After slotting the floodforest’s gift function and the three stat nodes I’d already had, I found myself staring at sixteen unused nodes. A fairly good number for how long I’d been here, but nowhere near what I’d had before. And yet again, I had to stop and check the number of nodes I had. Thirty one. Five more than seconds ago.

It had to be my //CREATION function, but why was it still working? The errors had told me that I’d gained ten nodes, but I was at twenty-five gained now. There was a white misty haze shooting through the vortex that was my core, and I watched as it gathered near the outer reaches and slowly evaporated into nothing. My node count went up by another five when all the haze had disappeared, and I watched for a good thirty seconds after to confirm if there were any more on the way.

When it was obvious there weren’t any more nodes to be had, I grabbed one of the flowers I’d taken from the skeletal statue’s footprints and gently offered it to the center of my whirlpool core. If I could do the same thing I’d done to create //ENDLESS to these flowers, I’d have a near endless stream of powerful trinkets that I could make from whatever I found in the hazards.

//CREATION ACTIVATED: OFFER MATERIALS TO BE CORRUPTED OR CONSUMED.

//MATERIAL OFFERED: COPPER PEONY. OFFERED MATERIAL CAN BE CONSUMED, BUT NOT CORRUPTED. IT WILL GRANT 3 POTENTIAL. CONTINUE REGARDLESS?

Well, that wasn’t what I’d hoped. But I suppose it was what I should have expected, since none of the strongest cores I’d seen could do anything like //CREATION could. I tried to offer one of the gems I’d found in the dead tree, but it too could only be consumed. And it only offered 5 potential, which seemed a little low considering it had to be far more valuable than the flowers.

I still wanted to test my core, but I wasn’t willing to sacrifice any of the copperbound gear I had equipped. Jun still had an old sword stowed away in her inventory, if I remembered correctly. She handed it over with a silent nod the second I asked for it, shooing me away when I tried to talk to her about what I needed it for.

“I trust you, Seb.” She said with a wave of her hand, bending down to carve away the meat from one of the eel’s bones. “Just warn me first if you’re going to do something dangerous.”

I didn’t plan on doing anything dangerous, so I agreed with a nod and stepped back. Her sword wasn’t anything to write home about. Hell, it was only listed as ‘sword’ in my inventory; the lowest of the low that was offered in the starting shop. I silently cursed for throwing away all of the armor that I’d replaced, but I wasn’t too torn up about it. I had a feeling that anything I made would be based on how good the original piece of gear was, so even this sword might end up being completely useless.

//MATERIAL OFFERED: SWORD. CORRUPTION COST: 10 POTENTIAL. REMAINING POTENTIAL: 53. CONFIRM CORRUPTION: [Y] OR [N]?

That was a… very steep price. If one of the gems was only worth 5 potential, then the corrupted sword was apparently worth two of them. I couldn’t believe that for one second. The sigil had taken 50 potential to corrupt, and that had been both ‘crafted’ quality and ‘rare’ rarity. So if half of the cost came from the rarity, and half came from the quality, then the cost had increased fivefold to go from (common,shoddy) to (rare,crafted). If that cost continued, then I’d be paying six-thousand two-hundred and fifty potential to make something of the highest quality. Or one-thousand two-hundred and fifty gems.

The prices were beyond astronomical, and it made me feel infinitely better about wasting ten potential. I confirmed the corruption, watched the remaining potential instantly drop to 43, and felt as the sword in my hands was drawn into the center of my core’s vortex and changed into something else. Less than ten seconds later, I had a brand new weapon.

//SWORD(//CORRUPTED,Shoddy): Core mastery required: 1.

Current mastery level: 1.

Reduces opponent’s Resilience on hit equal to [10%] of wielder's Power. Does not stack.

Upgrades at mastery [1,3,6,10,???]

…That was it? I’d spent ten of my hard-earned potential to get a weapon that didn’t give me a single stat bonus and had a function that I could find on any other weapon of a slightly higher rarity? Compared to //ENDLESS, this was useless. And if I remembered correctly, the sigil had corrupted with two extra effects. Nothing of the like had happened with this damn sword, except that now it yelled at me in all caps from my inventory. There wasn’t even a reason to replace my mossblade with it.

It even looked almost exactly the same, but now the sharpened edge bled off a spark of white light every now and again. If I hadn’t known what I’d done, I wouldn’t have been able to say that anything at all had changed.

“I’m done on my end.” Jun grunted, hefting a large chunk of eel spine over her shoulder. “I couldn’t find anything like the gems from the tree in this thing, but I’ve got an inventory full of meat, organs, and bone that we might be able to sell.”

I stepped up and tried to take the spine from her, but she shook her head and gestured over to the other side of the eel. “I already made a pile for you to take on the other side. It’s all the less heavy stuff, like the skin, so you shouldn’t have any trouble with it.”

With a nod I ducked under Jun’s massive spine and went to gather everything I could carry, which ended up being more than I’d expected thanks to the spine of enmity boosting my stats that little bit further. I walked back up to Jun a minute later and ducked under the eel’s spine again, throwing it over my shoulder to help her carry the massive burden.

“Do you have a good grip?” Jun asked, swiveling her neck as far as it could go while keeping the spine over one shoulder. “I’m not really sure how easy it’s going to be walking with this, so sorry in advance if I have to stop a whole bunch.”

