Autumn was making the sound of raindrops pitter-pattering on trees. I interpreted that as excitement, which, honestly, I was feeling a little bit of, too. I had just found the perfect soil for my Bloodroot seeds!
My new soil began howling at me and scampered toward me on all fours. I say scampered because, honestly, there’s no other way to describe what those weird, inside-out, half-wolf-half-people were doing. Imagine werewolves, but anatomically swapped from their traditional forms of anthropoid bodies and wolf-like heads. It was as if they were meant to be Lycan, but somebody started with a wolf and went backward.
These creatures had wolf-like bodies and humanoid heads, but instead of skin, they had muscles stretched over bones. They also had hands instead of front paws, which was only slightly unnerving. I gave Autumn a little nod, and it sprang into action, vines absolutely tearing into the nearest wolf-thing.
Flickering my Authority with nearly two percent of my Mana per second, I realized I was actually digging into their skin slightly, which meant I could probably affect them from a distance. But first, I needed to prep my soil. I wouldn’t want to ruin it by rotting it all away.
I pulled the Klyven Dew into my hand before leaking it out of a hole as a viscous liquid. Then sent Nature Mana enhanced with [Natural Enhancement] into it, hardening the structure of the material while I threaded conduits through it. With less than a second of finnicking around, I was able to create a small but relatively sharp blade. Or at least it looked sharp.
That was all the time I had before I was nearly dogpiled. Or maybe human-piled? I don’t know. These things are weird. Using a thin wire, I manipulated the blade with movement circuits, copying the ones used to move my own body. I managed to do this while summoning my bag of seeds.
Pumping a ton of [Natural Enhancement] into the blade and wire, I accidentally split the front leader’s skull in half. Which totally wasn’t what I was going for because that killed it instantly. With the next one, I did a little better by merely removing its arms and legs with a couple of rapid cuts. Or are they all legs despite the hands? Using a second tendril of metal to jam a seed into the body of the chimeric nightmare creature I had summarily de-limbed.
I managed to get the seed planted within the limbless creature just as a third one jumped on top of me and tried to tear my throat out. Their fangs were surprisingly sharp, and I was quickly losing neck fibres. At least until it finally dropped, once I had turned its insides into outsides with very precise, completely intentional, panicked flailing of the blade.
Just as a fourth was about to do the same thing to me again, it was grabbed from behind and yanked away. I couldn’t complain about help and moved on, triggering my Authority Core to rot a hole in the fifth’s brain. Only to find I couldn’t, it was like there was some kind of resistance preventing me from manifesting Mana within its body.Growling in annoyance, I rerouted the Mana to my hand and released a condensed shot into its skull manually.
[Killed Skrith Scavenger Lvl 15-26]
x7
Fucking weird creatures they were. I took a minute while my body was pulling itself back together to check my notifications as well.
Class Level (Neophyte Conduit) Increased +2 (15)
+4 Wit, +6 Spirit, +4 Fortitude, +6 Arcana
Looking over my kill notifications again, I noted that the summons and plants I created or brought here seemed to count as an extension of myself. All in all, it was a satisfying haul. I wasn’t looking forward to the next time the amount of experience required to level spiked, because seeing the numbers go up was pretty satisfying. This was also a good time to check my status sheet. I feel like I haven’t done that in a while. Name: Ellie Winters
Species: Runaspriggan (Lvl 26)Class: Neophyte Conduit (Lvl 15)
Titles: [Pioneering Explorer of the Boundless Horizons], [Pioneering Explorer of the Vast Expanse], [Pioneering Explorer of the Far Reaches], [Scorched Survivor of Kharathyx], [Arcane Veilbreaker], [Realm Balancer], [Wondersprout Enhanced Physique]Stats:Might: 28 + 15 (+55%)
Wit: 104 (+55%)
Spirit: 157 + 20 (+75%)
Fortitude: 86 (+60%)
Arcana: 129 + 5 (+60%)
Grace: 56 (+55%)
My eyes went wide as I took in the details. I probably should have looked a little bit earlier, but to be fair, I was kind of busy over the past day or so. It was almost no wonder I could hit so far above my weight class. I could solve almost any problem just by throwing Mana at it, and I had a lot of Mana to go around for my relative level. After some quick math, I realized I was technically at level thirteen if I were to go by the standards of monsters. But my titles granted me a ridiculous stat boost.
