Harvest Electro cores?

Electro cores are condensed, passive sources of elemental energy. They will not activate unless converted into active sources of energy. These typically drop from level 3 electro slimes.

Yes

No

I confirmed the harvest.

I heard no footstep. The room had no camera – only the chart was apparent. I got out of the room. There was another room, and another swarm of electro slimes.

These monsters made little noise.

‘You are gonna do solo action you don’t believe in?’ I told myself. No. Perhaps somewhere there was a person who was playing a similar role. It was about engaging in that. Nina, for instance. ‘Well, she withdrew her apparent team proposal.’

I slammed my right fist on my palm. ‘Got to harvest the slime cores before someone comes around.’ There was five of them, this time. I wondered what those slime cores were used for.

What was required to acquire elemental skills? "User Command: Skills."

Skills

Rock throw

Level 1 – 20%

Damage – 0.58

[DESCRIPTION]: Throw an object of weight 1 Kg and above at a target to deal damage.

Use sufficient force to trigger attack effects. This activation power may be adjusted as per any recorded training for adjustment.

Nothing much had changed for the skills. I analysed the second room.

There was the painting of a scarecrow under the moon. The painting was encased by metal plates. It was the only wall with metal plates. The scarecrow turned out to be the vivid representation of a vampire. He held a bloody rose between his fangs. The vampire was parsed out of straw.

It was appreciably atmospheric.

I thought of One Piece. "Maybe I can eat these electro slimes." That would be convenient. "User Command > Inventory > Electro core."

An electro core appeared, suspended in front of me. I grabbed it and took a bite. My tongue went numb. I waited. My health points were unaffected.

Efficiency increased

Electricity efficiency

0.35

I took out two more electro cores and ingested them.

Efficiency increased

Electricity efficiency

0.475

Skill Acquired

Electro transfiguration

Level 2 – 55%

Damage – [ ]

[DESCRIPTION]: Skill invocation added under User Command. Say ‘User Command: Electro Transfiguration’

Electro transfiguration is dependent on your Caecus status. You can move faster. Resistance to electricity increased. In electro transfiguration mode, you are more vulnerable to fire attacks.

[Electro Transfiguration] Sub-skills

Electro orb

Damage

0.92

Electric Shield

Resistance

0.15

An electro shield is more effective against acid, electricity, void, radiation, water and air.

That was great.

I walked out of the room. "You take any liking to this painting?" asked a man beside the door. I took a grenade from inside a pocket.

"It must be part of a spectacular ritual, I thought to myself," I said, pressing the grenade. "Enlighten me." I left the grenade at his foot. I sprinted to my right. The grenade exploded with a bang.

"A word of advice," came the man’s voice from the smokes. "Just now, your face looked like trash with cheap confidence. That said, allow me to correct this grievous state."

I emerged into a hall. I turned left. The hall was lined with targets within its confines, and about the walls. I saw a person with blistering lights coming out of his back. Another explosion stalled his progress. "Very well. My name is Reynolds," he said.

"Observe and you shall know." This triggered my interest. I faced Reynolds and backstepped. Reynolds zapped ten targets on the wall with his tails.

I looked at the result. They had all hit dead center. "Sounds like years of practice," I commented.

"I hate your guts." Reynolds lashed his electric tail on a standing target and threw it in my direction. "You haven’t figured out your limits on your own, have you?" He chuckled.

"You can guess just from looking?" I asked. I turned and went deeper into the hall. Reynolds crumbled out the metal plates from the walls and set them to my sides. They held still. A electric buzz could be heard from them.

Reynolds fashioned a metal plate into a chair and sat on it. Metal plates became evinced behind metal plates. They secured my prison. Reynolds materialized a book in front of him. He read it aloud. "Oh lord of warriors, grant that I teach this rat a good lesson."

I could pretty much guess his intentions now.

Reynolds took some wrought-out metal plates and twisted them into spires. He flung one magnetised spire in my direction. Reynolds rallied a dozen more spires. He bade them to strike, covering the act with a metal plate. "A job well done," Reynolds said to himself.

He reclaimed some metal plates, walking to his victim. I got away from the metal plates. An electric orb flickered above my palm. I motioned with my hand, folding the metal plates to my left. These moved slow.

"You are an Electro user too?" Reynolds asked.

"It took you long enough to notice," I said. ‘Me too,’ I thought. Some metal plates fell down, demagnetised. I threw a lit dynamite to the right, at the uncovered wall.

"You should have wished you remained static if you wanted a good scoreboard," Reynolds said. An explosion sounded.

"Nice place. You killed your father for it?" I commented.

"You are an embarrassing enemy," Reynolds said. The wall had crumbled. I got through. There were more rooms. I noticed slimes inside the first room. So, I left grenades behind for the second set of doors on my path.

Fire blazed behind me. "Who the fuck broke the door? Look at what you did to my paintings!" I looked behind. A guy with tails of fire stood there. He had a prisoner’s outfit. The guy’s eyes met dark red lanterns; fire slimes filtered out of the room next to him. The man sighed. "They were there all along."

"What’s up, Romeo?" Reynolds said.

"What’s up, Reynolds?" Romeo said. He noticed the appearance in front of him. "God, no. You seriously used this thing again?" A woman looked at Romeo. Her eyes grew mellow as she looked at him.

"You can tell that I’m concerned, can’t you?" the woman said.

"Shut your goddamn mouth, Reynolds," came the reply.

