Edge switched off his other skills and activated Conceal, observing the entrance to the tunnel until he was certain the beasts weren’t headed his way.

  Then he sat down on a boulder and started pulling shards out of his skin, watching as Regeneration stitched his flesh back together and his garax-leather armor finished repairing itself. The mycanoids’ crystal blasts were coated with some manner of poison, but Purge worked on it just as well as the other fungal pathogens he’d been exposed to thus far.

  When he was ready for round two, Edge crept back into the cavern and pulled out his spyglass to observe his enemy from a distance. Both beasts were still ambulatory—busy cannibalizing the remains of their fallen brethren. Now then, how should I kill them?

  If he had unlimited time at his disposal, he would have simply waited for the walking mushrooms to plant themselves and repeated his original attack. But since he had no idea how long that would take and every second was precious, he prepared himself for a frontal assault while contemplating a few ideas to mitigate the risk the shrooms’ shotguns posed.

  He tried using some chirpers to separate the beasts, but they refused to take the bait. Edge eventually decided that their attacks had left some manner of residue on him that let the creatures sense his presence, which meant Conceal probably wasn’t working and they had stopped chasing him because he’d left their territory instead.

  All right, it looks like we’re going to have to do this the hard way after all. After waiting for his reservoir to refill, he manifested Foebinder and had the chain carry the scapula shield to help protect him from the shrooms’ ranged attacks. He reached into his vault and pulled out his naginata instead of conjuring his iceblade, minimizing the number of skill combos he used during the impending melee.

  When his preparations were complete, Edge Hardened the front of his body, faced his foes, and charged with his heartbeat thundering in his ears.

  He did his best to dodge the beasts’ blasts on the way in, getting a better feel for their timing in the process. Foebinder blocked a few more, although it couldn’t hold its ground when getting shot from short range. The black chain lurched from side to side beneath the repeated impacts as crystal shards fell to the ground with a musical tinkle.

  When Edge made his final approach, he kept circling so that one beast remained in the other’s line of fire, limiting how many attacks he took at once. He did a good job, but dodging hundreds of crystals at the same time simply wasn’t possible.

  Blood was raining to the ground from a dozen minor wounds by the time that he cut one mushroom’s feet out from under it with a well-aimed Double Slash. He proceeded to sever both of the beast’s arms before darting behind a crop of minerals, dodging the other’s blasts with inches to spare.

  Now that he was down to a single opponent, his range of options had widened dramatically, making the rest of the fight easy by comparison. First, he infused his chakram with Elemental Blade and flung it, lodging the bone-and-brass ring in the mycanoid’s cap to distract it.

  Next, Edge hefted his naginata over one shoulder and threw the polearm like a javelin to keep the beast off balance. He darted out from behind the crystals before his enemy recovered. Along the way, he had Foebinder drop the shield so the chain could wrap itself around the shroom’s arms, preventing the business ends of its crystal shotguns from pointing at him as he manifested his iceblade and took aim.

  He finished the shroom off with a combo from Double Slash, leaving the limbless mycanoid alive. After making sure that nothing else had approached during the battle, he raised his arms and willed Extraction to activate. When Foebinder and its unnamed twin dove into the beast’s core, Edge’s mind followed them—curious to see what was inside.

  He wasn’t surprised to find himself standing in another crystal-lit cavern, although this one was enormous—big enough to hold a sports stadium with room to spare. He was, however, taken aback by the towering mushroom growing in the middle of the enclosure. Its stalk was twenty feet around and over a hundred feet tall. Thousands of mycanoids were planted in a ring around the colossal fungi, while hundreds more tended to its needs with a fanatical obsession. That must be their matriarch, queen, alpha, or whatever humanoid mushrooms have for a leader.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  While all of this was interesting on some level, he still needed to find out what skills the mycanoid was packing. Several weren’t suitable for human physiology, including the powers that fired the crystals and generated the poison that coated them.

  Edge eventually spotted something promising—a duplicate of one of his newest skills, Counter Disruption. He decided to steal it first before returning for a second course.

