forearm guard was nothing. What if he managed to cover his whole body? It would be as if he’d obtained a high-tech space suit, only better, since it was flexible and lightweight.
The description of the skill said he’d level the skill with different material. Did that mean he could use metal? Holy shit, it was beyond kick-ass. Logan was a superhero. No, even better! Logan was Iron Man.
He released the skill as soon as he felt his head getting tight, letting the sandstone collapse and fall back into regular sand that trailed to the ground. One thing was for sure, he needed to prioritize his Karma pool and Karma regeneration rate in the future.
It was time for a review of his stat sheet. He pulled up the full view display, wanting to conduct a comprehensive review.
Name: Logan Hart [Hidden Name: Idiot]
Rank: 91,892 out of 6,661,810,842
Level: 16
Class: None
Grade: F1
Species: Human
Skills:
* Idiot’s Paradox Lv. 10
* Idiot’s Inspect Lv. 2
* Deepwater Explorer Lv. 3
* Life Cycle Master*
* Regenerate Lv. 2
* Mimicry Armour Lv. 1
Titles:
* Eager Beaver
* Mass Murderer
XP Progress: 1,000/32,000
Karma: 360/360
Intelligence: 60
Constitution: 30
Strength: 29
Agility: 35
Dexterity: 20
Endurance: 35
Perception: 20
Wisdom: 40
Luck: 40
Free Attribute Points: 0
KarmaCoin: 10
His rank had gone up again, which wasn’t surprising after receiving the boost to his attributes from the last quest, but he didn’t like to see that continued population drop. What was even more surprising was that ever since he’d received his stat sheet, the System had listed a mysterious ‘Class’ category. He’d wondered about this before, but now, the mystery was starting to piss him off.
Was there a hidden threshold he needed to reach, a special quest, or a reward he needed to obtain? Once again, he cursed the lack of instruction.
He was missing something here. And Logan didn’t like puzzles.
***
[Countdown: Day 5 of Day 365 before species culling. Only the worthy survive.]
[Current rank: Rank: 95,250 out of 6,532,292,614.]
[You are currently in the 1%.]
[Advance and grow.]
Logan woke to the regular System Ding! and opened his eyes to huge black eyes staring at him, so close they were inches away from his face.
“GAAAH!”
The octopus startled, its tentacles jumping up in alarm before it scooted back, leaving a trail of slimy water in its wake. “Human, are you injured?”
Fuck’s sake! “No, Ernie. You just startled me. I was asleep.”
“Ahah! And now you’re awake! Our slaughter can commence!”
Logan blinked owlishly. He’d had a terrible night, nodding off, and then waking up with jerks as soon as he’d heard something rustling in the trees. His baseball bat had been in constant reach, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he’d developed new calluses on his fingers.
Talking about fingers, Logan lifted his hand and studied his new digit. Holy fuck. It still didn’t look like a normal finger, but it had made massive strides from the previous night. No longer a grossly forming tumour, his new index finger looked the size of his pinky finger. And it was still growing. By tomorrow or even mid-day, it might be fully formed.
“Human?” Ernie was gazing at him impatiently.
Right, slaughter. Well, he supposed there was a reason Ernie was considered a ‘Murderous Octopus.’
“Just to be clear, you mean monsters, right?”
Ernie wiggled his tentacles in excitement. “We must slaughter Undead Sturgeons! Before you came, I had no luck with the deed. They always knew I was approaching and escaped. Sneakily. They are not that speedy, but their undead abilities make them resilient to fatigue. I have stamina! Just not undead stamina! And now we can use the magic mirror to distract them so I can come in for the kill!”
“There are more of those things?”
Ernie beamed. “Many more! Many more to fuel my cauldron of slaughter. We shall triumph! We shall string their corpses at our feet, a pile of shredded enemies! Once we’re done, they’ll no longer be able to infect and lure in unsuspecting fish.” He lowered his voice as if imparting a secret. “It is bad. Like an army.”
There was a lot to unpack in Ernie’s statement. First of all, he was a crazy octopus. Logan had bonded with a crazy, murderous octopus. And if what he was saying was true, they might have more undead problems on their hands.
Logan coughed and then hacked and spit, wondering why his throat and eyes felt sore. Prying himself to his feet with his baseball bat, he stretched and looked around. It was morning, and the sun should be bright and hot at this time of the year, but the sky had a haze to it and the sun had an orange tint, as if it…
Oh no.
Every year, the Okanagan went through a fire season. Interface forest fires were a huge problem. The summer was hot here—over 100 degrees non-stop for months, and the ground and grass dried up, creating dangerous situations all around. It was normal to have at least one major fire somewhere in the area. That wasn’t a problem if you had planes and helicopters to fight them and keep them away from populated areas, but what the hell were they going to do now?
Fuck fuck fuck. How close was it? And where?
“Hold on,” he said to Ernie, willing his cell phone out of his spatial storage collar. Waiting for it to turn on felt like hours rather than seconds.
Come on, come on, come on. As soon as he had power, he waited until he had a connection to the cellular network, network bars concernedly low. Logan stabbed the screen as it finally connected, hitting Lara’s name.
It rung and rung, then the call dropped.
Stomach sinking to the floor, he tried again.
Straight to voicemail.
One more time.
A busy signal.
Holy shit, was Hope’s End on fire?