Samuel chuckled. “Okay, enough of this moping about bullshit. Let’s focus on what we already know you’re damned good at!”

Eric smirked. “Which would be...”

“Necromancy, duh! Now hold out your arm. Time for us to work on storage tattoos.”

Eric’s brows rose at this, soon coming to learn that necromancers stored both the soul pattern and massive amount of potency they’d need to animate their chosen vessels by either using priceless soul gems, even though what exactly the soul was, was hotly debated… and the far more challenging use of blood sigils that could be used to store the potency of a kill that would then be channeled into an appropriately sigiled corpse.

“Of course if we were practicing back home, we’d have grandfather’s perfectly prepared gems that could claim and store any number of souls… or let’s be more PC and probably more accurate, experience point packets that we could claim from killing our foes. And the best thing is, those gems work even if you’re a mortal apprentice like me, without any System class at all!” Samuel declared with a bright smile. “But since we don’t have any soul jewelry we can make use of, stranded as we are in this pocket realm of cultivation awesomeness that neither of us can use...and since you CAN level up and feed upon the potency of your kills… it’s high time I showed you how to write the soul-storage tattoos you need to master.”

Without further ado, Samuel’s normally cheerful, lighthearted demeanor with Eric turned to a scowl of serious intensity as he carefully inked a complex pattern of dots and lines on Eric’s forearm.

Eric closed his eyes, doing his best to not just see the pattern, but to feel exactly where each swirl, dot, and dash touched his skin, not opening his eyes until he sensed it perfectly. Then, with one of the scalpel0sharp knives claimed by his foes, he gently carved a crimson pattern in his own flesh to the wide-eyed shock of Samuel, grinning when he just knew that he’d gotten it right.

“Eric?”

“Yeah good buddy?”

“What the hell did you just do?”

Eric smirked, gazing down at his bloody marks with a certain amount of satisfaction. “Giving myself a wicked-looking tattoo.”

His friend gazed at him for long moments, until Eric’s cheeky grin turned to an awkward smile.

“I mean… I carved it right… right? It feels right, anyway.”

“Yeah, but didn’t it hurt?”

Eric shrugged. “Honestly, I was so in the zone that it felt more a fiery tingle than anything else, the pain fading almost immediately after I relaxed my hold on the regeneration, once I felt circuit come to life.

This earned a curious blink. “Circuit?”

Eric nodded. “That’s how I’m thinking of it, and it definitely feels ‘on’ to me. Tell me, did I do it right?”

His friend gazed at Eric for long moments, furrowing his brow as he gazed critically at Eric’s bloody work before his eyes brightened in a surprised smile. “Yeah. Fuck it, Eric, you did it perfectly.” Samuel whistled. “Buddy, you have nothing to complain about, even if neither one of us ever manage to knock a single peach off of those trees. Your knack for the True Art? Shit. It takes most students months to get that right! My grandfather would apprentice you personally, even if he didn’t owe you big already.”

Eric furrowed his brow, wanting to clarify his friend on the fruit, but realizing it didn’t matter. What he found fascinating, and maybe a little bit scary, was that he really did feel a current tingling through his tattoo. A tattoo that was not healing.

AS if his body had already accepted it as an extension of himself.

Congratulations! You have learned the Necromantic Ritual of Potency Binding! Store the potency of your kills like a battery to use with your darkest arts!

Pristine affinity, and being daring (foolish?) enough to infuse your creation with multiple essences successfully, means Potency Binding is now at Rank 4!

Eric winced, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t have infused his flesh and blood with the essence of Flame and Dominion, giving in to the impulse of going all out on a half-learned skill. “You ever get the feeling you’re maybe a bit of an idiot whose just good at faking it?”

Sam laughed. “Never, actually. I feel pretty good about myself and what I’m capable of. But yeah, let’s see if your bizarre little feat is actually useful. Next mission!” Sam said brightly. “Hunt down and kill one Bristle-Back without getting killed. The kill should saturate your tattoo, and then I’ll show you how to channel it into your prepped cadaver.”

