Information rates divine on a cosmic level. It doesn’t matter if you’re from a lonely planet with no mana or a mystical one brimming with mana. Information is a must for survival. Once enough info has been gathered, it turns into knowledge, use said knowledge with wisdom, and a man can become a monarch.
“Heck, I can’t see a skill that can beat this rune.” Said Tetsu, clutching his hand tighter. His freshly carved wound of info burning under the pressure. His body kept repairing his palm, while he kept cutting the shape back onto his palm.
“Health be dammed. I won’t forget you.” He peers at the symbol. What dumb luck for him to stumble onto a tree and find such a hack. All he gave in return was a tooth.
Tetsu feels the gap within his gums with his tongue. “I can give more.” He quickly realizes the implications and retrieves his promise. “Never mind. I’ve given enough.”
‘Info’ still lacked to give any information on the tree. So, instead of wasting his time over the many reasons, he planned to test another theory. He suspected his title ‘GlyphSage’ helped him gather the vague details for ‘Info’. After all, knowing the names and affinities was beyond his vaguest idea.
“How strong is a sacrificial skill?” Tetsu spots the grasslings from the corner of his eyes. Since he knew they were from a hive mind, he monitored them for any possible assassination attempts.
Why attack a weakling? You might ask.
Who knows? The queen might be bat-shit crazy, or Tetsu’s next experiment can become the cause.
He never once considered not experimenting on would-be assassins. Thanking is his luck once again, he had to plan to move to a safer safe zone. After one last experiment though… As his eyes lingered over a certain corps.
{With a sole focus on defense, Gemhide Sentinels have massive defensive stats. They never start nor ever back away from a fight. Their core might be useless, but their shells are known to be a walking treasure chest. Even though separating the many treasures from its shell is a daunting task, it’s considered a priceless effort for an alchemist. Level: 06}
The name popped goosebumps all over Tetsu. ‘Gemhide Sentinels’ is the race and ‘Quart: node’ [the rhino] is the individual’s order. Like humans or homo-sapiens is our race and ‘primates,’ is our order.
“Won’t try to kill me... sweet.” Tetsu pats the dead rhino’s corpse.
Yeah! those names were cool and all but also a lot of work, so he decides to call it a rhino instead.
“Sad that you’re used here too, but to be honest, life’s shitty everywhere.”
An hour flew by as Tetsu tried to figure out the rune ‘Roll.’ He tried to lift or roll the severed limbs with his current strength but failed to even budge it a little.
With a little help from two runes ‘light-weight & roll,’ his entire strength on display, severe back pain, his fatigue skyrocketed, and four hours later, Tetsu placed the rhino’s torso in position.
Moments before Tetsu plans for his next move, the grass springs into action. A sacrificial shuriken flies true, bigger and stronger than ever before. A green sheen enveloped the grass blade, increasing its size ten times over, now towering over Tetsu.
Before Tetsu could note an attack approaching him, the shuriken slices the rhino’s torso in half, dissipating before his bare chest. With his weight over the torso, Tetsu slips forward, still unaware of what the actual fuck was happening.
The torso gets dissected into smaller pieces before Tetsu lands face-first on the ground. Without his approval, his body does the craziest backward crawl. If a horror movie director saw him now, he would’ve been the star of his next movie.
Tetsu covers ten meters under a second, heading straight into a puddle. Right after, a few more shuriken dives into the puddle, unable to scratch him.
The previous grass must’ve communicated his position inside the puddle as the rest dove right on top of him. Yet all of them went limp, unable to lay a scratch on Tetsu. With no time to analyze, Tetsu kept changing his position, each time the grass attacked his previous position. From time to time, he came out to breathe, and the grass shifted its strategy to attack him during his air breaks. Only during the night, he managed to escape by using small rocks as a distraction as he crawled back toward his safe house.
Out of breath, he still warns the tree before collapsing. “I am not... ah! About to die... no coffin.” He ducks behind the tree.
