The deep shoulder wound was already showing signs of healing as Eik dashed forward toward the hobbling tank. Injury and confusion clearly addling the man’s mind, Eik touched him lightly and triggered Accelerant just as he was raising a healing potion to his lips.

  The shield bearer could hardly keep up as his leg exploded around the spike, Eik already releasing more toxin.

  “P-Please…” the man gurgled, a clarity brought forth by fear reflected in his eyes. “Pl—”

  “Sorry, buddy,” Eik muttered, doing his best to keep the euphoric battle rush from showing on his face and in his voice. They were competitors, not enemies, even if this fight had underlined the dangerous reality of that competition in no uncertain terms.

  The man died quietly, the Profound Toxin flowing back into Eik’s body.

  His shoulder throbbed painfully, refusing to be lifted any further than navel height. He took another healing potion, leaving him with eight, and felt the flesh knit itself back together.

  Strapped securely to the tank’s thick belt was a pouch that Eik could only guess was a bag of holding. He stuck his hand inside and felt around but there was nothing to be had. Manipulating the man’s dead fingers to retrieve the contents also proved fruitless so Eik simply put the pouch in his own rucksack of holding.

  But when he did, the rucksack expelled the pouch like a dog coughing up a pill. He tried again but to no avail. So a bag of holding could not be stored inside another bag of holding. Just to be sure, he tried the same thing with the woman’s identical pouch but it turned out similarly.

  Besides the pouch, their belts held a few potions that Eik stol— gratefully received. Each of them still had two more potions on their belt slots. One type was clearly a Potion of Mighty Strength class 2 which seemed to be a staple in any Awakened’s arsenal. The other was what they had taken along with it. Eik couldn’t tell what it was exactly. If it was a common drug for members of the Nidafjeld Alliance to carry and use it would probably be better to find out what the effects were now rather than stockpiling them for no reason.

  He swallowed the contents of one of the two vials and instantly felt a soothing sense of relief. The healing potion from Atla had more or less lapsed but with this new concoction, the healing effect suddenly returned albeit weaker than the red potion.

  According to Mikla, the red potions would immediately start treating any injury or physical harm from the moment of ingestion but wouldn’t otherwise linger in the body. Given the fact that these guys had taken the potion before ever sustaining any damage, they had to be more precautionary in nature, probably providing healing to any wound suffered while the potion was active. That meant you wouldn’t have to worry as much about getting a potion in you after taking a potentially life threatening injury.

  Well, damn, he’d like to get his hands on the recipe for this sweet little thing. It could save many lives among the Awakened of Forest. Countless people died due to incapacitation leading to an inability to self-treat. If the healing was automatic it could be a game changer.

  It was tempting to take out his book of beginner alchemy recipes and look for it right then and there but he resisted.

  He stuffed both the heavy great shield and double headed axe from the tank into the rucksack of holding. The blade that resembled a wakizashi that had belonged to the woman, he strapped to his own belt just in case. He didn’t like it nearly as much as Viper Fang and it certainly didn’t complement his ability set in the same way, but it would have to do for now.

  As many of the tiny fragments of Viper Fang as he could find he wrapped into a little bundle with a length of leather cord and put it in his rucksack of holding. At his current and growing power level Viper Fang wasn’t realistically going to survive many fights, but he still wanted it restored to be kept as a memento of his first real weapon.

  Damn, he was going to miss that knife.

  In a satchel on the woman’s belt there were also four balls wrapped in brittle paper. She hadn’t used anything like that. The paper fell apart as he unwrapped it and the inner material left his fingers covered in a powder that smelled of soot.

  Even with Resistance: Toxin there was no way he was going to put that thing in his mouth. Rolling it between his fingers, he applied some pressure until the powdery ball suddenly burst in his hand, dark gray smoke billowing out like a breaking wave.

  Startled and blinded, Eik activated Movement Boost and flew backward, his back cracking painfully against a tree. A massive cloud rolled outward, looming high and opaque. It was a freaking smoke bomb!

  Now it made sense why she hadn’t used any. A great smoke cloud like that would probably have benefited Eik more than it would have them. Both of them needed to know where the enemy was to attack while Eik could have blindly launched globs of toxin at them from range for all they knew.

  Fastening the satchel with the remaining three smoke bombs to his own belt, he worked the corpses out of their armors.

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  The tank’s plate was too heavy for Eik’s fighting style and didn’t fit his much slimmer build well anyway, but some of the lightning user’s pieces he could put on although he was quite a bit taller than her.

  Shin guards, thigh guards, pauldrons for the shoulders, a segmented, carapace-like back protector, as well as a set of bracers. Whether there were set bonuses for wearing the full outfit together he couldn’t know but just the pieces he was wearing now seemed to fill him with a bit of extra strength and also added a spring to his step that could have been coincidental.

  But he didn’t have to pay money for it so that was great. Even the smallest advantage could turn the tides of a fight. If, for example, this set of armor had been what had made the lightning user faster than Eik, it was nothing short of indispensable.

