the fruits of training

She threw herself into a pack of 5 chargers, as she had grown accustomed to in the last week, hatchet ready to strike them down and poison pulsing in her lungs. Of course, the closest of the pack immediately threw itself at its 'prey' before she kicked it in the stomach with an [anger] fueled kick. By now she'd learned how to trick the ability in activation by digging up frustrating imagery in her mind, after which the skill would supply its own anger.

The charger landed in the middle of the pack, and before it could she sent down a strong pulse of [primal field], causing the supernatural weight to hinder their movements. And as practiced Vit'nas followed up by spewing a cloud of refined hallucinogenic poison at them through [poisonous breath], a familiar combination at this point. She quickly filled her lungs, enhanced by [stone strength organs], to the brim and reigned back her [primal field], as it's channeled version was taxing on her stamina.

As the chargers shakely tried getting up, still dazed from the hallucinogenic, a spear flew through the air, hitting the alpha straight through the skull, notwithstanding the sheer destructive power provided by [anger].

Not a second later she charged into the toxic cloud while holding her breath, and struck her stone hatchet down on the spine of a charger, before retrieving her worm tooth dagger and plunging it into a charging charger with her 3 fingered hand.

The hit was too shallow, as it got up again after. She still struggled manipulating weapons with her left hand, the missing fingers made a proper grip hard. So she jumped back with an [anger] fuelled jump to avoid a third charger trying to jump her. As she flew back Vit made her spew out a trail of weak poison, causing the three beasts in range to grow more sluggish.

She retrieved her secondary hatchet and honed in on the other charger, quickly pouncing on it as Vit'nas told her she was running low on poison mana. A single hatchet strike to the spine was enough to kill the creature.

Swiftly after she pulsed another wave of [primal field] at the three remaining chargers, before pushing a batch of arcane mana through her right hand, channeling her new skill, [shockwave], into her axe. Causing her hatchet's trajectory to be followed by a translucent wave of pure force slamming into her opponents, undoubtedly breaking a few bones in the process.

From there she retracted her [primal field] again as a wave of exhaustion hit her. Luckily for her picking the chargers off didn't prove to be an issue, as they were affected by two poisons and had multiple broken bones inside of them.

After she let out a breath of relief, Nib complimented them on their performance. "Well done. I suggest taking the cores and returning to your encampment, I believe you have both trained enough for now"

"FINALLY" Vit 'subtly' added, much to her amusement. She'd noticed her mind companion was impulsive at the best of times, a byproduct of having little [splintermind] Power assigned. She quickly did as told and sat down in her sigil, giving it a full scan of her recent improvements.

[mana: 14/27 (64 allocated) (+24) - 94 total mana]

Arcane mana: 1/7 (24 allocated) (+4) Primal mana 0/0 (4 allocated) (+4) Earth mana: 6/6 (13 allocated) (+4) Poison mana: 3/9 (19 allocated) (+4) Nature mana: 4/4 (0 allocated) (+4) Life mana: 0/0 (4 allocated) (+4)

She was pretty happy with her mana growth, thanks to the brews made from worm and charger cores infused with [primal alchemy] she had been enjoying a steady growth in arcane, earth and poison mana. Although it had slowed down significantly to her first days here. I wonder how the mechanism behind that works, maybe having more mana increases your mana tolerance or something? She mused to herself before moving on.

[skills] (27 allocated)

shockwave 1 [F] - arcane [offense] (active) anger (low) 4 - arcane [berserker] (passive) primal field (mid) - primal [offense, field] (channel) primal alchemist (mid) - primal [enhancement] (crafting) condense brew (mid) - poison [transmuter] (crafting) crystallize brew (mid) - earth [transmuter] (crafting) beastly instincts 2 (mid) - primal [sense] (passive) stone strength organs 2 (mid) - earth [resistance] (mutation) fear resistance 2 (low) - arcane [mind, resistance] (passive) poisonous breath 3 (low) [F] - poison [offense] (mutation) {Vit'nas} refine poison (low) - poison [enhancement] (mutation) {Vit'nas}

[anger] and [poisonous breath] had ranked up well during her training, no doubt thanks to the amount she and Vit used them. Her new foundational skill shockwave was pretty interesting too. It allowed her to sink 5 points of mana per rank into an attack, causing it to create a large shockwave in her attack's wake. The power itself scaled off the initial attack, which worked well with her [anger] fuelled strength stat. Speaking off [anger] it was well on it's way to becoming a foundational, according to Nib it only needed one more rank to be eligible for evolving.