[Skill ‘Tag along’ is available. Move heavier targets alongside you with ease. Where you go, they tag along. The object’s weight, the distance traveled distance, and the power of the object determine the mana cost and strain applicable to the shell. Any willing participants are moved with ease and with lesser mana cost. Keep in mind the unwilling party would drain even more resources than usual. Level: Initiate. Rarity: uncommon]
“Wait!” Tetsu still struggled to catch his breath. “Why isn’t info and target a skill?”
Neither the system nor the tree answered him. During his recuperation, he came to the conclusion that they were either too advanced skills for his level or even the mighty system couldn’t make a system hack to replicate the Ru’nic magic system.
“Or maybe two systems can’t overlap? No... Then none of the skills should be available... Does it have anything to do with intent?”
Unable to find a solution, he saves yet another mystery for later. Along with the questions of why the shuriken couldn’t penetrate a puddle while it dissected a jewel rock like butter, and how come he had a grassling clutched in his palm, Tetsu had quite the collection.
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‘Info’ tells Tetsu the mysterious grassling in his palm was level one.
“A level one dicing up level six shell made of diamonds. Sacrificial attack to the win.” Tetsu throws the grass into his mouth. “Am I vegan or a cannibal now?” He entertains the thought. “Mana vegan.” Tetsu coins the word. “Mana cannibal? Nah! That doesn’t sound right.”
He checks his stats to have grown by a single digit while he still lingered at level one. “A bar to show my progress to level two would be nice.” He notes down a complaint.
He would have to have a word with the manager and maybe impress him by telling him what a shitty game he had made. That should surely get him on his good side.
“If he offers me a job or a bond or a position as his equal, I won’t refuse.” Tetsu pushes back onto his feet, dusting himself off. He spots the corpse of the rhino wiggle. “Time to test out a skill.” He smiles and dashes down the hill.
Like some animals are born with the knowledge to swim, Tetsu got familiar with his skills in a split second. It seemed as though it had been a part of him since birth. He instinctually knew how to activate and use the skill in the best way possible.
Tetsu sprinted toward the wiggling part of the rhino corpse. Before the grass notices him, he spots a smooth path toward the rhino and glides down. Inches away from his destination, he skids around, taking a position to touch and run back to cover.
He plants his feet on the ground, his body facing his safe house, and places his palm over the shell without even looking.
“Tag along.” Tetsu activates his skill.
Parts of the shell crumble away, only a spherical orb following Tetsu as he zigzags to safety. Neither the grass nor Tetsu himself realized what had exactly transpired.
The grasslings sensed Tetsu enter their sphere, but before receiving any confirmation from their queen, Tetsu had already mysteriously disappeared from where he came. He kept slipping in and out of nothing. They were unable to perceive a mystical tree to obstruct their vision and, frankly; they did not care. Thinking was something the queen had to do—not their job. They went back to scouting and breeding, while deep within the planes, a soul pondered for their next move.
“Mobilize the Zephyrblades.” A surreal voice orders the verdentide. Only a few understood her command, for only a few had the ability to hear her. They carried the order forward while the queen slumbered back into thought.
Safely panting below the tree, Tetsu deactivates his skill and gets a good look at the wiggling rock. His first plan was to make an omelet, but as the baseball-sized rock creaked, he changed his plan.
“Can’t eat a rock anyway.” He shrugs and waits until the outer shell cracks to reveal a baby pudding.
Not the dessert, but a similar-looking dessert with two beady eyes. The eyes didn’t match the body one bit. An inexperienced chef clearly made it.
“Hey, buddy.” Tetsu nuzzles the jelly with his finger.
The jelly’s beady eyes turn into small pointy daggers. It squeals and barks, making the situation even more comical. Unable to contain his amusement, Tetsu burst into laughter, while the baby jelly ignored him and flattened itself around its egg.
