Dei sat back, relaxing, as Fendrascora dug through the body of the bisected Praerel. Right now, she was trying to get a feel for all the different layers and parts of it, so that she wouldn’t butcher the other one. He wanted to use it to finally get a layer of proper clothing, and he couldn’t do that if it was destroyed.
She pulled what was left of its organs out, and he watched them slowly get broken down in her body as she tried turning them into fertilizer for her plants. He always thought plants in this world tended to adapt quicker to their situations, so the plants Fendrascora was growing inside her might become ravenous on their diet of blood and bodies. Kind of like Fang.
The edible-meat part, she set aside in the watery portion of her body, cleaning it. Dei had asked her to do that so he could eat it.
The last part was the hide. Fendrascora tried many things with that, as it was the most important parts. Using the blood vessels throughout the body, she could pull it apart easily, and she experimented with different ways of separating the hide and meat. Once she was a lot better at doing that, she started cleaning the hide, stretching it, and just generally working on it to make it better. She’d used Fang to cut the hide into squares, trying different ways to clean and soften it.
Pieces were destroyed, but she learned quickly, carefully breaking the connective tissues that made the hide stiff, drying it out by removing the water in varying amounts to ensure it wouldn’t crack or oversaturate.
Watching her work, he noticed how brutally efficient she was. If she could get her hands on a body, Fendrascora’s unique biological makeup gave her the incredible capability of manipulating it.
He tried not to think of what that meant for him if she turned on him, because he knew she wouldn’t. Still, there were ways for creatures to control her mind, as seen with the Smiler he’d faced before. Just another thing to worry about.
Once she’d thoroughly worked on the first body, she finally applied all her knowledge to the second one to make him some clothes, according to his own parameters.
Slowly, carefully, she separated the hide from the body as she’d done with the first one, separating the body again into edible meat versus organs to compost into plant food.
He made sure she only touched the edible meat with water. He didn’t want it touching his own blood if he was going to eat it, that felt way too close to cannibalism.
Once the meat was clean and organs stashed away, she finally got to work on making him some clothes.
* * *
Several hours later, she said she was done. She hadn’t figured out sewing yet, so she had to physically hold the clothing together. The end result was a T-shirt with shorts that ran down to his knees, the entire outfit perfectly white. He decided to keep the white proto-feathers in it as well, just giving a bit of extra design to it.
He could sense Fendrascora’s peripheral body running through the two articles of clothing, and he could see a few of the seams where she’d had to cut or stitch the leather back together.
Ultimately, it was a bit stiff and uncomfortable, but he felt more secure than ever before now that he had some proper clothing that fit him.
The entire process had taken five hours since the battle, and the entire time Dei had kept an eye on the escaped Praerel. It wasn’t that far away, he had to hunt and kill it.
It wasn’t that he wanted to for selfish reasons, such as food or clothing, he just dreaded the idea of leaving an enemy alive for it to strengthen and come back to kill him. When he tried finding the source of this feeling, he realized that he’d started producing Wrath mana the moment the Praerel had run away. For some reason, he couldn’t let it escape.
* * *
Finding it a second time as it rested in a small den, he wanted to make the kill much cleaner. It was worn out, and would never even get the chance to process that he’d snuck up on it before it was dead. He carefully had Fendrascora slide along the ceiling while carrying him above it and was about to tell her to drop him down, when he hesitated.
It was true that his Wrath affinity was insisting he finish it off, but it felt wrong to him to kill without giving it a chance to… do something different. Dei didn’t even know what the issue was, or why he had to kill it. He just knew that he did.
Being held there silently above the injured Praerel, Dei alternated between killing it immediately and trying to change something, fighting within himself. He knew this battle, he’d been through it before. This was a battle between something his Wrath told him, and something his Kindness told him. Kindness wanted to spare the creature, Wrath insisted he could not.
Dei decided to find a middleground. He didn’t want to chase it again, so he would wake it up. If it ran, he would spare it. If it fought, he would finish the fight these Praerel started.
Getting Fendrascora to bring him back to the entrance of the den, he took a few steps away and tried thinking of a way to wake it up. It had to be a threatening noise that any creature would recognize. A roar? But humans didn't really have the vocal cords for that.
He thought back to the time his mom had made the quiet cooing-chitter, back when he was a baby. His body had instinctively understood that as “be quiet,” but that wasn’t something humans in his last world could do at all. What if Gem Dweller humans could roar.