Having finished regrowing my neck, I glanced over at what Autumn was up to and saw it sitting atop two Skrith that seemed to be right on the edge of death. Their musculature had withered away, shrunken and gaunt, like they’d been starved for weeks. Visibly panting, they seemed to be trying to escape the vines but just didn’t have the energy to put up a fight. Autumn was down a vine but otherwise positively brimming with Blood and Nature Mana. For a moment, I considered nibbling on the vine it lost, but then it flashed me a rather genuine smile, and I realized then that I couldn’t eat my cute little buddy, no matter how creepy it could be.
Groaning, I shoved the Skrith that had landed on me off with a burst of [Natural Enhancement] and took a look at how my new soil was doing. Turns out pretty well, it has already been reduced to a mummified husk, and the rapidly grown Bloodroot had been the one to grab the fourth Skrith off me, which was now in a similarly emaciated state as those grabbed by Autumn.
Walking over, I finished it off with a quick swipe of the blade I’d formed before pulling all the metal back into my arm. I took a moment to check my Mana and frowned at the result. It turns out that whipping a metallic blade enhanced with a Skill around while maintaining the durability of a thin wire was rather draining. If I wanted to do this in the future, I should probably use a thicker connecting cord.
Putting my mind off that fact, I ripped the root out of the corpse and just as it began to whine, dropped it into my Inventory. I chose to consume this one the old-fashioned way as I doubted I’d enjoy eating all that blood-flavoured vine. The knowledge flooded into my mind in a somehow less enjoyable manner than eating, and I took a minute to examine the details.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Ah, so that’s how it works.
I went to grow a test vine and root combination, but froze right before activating [Regrowth]. My biomass limit was becoming a problem; I had been bouncing off the cap already, and these vines weren’t light, given their heavy liquid components. I debated for a moment whether I should detach my clothes from my circuit network, but decided against it as that would make them impossible to regenerate on the fly. Given the number of holes I’ve gotten in them, keeping them attached to me seemed like a better idea. I liked the self-repair functionality.
Instead, I chose a harder route and took a seat, and compared my knowledge of Bloodroot with the functions of Klyven Dew. Given that they both had liquid components, I could just substitute the blood in the vine with Dew, but I’d lose all the advantages of both by doing that. I ended up having to grow a little bit of the vine across my arm and experiment.
Twenty minutes later, I had the redesign I wanted figured out and sent Mana imbued with [Verdant Corruption] into the vine, changing the internal Mana bonds of the Dew I had replaced the plant blood with so that it would hold similar properties. This was a little trick I had been working on while on a call with Hazel. It turns out a corrupting force can be used for good. Who would have thunk that? Other than the Skill description, that is.
After drinking a little to ensure the Mana did its job, I shed some of my internal material to make room for extra weight and created channels of Blood Dew for the Vital Energy the vines would collect to reach my Authority Core. I was pretty sure the change would only slightly reduce the durability of the finished product.
With a little bit of work, I also managed to fit some vines within my internals, ready to burst out whenever I so chose. The lightweight nature of the liquid metal meant this actually reduced my overall biomass, but if I took a hit, things might get a bit messy.
Now I just needed a test subject to prove that the Wondersprout did, in fact, require Vital Energy in order to produce Nature Mana. Otherwise, I was going to get real acquainted with Blood Mana in the near future, which I had no real plans to do yet. Maybe it would be useful in rituals?
That is a thought for later, though.
Finally focusing outside myself, I found myself blinking in the harsh glare of the Mana-based lighting. I had shut my eyes off at some point without noticing it. After taking a moment to adjust, I noted Autumn was sitting on a desiccated corpse from one of the Skriths that it had been eating. The torn-off vine had been regrown, and Autumn seemed to be playing around with a ball of magically imbued blood. I had no idea the exact source of that blood, but it didn't really matter since it wasn't mine.
"Hey, you want to go see if we can go find more dog people or something for you to eat," I said, which garnered what I was pretty sure was an enthusiastic response from Autumn.
Then made my way to the leftmost door so I could continue my pattern search. I really hoped that counted for the guy who appropriated my ritual, I could only imagine the shit he could kill if given the opportunity. With the level of care I’d seen so far for system functions, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if I were suddenly flooded with thousands of kill notifications out of nowhere from him wiping a village off the map or something.
Through the door seemed to be some kind of control room, and several displays were lit up along the walls. The middle of the room was filled with desks that held—wait a moment, are those Mana-based computers?
I was already bouncing towards them, excitement welling up inside me. There were so many things I could do with just a little bit of automation. I couldn’t wait to rip these things apart. Unfortunately, I quickly realized they were built into the desk, which meant I would have to pull the whole thing off the floor.
