I tried writing αετηερ on the blade of the spear, followed by the symbol for “radioactive”. αετηερ was my name written in Greek, which I was hoping would enhance the spears radioactive symbol like my aether affinity boosted my elemental abilities. I knew that was my name written in Greek because the concept of aether originally came from Greek, so at some point I decided to look it up. I tried applying my mana to it, but it seemed to keep sucking in mana, as if it needed a much greater supply to get started. I managed to start it up using my conversion skills to make my other resources into mana, getting me a level in each resource conversion skill… except mana. That is not going to let me sleep at night. On the bright side when I used evaluate on the spear it told me

“Spear of Aether Blight: a spear forged from high quality steel using elemental manufacture. It is enchanted with over one thousand mana regeneration runes, a radiation rune and an aether rune. It’s base damage is equal to 2.5 times strength, and inflicts the irradiated status on every hit”

Interesting. It gave me the damage of the spear as a multiplier, which makes sense given that getting poked by a toddler and getting poked by a bodybuilder are very different things. It also causes the “irradiated” status effect, which a quick evaluation told me is an advanced form of the disease and poison effects that evolved from radiation poisoning.

Also, evaluate gave that information verbally instead of as a screen. The voice was robotic. It wasn’t like one of those AI assistants like the one in a smartphone, it was more like a text to speech device, reading each word individually. It felt a lot more convenient than reading over a bunch of screens, especially in the middle of a fight.

I meditated on all my affinities until my resources were back of full. My stomach was starting to complain, so I should probably look for food soon. Hopefully there's some on the other side of that giant mass of goop.

When I touched the goop with the spear it began to glow a greyish color, and large swath of the goop died off, melting from a gelatinous goop to a slurry of black liquid. It appears that this little spear is very good at killi- God dammit.

“Warning, gained irradiated effect”

I quickly used medical magic to replace any cells that were damaged by the radiation, supplementing it with my other healing skills to speed up the process. It would appear that the spear does the whole radiation thing in an area… on the bright side I leveled up my healing skills… i mean it's not like I feel myself getting irradiated, I could try and train my skills with it…

And so I went about the lab, walking down the hallway using my spear as a blind person uses their white cane, holding it out along the floor in front of me while using my healing skills to repair any damages I took.

“Radiation resistance is now level 3”

Oh yeah, I got a resistance effect as well. To be honest, I love that mechanical, automated voice.

Eventually I came across a big empty room with no goop… no enemies… tables and chairs pushed to the sides… the door just locked behind me… yup, this is a boss room…

At the opposite end of the room big double doors burst open, releasing a floor of the black goop. I stabbed my spear down in front of me, liquifying any that came close, but of course this thing wasn't trying to drown me in goop. Instead, a bunch of small metal railings bolted into the shape of a humanoid rose up, acting like a skeleton as a mass of the goop swarmed over it to hang inside its frame. Once it stepped away from the goop, i could see it in its complete form. It was basically a collection of scaffoldings for the goop to climb on, its 4 feet were equipped with small wheels. With how top heavy it was due to its 4 arms, 4 feet were needed. The two front arms were simple, just a grabbing claw and a buzzsaw, while the rear arms were a bit more interesting. They had the same collection of lenses and refractors that the tiny robot had, and Just before I dodged their opening salvo, I noticed something appear on the barrels of those lasers.

They had holographic circles with various symbols appearing inside of them, namely a triangle that turns into a 4 pointed star, gaining points until it reaches 10. It was at that point that it fired, boring a hole through the door behind me. It takes a little longer to charge, but much more powerful than the micro version. However, the biggest piece of news was that it could use magic. I managed to use evaluate on it, just as it zoomed in front of me and jabbed me in the gut with the buzzsaw before I could react and push it back with my spear.

“Perfect Storm Combat Drone. Made up of a metallic scaffolding holding a solidified mass of the Perfect Storm slime mold, it can utilize magic, psionics and ki innately. Its main method of combat is to fire off a salvo of its lasers before raising its shields and attempting to dismember the target in close quarters”

“Warning, gained disembowelment effect, extreme danger”

I immediately activated Ki boost, as well as all of my healing abilities to repair the damages. I used the fibers from the torn up front end of my shirt to stitch my skin back together, using my abilities to fix any internal damages. Almost instantly I ran out of ki, psionics and mana running dangerously low. I came in with less than half of my mana remaining and less than a third of my ki and psionic power in the first place, so I didn't really have much to work with…

Of course I thrusted out before I ran out of ki boost, hoping to put the thing down before it could do another attack. I did manage to push it back, but it had a forcefield around it that prevented me from hitting the actual goop.