  Finally, he found two oval stones — one on each of the dead. They were pretty and smooth to the touch but otherwise unremarkable, fitting comfortably in the palm of his hand. They were clutched in their hands for some reason. They definitely hadn’t been holding them when they died. Into the rucksack of holding they went.

  Dragging the corpses into a bush to conceal the results of the fight if nothing else, Eik retreated into the tree top to check his wooden plaque.

  [Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 8]

  [Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 9]

  Nice! It really was leveling incredibly quickly! At this rate he would have an army of those little bastards by the time he was done with the Championship.

  He was about to replace the wooden plaque under his shirt when the glowing notification text faded and starting writing anew.

  [Acquired Movement Boost — Lv. 25]

  [Acquired Movement Boost — Lv. 26]

  And apparently it didn’t stop there either.

  [Acquired (Unique) Profound Toxin — Lv. 54]

  [Acquired (Unique) Profound Toxin — Lv. 55]

  Excitement rushed through him as he read the next message.

  [Skill evolution available. Skill available for evolution: Movement Boost]

  [Choose one:]

  [Movement Boost — Air Step]

  [Movement Boost — Sure Step]

  [Movement Boost — (Unique) Toxic Liquefaction — Alternative skill evolution derived from intimate relationship with — (Unique) Profound Toxin]

  Although he had been an exceptionally fast leveler by any Earth standard, it had still felt like Movement Boost would never reach a point of evolution so it was nice to finally see it.

  Not only had Profound Toxin exercised its influence over his general ability selection process where it replaced his original choices with abilities that were closely related to the nature of Profound Toxin, it had now inserted itself into the evolution of his abilities as well. Then again, that was probably pretty common.

  Having already decided to put his focus into abilities and traits related to Profound Toxin or ones that at least complemented it, he only offered the first two options cursory glances.

  Truthfully, he was intrigued by the sound of Air Step. Would that be the ability to truly walk on air? Probably not.

  From what he had gathered, it could be that it was a trait that would eventually end up as something along those lines with enough training and leveling, but it was more likely to start out as some kind of double jump. Interesting but not something he wanted right now.

  Judging by the name alone, Sure Step would make him steadier on his feet whenever Movement Boost was active and would probably aid in smooth and precise course correction and such. Useful but also not tempting enough to overshadow the third and most appetizing option.

  The fact that Toxic Liquefaction had the ‘(Unique)’ tag was already enough to have made him choose that over any of the other two but the direct reference to Profound Toxin, similar to Armor of the Scourge and Living Manifestation, made it doubly attractive.

  A movement skill that pulled from Profound Toxin. What the hell would that do? To be completely honest, the name Toxic Liquefaction was a bit frightening. Given the fact that Movement Boost was a skill that affected his own physical body, ‘liquefaction’ wasn’t exactly a comforting descriptor.

  But running with Profound Toxin hadn’t steered him wrong thus far. He’d just managed to kill two similarly ranked Awakened at the same time. He was incredibly deadly and that couldn’t be denied.

  Without any real consideration, he chose Toxic Liquefaction.

  [Evolved skill Movement Boost. Skill acquired trait (Unique) Toxic Liquefaction]

  Immediately, he activated Movement Boost, moving across weeds and moss-covered roots and blinding speed, just as he always did. But he could feel that a new capability had settled inside of him. Again, he activated Movement Boost, but this time he pulled on that new feeling as well.

  Somehow, his mind stayed intact but his body became something completely different, losing all cohesion and solidity. This was not exactly a new sensation for him. He had felt it a few times before.

  Yes, this was the same feeling as when his mind had been sucked into the course of his toxin as it surged enthusiastically through a system. Most notably, he recalled his fight against the fungus king in the practical of the E-rank Crucible.

  Toxic Liquefaction was really quite literal, it would seem. It simply turned his physical body into Profound Toxin.

  Did this mean that he and Profound Toxin were no longer two separate entities magically connected to each other, but rather two lifeforms merged into one? Eik shivered as tingles ran down his spine.

  He only managed to hold the liquid form for a few short second before he lost focus of the sensation to the point where it forcefully returned him to his human form. Attempting to turn into both mist and solid toxin, Eik concluded that he was limited to liquid. At least for now.

  As it was, the trait didn’t seem like much of a movement skill. Not only did the liquid form not allow him to move faster than normal, he was actually quite a bit slower than before. Luckily he could still use Movement Boost like always but he couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment with the trait.

  Well, actually, wouldn’t this make him more or less impervious to physical attacks? He couldn’t hold it for long, and the cooldown was considerable, but if it could save his life even once it was worth it.

  Wait… What about invasion of a biological system? Could he… do that himself now? What would happen if he did?

  Firmly seized in the grip of macabre curiosity, Eik started in the direction of the nearest of the columnar mountains with the glowing light at its peak. Within less than a minute, the rustling of a small animal reached his ears and he gave immediate chase, eager to test the truth of his new trait.

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