I couldn’t afford to lose Blood and Honor the way I had lost my new helm. These were precious items I’d earned that leveled with me!

Without pausing, I jumped up and toward the deep crack to see a red crab the size of my palm jump in fright. I ignored it, focusing on finding my swords.

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My feet caught on protruding stones as I landed against the wall and I shoved my hand deep into the crevice. I didn’t touch anything metallic. My heart pounded. Was I too late?

No, I couldn’t give up.

With a grunt, I pushed my arm deeper — the stone scraped against my armor. I moved my hand in a circle and my gauntleted fingers grazed something metallic. It was enough. I mentally threw my swords into my inventory. It worked! When I pulled up my menu, they’d both appeared in a square slot.

A sharp, burning pinch jolted through my index finger. “Ow!”

I pulled my arm out to find a tiny red crab attached to my armored finger. Casually, I flung it off.

That was when dozens of crabs swarmed out of the hole. They immediately jumped at me, as if trying to attack my hands and arms. I dropped to the floor. Little crustaceans rained down as they lemminged themselves to reach me. A few actually managed to attach themselves to my armor. Several dozen scuttled down the wall like a cluster of spiders.

I started pulling off and throwing them away, but there were too many.

“Hold your breath!” Murr pulled back on his slingshot and fired a pink ball at my feet where the swarm was densest. I did as he asked, then closed my eyes just before the flamingo-colored dust completely surrounded me. Because I did not need to know how sleeping powder would feel in my eyes.

After three quick tugs, all the crabs were off my body. Their aura-enhanced pinches felt a little hot, but I figured that would go away soon. The crustaceans ringing me had stopped pinching my shoes and old greaves, so I assumed the special shot was effective. I jogged toward where Murr had been. After a couple of steps, I heard Kron’s voice. “Watch it!”

I opened my eyes and skidded to a stop before I ran into the golem.

“You two got here fast.”

“We weren’t that far behind you,” Kron said, then nodded to where Murr was using his new dagger to kill each crab before sending them into his inventory.

There were still a few little monsters gathered in the hole, but they must have realized that they were no match against the somniferous dust. They gathered and shoved each other to see what happened before retreating and letting the other crabs see the situation.

Wait a second! These tiny crabs were the perfect evil little monsters to test my Aura net on. But first, I threw my free attribute point I earned from leveling into Body, bringing my total up to 29. That should help with the amount of aura I had to work with. Fighting these small monsters should also help with my precision.

“Murr! Don’t wipe them all out. I want to try something.”

He paused, his blade a half inch away from a sleeping crab.

Murr glanced back at me and scowled. “You realize that a swarm like this counts as a single monster, right? I won’t get any experience unless I kill off all these little crabs.”

“It’s fine. You can murder them later. I need practice against real enemies to help develop a new ability.”

The rogue tilted his head in thought, then he grinned wickedly. “I have an idea.”

***

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I towered above a single tiny crab. It shook in fear.

“Why do I feel like I’m a bully?”

“Because you are,” Kron said.

I scowled at him. “I am not. These guys stole my swords, then attacked me when I took them back.”

“Because they’re part of a swarm. Individually, they are weak and they know it. You know it too, but that’s the point. You’re practicing against a weaker opponent because your incomplete ability is on their level.”

“...”

He had a point.

“Should we release more?” Kron asked.

“Only if Sam wants to challenge himself.”

“How about I start with one? We only have ten captured after you killed most of them.”

Earlier the catfolk had Kron and I grab an old, discarded mining cart while he threw all the tiny crabs into a pile. Then all of us trapped them underneath like they were spiders trapped under a mug.

From there, we waited for them to wake up. Which was how I found myself facing a single crab.

I pointed Honor at the mini-monster. It speedily scuttled toward its hole.

“Quickly!” Murr encouraged. “Before it escapes!”

Shit. This wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought it would be, was it?

I empowered my legs with aura and darted toward the crab. When I neared it, I swung my sword. It dodged and continued onward, this time up the wall. Climbing slowed it down but there were more protruding stones that prevented me from hitting it.

I needed it back on the ground where I could surround it with my aura easier, so I kept trying to knock it down. This was one slippery crab. It reached the hole, and I lunged, thrusting my blade toward it. I must have done too much damage because it fell down and did not get up again.

There was a long silence.

“Ah, oops.”

“One crab down, ten to go.”

“Maybe I should start with a net already created?”

Instead of a medium-sized net, I built a smaller one, about the size of a child’s soccer ball. It ended up looking less like a web woven by a caffeinated spider and more like a wireframe of a 3D orb from the CAD program I used so much in my last life. Once I finished creating it, a pop-up appeared.

Congratulations! You have earned the rank D Ability - Precise Aura Manipulation! This allows you to create more complex Aura Skills with greater ease!

That was unusual. While Skills and Spells were easy to create, you had to earn or be given Abilities. I had never heard of an aura manipulation-type ability, either. Moving your aura was just something you did. It was as natural to the people in this world as moving their hand. As I looked at my familiar wireframe orb on the tip of my blade, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was really the best way to go about destroying the defenses of that crabby boss.

But I’d already come this far. I should give it a shot and maybe it would work.

I nodded at Murr. He stuck a stick under the mine cart and lifted it up like a lever. Two crabs darted out, while the rest seemed to be held back by the claws of others.

Before it could get too far, I stabbed my aura ball at the nearest monster. It bounced right off and sent the crab flying into the wall.

That... was not what I’d planned.

I guessed that I needed to create the net over the monster and do it fast.

Thinking on my feet, I created two half spheres on either side of my blade and stabbed toward the crab before it could fully recover. The sphere clamped around the crab, immobilizing it. It struggled but couldn’t even move a pincher.

The second crab almost reached the hole, but Murr shot it with a black ball. It stiffened and fell down to the ground, dead.

Okay, I had one monster trapped in my aura; now I had to...

My ball vanished, and the crustacean made a break for it.

Congratulations! You have created an Aura Skill!

Hold Small Monster - Rank K - Hold a small monster in place for 10s-20s depending on the strength of the creature. The amount of aura invested in this skill will change the size of the creature this skill can hold.

This wasn’t what I wanted, either. But if I considered my intentions to keep the crab in one place so I could crush its defenses, then it made sense that I’d end up accidentally creating a hold monster skill. It was a shame that it was limited to small monsters now. I just hoped it grew into something more usable.

Before the small monster could escape my net, Murr killed it. “Down to eight.”

“I developed a skill!”

I showed them a copy of it.

Kron studied it, then tapped my blue menu. “This isn’t half bad. As long as you can increase its rank.”

“But it’s still not a defense-destroying skill,” I said then sighed.

Kron shrugged. “True. And now, you’ll have to find another way since this first direction was used to create a different skill. If you can’t think of anything, especially different, you might accidentally use Hold Small Monster on the next crab.”

Okay, something different.

Rather than create a net and squeeze, what if there was something else I could use? Maybe some concept from the science of my past life. It would be great if I could develop something like how noise-canceling headphones. That was an interesting piece of tech that found the perfect frequencies and played the exact opposite signal to cancel out both sets of sounds. If I could find a way to do that... Wait. Was that even possible to do with aura?

A loud bang interrupted my thought process. The largest lizard-dog I’d ever seen turned the corner. Unlike the regular-sized ones we were used to, this large one had armor pieces crudely tied together, scavenged from the remains of past adventurers. Its small yellow eyes glowed with hatred when it looked at us.

I pointed to it. “I think I know what those rock crabs were running from earlier.”