Setna and Byron were returning to Puppet Town. After using Vengeance and shattering her core, Setna needed medical attention. Bereft of her skills and potentia-enhanced attributes, the woman would be easy prey for the beasts living in the jungle and couldn’t make the journey alone.
Once Byron had escorted her back to the settlement, the shadowkiller would assist Earl’s forces in dealing with the Claws lurking in the Ivory Plains.
One-Eye was planning to stage a revolution in the Gilded Heights, rallying the people conscripted by the Crimson Claws he believed were worth saving. The hunter thought that he could reach them in about a week and hoped to bring his people to Puppet Town after making good on their escape.
Edge was eager to join the fight to save his friends, but there were a few matters that he needed to take care of first. After bidding farewell to the others, it was time to check out his rewards for defeating the Gardener and conquering the dungeon.
Filled with an exquisite sense of anticipation, he summoned his Guide, opened his menus, and began reading through his considerable list of gains.
You have accumulated sufficient experience to cycle-up your core. Your new cycle is: 14.
You have accumulated sufficient experience to cycle-up your core. Your new cycle is: 15.
You have accumulated sufficient experience to cycle-up your core. Your new cycle is: 16.
You have accumulated sufficient experience to cycle-up your core. Your new cycle is: 17.
You have 20 attribute points awaiting allocation.
Each cycle is huge after hitting stage two. Those points are going to come in handy. He would decide how he wanted to spend them in just a minute, but for now, he kept on scrolling.
Congratulations. You have completed a quest and received the following rewards:
1 Core Rune (Epic).
You have accomplished a notable feat and have been awarded a trait.
Trait: Raid Wiper
Your actions have led to the death of multiple cored crews in a short span of time. Your involvement wasn’t direct enough to award experience, but you get an A+ for effort. Not to mention, a sexy new trait to commemorate the achievement.
Don’t worry, none of your people were inside when the dungeon sealed itself.
Effects: +30% damage dealt when facing 5 or more enemies at or above your stage (excluding magitech weapons, traps, and spellshots). Once activated, this bonus will persist until the end of the fight.
Reading that description sent a tide of relief flooding through every cell of Edge’s body. For the first time, he was grateful for the System’s growing eccentricity—a strange shift in both temperament and tone that had started shortly after the anomaly and only manifested in certain places, like his trait and quest text.
Both the snark and the personal touch were shockingly out of character for the pre-disaster AI, which had gone from displaying a clinical neutrality to what appeared to be a genuine personality. Hell, it even has a sense of humor.
This gesture—telling Edge exactly what he needed to hear—felt downright empathetic, even compassionate. The System was a ruthless, bloodthirsty entity that had precipitated countless tragedies and untold suffering, but he had to admit that this new facet of its persona wasn’t all bad.
He let out a long, shuddering sigh—overcome with a pungent blend of contrasting emotions.
He was still riding the high of conquering the dungeon, defeating the Gardener, and claiming the manufactory for Puppet Town. He was thrilled that his actions hadn’t resulted in the death of his allies, afraid for his friends who were trapped underground, and furious at the jailbirds who were invading his home.
Edge had been hoping to head back to town to enjoy a hero’s welcome—feast, fuck, and then sleep for a week. Instead, he was proceeding from one deadly situation straight into the next.
On the bright side, he now had the power to make a difference. The man who had emerged from the Savage Garden was far more dangerous than the one who’d gone in. After the explosive growth he’d experienced while trapped inside the dungeon, he was strong enough to take on stage-two opponents—ready to bring the pain to the prisoners who were threatening his friends.
While these thoughts ran through his mind, he opened his menus and equipped his new trait. There was a sense of power congealing and then settling around his shoulders, but after it faded, he didn’t feel any different. That makes sense. This trait is only active in certain situations.
Now that he’d finished reading through his updates, the next item on his list was upgrading his first Epic skill, Intimidating Roar.
Edge stepped into his inner world, where Chibime was shining bright, indicating that the skill was ready to advance. He’d earned the skill experience from Absorbing the Gardener’s offering, and he needed to make his decision before time ran out.
That was when he realized the miniature version of himself seemed out of sorts. Chibime refused to wave back when Edge waved hello and acted like he was pouting. He’s upset that I didn’t use him during the fight with the Gardener.
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He walked over Roar’s avatar, got down on one knee, and said, “I’m sorry, little man. You are a total badass and I couldn’t do this without you, but using you against the boss would have hurt our team too. Hopefully this upgrade will take care of the problem. Either way, I promise that you can help bring the next big bad down.”
Chibime looked up with his cartoonish features, then smiled wide—mollified by the gesture.
With that out of the way, Edge called his Guide and pulled up his menus, rubbing his chin while looking through the list of upgrades.
The skill Intimidating Roar has advanced to Rank 2.
Its mana efficiency has been enhanced.
Please choose between one of the following options:
- The effective range of Intimidating Roar will increase by 50%.
- Sense which opponents are immune to the skill’s effect without having to use it.
- Intimidating Roar will no longer affect your allies.
Warning: If no option is selected, your skill will remain unchanged and gain a slight bonus to mana efficiency.
As usual, the choices offered were all quite good, and each would come in handy in specific situations. The extra range would let him disable opponents from further out, making it easier to target a large group at once. Instinctively knowing which enemies could resist Roar’s paralysis would provide a significant tactical advantage, preventing him from wasting time and mana during a fight.
But the third option was something that Edge had been desperately hoping would appear, and he picked it without a second thought. Intimidating Roar was incredibly powerful, but at rank one it came with some serious limitations too. Affecting both his enemies and allies made the skill borderline useless when fighting in formation and would hamper its utility during the war to come.
