Did I really sleepwalk through the entire morning?

Serenity checked the time. It was after three, but that still meant he hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep. He felt rested … maybe he didn’t need a full night’s rest, but it was obvious he needed some.

Serenity tried to remember what he’d done that morning. Classes, yeah, it was definitely just as well that he could raise or lay the dead in his sleep. Apparently that was still literally true.

After that, teaching runes to a new student who happened to be an instructor. Okay, that went well.

And then I fell asleep at lunch.

You know, I never did check and see what happened to my node - er, Core now I guess?

Serenity dropped into a mild trance and started looking over his body. He could see some small changes from the stat increases, but overall it looked like his guess that increasing all stats at about the same rate would mean his body itself didn’t change much was fairly accurate.

When he got to his brain, though, he was surprised. Where his node had been was a hexagonal crystal. It looked a lot like the one he’d eaten.

It was even the same size.

Which meant it was taking up space that should have been part of his brain. A normal monster core he could kind of understand - they were similar in size to a pea - but there was no way his brain could just stretch around something close to the size of his fist.

As he examined his brain, he could see where it interfaced with the Core. It was almost like they weren’t two separate things - like the Core was simply … part of his brain now.

It must have taken over the displaced functions. I feel fine? So I guess it’s okay?

...I wonder if that’s why the reputation of monster cores is so bad. If people who eat them start forming their own Core, but it doesn’t integrate correctly … all sorts of things could go wrong.

Serenity felt lucky that Order’s Voice had taken care of it for him.

I wonder exactly what Connecting means. The crystal’s already there. I guess I’ll have to check back and see what changes.

Serenity checked the time again. Almost four. There was plenty of time to look around the crafting area. He headed towards the small building where he’d bought the produce a week or so before, but quickly realized that the layout of the area had completely changed.

The first person who caught his eye was a blacksmith. She was making a knife as he walked up. It looked a bit crude, but otherwise similar to the knives Serenity wore every day. As he walked up, she looked up and said “if you’re looking for a knife, check with Alfred. I make ‘em, he enchants ‘em and sells ‘em. Mostly to pay for the cores for the enchanting and the metal of course.” She tilted her head to one side, towards a table with several knives next to a young man working on the blade of another knife, near the spine.

“Hey there.” Alfred looked up. “Oh hey! You’re Serenity! Why are you looking at my knives? Don’t you have better?”

“They’re just borrowed from the Armory, like everyone else’s. They’re not enchanted, but more importantly … we can’t take them into the next Phase.” Serenity remembered that being an unpleasant surprise the first time.

“We can’t?!” Alfred shouted.

Serenity shrugged. “We need to use the ones we can make. Makes us value our craftsmen. We’ll be able to get some others in the third Phase, too. But by then, our craftsmen should be better unless people are getting pretty low in the dungeon. Only hard part is having enough. Well, that and armor. Metal armor’s not really possible except from the dungeon. Just not enough metal available to do both.”

Serenity picked up one of the knives. It was too bad he still didn’t have Identify. “What can you tell me about them?”

The question seemed to calm Alfred. “Not much. These three have a sharpening enchantment, these two have a durability enchantment. I’m trying to do a fire enchantment, but so far all it does is dull the edge when you use it.”

Serenity nodded and examined the five knives. One was quite good, while the others had flaws. They’d be usable for a while, especially at normal human strength, but he was worried that he’d snap the blades. The good one had the durability enchantment. Either would be useful, but that was probably the better one for him at this point.

“How much for this knife?”

“Two cores? It only takes one to enchant them, but I don’t always succeed.” Alfred tapped the knife. “I didn’t think that one was as good…”

Serenity grabbed three cores out of his pack. “First, always make sure to cover your real costs. Including your failures - and the material cost of the knife. Second, the enchantment may not be quite as good, but the base knife is a little better. That’s what I need right now. Don’t talk down your goods. These three are all from bosses, so they should work better for enchanting, there’s more power available.”

