Poison Fang Mastery Lvl 5 Increase effectiveness and potency of your poison fang attacks. **Alert** New Skill Evolution Available Choose one Piercing Spraying Reinforced

What would a reinforced fang even do? Is it just harder to break? Maybe he was just not seeing it, but wouldn’t Piercing be better than Reinforced. There was the possibility that if she attacked something that was hard enough that she couldn’t pierce it, it might also cause damage to her fangs.

Spraying was obviously a ranged venom attack. Although he didn’t know how effective being sprayed with venom would be. Maybe if she aimed for the eyes or mouth.

Piercing seemed to be the best choice for her. Yes, Reinforced may protect her a little more, but he was already investing a lot in her vitality. Plus, this was an offensive skill, might as well build the damage potential.

**Alert** Poison Fang Mastery has gained the evolution Piercing.

Closing her menus, he leaned against the wall of the dungeon entrance tunnel. He had made a small camp about one hundred feet away from where the tunnel opened up. He wanted to avoid the chance of a monster wandering near his camp; so far nothing had come near the tunnel, but he just wanted to be careful.

The other reason his camp was so far back was to avoid the perpetual rain. He had been here three days and two things never changed. It was always lightly raining, and the fog blocked out everything past ten feet.

Maybe it was because the dungeon felt so large and open. He was almost expecting the sun to rise at some point. But no, it was perpetual night. Since his class gave him the ability to see in the dark, it didn’t bother him, but it was throwing off his sleep schedule.

Before getting up to go grind for the day, Jack looked at his character sheet. Being able to watch his progress was what helped keep him focused on his goals.

Name Jackson Calder Race Human Class Adaptable Dungeoneer Age 5000 Level 5 Health 36/36 Stamina 30/30 Experience 413/500 Strength 10 Dexterity 10 Endurance 10 Vitality 12 Perception 8 Intelligence 21 Available Points 0 Skills (Class) Mimicry 5 Hair Manipulation 7 Hydraulic Leap 5 Impact Resistance 5 Identify 4(24) Staff Mastery 4 Wanderer 4 Poison Resistance 4 Researching 3 Burrow 3 Focused Senses 3 Medicine 3 Fear Resistance 2 Empowered Howl 1 Unlocked Skills Baking, Cleaning

He didn’t know if it was just his imagination, but it seemed to take quite a bit longer to go from level four to five in a skill, than even going from five to six. Besides the ones at level four, all his skills were ticking up at a satisfying rate.

On the note of satisfying rates, Jack checked on his hair growth. While using Focused Senses he was able to roughly track how fast his hair grew. Based on his estimations, it might be another two weeks before hair will even break through his skin.

Over the last few days, he had experimented a bit with the ‘tubes’ on his body. Jack assumed the tubes were either hair follicles or something closely related. Each tube seemed to be unique in shape and size, but he could make some guesses as to what the shapes meant.

Thicker walls were associated with thicker hair. Longer tubes seemed to indicate how long hair in that area could be. For example, the longest tubes were on his head and jaw, while the ones on his arms were relatively short.

He noticed in the one area of his body where he would normally have curly hair all the tubes were a more oval shape, all his straight hair tubes were round.

The end of the tube controlled if hair actually grew in a location. If the top end was pinched close, it stopped hair growth for that particular tube. Opening and closing a tube was like flipping a switch, it was either completely open or closed with no in-between.

The bottom of each tube on the other hand were all closed. He tried opening one the same way he would for the top, but was met with resistance. They didn’t seem to want to open. He felt if he forced it, he might be able to change that, but after he realized what was connected to the bottoms, he really didn’t want to risk messing it up.

Connected to each bottom was a string-like object. Hair Manipulation could not interact with the string at all, so he assumed it had to be something else. After focusing on the string, he noticed that it would pulse periodically. After observing it for a bit, he realized it was following his heartbeat. It must have been a connection to his blood vessels.