  You have extracted the skill: Counter Disruption (Uncommon, Rank 1).

  You already have this skill in your collection.

  Its experience will be added to your existing skill.

  When the shroom’s copy merged with his own version of Counter Disruption, the avatar’s cup was about two-thirds full. One more duplicate should do it.

  There weren’t any other skills he could use, so he stole the best powers the mycanoid had, adding their experience to Double Slash. Edge was pleased to have won a fight against four stage-two beasts and happy to have stolen three skills. The fact that Extraction’s cooldown had expired told him that he’d been down here for over 20 hours. I need to find shelter and get some sleep soon.

  But he wasn’t going to worry about it until he’d claimed his prize. He finished off the dying mushroom, walked over to the sealed chest, and cracked it open—eager to see what he had won.

  You have opened a sealed chest containing 1 Skill-Upgrade Token.

  Badass. Edge grabbed the token and retreated to the mushroom-free tunnel he’d passed through earlier while contemplating his reward.

  Skill-Upgrade Tokens were incredibly rare and worked a little differently from any of the other tokens he’d used so far. It would increase the rarity of any of his Common or Uncommon skills without fundamentally altering their nature in the process.

  The rarity upgrade would make the skill stronger, increasing its output along with its cost. But the most interesting part was that a rarer version of a skill would offer better upgrades at even ranks, which could lead to obtaining powerful variants that very few people had.

  Edge had several amazing Uncommon skills, but only one that had become a core part of his fighting style. Since it was an easy decision and he needed every advantage he could get, he stepped inside his skill village and voiced his decision to the System.

  “I would like to use this token to upgrade Elemental Blade.” By this point, he was dancing with excitement. He’d been hoping to find a way to increase the skill’s power for some time but hadn’t wanted to use a token that would risk changing Elemental Blade’s core functionality since he used the skill in several different ways. But the upgrade token was exactly what he needed.

  When he spoke those words, the metal disc floated out of Edge’s hands as its power was released, spinning faster and faster while glowing with an electric purple light. The magic medallion went whizzing through the air until it was hovering beside the rune-covered crystal sword that represented Elemental Blade.

  His iceblade had already grown to be as big as he could handle, so he was pleased to learn that the upgrade changed its appearance in another way instead. The glacial crystals darkened as they grew denser, bolstering the skill’s physical resilience and condensing the mana they contained.

  The air grew colder as the blade’s wintery aura thickened. Meanwhile, the silver runes embedded along its length grew brighter and more intricate. The blade had become sharper than ever, and he was eager to find out what it could do.

  Edge’s Guide appeared when the process was complete, making the upgrade official.

  The skill Elemental Blade (Uncommon) has advanced to Elemental Blade (Rare).

  His other avatars had gathered around while all the special effects were taking place. When the show was over, they began to cheer, congratulating their friend on its accomplishment. He grinned while offering Elemental Blade a round of applause. Now its rank-four upgrade should really be something special.

  Edge watched his powers play with a smile on his face, pondering just how strange and wonderful his life had become. Then he resumed his journey with renewed vigor—grateful to have improved one of his favorite skills.

  When he found a suitable shelter a few hours later, he decided to call it a day. Before he passed out, he pulled up his updates. As he’d been hoping, the battle had been sufficient to cycle up his core.

  You have accumulated sufficient experience to cycle up your core. Your new cycle is: 20.

  You have 5 attribute points awaiting allocation.

  Since dealing with those crystal shotguns had been a real pain in the ass, he decided to put his points into Durability. Considering how concentrated the magicytes in the Deep-Gill Grottos were, he was likely to run into more enemies that could deal serious damage. He needed to be resilient enough that they couldn’t kill him in a single blow if he messed up and didn’t activate his defense in time.

  Edge enjoyed the sensation of his tissue becoming tougher and more tightly connected, making his body harder to cut, crush, or tear. When the potentia was done working its magic, he pulled his bedroll out of his vault and went to sleep, trusting Conceal to keep him safe while he was out.