My foray into learning Mana computing was interrupted by Autumn yelping loudly on the other side of the room. No, wait, Autumn can’t yelp…
Looking over at what it found, Autumn was holding what appeared to be a living member of the species that built this place in the air with its vines, a pleading look on its face.
"No, Autumn, you can’t eat the man," I said with a sigh, despite my desire to just let it have at him. Any species that would summon something like a Wretchspawn willingly felt revolting to me. Funnily enough, that would definitely include humans if they had the capability.
Autumn pouted back at me in response.
"If this is how it ends, at least make it quick," The man Autumn was holding mumbled, his ears flicking slightly as he spoke.
I hadn’t taken a good look at one of the corpses since most of my attention was focused on what was in their pockets, so this was my first time taking a good look at one of the natives. His species looked rather interesting, with pale blue skin that seemed to shimmer as it reflected the light. Long, pointed but rather floppy ears sat on either side of his head, and a tail snaked out behind him. He carried several animalistic qualities as well, but it was like a completely new animal was pulled from instead of going with anything from Earth, which is likely exactly what happened.
"You’re not going to die today, my guy… Well, unless you choose to do it yourself on your own time, I’m certainly not going to stop you." I said in a dry tone before a thought came to me. "Actually, do you know how these computers work?"
Autumn allowed him to slowly spin while he hung limply in the air, and when he finally got a look at me, his expression shifted to one of confusion. I motioned to Autumn to stop spinning the man, because I had no idea why it was doing that.
"Wait, you aren’t one of the test subjects kept here. What in Hollow’s name are you even?" He asked.
I sighed. Why does everyone want to know what I am? Do I even know what I am? You can ask me, but who am I supposed to ask?
"Does that matter? Those dogs in the hallway were way creepier than I am, and you were just keeping them in a glass container in the hallway. Also, you didn’t answer my question—computers?" I said, channelling my inner Hazel and tapping the desk.
"Skriths are herbivores and completely harmless…" Noticing my expression, he swallowed hard before responding, "Unfortunately, due to company policy, I am unable to reveal details about Nexis Industries' technical specifications without proper clearance from upper management." He said, wearing the fakest smile I’d ever seen. I think he was sweating as well.
I couldn’t help myself—I broke down laughing. Progressing from a light giggle to me being bent over, wiping manifested tears out of my eyes. "So you’re just suicidal then," I asked once I had recovered.
He tensed up for a moment of hesitation before coming to some kind of acceptance, "I don’t think reinforcements are arriving to shut down the breached Malifactum generator any time soon. From my calculations, we have less than a day until secondary eruptions begin and Malifactum floods this facility. So I’d say I am, yes."
"There's a way to shut that shit down?!" I asked, my voice coming out unexpectedly frantic. The part of me that despised the idea of these things remaining in this world was more pushy than I thought. Not that I minded. I had to agree that they were awful, but my priorities changing so quickly was an odd experience. If that zone was going to be flooded with that weird Mana, or Malifactum as he calls it, then I needed to close it before that happens. Otherwise, I'd have to figure out how to cleanse the Zone with fire.
"Well, no, not without a way to clear the outer infestation from the city. Someone would have to reach the substation on the other side of the generator and simultaneously shut down both primary rituals holding the portal open. Any surface crossings are impossible until that happens," he replied, flinching when I frowned in response.
"Right… You recognize that I wasn’t one of your test subjects, but you have no idea how I got here, correct?" He confirmed the notion with a shake of his head. "I walked over and took the emergency exit down. I don't think the city you mentioned exists anymore, or at least no buildings are standing within the blast zone. I would very much like to walk away from here at some point, so if you could tell me how to resolve the issue on the surface before it kills us both, that would be swell."
His eyes briefly brightened, then dulled before lighting up again. I could hear the gears grinding in his head from over here. After a moment of stillness, he let out a resigned breath as though making a decision he’d rather avoid. "A plant species with stealth capabilities, remarkable. If you let me down," he said while wiggling in Autumn’s grasp. "I could technically hire you as a temporary emergency contractor on the spot to complete the emergency repair… Unfortunately, I don’t have the budget for any payment—""Oh, that’s fine, I’ll just loot the place and use that as compensation." I interrupted, graciously deciding not to end his life for calling me a plant. "Actually, do you have a map of this place? It might make the looting more efficient."He had this look on his face like he was thoroughly unimpressed for some reason.