Nico pressed his back against the trunk and let himself slip down. The shade kept him well concealed but the green flame lit his face up in the shade. He pressed it and it pressed back like jello. Hello. The prompt appeared again. This time he chose the Harvest option.

Energy Of A Ranger Fairy

Harvest:

Fragmentation Blast (Common II) (Roll 5+)

Consumes 1 Energy to unleash a wide, short-range blast.

Cast-time: Charge 2-6 seconds Deals up to 1 Shield damage and gains 2 meters effective range per 2 seconds Charged.

Cooldown: 6 seconds

Multiple-Charged Projectiles (Uncommon II) (Roll: 8+)

Consumes 1 Energy to fire multiple projectiles from the Locust.

Cast-time: Charges for 4 seconds. Deals up to 2 Shield damage. Damage and size will be divided by the projectiles fired.

Cooldown: 6 seconds.

Nico glanced at the Locust. It reflected the sun’s bright light into a golden green hue. Well, at least I do have written instructions. He would have still appreciated an actual conversation though.

He wasn’t sure whether it was a test of Nico’s skill, or whether she was just being cruel. For all he knew, he could have been just a piece of bait in her schemes. He couldn’t get a good read on her.

As for the Augmenter itself. Those were Emitter skills. On the assumption that Harvest means taking the enemies skills, as Transmuter-Enhancer Nico couldn’t use them. Or he shouldn’t be able to. Only one way to find out. And…roll?

Fragmentation Blast (Common II) (Roll 5+) < 8

Multiple-Charged Projectiles (Uncommon II) (Roll: 8+) < 11

Cool? He could choose between two. While Multiple-Charged Projectiles was a higher rarity, it didn’t strictly mean it was stronger. Rarities were just that—how much of the skill is out there in the world. How Augmenters knew this, Nico did not know.

Multiple-Charged Projectiles might deal more raw damage overall, but Fragmentation Blast was easier to land, and was more effective against groups of enemies. It was an easy choice. He took it.

The Soul brightened, then condensed into a small rectangular card in Nico’s hand. It was weightless, but he still felt like his fingers were touching something solid.

The card was a drawing of a green arm firing a yellow cone at a fairy, almost perfectly identical to when he got the fairy to blast its buddy. Below it there was a description.

Fragmentation Blast (Common II)

Consumes 1 Energy to unleash a wide, short-range blast.

Cast-time: Charge 2-6 seconds Deals up to 1 Shield damage and gains 2 meters effective range per 2 seconds Charged.

Cooldown: 6 seconds

Enhancement Options: N/A

Uh….okay. So Harvest really does mean Harvest. Still, this shouldn’t work. He pressed it against his chest in the same way normal Memory Cards went in.

If you’re reading this, it means you’re an idiot.

Nico swallowed. He looked at the card. You get what you paid for, Devi. Nico placed the card in the palm of the Locust.

Would you like to insert Fragmentation Blast into the Locust Flower?

As you have no Base skill, Fragmentation Blast will become your new Base skill.

Locust Flower? It was a rhetorical thought, but it was answered anyway. A thick cloud of yellow gathered in front of him, forming into a card. There was a title and stars, with a painting and a description below it. It had a moving painting of a four-peddle flower floating on blue waters. It ebbed into different rainbowlike colors with each wave.

Locust Flower ★☆☆☆

Equipment Type: Soul-Bound Augmenter

Evolution Requirements: 0/1 Rank II Boss Soul or 0/3 Rank II Elite Souls

Harvest: Transmute a corpse for a chance to gain one of its skills. The chance of success is dependent on the rarity. Each skill has a Base and Enhancer option. Using one option will retain the other. Using both options will destroy the memory card from your memory storage.

Base Skill:

(Empty)

Enhancers:

(Empty)

(Empty)

Memory Storage:

(Empty)

Functions:

Rank I: The Locust has a storage of 2 Energy. Each time you use an Energy from the Locust you will generate 1 Heat. You will be unable to use the Energy inside the Locust if the heat reaches higher than 5.

Current heat: 0/5

…well this is new. Nico’s studied every Augmenter out there, and this one wasn’t in the official lists. He stared at the Soul-Bound tag. The last nail in the coffin. He left that dreadful detail for later and went through the rest of it.

For combat purposes it seemed to have a slot for one main skill that is then modified by subsequent Memory Cards. That could create attacks never seen before, which means the enemy won’t be able to predict what’s coming. It was a substantial advantage since fights typically revolved around who could predict and counter who.

The plus 2 Energy storage was going to be a life saver early on. It didn’t do much in the later Ranks, but as Nico feeds the Augmenter Souls, it might increase even further.

The heat mechanic was the other interesting thing. Most Augmenters could be used a few times before they had to cooldown—quite literately. Using Energy often made Heat as a byproduct.

When someone Ranked up or a monster evolved, their bodies physically changed to use their new skills. It was why monsters and people had cooldowns for some skills. They had to let their bodies cool down before using it again.

But some Thermal skills used Heat to power up their skills, not just Energy. That meant if Nico could find a monster that had a thermal skill that used heat, he could effectively use a Life then a Thermal skill for the price of a single Energy. It would quite literally double what Nico was capable of.

