The sand latched onto the end of each finger, the exoskeleton thickening. At first, it wanted to match the rest of his armour—strong but flexible. Logan didn’t want that. Working the problem was just like everything else. He’d figured out how to merge [Tentacle Armour] with [Mimicry] by envisioning strands of grass wrapping around each grain of sand. This time, he needed to remove every molecule that caused his armour to be flexible, hardening it into sandstone that was sharp as a blade and as hard is iron.
And yet… it would still be sandstone.
[Mimicry Armour] let him use anything within his environment to form the exoskeleton, but he’d used sand because it was the only surplus material available. He didn’t have enough metal to cover his whole body, but if the skill let him combine material, he didn’t need it. Only enough to form talons.
Even better, he had access to something that was sharper than metal.
His mouth drying with anticipation, Logan scanned through the contents of his spatial collar and removed every diamond ring, earing, and necklace he’d found in the serpent’s lair. They rained down, too numerous to count. There must have been fifty at least, some the size of pepper kernels, others the size of walnuts.
Logan selected five walnut-sized diamond necklaces from the pile, and then considered the best way forward. Fine filaments and fastenings attached the diamonds to the gold and silver jewelry, so first thing’s first.
Logan held back a wince as he thought of Lara. She wasn’t a big fan of traditional jewelry, but she had an obsession with antiques. Some of the pieces he was about to ruin were centuries old. This was one of those sibling details that was best left a secret.
Thoughts of Lara were a welcome distraction from his heartache as Logan went to town, stomping his new armour boot on top of the necklaces and snapping the metal clasps that kept the diamonds in place. The precious metal scored deep gouges into the marble tile, silver and gold flying.
He’d ruined the necklaces, but that wasn’t what he’d been after.
Five huge diamonds.
Logan used the power of [Mimicry Armour] to launch one of the diamonds into the air. If he’d tried this when he’d first used the skill, it would have been impossible. But he’d mastered hovering a whole bucket of sand; the weight of one large jewel was nothing.
To mold the diamonds into talons, he first had to crush them into workable material.
How could you crush diamonds?
A drill.
But no, a drill would cut the gemstone, breaking it into pieces. It wouldn’t crush it. At least without a hell of a lot of effort. After all, if he ever found enough diamonds to mold into a suit of armour, it would take hours upon hours to drill each gemstone into sand-like dust.
There had to be a different solution. The skill description had been clear.
[Level of the skill advances with the complexity of the material.]
Logan had learned that upgrading a skill was hard. The System didn’t make it easy. It wanted him to suffer through physical pain and mental torture. In a way, it rewarded you for stretching beyond what you thought were your limits and going past and beyond them.
Pursing his lips in concentration, Logan kept the diamond aloft, hovering it about a foot away from his face, studying the angles, the diamond glittering and flashing as it reflected the light from the spheres.
He was thinking about this in the wrong way. Diamonds were the hardest naturally occurring material; that’s why they were so valuable. To cut the gem, you had to use another diamond. Diamond drills existed for a reason. But this skill wasn’t human and wouldn’t be subject to the same rules. [Mimicry Armour] could manipulate material, and that meant he could manipulate diamonds in a way that no other human technology could.
It was back to visualization.
Visualization had always been his ace in the hole.
Logan kept his eyes on the hovering diamond and imagined a vise. A metal vise that clamped onto the sides of the diamond and forced it still.
In front of him, the hovering diamond froze.
The vise closed around the diamond from all sides and began compacting, crushing. The force was a juggernaut, a million—no—a trillion pounds of pressure coming from all sides. The diamond’s glittering sides throbbed like a heartbeat, pulsing, growing as it swelled with pressure. Gradually, microscopic cracks appeared, one after another.
It needed one more push.
Logan clenched his fist and imagined the diamond in the middle of it. It would move to his will.
It would obey.
With a sound like breaking glass, the diamond burst into hundreds of shards. Logan snatched each flying projectile from the air, grabbing them like the grains of sand and forcing them to fly towards his fingers.
Here was the tricky part. He knew that diamonds were as hard as anything and that he could make them into a lethal, sharp weapon, but he also knew that there was a reason there weren’t diamond weapons. It wasn’t just the cost. Although sharp, if you used a massive diamond as a weapon, eventually, it would shatter, just like he’d done when he crushed the stone.
He needed to make them into something better. Something stronger.
Holding his hands out, he forced the diamond dust to latch onto his fingertips, interweaving it into the organic material of the flexible sandstone. They didn’t want to combine, but it was like everything else. He only needed a way forward. It was like inserting a twisted, warped key into a rusted lock. A struggle at first, but once he jiggled the key and slotted it into place, it was as easy as breathing.
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Logan combined the diamonds into the flexible sandstone, giving it stability and a solidness that was as sturdy as iron. Then he took that combined material and urged it to lengthen, shaping long, sharp talons, extending them from the tips of his fingers, each one two inches long. He wanted to make them manageable, a length that would allow him to grip a weapon, but also long and lethal enough that they could do real damage.
Once he had the length down, Logan turned his hands, examining the talons as he sculpted them, curving them, making the edges razor-sharp.
But who was he kidding? These were mutated sandstone diamonds. They were way better than razor-sharp.
Ding!
[Mimicry Armour is Level 2!]
With a gasp of air, Logan sucked in a breath, elation surging through him in a wave.
He’d covered his whole body in flexible sandstone, leaving only his face bare. And on the tips of his exoskeleton gloves, ten talons glittered, a solid mass of mutated diamonds.