His gut said the bottoms of the tubes had to do with the growth rate, but he did not want to force anything when it was connected to his vessels. An image of all the blood shooting out of his body like his hair flashed through his mind, causing him to shudder.

Letting go of his focus brought his surroundings back into focus. When using Focused Senses in such a narrow capacity it seemed to block out almost everything else. For example, he could have his eyes open the entire time while his attention was on his skin, and he would not even notice something moving in front of him.

Luckily his empathic link with Lucy seemed to be able to reach him no matter how focused he was. While he was messing around with the skill, he would always have her be on lookout to warn him if something approached.

Still trying to get the image of his blood ejecting out of his head, he stood up and stretched. Time to get back to grinding.

Boarbarian Budding Titan Drone Level: 12 Current mood: N/A

Once a free and wild creature, now just a walking incubator and fertilizer.

The Budding Titan Drone slowly drains the life out of its still living host.

Its one motivation in life is to bring back living victims to its parent to convert into new hosts.

Once the host is near death a Budding Titan Drone will make its way home to be devoured by its parent.

Age: 6 months

Highest Attribute: Vitality

Highest Skill: (Class) Battle Frenzy

Jack hopped to the side as the raging boar charged at him as it passed. He smacked its front legs with his staff. Lucy watched from the safety of a tree.

He had been fighting this thing for nearly twenty minutes. Not because he couldn’t kill it, he assumed if he was trying to it would be dead already. He was trying to keep the plant-zombie-boar alive. Well, as close to alive as it is.

The reason was because of its highest skill. Battle Frenzy. The Scimitar of Rage’s magical effect enhanced your attributes while in Battle Frenzy. While the thought of going berserk in a battle didn’t mesh well with his preferred style of fighting, he still wanted to learn the skill to see how it worked and to level up Mimicry.

His plan was to break its legs after repeated hits from his staff, but it wasn’t going well. Shrinking his staff it put it in his pocket and pulled out the scimitar. As he did, the drone turned around preparing another charge. They seemed incapable of learning or adapting.

As it came at him, in a now practiced motion he dodged to the side. In a less practiced motion, he swung the blade at its legs, missing entirely, almost throwing himself back in the way of the charging animal.

It took another three charges for him to land a solid hit, and another seven after that for the damage to affect its movement.

As the now much slower boar charged passed him he sliced into its leg. A loud snap echoed through the area as the drone’s legs finally broke. The boar collapsed, its momentum skidding it across the muddy ground.

Jack wiped the sweat from his forehead. The fight had tired him out. He was glad he decided not to use his hydraulic abilities or else he might have had to give up on taking it alive.

The boar’s front legs were bleeding profusely and he could see fractured pieces of bone sticking out, yet it was still trying to stand up to continue its attack, all the while squealing in rage. It managed to somehow stand up and turn to him, letting out an angry snort. When it attempted to charge forward its front legs made another cracking sound and snapped in half stunting the boar's charge.

**Skill Up** Mimicry Level 6 **Skill Unlocked ** Through observation, you have unlocked Reckless Charge with Mimicry. Would you like to learn this skill? Yes No

An unexpected gain, but he’ll take it.

He watched the boar struggle on the ground and felt almost bad for it. Its eyes looked dead with a slightly milky look to them, devoid of any emotion. In contrast, the rest of its body was thrashing in rage. He had been referring to them as plant-zombies based on their actions and the plants growing into their brain, but he didn’t know if the animal underneath all that was still alive.

It's not as if he was going to stop hunting animals and monsters for experience, but seeing it so helpless still ate at him. The sad but necessary cost of power with this system. It helped to know that the drone wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to kill him.

He looked at the unlock notification again and clicked no. Reckless Charge seemed to be more of a hindrance than a boon.

The question now was why was he able to unlock the charge ability but not Battle Frenzy. It was obviously a rage based ability. While all the drones were mindlessly aggressive, this one is the only one that seemed to have actual anger behind its attacks. A clear example of that was that most drones were silent, the bobcats didn’t hiss, and the other boars never squealed.