I shrugged. I took my leave. I saw a fire extinguisher every dozen or so doors. The next door revealed a junction between a corridor and a staircase. I took the steps down. I met Nina. "Hello there," I said. "This is where you work?"

Nina smiled contritely. "I want to know that too. How did you get here?"

"Long story short, I adventured."

"What a coincidence. Me too!" she smiled, nodding once as she said so. I looked at her jacket and pants. "So you are looking for Emma too, right?"

"Right," I said. I looked her over. "Well-"

"I have some cloth, just in case," Nina supplied, looking sideways. "But anyway-"

"You can get undressed?" I asked.

"Yeah, I can cancel out your wear," Nina said. One button and Nina would get more flippant.

"Give me some cloth," I said. "They could be handy." I stepped to her and then towards the top of the staircase again. "By the way, there’s fighting upstairs."

Nina tapped her screens, walking up. "Don’t run away with them, okay?"

"Gotcha," I said. I superseded Nina and jogged onward. I accepted the material transaction that popped up. Nina hurried her steps. "This game is such a lie."

"This is serious to me," Nina said, sternly.

"If you say so," I said. "You came alone?"

"Yeah, other folks did a bad job hiding," she said. Nina asked me whether I had any crowd control spells. I materialized an orb, and tried pulling a metal plate out. "I don’t."

"Wonderful," Nina said. "Go on, I’ll hold them back."

"Wait, what’s the exit plan?"

"We go down the staircase and open the gate," Nina said.

"Okay, got that." I sprinted forward. I heard Nina say a water spell.

I ran for a while. I turned corners and checked each door. I could see a few people in black and white cloth. They looked like prisoners. I continued onward, until no doors could be seen. The lights dimmed out, then lit up again. I followed the corridor until I saw a door. It had glass on top. I looked through it, but only saw one side of a narrow room.

I used a dynamite stick and got away.

An explosion issued with a bang. I walked to the room. A slab of rock fell on my head. I crumbled down. ‘What the fuck?’ 650/900 flashed in front of me. I removed the slab, and looked forward. The broken glass pane reflected a nude person. I looked to the right. It was Emma Decker. "You’ve got golden chains on you, wow."

Emma was held to the wall with electric handcuffs. She recognized my face. Emma sobbed "You are hurt. If you are not here to harm me, get out before they catch you!"

"User Command: Attributes." I pushed it in her direction. Emma looked at it. I took the electric disruptor out of my pocket and broke the chain. "Okay, wait a sec now. We will get out soon."

"Ashen Spines!"

"Yeah," I glanced over.

I looked at Emma's naked body. Her face looked saintly and generous. "Marry me," she said.

"Come back to me in eleven years," I said.

“You are a vampire,” Emma said. Her face contorted and she walked past me. I grabbed her arm. This was uncomfortable. I pointed at the fading mark on my forehead. I noticed she had a wound on her cheek. "Never mind." I dropped my hand. "Good thing you didn’t get a scar. Don’t you have anything else to say?"

Emma looked at me with misery and tears. "Thank you!" she said. She hugged her breasts with her other arm.

I held her gaze. I looked up, to my right. “We should get going.”

Emma looked at me, hesitant. I released her arm. I handed over some cloth to Emma from my inventory. She wore them and stormed out of the room. Emma waited outside. She wore a blue top over some pants.

My feet crunched on the glass as I got to the entrance. Nina barged in and said. "You have no shame."

"You are joking. I was hoping she would grant me a long life. You were watching?"

"You don’t think I trust you, do you?" Nina moved onward. "Let’s go get the others, Emma."

"Not really. Let’s get to the others."

"You don't look good." Nina said, speeding up.

“I’m a primate.” I sighed. “I just saw someone fertile as hell.”

“Whatever,” Nina said. “Stop smiling like you are plotting dumb shit.”

“Screw off,” I said.

“You are a white belt, alright,” Nina said. Nina looked at Emma. “Don’t worry. We’ll be out soon.”

“Right,” I said. I shortly followed up. “Nina, how did they all get here?”

"They were brought inside a narrow attraction train. I think they got stripped once they were kidnapped."

We climbed up the stairs and saw a couple more women like her: Nina took care of entering the rooms to investigate; she used the fire extinguisher to break the doors. The remaining two women had their mouth taped. We hit a dead-end and reversed direction. "How many floors down from here?" I asked Nina.

"Two floors," she said. I inspected the staircase’s path, till its end. This one did not go further. We got down and sped back in the direction we came from.

"Who’s up there?" Nina asked, looking at the roof.

"Monsters and some prisoners."

"Maybe we should check things out," she said.

"You do that. Rather, what’s your level?" I asked.

"I’m level 20," Nina said.

"I’m level 7. I don’t think you should head up."

"Gotcha. I’ll hold you accountable to that," she said.

I took the forefront, scouting the area. We climbed down another staircase. I reached the ground floor. I saw some prisoners lying in ambush and backed off before they encircled me. I climbed up. I informed Nina and the three women.

"You ain’t taking this harem, boy," one prisoner shouted. An immediate threat to the escort plan had finally showed up. I had three grenades and two dynamites left.

"What covenants are you? Give your occupation." I asked.

"Covenant of the Holy Mother. I heal people."

"Covenant of the Wind. I’m a Shaolin monk."

"Covenant of the Warrior, Sect of the Round Table. I’m a knight."

"Okay. Nina, buffer the prisoners. Knight, tank for the Shaolin monk. Shaolin monk, keep your switch with the Knight. I’ll take care of Nina and Emma. We stay tight."

They agreed.