Eric smirked. “Sure. Why not?” He said, removing his stone slab and getting ready to cross and replace the blood ward… but not without first making sure that trouble wasn’t waiting for them just outside.

He turned to his young friend. “You sure you’re going to be okay with this slab between you and freedom?

Samuel grinned. “If by freedom you mean savage man-eating ten foot long tuskers, then yes. Most definitely… yes. Besides, we got our vengeance. And you did leave about fifty pounds of smoked meat behind, not to mention two full tubs of fresh clean spring water that tastes like it came straight from a freekin’ wuxia novel… because it pretty much did.”

“I think you mean Xianxia,” Eric said with a smile. “Considering that we’re at the upper end of fantasy-sci-fi crossovers here, and we’re definitely both using magic, even though our cultivation skills together couldn’t fill a thimble.”

“As long as I’m not eaten in the next twenty-four hours and you come back in one piece? We can call it whatever you like,” the boy said to a laughing Eric. Before his face turned dead serious. “I know it’s absurd for me to even think you’re ready yet, but considering how fast you learn… watch me retrace my blood ward before you go. I know we still have a ways to go before you can learn it, but every little bit of exposure means… No. Fucking. Way!”

Samuel’s eyes bulged in disbelief when a grinning Eric made a blood ward in the shape of a smiley face around the fifty pounds of preserved meat before giving his friend wave farewell.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully learned Blood Wards at Rank 1!

“Eric? What the hell?”

Eric winked. “At least now you don’t have to worry about grubs and bugs and other crawlies dipping in to our food supply.”

“But you only saw me use it what, two, three times?”

Eric winked. “What can I say? Magesight is useful like that. Later, teach!” Eric quipped the open-mouthed Sam before sealing his friend back up with slab and blood ward both, happy to get the practice for a comparatively minuscule potency cost.

Potency he’d be reclaiming in spades soon enough, he thought with an excited smile as he gazed at the mist shrouded peach trees stretching off an endless distance he sensed no pocked dungeon realm should contain… yet this one somehow did.

Taking a deep breath of pristine air saturated with fiery Qi tasting so like his own essence, he couldn’t recall the last time he had felt such a rush on a hunt, the rich scents of jazmine, forest loam, and fragrant wildflowers adding zest to the glorious scent of ripe and juicy peaches.

And he dare not eat a single one.

***

The hum of locusts was a strangely welcoming sound in the air, bringing flashbacks of so many innocent opening scenes in countless anime series starring bright-eyed boys and girls that would rise to awe inspiring heights of power… while losing everything and everyone that ever mattered to then. A yin and yang of balance, sweet potency a cold balm to bitter despair.

Eric had always thought the premise a bit twisted, hating how storyboard writers seemed to love tormenting their heroes. But it didn’t keep him from watching every new episode of every series he had ever followed with baited breath. No matter how frustrated he was when yet another vicious plot twist would fuck over the hero yet again, he would still keep coming back.

And maybe that was the point, he thought with a fierce smile, catching sight of a half dozen hot-eyed boars roaring and squealing as they exchanged too knowing stares while glaring at the rocky cliff face upon which the interlopers cavern entrance rested, all six of them turning to race for the cavern Eric’s still humble blood wards clearly couldn’t hide from their sight the way Sam’s could, no matter his brute force ability to repulse, infused as it was with the essence of Dominion.

The boars kept coming back with the same bloody fanaticism he once had for the shows he loved to hate.

Which worked out just fine for Eric.

Because he still had plenty of love to give.

You have critically struck Spirit Boar!

Superheated pilum pierces all defenses.

Superheated pilum has pierced Spirit Boar’s heart.

Heart has exploded.

Instant Fatality!

Eric blinked at the flashing notifications, struck by how smooth and clean his javelin had pierced the tusker’s back to plunge straight into its heart, as effortlessly as dipping into water, the superheatd weapons all that much deadlier with a slower trajectory and 5 pounds of mass powering it forward.