Bit by bit, the egg dissolves into its body. By consuming its shell, the jelly morphs from being a harmless dessert into a chihuahua-sized rhino that can chew Tetsu whole.
This transformation only made Tetsu laugh harder.
Not considering Tetsu a threat, the baby rhino darts around with its beady little eyes, searching for something. Still unable to find what it’s looking for, it strolls around the tree. Now and then, struggling to climb a root or two, it turns to Tetsu for some aid. But every time Tetsu met its eyes, he broke into a frenzied laughter.
He tries to stop the baby rhino, who is about to search behind the tree. Tetsu didn’t understand the details, but only one side of the tree was safe. Every time he stepped around the tree, the grass would sense him.
Tetsu dives forward to stop it from stepping around, but the rhino seems to sense the danger beforehand as it jerks to a halt. The abrupt motion stops its rocky bottom while its jelly half bounces around, distorting its serious face.
Tetsu held his stomach, laughing louder. Nearby predators heard a weird sound but couldn’t pinpoint the location.
The tree wished for a skill to kick him or signal the predators without exposing itself. Lucky for it the baby rhino took matters into its own little feet. She moves her solid exterior around, rolling down a root and hoping into Tetsu’s mouth, effectively choking him.
The laughter was cut short as Tetsu choked over the baby rhino’s bottom.
“Blau!” Tetsu vomits the baby rhino out and heaves for air.
The baby rhino snorts, disappointed by the humans. It heads back to the top and peaks around the tree.
Tetsu peaks from above the baby rhino. He looks at the baby rhino staring at the grass, the broken shell, which he assumed was its mothers, and the spot from where Tetsu dragged the corpse.
{Rino. Level: 01}
“I am sorry... I...”
Before Tetsu tries to apologize, the baby rhino jumps into his mouth, choking him again. For all it knew, he was about to make another ruckus.
After Tetsu vomited baby rhino for the second time that day, it went to check the battlefield.
Once again, Tetsu follows the baby rhino. The guilt eating away at him. How should he have known that it was pregnant? On a more important note, how the fuck did it get pregnant?
With or without his knowledge, he did still use its mother’s corpse, and that was unforgivable. Until the experiment ended, he never considered the rock a corpse. He wanted a strong rock and found this to be the strongest around.
“I...” Tetsu struggles for words as he follows the baby rhino. It must’ve had a weird skill as it moved around the battlefield, only stopping at places where its mother’s remains were once left.
The baby rhino sniffs around, then digs a small hole with its horn where its mother’s corpse once lay, then moves on to another spot and does the same digging ritual.
“I am sorry...” Tetsu croaks with tears rolling down his face.
The baby rhino ignores Tetsu and finds one remaining severed jelly portion, which Tetsu himself puked out not too long ago.
“Wait!” Gaped Tetsu. “Please tell me the rock thingy is its mother.”
Yet another benefit of being stupid. Tetsu forgot the fact about jelly being the main body and his food source before discovering the hack. He even imagined his favorite jelly treat as he munched down on a week’s worth of jelly rations in two days.
Now what was he supposed to be sorry about? The possibility of him disrespecting her mother’s corpse or the fact that he eats her mother?
The baby rhino blows away the impurities over the jelly before promptly swallowing it. The jelly gets added to its mass, making its upper jelly body bulge.
Dots connect and light a spark. His useless bystander of a teacher, AKA: ‘GlyphSage,’ Tetsu’s title, and the rune info confirm this theory.
Among the various skills a ‘Quart: node’ possesses, they can even retrieve into themselves as a final defensive maneuver. As long as they reclaim their splattered body from the battlefield, they can recover all of their lost levels.
The longer Tetsu held his apology, the more complicated it got. From sorry about your loss to sorry I eat your loss. “How, what, why is it even happening?” His mind short-circuited.
Rino was stunned from the start. It didn’t know how its body shifted places and now it couldn’t find the real body. But, as soon as the baby rhino saw the human open his noise hole wide, it knew what it had to do.
It choked him..!
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