He flinched. His face was doing something strange. He traced his lips and he found them spread. His tongue was salivating. Is this…is this a smile? Am I excited? He chuckled, then went dead quite when he heard the fairies walk right past him. He huddled up tighter, holding his knees against him as more footsteps sounded.

It must have been the whole tribe. Nico could feel them around him, and through the grass he could see some converging from all sides towards the crater.

Either his fight was louder than he’d thought, or the two fairies that found him came because of the crater. So I wasn’t out for long, otherwise I would have been surrounded. But how did Devi send him so far? It’s not like she could just squeeze him in a cannon and light the fuse.

Like, right? Nico was small, but not that small.

Out of the dozens of fairies that went past most were Emitters. Some were Bruisers and some fewer were Rogues. The Bruisers were ripped and around 6 feet tall with a muscular body and deep dark purple bones. Their wings didn’t seem to have any noticeable function. A thin yellow veil covered their skin.

Bruiser Fairy Of The Bog (★★★)

Shields: ****

Energy: ?

Class: Enhancer

Trait: Rubber Flesh (Common III)

1st Skill: Life Shield (Common II)

Consumes 1 Energy to provide 6 Shield.

Cast-time: 3 seconds

Duration: 1 Minutes

Cooldown: 1 minutes

2nd Skill: ?

3rd Skill: ?

Humans weren’t the only one to use Shields. In fact, Shields were originally made by monsters, then copied by humans. There were many variants with varying effects, but it usually boiled down to being covered by a near weightless suit of armor that blocked damage. Slash or thermal attacks were typically less effective against shields, while blunt and kinetic attacks were generally more effective. Life and piercing attacks were decent against everything.

Most are 3-stars. There were a couple 2-stars as well. Those ones had 2 Shield instead of two. A Rogue Fairy wandered into range.

Rogue Fairy Of The Bog (★★)

Energy: ?

Trait: Rubber Flesh (Common)

1st Skill: ?

2nd Skill: ?

That fairy was in between a Ranger and a Bruiser, toned with muscle but still retaining its smaller size. Its wings were narrower at the mid-section, similar to an X. Their claws were sharper than the Bruiser, who had thicker hands the color of its bone.

By virtue of him not having been mulled already as they walked within feet of him, it meant their senses were poor. That was one of the very few advantages of going solo. Because of how monsters sensed and hunted other beings, otherwise known as agro, five people is what most teams hunted in. More would attract more monsters than an additional person was worth.

A minute later, Nico spotted his next three problems flying over his head.

Blossomed Ranger Fairy Of The Bog (★★★)

Class: Emitter

Body Trait: Rubber Flesh

1st Skill: Fragmentation Blast (Common III)

2nd Skill: Multiple Charged Projectiles (Uncommon III)

3rd Skill: Flight (Rare III)

Allows the wielder to fly.

Their teeth and jaws looked significantly more useful than their two-star form, though that wasn’t even their main weapon. As Emitter’s, ranged skills was their main thing. With their flight they can also just float there, firing beam after beam from above. Unless he was willing to climb and leap off the trees, getting spotted by them was pretty much a death sentence. He doubted he could outrun them.

Hunters stuck to hunting in the 1st Zone for a reason. Only Rankers with multiple skills to their name ventured far away from the cities. At this level, normal humans just weren’t good enough.

He pressed the Fragmentation Blast against the Locust. The card burst into yellow particles that sunk down into it. When he checked the Locust’s card, it showed Fragmentation Blast in the first slot.

Nil

Rank: I

Affinity: Life

Class: Transmuter-Enhancer

Next Rank: 0/1 Rank II Boss Souls

Energy Points: 1/2 (+1/Hour)

Locust Energy: 2/2

Locust Heat: 0/5

1st Skill: Life Healer (Rare I)

2nd Skill: (N/A)

3rd Skill: (N/A)

Ultimate: (N/A)

Soul-Bound Equipment 1/1: Unknown Augmenter (★☆☆)

The ID isn’t even identifying the Locust. That was good news, if not to hide it, it meant that the Locust technology was better than the ID.

Nico’s lips spread again. He stayed where he was, breathing slowly as he immersed himself in his senses. He focused on the itches on his back side, where dirt was sliding down, and the dull throbs and slight warmth he felt where his wounds healed. The horrible smell, the sensation of the left-over blood sliding down his stomach and in between his legs, they felt like sore muscles after a good workout.

Taking another deep breath that burned his lungs, Nico poked his head out of the grass. Clear. He would have climbed the trees if he could for a better vantage point, but their trunk was too sleek, and he risked getting spotted himself. It didn’t matter too much, it was hard to miss the city’s walls.

There were a few orange mountains in between him and the City. Those were called Summits. They were secluded areas where some Bosses spawned, saving a Ranker from having to spend days if not weeks to lower the numbers of the monster tribe. It was the quickest and safest way to Rank up, and the most expensive. Each one of the Summits were rented out to one House or another based on a bidding system.

As for the Deep, it was a few days behind him. The miasma of white clouds covering one part of the world were hard to miss. He was safe as long as he kept it behind him. If it abruptly turned right or left, then all the better.

Now, where is that Nightmare? He hoped they were on their way to pick him up, because Devi would be a fool to think he could survive on his own, and he didn’t think she was a fool.