Trying not to feel a bit silly, Dei took in a deep breath. He wouldn’t try to roar, simply let his body do whatever it naturally did. ‘A threat. I need to communicate a threat to everything around me.’
When he released the breath, a muscle he didn’t know he had flexed, and a deep chittering grumble resounded from in his chest, causing his entire body to vibrate and making the distant singing of bugs go quiet.
It sounded halfway between an alligator bellow and a human growl, taking him off guard with how accurate it was to an animal call.
From within the cave, Dei heard the snoring of the Praerel stop, and he knew it’d woken up. He saw its head peek out from the opening to its den, seeing him. Slowly, it walked out to stand perfectly central to the cave, and looked at him.
Dei could see it now, what Wrath was warning him about. The Praerel’s eyes were lively, stronger than it’d been before their fight. This Praerel was not broken, it hadn’t given up, and it hated Dei. It was smart enough to understand what a grudge was, and would attempt to find him later, when it was stronger. Wrath didn’t want to leave it to do so.
He sent out a use of [Meaningful], saying “Run. Never come back, never try to fight me again, give up, and I will let you live.”
He could see by the surprised expression that it understood him, but when it lowered its stance and glared at him, he knew it was hopeless. It would never leave him alone.
* * *
A few more hours later, and he now had full-on pants and long sleeves to his shirt, as well as a face covering made from the jaws and teeth of two Praerel. The face covering was to keep dust out of his lungs when he breathed.
And because it made him look much more threatening.
While he hated to kill this pack of Praerel so completely, Dei understood that his Wrath was only watching out for him. If he hadn’t hunted it down, he would have been completely unprepared when it came back a second time to kill him. Sure, it might not have been able to kill him alone, but it was a smart creature. There was a chance it would pick its moments, waiting for a time when he was injured before jumping in to finish him off.
He shook off the guilt and stopped his contemplation, he was almost to the first spiritual signature in the area. Two days was a pretty good time considering he’d stopped to fight, heal, and get clothes.
Now that he was closer, he decided to do a full review of everything on him, including a checkup of his companions. First came the notifications of the days of travel and fight he’d had with Praerel
[Class Leveled Up: Prodigal Detector (Level 87) -> (Level 94)
[Total Stats Gained: +4 Mental +4 Magical]
[Skill Leveled Up: Good Samaritan (28) -> (35)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meaningful (41) -> (42)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (121) -> (127)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Solidity (86) -> (91)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Homeostasis (81) -> (88)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (88) -> (93)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Identify of the Stout Protector (61) -> (63)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Fine-Tooth Comb (48) -> (53)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Vigilance (68) -> (74)]
[Skill Leveled Up: In Tune (14) -> (29)]
[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (81) -> (87)]
Multiple of his Skills were closing in on level one hundred, and he was more than ready for the evolutions.
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Not only his Skills though, but his Class too. From his System-granted knowledge, he knew that Classes evolved at level one hundred too. Supposedly, they were much more complicated than Skill level ups, but he would have to see when he got there.
It’d been a few weeks since he’d looked over his whole Interface, so he did so now
[Name: Dei Grrata
Race: Human (Gem Dweller Variant)
Class: Prodigal Detector (Level 94)
Profession: Pondering Sage (Level 7)
Achievements: Void Walker, Soulspeak, Beyond Understanding, No Rulers Above All, Bearing the Burden, Slayer of Mountains, Cruelty of the Slaughter (II)
Contracts: Soul of the (IIIIIIII)
HP: 128/128
MP: 128/128
SP: 128/128
Stats:
Physical: 64
Mental: 58
Spiritual: 49
Magical: 59
Affinities:
Kindness: Mid-Rare: 98%
Wrath: High-Uncommon: 44%
Soul: Low-Uncommon: 58%
Fortitude: High-Uncommon 6%
Inner Skills:
Kindness: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (100) (3651/4000), Call for Help (53), Good Samaritan (35), Meaningful (42)
Wrath: Pandora’s Box (Unleashed) (2), Growing Pains (127)
Soul: Astral Projection (12), Connection (1)
Fortitude: Solidity (91)
Health: Homeostasis (88)
Mana: Meditation (93)
Confluence: Identify of the Stout Protector (63)
Outer Skills:
How About a Demonstration?, Fine-Tooth Comb (53), Vigilance (74), In Tune (29), Commune with the Universe (2), High Mind (87)]
[Pandora’s Box:
1857/4000 Wrath
684/4000 Kindness
529/4000 Soul
281/4000 Fortitude
300/4000 [NULL] ]
The smaller percentage increases of his affinity weren’t reflected in his notifications, but they were important nonetheless. His Kindness affinity had been stuck at its percentage for a long time, and it was steadily increasing now as he helped Fendrascora. He didn’t quite agree with that though, as it wasn’t perfectly selfless to help her. He benefited a lot from the arrangement as well, and he appreciated what she brought to the table.