Serenity left the cores, took the knife, and walked away from the table. It wouldn’t quite fit in his current sheaths, but he’d need a new belt and sheaths anyway. Armor would be good, too, but he’d have to have that custom made.

After some more looking, Serenity realized that there wasn’t a second blacksmith. There would be a serious weapon shortage soon. There was a bowyer and two leatherworkers, at least.

The bowyer hadn’t yet managed to successfully make a bow, but he had several that were in work. He told Serenity to come back in a couple days.

Both of the leatherworkers were female. One of had some premade belts, and was happy to piece together a sheath in front of Serenity. She was also very happy to measure Serenity for armor.

“Please move your hand.” Serenity jumped. “Stop that!”

“But I need to measure you!”

“That is not the part of me you need to measure for leather armor.” Serenity had never had an experience quite like this before. “Look, lady, I don’t even know you. Please don’t -”

She leaned over and kissed him. “But I’d like to get to know you.”

Serenity picked up the belt and the sheath, dropped the agreed one core on her table, and walked over to the other leatherworker. “Would you be up for making me some armor?”

The other leatherworker was laughing. “You’re the third guy she’s tried that on. I think the first one ended up in bed with her.”

“It’s not funny.” Serenity sighed. “So, can I get some armor or do I need to go without?”

“Sure,” She measured Serenity professionally. “I can have something ready for you tomorrow. Should be six cores’ worth, it’s a good bit of work for all the armor you want. We’ll need some time for the final fitting, too.”

Serenity shook his head. “Day after. Tomorrow’s a mandatory Trial day. I’ll be busy all day.”

She looked at him confused for a moment, then a light seemed to dawn. “Waitwaitwait. You’re Serenity?”

Serenity nodded.

As Serenity walked away, he heard the second leatherworker shout. “Hey Jewel! Guess who you just pulled your dicktease act on?”

He paused to listen.

“Who?”

“Serenity!”

“No fucking way! I heard he was hot but daaamn!”

“And he shut your ass down hard, didn’t he!”

The first leatherworker - Jewel, apparently - started cursing out her … friend?

Serenity shook his head. If he could avoid it, he wouldn’t be going back to either of them. He didn’t have a choice during this tutorial, but afterwards … afterwards he’d be able to do something. He might even have the chance to teach Jewel to keep her hands to herself. Just because he wasn’t going to hurt her over it when he could leave didn’t mean it was something she should do.

He probably wouldn’t actually do anything other than choose other leatherworkers. Which … on second thought, might be the worst thing he could do to them, if he actually ended up as a Lord. It wasn’t something he needed to worry about now though.

Serenity reached into his bag and pulled out a handful of nuts. He still hadn’t tried one, and they’d be good to snack on while he wandered around. He cracked the shell off the first nut, ate it, and felt a familiar warmth.

Serenity stopped and pulled up a screen he hadn’t used in the tutorial yet.

Active buffs

Ekkiran nut - +20 HP || 05.00 remaining

Huh.

Serenity ate another nut and checked the screen again.

Active buffs

Ekkiran nut - +20 HP || 04.43 remaining

Ekkiran nut - +30 ST || 05.00 remaining

Must be random. Well, they were small, short duration buffs. Good to know, but not something he was going to worry about saving.

He wandered around the crafting area. There was a lot of stuff he’d be interested in under other circumstances, but not when he was going to have to carry it all through a dungeon in a few weeks. Most of the crafters would stay at the base camp anyway.

Eventually, he located the food area. It was tucked off in a corner, probably because most of the food went to the kitchen. There was a small stand selling meat - mostly bacon, he noticed. The enterprising chef had gotten a small grill, and was cooking it right in front of her customers. He nodded to her as he went past, then paused and went back.

