I shot a bone spike vaguely in the direction of the troll getting ready to attack us and my crit skill activated. The spike redirected and shot into the troll's heart. It fell over dead.

I opened the pack I was carrying. Henry wouldn't know or care that I used the cores we gathered before I went further into the dungeon. I looked for an intelligence stat one. Intelligence cores were yellow. A couple of the tiny ones were yellow.

I looked at one and thought about inspecting it. Information was pulled up about it.

[Intelligence core (Tiny)]

[Core Value: +3 Intelligence]

Now, I remembered Henry saying something about how cores gave different ranked people a different amount of their base value. It went like this:

[F-Rank: 0.5x core value]

[D-Rank: 0.8x core value]

[C-Rank: 1x core value]

[B-Rank: 1.2x core value]

[A-Rank: 1.5x core value]

[S-Rank: 2x core value]

[SS-Rank: 3x core value]

[SSS-Rank: 5x core value]

I didn't know how many times the base stats N-Tier potential would give me, but I knew it was more than 5 times. I squeezed the core slightly in my hand and focused on absorbing its stats.

The core popped and the yellow light flowed into my hand and up my arm.

[You have absorbed a +3 Intelligence core. N-Tier 10x multiplier applied. +30 Intelligence (130)]

Nice. With this level of absorption, I could level up my stats incredibly fast with very few cores. I was going to absorb all of them and get as strong as I could. Well, I was going to absorb half of them. Abigail deserved half of them as well.

I took a large-sized core that Abigail gathered from the first troll. It was red. That meant strength. I tried to absorb it and it popped.

[+10 Strength core (large). Non-Primary Stat. 10% absorption. N-tier absorption bonus: 10x. 100% absorption. You have gained 10 strength (130)]

'I appreciate all that information, but could we summarize it next time?'

[Yes]

'Thanks.'

"Abigail. You should absorb all the cores in your bag. I'll absorb all the cores in mine. Then we can continue on," I said.

"Ok, Tom," she said. She started absorbing the cores in her bag.

I dug the core out of the troll I'd just killed and threw it to Abigail since I took the first troll core. There was an even amount of strength, agility, stamina, and intelligence cores. Altogether I gained 10 more strength (140), 25 agility (145), 22 Stamina (142), and 200 intelligence, including the first core I popped (300).

I could feel the enhanced stats. Even the increased magical power and mana supply due to my higher intelligence. Intelligence dictated your maximum mana pool and the power of your spells.

Your potential dictated how much of a core's stats you absorbed and how quickly you mastered new skills/spells in your primary stat. Abigail's and my primary stat was intelligence, but a warrior's would be strength and a rogue's would be agility.

Your potential also dictated how quickly you gained experience and leveled up. Experience gained worked on the same scale as core absorption rates according to rank potential.

Everyone could only absorb 10% of a core's value in their non-primary stats, which then got multiplied by their rank absorption rate. So instead of getting 10 times the stats from non-intelligence cores, I only got a measly 100% of their stats.

Normally, because of this -90% core absorption penalty, most adventurers had to train their non-primary stats, through either weight lifting for strength, agility training for agility, cardio for stamina, or learning for intelligence. You could learn anything as long as it was challenging and expanded your mind.

But with my ridiculously high core absorption rate multiplier, I could bypass the need for training. And then I got to take 10% of the stats gained from training from everyone within a mile radius with Experience Plunder.

I was going to be dangerous as hell, very quickly. And so was Abigail. A 3x core absorption multiplier is nothing to laugh at either.

We started picking up crystals as we came across them. There was a lot to pick up. My strength was reasonably enhanced by this point so I would be able to manage all four bags I'd come with but Abigail was using a different method.

With her now core enhanced intelligence, her bubbles could hold significant amounts of weight and stay floating. And she could put her hands through the surface of the bubble and place things inside it.

So she had a decent sized bubble that she was just filling with crystals of all colors and shapes and sizes. I'm sure part of this dungeon's challenge was to discern the valuable crystals from the non valuable ones and only take those, to prevent yourself from becoming overloaded.

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But that wasn't a problem for us. We were just stashing everything we saw. The only things that were far too large to take with us were the massive clubs the trolls used as weapons.

We came to a flooded area that had giant spiders with crystals attached to them on the other side. Instead of wading or swimming through that and then getting attacked on the other side, I figured I'd see how much my bone spike ability had improved.