He also noticed that his Wrath affinity had jumped up several percentages, and suspected it was because he hunted that Praerel down, not letting it escape. He believed it was another Rule of Wrath, this one involving not letting enemies escape, but he didn’t know the exact wording of it.
His Fortitude affinity was also steadily increasing and granted him tons of Fortitude mana. He was confused on what he should do with it first, as he didn’t really have Fortitude spells, but bare mana was useful as well, proven by how wild Wrath granted him strength and Null destroyed magical constructs. Fortitude, if spread around his body, would most likely help center him and resist mind control, without compromising his Skills.
He also looked towards [How About a Demonstration]. It was a long unused, but not forgotten, Skill given to him by the System. It gave him the ability to temporarily bestow another access to one of his Skills, with many caveats to it. Despite its bounded strength though, it still had much potential. He always kept it in mind when thinking of his friends, because he could bestow his [Growing Pains] Skill on them if they were injured to heal them faster. Even if he’d never used it, it was too useful of a Skill to disregard entirely.
The review of himself done, Dei went to Clever, asking him how his training was going.
To Dei’s surprise, Clever said that he was already level one hundred, and had been so for a while. Ever since the Smiler, Clever had earned enough levels to evolve, but had refrained from doing so. He said that all of his “Evolution Options” were a bit pathetic considering the effort, so he hoped to quantify his abilities a bit more by earning the future sight Skill he’d vied for this entire time.
Dei found out that Clever never stopped trying to figure the Skill out, and he was getting closer. He’d even earned three freestyle charges of “see into the future for danger.” It was apparently hard to quantify when danger would come, but Clever insisted he was pretty sure the three links would warn him, though to varying strengths as they were all quite different. He was still trying to find the most efficient way to look into the future, hopefully earning him an official System Skill that would give him better and rarer evolution options. If that didn’t work, he said that he was okay with putting off the evolution even further to get his Skills higher, to prove to the System that he was a strong Korgonda.
Dei was surprised at the foresight Clever expressed, but not so surprised. Clever always lived up to his namesake, though it was hard to see at times without looking closely as his cute form could distract from his big brain. If he thought waiting would be the smart move long term? He would.
Complimenting him on his patience and petting him, Dei also checked in on Fang, and received a noncommittal response, akin to a mental grunt.
“You know Fang, I am curious. What do you do with all that Soul mana I give you? I assumed it was for an affinity like Clever used it for, but I’ve not seen any changes in your abilities in the entire time I’ve fed you the mana. Do you just like it?”
“What I do with the Soul mana is my own business, that you have no right to know.”
Dei raised his eyebrow. She seemed rather defensive against such a question, though he knew she was pretty prideful… “Alright, I’m not demanding to know, simply curious. I assumed a being like you would have awesome powers, but if it's not all that impressive, that's fine by me too.”
He sensed Fang stew over his words for a while ‘You are trying to trick me. Into telling you.”
“No no! Not at all! If there isn’t anything special about the Soul mana you need, thats okay! I’ll just ask Fendrascora what she uses it for. Fendrascora probably has a ton of cool Skills that she’s going to use my Soul mana for.”
Fang let out some mental grumbling. “I will have you know that I am using it to improve my blood affinity, and the System told me that the new affinity will be so powerful that not even it can contain the affinity or help me with it.” She said proudly, mentally smirking at him.
He didn’t let it show on his face, but he reciprocated that gesture. “Ooh, how so? How did you know it would be powerful?” He was wildly curious, and had many, many questions, but he had to pretend to be disinterested to get Fang to tell him anything.