Being able to Roar freely in the middle of the battlefield, not to mention hunting with his crew, would transform the Epic skill into a weapon that could turn the tide all by itself. “I’ll take option three, thanks.”
When Edge voiced his decision, Chibime began to grow, swelling from six-inches tall to the level of his knee. After the avatar reached its new height, it stopped shining and the cup representing its experience was empty again.
The little guy seemed thrilled by the upgrade, and began dancing around the moment it was complete. Edge took the opportunity to inspect Intimidating Roar—the only one of his skills that had chosen its own name.
Chibime was different from his other powers. Its avatar took the form of a miniature version of himself with an oversized head and cartoon features. He was far more intelligent than the other skills living in his garden. Chibime could understand complex concepts and had helped Edge out in numerous ways while surviving inside the dungeon.
Before he returned to the outside world, he decided to take a lap around his core. So much had changed in such a short span of time and he was still getting used to it all. After evolving to stage two, his inner world now resembled his father’s workshop—a place where he had felt happy and safe before his father and brother had died in a tragic accident long ago.
In addition to those artifacts from his childhood, his central chamber contained the components shared by all cores on Ord, although his were unique in more ways than one.
In one corner of the room sat his reservoir—the massive brass tank that held his magicyte reserves before they were fed to his reactor to power his skills. Part of the device permeated the walls of the chamber, leading to the mana pores embedded in Edge’s skin that drew in ambient magicytes from the environment.
A series of ducts and pipes connected his reservoir to his reactor—a gigantic magitech device that had grown to the size of an industrial furnace. Its body was formed from jet-black iron, and through the bulbous grill was a vast realm of flame that seemed to stretch on forever.
Circuits and conduits led from his reactor to a series of marble pillars representing his skill slots. He had 18 in all after reaching stage two, letting him use more powers than almost anyone else on the planet.
In addition to his central chamber, his core boasted two additional features that were unique to Skill-Eater as far as he knew. The first was the door that led to a storm-swept coastline where a giant was bound in endless black chains. Edge had only spoken face-to-face with Skill-Eater on three occasions thus far, although his core’s slumber wasn’t so deep anymore.
The other unusual aspect of his inner world was a recent addition. After his last evolution, his skill garden had transformed into a skill village, where the avatars of his power resided. They were darting about that mysterious place—busy playing, training, and interacting in ways that he didn’t even pretend to understand.
On top of everything else, Skill-Eater had gained a new ultimate ability after reaching stage two. Skill Bond let Edge’s relationships with his skills directly increase their power. On that note, he spent some time talking to each of them, thanking the avatars for their help and offering words of encouragement.
After his last battle, there was a new addition to his inner world, resting in one corner beside the terrarium representing his Auxiliary Skill Slot. While Intimidating Roar was digesting, it had taken the form of an egg formed of crystalized mana. Fear the Seasons—the Epic skill that he’d received from the Gardener—was both remarkably similar and strikingly different.
The shape and size of the skill’s manifestation were almost identical, as was the intensity of the mana emanating from it. The color, however, was something else entirely. While Roar had been pristine white, just like all the Rare skills he’d digested, this egglike projection came in four distinct hues. One portion was a verdant emerald, and the next was electric vermillion. The third was the brown of fallen leaves, and the last was a wintry blue.
Edge only had a vague idea of how the domain inside functioned—that it offered a range of powerful enhancements that were based on the turning of the seasons. But considering how much of a nightmare the Gardener had been to take down, he was sure they were going to be friends.
Given how different Chibime was compared to his other skills, he couldn’t wait to find out what would emerge when the colorful egg hatched in two weeks. He took one last look around his inner world, nodded in satisfaction, then slid back into his body.
Now that he had picked an awesome new upgrade for his strongest power, it was time to invest his points and get moving. Edge still needed to engrave his spatial storage rune, but the process would take several hours and leave him unable to use his skills in the meantime, so he decided to carve the rune into his core after stopping for the night.
Now then, how should I spend those points?
Every time a core reached a new cycle, it released a type of transformative energy known as potentia, which could permanently upgrade the attribute of his choosing. I’m going to be operating in a jungle environment, facing off against a superior force comprised entirely of high-stage opponents.
Edge had come a long way since binding Skill-Eater, as both a hunter and a warrior. However, he was still new to wielding his naginata and chakram. He would be in trouble if he got into a brawl with someone with more training and experience than himself. His biggest advantage was his ability to steal skills and slot over twice as many as anyone else his stage.
If he wanted to kill the Crimson Claws, he needed to lean into his strengths and focus his development on the use of his powers. He also needed to find his enemies before they knew he was there, or they would take him out in a flash.
He had invested heavily into Durability, Disruption, and Amplification before taking on the Gardener and had enough for now. Thus, he decided to spend 15 points on Generation, so that he could use his skills more freely, and 5 into Perception to sharpen his senses.
He sent his intentions into the System, spending his points a few at a time so that he wasn’t overwhelmed by the intense sensations that accompanied the process. Each time, the potentia flowed out of his core in a crackling rush before working its metamorphic magic. His mana pores tingled as they widened, drawing more magicytes from his environment.
Spending points on Perception sent energy surging into his sensory organs, rewiring the nerves connecting them to his brain along the way. The upgrade left each sense sharper than before, while enhancing his neural pathways so that he could process the additional information without being overwhelmed.
After Edge adjusted to his new and improved body, he left the cave and continued crossing the biome. He was heading for the mountain looming in the distance—where an army of jailbirds was waiting.