Jason frowns, “Let me see that.” And he picks up the mind pearl Peter had put on the table.

While he inspects it, Courtney steeples her fingers. “So you’ve been picking these up the entire time?”

Peter rubs the back of his neck and laughs. “Yep, not too many were salvageable. You guys were efficient at pulping the swarm cats.”

Courtney raises an eyebrow, “And you planned to tell us about this loot now?”

Peter shrugs, “Well, I had to at some point soon. While I got most of them from side trips on my own, there are some from your fights. To not share the wealth wouldn’t be fair from the Systems point of view. Plus, they aren’t worth that much. For someone like me, these are like pocket change.”

Courtney rolls her eyes at this, “If they are like pocket change, why does it feel like you want them a lot? In fact, was this trip just so you could gather them?”

Peter looks away but answers, “No. The trip wasn’t only to collect them. Though they aren’t the easiest thing to get a hold of. I wasn’t lying when I said they are cheap. Their effects and uses wouldn’t allow them to cost anymore than they do. The problem is with supply. Even though we have to cull back the swarms all the time, most of those pearls go to the kingdom.”

“They are a pseudo-restricted item. You aren’t allowed to just kill swarms willy nilly when it isn’t time to cull them. Like we brought up when we talked about the yubjubs. The swarms are carefully maintained so the ecosystem doesn’t change too much. Besides that, some queens, hiveminds, and so on have deals with the kingdom.”

“Plus, like I said, most of the mind pearls go to the kingdom. This isn’t by chance. My contact in the city I was going to sell them through is an official. Because of their effects, while our kingdom doesn’t mind small numbers getting out, no one here wants large batches of them to be smuggled out to enemy nations. Anyone who takes a quest to cull the population has to turn in a large portion of the haul.”

“Not at some awful price, mind you. There are competing state sponsored alchemists and they all want to be the one to brew the next batch of potions. After all, an interesting potion that has some restrictive requirements to brew will net anyone who succeeds a hefty amount of experience to their alchemy skill.”

Rosha nods at this, “I can understand, but you didn’t even show me how to harvest them when we had been training. You must need the few you get to keep pretty badly.”

Courtney taps the table to gather the table’s attention back to her. “Besides that, you’re hiding something still. They must have another use that is useful to you in particular.”

Peter laughs again, this time a little more strained, but Jason interrupts everyone. “And I might have the answer. I scanned this mind pearl and while calling it brain matter isn’t wrong, that is only the surface. That would be like calling modern chips just some transistors. The brain is a chaotic mess of connections which grows with us. This pearl? Ordered to the extreme and I don’t even think this is the result of the System tampering.”

“It is a connection between the swarm and the monster. To do that, this little sphere of brain is like the ultimate receiver with every single connection placed with an exact purpose in mind. Peter, your husband was a kitsune, right? They wouldn’t happen to be a four-tailed kitsune, would they?”

Peter deflates when Jason says that and shakes his head. “Well, you probably just figured it out. Though tell me what you think is wrong.”

Jason smiles at the confirmation. “My guess is your husband is approaching his 600th birthday and has at least 300 levels under his belt. I haven’t had much time to research anything and have mostly left that to Courtney. However, this one little fact has stuck in my head.”

Though as he says that Jason mentally crosses his fingers. His previous life’s knowledge doesn’t necessarily apply in NeoRealm, but he has a hunch it does in this case.

With barely a pause, he continues, “He’s at the edge of gaining his fifth tail. While this isn’t all that hard. Tails only require time and power to grow. No complicated requirements, at least this is mostly true. The problem stems from the fact this is the fifth tail.”

“Kitsune like most humanoid sapients have four limbs, two arms and two legs. Our minds are just wired to handle signals from four limbs and foxkin are no different. Kitsune however can use their tails like limbs and even cast spells and abilities from them. Like extra arms attached to the butt.”

“Now the fifth one coming into being shouldn’t do much, after all they already broke that four limb limit with the tails in the first place. Except of course they didn’t. The tails act off of a mystical shadow of the mind. Now for most kitsune the fifth tail isn’t too much of a problem. They lose some fine control of all their tails as the brain jumbles them up, but that is it.”

“Your husband however is a crafter. If all he was doing was going out and fighting, it wouldn’t matter. Whether the third tail or the fifth tail that fires off a beam of frost who cares. He however likely uses his tails in crafting. Even if it is just to hold something down, mixing up the tails for even a moment would ruin his work.”

“Maybe not the worst thing for someone carving wood. But your husband is an enchanter. Not only does that mean extremely fine carvings, but potentially energetic accidents if even one line is off the mark.”