It smelled good, and bacon wasn’t one of the cuts that got served in the dining hall. “Just drop a core in the bowl and I’ll get you a plate. As much as you want - well, I say that, but seeing as it’s you, maybe not quite that much.” She winked. “I’m Gloria, by the way. I should thank you for setting up that steak grill. Might not have thought to grill the bacon otherwise. What’s your name?”

“Serenity.” He dropped a core in the bowl and took a plate. The bacon was nice and crispy, and she’d somehow managed to avoid blackening any of it, even over an open flame. “This is excellent.”

“Thanks.”

It was nice to meet someone who didn’t go nuts at his name.

Serenity continued into the produce area. Most of it wasn’t interesting. There were the same berries, and more Ekkiran nuts, but he didn’t think he needed more of either. He picked up some more spike-pears, but the real treasure was in the last stall. It held an entire set of shimmering fruits like the black ones he’d eaten, but in a number of different colors.

While he was looking, the shopkeeper walked up to him. It wasn’t the same shopkeeper as the one who had sold him the original three fruit. “I found what looks like an orchard of these things. No one’s been able to identify them yet, even the instructors. All we know for sure is that they’re edible but may get you drunk or high. Oh, and don’t eat the pit. Just like a peach, really.”

“If they’ll get you drunk or high, why do you have any left? I’d expect them to sell out.”

The shopkeeper shook his head. “I thought so too, and they sold well yesterday, but the first person who bought one today got sick. He said it made his head spin, and then, well.” He shrugged. “No business.”

“Hm.” Serenity picked up a couple and sniffed them. That seemed to be his best way to tell if he should eat something or not. They all smelled very different from each other, but they all smelled delicious. “How much for - how many did you say you have?”

“Twenty-four, two of each color - no, wait. Twenty-three. Two each of everything but the black. And for that, hm. I’m really not sure how to turn that into monster cores. I was selling them one for one yesterday, but that was when they were selling.”

Serenity nodded. “That’s fine. I have plenty of cores right now.” He could probably have made a much better trade, but cores simply weren’t hard for him to get - even boss cores.

The shopkeeper immediately started gathering up the shimmering fruit into the woven cloth bags he’d used to gather them.

“Do you think you’ll be able to get more?” Serenity asked.

“Well … no. This is all there was in the orchard. Three per tree, twelve trees. I sold one set of them yesterday, figured I’d sell the rest today. I guess it worked out.”

On the way back to his room to drop off the fruit, Serenity ate a green shimmering fruit. He carefully took normal bites and ate around the pit. It tasted good, but nothing like the black one he’d had that morning.

Once he was back in his room, he set the fruit on the end table, sat on his bed, and swallowed the pit.

The pit was delicious. Better than the fruit had been.

[Compatible High-Grade Core material detected]

[Reinforce Core?]

Yes

That still felt good.

He decided he’d eat them all, but space them out a bit. He’d wait on the next one until after dinner.

It was interesting they were supposed to get you high or drunk. He hadn’t seen any effect like that yet, and he’d eaten several.

Name: Serenity

Species: Human Chimera (Altered Template)

Core: Connecting

Progression: 7.1%

Features: 2/10

True

Crystal

Path: Paths Available

Level: 79 (690/780)

Tier: 0, 0/79 Spent

Path History: None

Condition: Healthy

Healing Available: Good

Mana: 750/750

Stamina: 790/790

Might: 70

Agility: 65

Phys: 69

Understanding: 65

Will: 65

Mind: 65

Perception: 65

Luck: 65 - 165%

Ev: 267

Resistances

Pain: 1032 (32 active)

Sleep: 1

Pleasure: 23

Unknown

Affinities

Death: 101.83%

Life: 11%

Mind: 30%

Arcane: 50%

Plasma: 42%

Liquid: 6%

Vapor: 14%

Solid: 17%

Energy: 40%

Void: 60%

Time: 15%

Space: 5%

Concepts

Death

Mind: 15%

Void: 25%

Time: 5%

Unknown

Aspects: Unknown

Titles

Previous Supreme Existence

Altered Template

Named

Ghost in the System