Logan curled his fingers into claws and the talons curled with him. With an excited shout, he jumped in the air and then rushed at the marble wall, scoring his talons down the stone like a lion scoring the bark of a tree. They made a horrible, nails on the chalkboard screech, but more importantly, they’d left gouges in the stone half an inch deep.
Holy hell.
And that was with just one swipe of his claws.
If he tried swiping at something while he was—
Suddenly, his head felt tight, and the room felt stuffy as if he couldn’t get enough air. Karma deprivation.
Logan glanced at his Karma pool.
15/510.
9/510.
3/510.
Blowing out a hiss of annoyed breath, Logan released [Mimicry Armour], letting his hard-earned exoskeleton collapse into sand and diamond dust. Before, when he’d been dealing with sand, he hadn’t cared where the armour debris landed, but now, he’d have to consciously will the diamond dust inside his spatial collar or be at risk of losing it. He had more diamonds, but they were hardly an unlimited resource.
The inconvenience barely registered. Logan had turned into Wolverine Iron Man.
“Hell yeah!” Logan shouted. He was the most badass, kick ass man around. Try to take his bonded companion? You better believe that serpent had a wellspring of pain coming to it. Logan would shred the thing to pieces.
But first, he needed to get so good at forming the armour it was a reflex.
Logan got to work.
***
After over an hour of forming the armour from a partial suit to a whole-body exoskeleton, Logan could assemble it so quickly it was like breathing. He’d figured out a technique for grabbing the sand and diamond dust with a snap. It never fell to the ground, and he could recycle it and will it into his spatial collar instantaneously.
He’d also gotten better at forming more lethal talons by mastering how long he wanted them. Tasks that required dexterity would need talons that were curved like cat claws, but if he were up against a huge monster, he’d turn those short claws into dragon talons, solid and with reach, sharp ends glittering with diamonds. Each time he’d formed the talons, he’d tested their durability, making sure that in a fight, they’d be as solid as iron.
Being smart about this also meant actively monitoring his Karma pool. With a full suit of armour, talons, and with the mimicry effect deployed, [Mimicry Armour] would last for three minutes.
If he spread the armour to just his arms and deployed his talons, he could keep it running indefinitely, his Karma regeneration rate high enough that it kept up with the drain. Not ideal, but at least he’d be able to protect his arms at the same time as having an offensive weapon.
For now, Logan jumped up and down, psyching himself up, too excited to stand still. He’d forced down another mouthful of green beans and a bottle of water and had let his Karma pool replenish.
It was time.
Logan deployed [Mimicry Armour], letting the reflective suit form around his body, then shaped his talons. Even though a full deployment would last only three minutes, he didn’t know what he’d encounter in this trial. It was better to utilize all his resources rather than being conservative and regretting it. Lastly, he removed the Cursed Length of Rope from his spatial storage and then rolled his shoulders in anticipation.
Placing his palm into the lodestone next to the portal, he held his breath. He was concerned the lodestone might not register his palm through the exoskeleton glove, but it accepted him right away. He felt a slight surge of warmth followed by a blast of cold through his glove.
There was no message, but the sphere pulsed, its glowing sides forming into a solid color.
Logan stepped into the portal.
With one blink, he was gone.
***
With the next blink, the portal opened on the other side. Logan stepped out, his exoskeleton gloves creaking around the Cursed Rope, an intuitive feeling that something wasn’t right making his skin prickle underneath his suit.
Logan glanced around. He was no longer in a room. The portal had sent him outside, into a large clearing. Long green grass crunched underneath his boots, the smell of flowers wafting past his nose. The sun was bright in a blue sky; a sky so clear it hurt to look at. If he craned his head, he could see a streak of purple, as if a bastardized version of a rainbow had decided to beam a random ray through the horizon. And further to the right, there…
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Dorothy, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
Looming over Logan was a purple pockmarked moon. It had blasts of sapphire and pink, and huge craters filled with dark black dust. It loomed so close that Logan felt as if he could reach out and touch it.
Ding!
[You have joined an existing party!]
[This trial consists of a test of mettle. During part one, your daily attribute point limit will be waived. You have 24 hours to increase your attributes until you drop. The potential increase is unlimited. The only barrier to success is hard work.]
[Which means you’re doomed, Idiot.]
[After 24 hours, your overall individual performance will be judged against the rest of your party. The individual with the highest attribute increases in each area will be granted a bonus.]
[During part two of your trial, you will be given the opportunity to demonstrate your leadership and strategic skills by leading an army to victory. Rewards granted are commensurate with your level of success. The highest performing individual within your party will receive an extra reward.]
[In this trial, if a Non-Player Character (NPC) kills you, your death will not be permanent.]
[The death nullability applies to NPCs only.]
[Enjoy your trial.]
He’d just reached the twilight zone. He was on another planet; the System had given him the longest message yet, and it was referencing things that should be impossible.
And what did it mean, ‘you have joined an existing party’?
Logan soon had an answer.
As he took a step forward, he glimpsed four people standing off in the distance. Three of them looked huge, standing over seven feet with massive shoulders and arms. Unlike Logan’s armour, theirs looked like something from a historical war movie.
They had strange, mullet-like hair—spiky on their foreheads, with long ponytails trailing down their backs.
Standing in the middle of the three men, a smaller figure stared at Logan with a bemused smile. She was six feet—if that—and slender, her limbs willowy. Her hair was more conservative, but it also trailed down her back in an elegant ponytail.
Logan took another step forward, and all four turned towards him, their wolf-like ears perking up at attention.
Wolf-like ears.
They weren’t human.