“There’s a first time for everything.” I chuckled, patting the side of the spine for emphasis. Jun nodded in agreement and took the first cautious step, but within minutes we’d settled into a comfortable rhythm and were starting to make good time.

Deep into the hours of night I felt something watching us. The hairs on the back of my neck shot up and a chill ran down my spine, the sense of immediate danger looming somewhere in the not-so-distance. Our scenery had barely changed, the coral slightly thicker and more tightly packed, but still the same old colourful stuff. And no matter how I scanned the dull colours of night, I couldn’t find a single hair out of place. Which could only mean one thing; something, or someone, was hunting us.

Invisibility was always a terrifying function no matter how strong the wielder was. A five-hundred resilience neck was almost as easy to cut as a five resilience neck when it wasn’t safe under a helmet, and we’d have to stop and eat at some point. If our silent observer was patient enough, we’d be hard pressed to stop at all over the trip to wherever–

“Hello, strangers!”

I whirled around to face the voice but got a faceful of spine instead. The strange cadence it spoke in reminded me of Jun, even if the accents didn’t match in the slightest, so there was no doubt in my mind that this was one of her people.

“Ah, my apologies. I didn’t mean ta startle ya.” The voice spoke as it approached, and I saw a suit of neon green armor duck under the spine and into my field of view. It was painted with darker green and white accents, making the newcomer look almost exactly like the personification of a watermelon. “Ya seem ta be having trouble with that heavy load there. Do ya need a quick lesson on how ta put stuff into your inventory, or just another set of arms ta help carry the load?”

“We’re fine, thanks.” Jun said quickly, as if she was worried I’d butt in. The glance she shot me right after confirmed my feeling. “How close are we to civilization? I got really lost when I was sent here, so I don’t know where anyone else from the group ended up.”

The newcomer stroked the bottom of their helmet as if it was their chin in thought. “There hasn’t been a bout of newcomers in a long while, you know. That’s a whole lotta lost to make ya almost half a year late. Can ya tell me who was supposed ta be in charge of making sure ya got here safe? So I can make sure ya aren’t blowing mist in my face, ya know.”

For all that we’d talked about, Jun had never brought up much of anything about the people she’d trained with. The training itself and the selection process, sure, but not the others involved. Hell, I’d thought she’d been trained alone up until the newcomer proved that assumption wrong.

“Persephonia Persephonia was in charge of training us, and we left on the fourty-third of Tempus. There were sixty-eight people in the regiment to start off, and fifty-two of us stayed until the end.” Jun said stiffly. “Is that good enough, or do you need more?”

“Ah, old Pho got ya, didn’t she?” The newcomer chuckled, then slapped a hand down on Jun’s unoccupied shoulder. “Sorry ‘bout that; she means well, but she’s no good at remembering that everyone there’s got more potential than power. Your fifty-two fits with the fact that the fifty-one of your fellows told us that one didn’t come through, which is ya, so now we’ve got this whole crew safely here!”

“Safely. Yeah.” Jun muttered, and I could feel her eyes rolling even if I couldn’t see it. “How much further is the settlement? We saw the flag this morning, so it can’t be that far, right?”

The newcomer shrugged and leaned on the spine, making Jun and I stumble. But it didn’t seem to be out of malice, just a complete lack of awareness. They were… far taller than I’d first thought.

“If ya’d come out of the portal like everyone else, ya’d be a coupl’a days’ transport away. But we don’t have the transports at Walkalong any more, so you’re looking at a good two week saunter.” They appraised, then knocked their helmet against the spine. “If ya let me take a little of the load I can shave that down ta a week and some runoff. I know my word’s not much ta go on, but you’ll have ta learn ta trust soon enough.”

The newcomer pushed off the spine and turned to us, putting their hands on their hips and tilting their head to the side. “Wait; isn’t that from one’ve those flying slitherers? Oh, that’s not a good look for someone coming in fresh.” They paused, then shook their head. “Actually, that’s probably the best look ya could have if you’re bringing in that kinda corpse. Ya can claim that ya didn’t know what ya were doing, and maybe the Preservationists’ll give ya a light slap on the wrists.”

Jun dropped her half of the spine to the ground with a hiss, and I staggered under the increase in weight. “The Preservationists? That thing was endangered? Or was it… protected?” Jun shuddered. “Abyss below, please tell me it wasn’t protected.”

“Neither, actually. Luckily for ya.” The newcomer chuckled. “They’re vulnerable, just on the cusp of being endangered. So ya aren’t drowned, just… at risk of drowning. As long as ya can prove ya did it in self-defence; which isn’t that strange knowing the creatures, you’ll be just fine. Running from it would be far worse than standing your ground, though, so please don’t try doing that.”

“We don’t have anywhere to run. So you won’t have to worry about that.” Jun said grimly, now staring down at the spine as if it were toxic. “If you’re still willing to help us carry this…” Jun gulped. “We’d like to take you up on your offer.”

“Of course! Here, let me take that from ya… well, I don’t know your name, now do I?” The newcomer turned to me as they took the spine without any effort whatsoever, carrying it over both of their shoulders and behind their neck. “Juniper here said ya found and helped her, but how’d ya come ta be?”