This was also the only Boarbarian drone that he’s encountered. It had a class.

He had a pretty good idea of the mechanics of the skill, if it was anything like what his scimitar also gave. Physical boosts at the cost of mental stats. He just didn’t know what he was missing to unlock the skill.

In a lightbulb moment, Jack realized. Maybe he couldn’t learn class skills. If Mimicry was anything to judge by, class skills were strong, wouldn’t it be broken if he could learn one? There was also the possibility that it was a magical skill and that’s why he couldn’t learn it, but the first explanation seemed right to him.

He sighed, then looked over at the squealing pig. At least he got the one Mimicry level out of the prolonged fight. Maybe he could stumble onto another one by watching it for a while longer.

At that moment, Jack felt a spike of panic from Lucy.

Turning and following her gaze, he saw a large figure approaching through the mist.

Black Bear Budding Titan Drone Level: 10 Highest Attribute: Strength

Highest Skill: Grapple

The five-foot tall bear was missing large patches of fur all over its body. Just like the others, it had a vine growing out of one of its eye sockets and the other end into its spine.

Double-checking the boar wasn’t going anywhere, Jack went to strike his defensive pose when he realized he was still holding the scimitar. The bear charged forward, not giving him a chance to switch weapons.

Making do with what he had, Jack dodged a swipe from the bear and started to kite it. After a few minutes of dodging with the occasional strike from his sword, Jack's body felt heavy. With a quick glance he saw that his stamina was at five, he hadn’t gotten to fully rest after his last fight.

He was contemplating just abandoning the fight and running back to his camp when the bear lunged forward. Side-stepping the attack, Jack took the opportunity to attack its neck. With a solid thunk, his scimitar sunk into the bear’s neck. He tried to pull the blade back, but it was stuck in the bone, causing him to pause for a moment, wondering what to do.

The bear, punishing him for his hesitation, swung its paw around, catching him in the ribs and throwing him to the ground.

The wind was knocked out of Jack as he hit the ground. His side sliced open from the bear’s claws. The bear turned to him and slammed its paw down towards him. Jack rolled to the side, still trying to catch his breath. He wasn’t able to dodge the next attack. The bear raked down his chest.

As the bear was going in to bite him, Jack heard a plop as if something fell into the mud and then the next thing he saw was Lucy landing on the bear’s face, stabbing her fangs into its eyeball.

The bear stopped its assault on Jack and swiped at its face in an attempt to get Lucy. She ran around its head and down its back, sinking her fangs in every chance she got.

With Lucy off its face, it seemed to forget about her and turned back to Jack.

He had recovered from the initial strike by then and took advantage of the time Lucy gave him to get to his feet.

Jack jumped away from its next attack, going back to kiting it all the while Lucy was furiously attacking its back.

His torso felt numb in the telltale sign of the poison taking effect. At this time the bear was slowing its attacks, the eye Lucy first attacked was dripping blackened blood.

It was only a matter of time before the bear collapsed in front of Jack. He could see its blackened veins bulging through its skin, in the small patches without fur. Jack himself also fell to the ground, he had barely been able to stand straight the last minute of the fight.

His torso was almost entirely numb, making it hard to control his spine. He wasn’t worried about not being able to breathe. For some reason, the paralysis didn’t seem to affect his lungs. One time, during his poison training, he dosed one of his arms a little too much and it spread to the right side of his chest. While he didn’t know how it selectively paralyzed him, he assumed it didn’t affect the lungs to avoid killing their target.

Your party has slain a Black Bear Budding Titan Drone Level: 10

Your contribution 10%

You are awarded 2 Experience.

Well, she deserved the experience for saving his ass. Lucy ran over, sending feelings of concern. He reassured her that he was fine, but he was worried that the boar could heal and attack them.

She ran to the boar, leaping onto its back. It futilely tried to throw her off, but she just held tight and started attacking.

As he watched the poison slowly take down the tough Boarbarian, he started to formulate a new strategy for taking out the drones.