“I felt it call out to me the very first time I drank upon that Wraith's power, and knew I needed to form a pact with you to ensure I could gain the power to reach out for that affinity. Even now, I feel it calling to me, but it is far. It feels… buried. Like none others have used this affinity for a very long time, and now it must be dug free to access its strength.”
He nodded, seeming only slightly impressed when, internally, he was quite hyped up, and very tempted to pour even more Soul mana into Fang just to see the new affinity sooner. “That is a bit interesting. If it ends up being impressive, feel free to tell me.”
He could tell that Fang was irritated with his lackluster response, but that was exactly what he wanted. Now she’d tell him anything particularly cool that happened in relation to the newer affinity.
Last, he checked on Fendrascora, getting confirmation that she was still happy and comfortable playing with her little garden.
More than that though, he checked on her health and the progress of her compression Skill.
[Corrupted Damaged Crippled Embodiment of the Flow - Level 64]
“And what of the Skill? Any progress made?” he questioned.
“Well…” she hesitated to answer.
“What? Is something wrong with it? You can get the Skill, yes?”
“Yes, Yes! I can. But I… don’t like the generic Skill. Embodiments can easily learn it, I could have learned it the very first day I was out of that prison, but I don’t know…”
“What? Why not? Wouldn’t it be easier and safer to hide more of your body?”
“Yes, but for one you’d have to carry all the extra weight.”
“And two?” he asked.
Several seconds went by without a response.
“Fendrascora. Whats the second reason?” Even if it would weigh him down, she didn’t have to compress herself fully. She could compress herself a little bit, have him adjust to the weight as his Physical stat increased, then a bit more, until she was fully hidden. Confused, he tried figuring out what it was, and then he remembered something. Turning around, he saw the massive garden she was making.
“Fendrascora… have you delayed getting a Skill because you want to keep your garden?”
She didn’t say anything, but that was enough of a response.
“Fendrascora, can you at least promise me you’ll get one now so that, if there is an emergency, you can compress yourself?”
“But that would make it more difficult to get a better compression Skill! If I wait longer and try for a better one, I might be able to take my garden with me!”
He was baffled at even the concept of her compressing an entire ecosystem and storing it in his body. “How would you take the garden with you? Its not part of you, and it's not made of concepts either like you are. Wouldn’t that kill the plants?”
“Maybe… but maybe not. I want to try! It’s been safe enough so far. I promise I’ll drop my garden and just make a compression Skill if I need to, but not yet!” she adamantly resisted.
Sighing, he ran his hands through his hair. He truly had no idea what such a Skill would look like.
To be fair though, he didn’t know much about the inner workings of any of his Skills. Perhaps it was possible, perhaps not, but she was right. No harm had come from her waiting just yet.
He just hoped they wouldn’t face the consequences of a decision when it was too late. They’d already been discovered when hiding once, perhaps that was because Fendrascora was such a large target.
On the other side of the spectrum, they’d been discovered while resting before Fendrascora was along as well. As a matter of fact, they’d probably avoided more fights since Fendrascora had become attached to him without compressing herself, because so many creatures were terrified to approach them.
He decided to humor her for now.
“Alright, alright. I’m trusting your judgement in this though. Don't get us all killed because you want to keep your plants. There are always more trees and grass, but there’s only one you.”
“Okay!” she responded happily.
Checkups done and all his ducks in a row, Dei decided to sleep and eat before continuing. He was very close to the first spiritual signature, but he wanted to be in top condition. The last time he’d approached one, its mind was fractured and it lashed out at him. This time, he didn’t have the protection of the Garden and he had to be more cautious. He actually had a plan for confronting the spirit this time as well, but it would be best to be at his mental peak before facing it nonetheless.
Finding a particularly flat and smooth rock, he got Fendrascora to clean it off, then place a large rack of Praerel ribs on top of it. Using a careful application of flames by burning/healing his lungs repeatedly, he slowly and thoroughly grilled it. The outside was burnt by the end, but he wanted to be careful and kill any parasites or other nasties in the meat.
It tasted great, other than the char, despite the lack of seasoning. He wasn’t surprised that it was gamey with how powerfully muscled they looked, and eating it reminded him of venison.
Belly full, he dug out a spot to rest in. Even if Fendrascora was completely ruining all of the “hiding” aspects of where he slept, he still felt much safer in an enclosed space. Laying back on the cold stone, he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