When I summoned a spike it was 3 times the size of the original and when I fired it, it fired 3 times as fast, which was really fast. These spiders weren't evil, so I didn't get auto crits on them.

I just kept firing large spikes into their bodies until they died. You'd think they'd run away after getting attacked, they acted a lot like video game enemies. They just got mad and tried to find a way around the water.

Which, you'd think they'd crawl on the ceiling, but for whatever reason they didn't.

"Do you have anything for this? Cuz I don't," I said to Abigail.

"I might be able to do something," she said.

She started shooting out bubbles at the water. They landed on the water and semi merged with it, but didn't pop. She kept doing it until there was a thick multi bubble layer of bubbles floating on the water.

She put her foot on one of the bubbles to test it, and it held. She carefully walked across to the other side. It looked like the bubbles were going to pop any second, but I kept reminding myself they weren't regular bubbles. They were magic bubbles. Magic bubbles could do whatever they wanted to do.

I carefully walked across to the other side. I remembered that I didn't just have the bone spike ability. I had two others that I hadn't used yet, which I probably should have.

One was Bone Sense, which allowed me to sense bones. That would have been really helpful against the troll, Tom! You idiot! The other was bone armor, which let me create a suit of bone armor around myself.

Because bone was relatively light, it still counted as light armor even though it was full coverage. I just didn't make a helmet, because I wanted to see.

Once I had finished creating my bone armor, which looked really cool as it formed, I activated Bone Sense. I noticed there were several bones over the ridge of the tunnel.

I warned Abigail about the bones, and we stepped over the ridge. There was a group of bears with crystals on them at the bottom of a decline. They immediately noticed us and began running at us, roaring.

I summoned my bone spikes and kept shooting the one in front, but the bastard wouldn't go down. It got within 20 feet of us and then Abigail shot a bubble at it.

This was different than her protective bubbles. It shot out fast and hit the bear in the face, even knocking it back a few feet. The bear shook its head and roared as the other bears ran around it toward us.

Abigail shot 4 more bubbles of the same kind and knocked those bears back too. She kept firing and firing, keeping the bears at bay, until I realized I should be fighting too.

I shot dozens of bone spikes deep into the bear's hides until they were soaked in blood. After a good few minutes of continuous barrage, we finished off the bears.

"Good job!" I said.

"You too!" she said jumping up and down. "Can we kiss again, because I kind of liked that."

"Yeah. We can," I said. Now that we were out of the life-threatening situation, I realized I was nervous about kissing a girl. I hadn't really thought about it before but now I was.

I steeled my nerves, leaned in, and kissed her again. It was simple and nice. She had really soft lips.

[You have leveled up! You are now level 2!]

[Oh and you defeated evil again! Rewards incoming]

[Calculating rewards]

'Did you forget that I defeated evil?'

[No. My response was just delayed]

'Isn't that just another way of saying you forgot?'

[Nope. No, it isn't]

'You seem less and less like a system and more and more like a person the more we interact.'

[Would that be a problem?]

'Not necessarily. I don't know. I'll have to get back to you on that.'

[You do that]

[Your rewards have been calculated]

[You have reached Level 2]

[You have gained a new ability: Weapon Formation]

[Weapon Formation: Can form basic weapons out of bones, such as crude hammers, daggers, and spears]

[Bone Spike ability upgraded. You can now form and launch up to 3 spikes at a time]

'Nice. Thanks.'

[I'm not done! You have defeated two minor evils. For that you get to choose two minor abilities]

[Happiness Giver: People will temporarily become 10% happier a minute after they finish interacting with you for the first time. They will have no idea you were the cause of their happiness]

or

[Happiness Beneficiary: You will temporarily become 10% happier every time you interact with a new person]

or

[Happy Meetings: You and the other person will both temporarily become 5% happier every time you interact with a new person]

This one was easy for multiple reasons. I knew which one I could get good karma or whatever for choosing, and I didn't like the idea of my emotions being manipulated every time I met a new person.

'I choose Happiness Giver.'

[Granted. -5 Dark Aura (35)]

[Next reward choice]

[Multiplied Generosity: When you gift someone money for the first time, they receive 3 times the amount you gifted them]

or

[Greedy Recipient: When someone gifts you money for the first time, you receive 3 times the amount]

or

[Improved Commerce: Goods and services are 5% cheaper]

Since I'm literally doing so I can gift Lloyd's family, money, the obvious choice here is the one that will multiply that gift by 3.

'I choose Multiplied Generosity.'