On the bright side, said shield now has a huge crack…

Now I focused a little more on defense. More than half of my health was missing and the only thing I could use was my spear. If I just defended myself with the spear and waited for an opening…

The robot let down its shields and charged up the lasers. I immediately jumped in, only to find it immediately raise its perfectly repaired shield and try to strike at me. I luckily blocked it with my spear, but the handle was forced across my palm. The runes on the handle acted like sandpaper, leaving me with a very bloody spear. My hands burned like hell, and my first instinct was to drop the thing.

Then I remembered the death bot in front of me, and decided to maybe not drop the one thing between me and getting disemboweled, again…

So, I stood with my back to the wall, spear held in front. It tried to charge up its laser again, dropping its shield. I moved to the side, and it rushed me again, hitting my spear again,and driving my hands further along the handle before I pushed it back. Then it tried to charge up its lasers again, this time going to a 9 pointed star before moving to rush me with its shields up, but this time…

This time I was ready.

I was able to barely dodge to the side, pushing it against the tables that formed the makeshift arena. A few steps later and I was in quite the unique position. If it dropped its shields, I could stab it before it could react, and if it rushed, then I would have ample time to get out of the way. Of course it knew this as well, so it decided to rush, just as expected. I used all of my sensory abilities on it, and my ki scanning showed its ki heading towards its legs, preparing to shoot towards me. Although I couldn't sense the world around me without spending at least one point of the selected resource, I realized I could focus on the skill without spending anything to find other sources of that energy. This allowed me to confirm my predictions while I still had time to react and prepare for the robots rush attack.

But instead of blocking or sidestepping, I swept at its front legs, bringing it tumbling as it slid to a stop. It was at this point that i'm glad I decided to focus on my sensory abilities, since a bunch of psionic power was accumulating on its back.

Eventually an eye appeared and fired out what looked to my ESP skill as a polychromatic beam of psychic energy, while my normal eyes saw nothing. Cheeky bugger, an invisible attack ey? Or should I say eye? Soon enough it got up, and the battle continued. I'm not sure if it was the adrenaline, or the fact that I just moved slightly each time, but I just wasn't feeling tired as the battle dragged on. Soon enough, the robot seemed to get impatient, charging up the lasers, preparing its ki to charge, and collecting psionic power at the same time. Looks like this guy wants to finish it all in one attack, and I couldn't agree more. As I saw the ki collecting at the bottom of its feet, the psionic energy collecting in its chest, and the lasers reaching the ninth point on their stars, it all just clicked. I could see the line the lasers and the psychic beam would take before they were fired, as well as the path it would charge in. The little shit thought it was smart, firing from the front while it curved its charge to attack from the side. Too bad I could see every move he was going to make.

I stepped to the opposite side from its charge and thrust my spear in its direction, pouring every resource I had left into that. The elements of fire, water, air, earth, lightning, void, time and space manifested onto my spearhead, reacting with the blood smeared along the handle, lighting the whole spear in a conflagration of aether. I felt the blood still in my body try to reach for the spear, so I forcefully pulled it back. It may have weakened the total power of the spear, but I was already running low on health.

The spearhead struck the shieldless machine, burying itself deep in the goop, before the goop suddenly bubbled up and blasted in every direction as a blackened slurry.

Then I looked at the rest of the room and noticed that I was the only thing covered in that slurry. I was particularly worried when said slurry went towards my hand.

“Evaluation skill leveled up x10, evolved into prognosticator skill. Spear mastery leveled up x5, mana sense ESP and ki scan leveled up x 5, consumed by prognosticator, blood manipulation level 1 unlocked, blood magic level 1 unlocked, consumed by blood manipulation, blood drain level 1 unlocked, consumed by blood manipulation, pain resistance leveled up x3, aether blast level up, vampire feat achieved”

“Due to blood drain, you absorb the blood of your fallen enemies to recover your resources and raise blood affinity”

“Warning, due to consuming a highly infectious substance, you have become infected with P3RF3C7 520RM. The infection will complete in 5 hours”

Well, shit…

I tried using medical magic to purge the thing, but whenever I tried to destroy it using the same technique I used for when it was outside my bloodstream it would always leave a part unharmed and still damage my own blood. When I tried healing my own blood, it regenerated as well.

“Ok, I’m very screwed. I would prefer not to turn into a zombie, thank you very much…”