[available skills]

pain resistance (low) (18 mana) - arcane [mind, resistance] (passive) inner body experience (mid) (12 arcana mana) - arcane [mind, mana] (channel) crystal bone (mid) (9 earth mana) - earth [resistance] (mutation)

She'd also unlocked a new skill, [crystal bone], which turned her bones into a crystalline substance, apparently making them tougher, but the cost was more than she could afford. Plus she'd like to at least remain a little human, so too many mutation skills weren't a good idea in her opinion. No new foundations either unfortunately

[splintermind] (inherited) (mind 54/58) (power 33) --- Inherited

Host: designation Host - mind 19 - power 20 - resonance 75% - stability 68% Nib'thulum: designation guest-Splinter - mind 26 - power 8 - resonance 25% - stability 68% - degradation 4% Vit'nas: designation origin-Splinter - mind 9 - power 5 - resonance 50% - stability 35%

Her Splinters had also made some progress, growing to take more Mind and be more stable, Nib especially made large strides of progress. Though Nib's degradation worried her a lot, the thought of seeing Nib being reduced to a fragment of its usual self was a worrying image...

But minus that tidbit she was quite happy with the results of their training, and that isn't even mentioning the improvements to technique. Communication through Resonance was especially handy during combat, allowing for near instantaneous communication.

Having confirmed her progress she slated some meat over her campfire and started grinding down 5 charger cores into a poison mana brew. "So, what do we do now? Since training is finished and all?" she asked.

"I believe my plans have been fulfilled for now, perhaps explore the caverns?" Nib replied. "You did mention wanting to go to the surface, maybe search for an exit or something?" Vit 'helpfully' added.

"I think that was implied Vit, but sure, sounds good I guess," she retorted. "Any idea which cavern to follow, Nib?"

"I know two of the tunnels lead to dead ends, as you came from the third that leaves only one" Nib answered while sending a mental image of which tunnel it means through the Resonance-link.

"Alright, we'll leave in a few hours then? I want to recharge some many through the elixir before we go." she said, receiving mental nods from her Splinters.

She ate her share of meat and created and condensed the elixir over the span of an hour and greedily gulped it down. Suppressed a groan as the new mana burned through her veins, and started walking towards the tunnel entrance, mostly undisturbed by monsters after the amount of them she culled by now.

With a hatchet in hand she made her way through the cramped tunnel walls, feeling tense at stepping into the unknown once again. But no amount of preparation could have prepared her for the sights in front of her as she emerged from the tunnel.

"Hells... that's a large cave," Vit said, and she couldn't agree more. The cave was absolutely massive, easily twenty times as large as the one she just came from, filled with all kinds of greenery. Glowing trees, grass and moss covered the cavern floor and massive roots, each the size of half a Nib, bridging cliffs of vastly different elevations.

"This cavern belonged to the Kar'zu, an intelligent plant capable of large scale parasitism. Be cautious, if it still lives it could annihilate you with a second thought" Nib warned her.

"Don't mess with the plant monster capable of wiping me out as an afterthought, got it" she said jovially to mask her fear. Gods I hope it's dead, I do NOT want to have to fight that. At all. She thought to herself, her [fear resistance] keeping her from flipping out.

"Anything else to be careful of around here, Nib?" she asked, hoping to distract herself from thinking about the murderplant.

"I am uncertain, my kind was forbidden to enter so knowledge is sparse" Nib said regretfully. Well there goes my main advantage.

"Well I say we get going then, and get the hell out of here before the plant-thing notices us, probably climb as high as we can" Vit said, the fear clearly hitting her harder without having access to [fear resistance].

"Yeah, good idea Vit" she said as she scanned the faux-sunlight filled cavern for the highest reaching point accessible by the roots. After a few minutes of looking she found a root reaching through the crystals that served as the light source that grew on the cavern ceiling, she guessed that might be her best way to the surface.``

[arcane skill [mental mapping] unlocked]

That'd be convenient, but I don't have a sigil here nor the mana to actually buy it and still be capable of using [shockwave]. She thought to herself as she took her first step into the cavern, eager and nervous so explore it's depths...