[Granted. -5 Dark Aura (30)]

'Thanks.'

I remembered we hadn't dug the cores out of the spiders. We dug the cores out of the bears first and went back for the spiders. We needed as many stats as we could get if we were going to defeat the boss.

I divided the cores up between the two of us and we popped them. I got 20 strength (160), 10 agility (155), and 100 intelligence (400). My intelligence was shooting up! I had confidence that once we made it to the bottom, I'd be able to blow away whatever the boss was.

There were more crystals to collect around us so we did that before moving on. The crystals were glowing brighter as we got further down in the mine and they started looking clearer too. Less cloudiness in the body of the crystal.

[Amplification crystal: Rare quality]

Interesting. I wondered how it worked. Maybe it worked like the cores. I squeezed it with the intent to absorb it and it popped just like the crystals.

[Magic Amplification: 1.2x]

Nice. Good to know. I would have to save a few for the boss battle. The ones down below probably had better amplification values, because the areas were more dangerous. So I waited until I picked up the ones right before the boss.

I picked up a yellow crystal and the system said:

[Speed Crystal: Uncommon]

The speed crystals must have been more powerful than the amplification crystals. That's why it had lower quality. After that, I found some crystals that had no classification at all.

[Crystal: Rare]

We came to a point where the mine cart track was collapsed over and the only way down was a ladder leading down a dark hole.

"Hey, Abby. By any chance, do your bubbles give off light?" I said.

"I don't know. Let's see," Abby said. She shot several bubbles down the hole into the dark and they lit up the tunnel down some. "Huh. I guess they do."

"Nice," I said. "Let's go down."

We climbed down the ladder to the level below. We came out into a brightly lit natural cave filled with luminescent crystals. They were all different colors.

I went to grab a pretty big one when a huge chunk of the crystals moved and stood up, revealing that it was a crystal golem. Sharp objects like my spikes weren't going to do anything to this guy. They would just glance off his hard angular body.

Then another golem stood up out of the crystals and another. Once they were done introducing themselves as enemies, there were 6 of them. I had to think of something fast.

Nothing sharp would work. If that was the case, then should make something that's not sharp. I could form crude weapons now, so I formed a large basic club and swung it at this dude's leg.

It cracked. Good. That was progress. Now I just needed to hit that spot again. The golem didn't just stand there though. He lifted both fists and went to slam them down on me.

A large bubble went over each fist and they bounced off me. There was still a decent amount of force to them, but it was significantly reduced.

"Thanks, Abby," I said.

"You're welcome," she said.

With his fists dealt with, I swung at the golem's leg again. It shattered and he fell over with a loud thud. He tried getting up, but he couldn't. He was too heavy and awkwardly built.

So I ran up to his head and swung the club down on it. It cracked, so I swung again. It cracked more, so I swung again. It shattered to pieces and the golem's crystals went dim and still.

I had defeated one of them! Now just 5 more to go. I looked back to see Abby barely fending off the crystal golems. She kept knocking them on their asses with her combat bubbles. The bubbles weren't hard enough to cause any damage though.

I rushed up and used the same strategy as before but this time, I wanted to ground all 5 of the remaining golems before going for the kill shot. I shattered their legs to pieces with my club while dodging and running in between their slow moving legs.

Once they were on the ground, I smashed their heads in. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and sighed in relief. There were no more enemies in this room. We spent some time collecting the rarest and highest quality looking crystals.

[You have leveled up! You are now level 3]

[Your Bone Armor is now self repairing!]

[Your Bone Sense's range has doubled!]

'Nice.'

We also made sure to get the crystal golems' cores. It was exhausting work smashing through their chests but it would probably be well worth it. The cores we pulled out of them were huge.

When I popped mine, they were all stamina cores. I got 42 stamina (184) all in all. After Abby popped her cores, and we'd collected all the valuable looking crystals, we walked down a long cave tunnel with mine carts and mining tools pushed to the sides of the tunnel.

There was a loud clank as I stepped on something hard. I heard a crunch sound and looked down at the massive bear trap that was clamped around my leg all the way up to the thigh.

"Tom!" Abby said.

"Don't worry! I'm fine! My armor stopped it," I said.

My bone armor had stopped the bear trap from slicing into me. I pried the bear trap open slipped my leg out and let it slam shut again. I looked at my leg and saw the chipped areas on the bone armor heal over.

That was close. Now we just needed to navigate around all the other bear traps laid all over the floor of this cave tunnel going forward as far as I could see.