If anything, the multiplicative effects of obliterating heat covering the entire length of the two-foot shank and armor piercing head were many times greater here with these javelins than with the relatively tiny arrowheads streaking forth at twice the speed of sound.

And it was clear as well that, even if the trees were Fire essence aligned and pretty much immune to fire, the swine before him were no more heat resistant than the earthbound foes he had fought until now.

Of course that didn’t make the surviving bristlebacks any less deadly, even if their charge had been broken with the tumbling death of the lead tusker, two more quickly released javelins bringing their numbers down to half before the surviving three had locked their hot furious eyes on Eric’s laughing form, squealing and charging as one.

Before a fourth crashed to the ground as an instantly resummoned javelin blasted right through the boar’s absurdly thick skull before Eric summoned and planted his bardiche just in time to meet the charge of the closest hog in a fearsome crash that sent him flying even his weapon blasted through ribs and heart of his foe. And Eric found laughing with manic glee even as he tumbled through the air, the price he paid for not sprinting to the side quite fast enough as a final squealing hog prepared to tear his mocking cartwheeling face off as Eric crashed back down to earth….

Quickness check made! Finesse check made! You have critically struck your foe!

You have taken 1 medium wound.

Vitality check failed!

Before collapsing to the ground with a final surprised look when Eric summoned a Soul-linked javelin back to his hand and speared it down swine’s throat with superhuman force. But not before slamming into Eric with enough force to crack his ribs even with his armor and send him flying, anything but graceful when he landed with a crack and a shocked cry of pain, hissing with surprise and just a bit of terror as the hairline fractures in his hip gave out rather spectacularly.

“Finesse and Strength in the fifties doesn’t mean broken bones won’t give out, idiot!” Eric cursed himself quietly, enduring long moments of fearsome jagged pain as his hip seemed to collect all the broken fragments and fuse itself together like his mother’s tight fist squeezing his hand with agonizing intensity when he had played the fool one too many times as a child. And he didn’t blame his body a bit for doing the same as he sweat painful bullets on the thankfully soft forest loam, arcane blaster held in twitching palms as if it would do him a lick of good, when he had never used it even once.

“But at least my wrist tattoo is tingling like a motherfucker, so I did something right,” he thought with a fierce smile, laughing at his own sudden hesitation, when the badass pig slayer of seconds ago was now terrified of the spike of white-hot pain he’d feel when he forced weight on a hip he had been stupid enough to shatter…

Before finally forcing himself to MOVE!

Because a maimed animal was a dead animal in this cultivation forest, and whatever his Interface’s assurance, it was beyond surreal to find his hip flowing smooth and free in its socket like a dream, after shattering it just minutes ago.

Not even a twinge of pain for his latest assinine fiasco, he thought with a dry smirk, quickly summoning his javelins back into storage and gently touching all the bull-sized swine he passed as well before making his way back to base camp, as he thought of it.

He then frowned, closing his eyes, checking his Interface.

Bull-sized? These latest half-dozen fuckers were closer to the size of bison, he thought with a troubled frown, doing his best to ignore the shiver of apprehension tingling down his spine, only now appreciating just how crazy a stunt he had pulled while riding on the high of adrenaline and battle.

Why the hell hadn’t he just parked himself halfway up a tree trunk and sniped in relative safety?

He was about to head back inside and share his momentary impulse to be a badass and how it had almost cost him everything… or at least a shattered hip, leaving him easy prey to any predator that could have been there, should have been there, but hadn’t… before deciding to be proactive instead.

Proactive by taking out the largest of the carcasses, placing it some hundred feet distant, back near the edge of the grove before pulling out his laser blaster once more, lining up the high tech rifle sight, and slowly, carefully squeeze the trigger.

Feeling a definite pressure beyond the physical. But instead of it proving to be an inviolate ward, all it took was a little bit of focus, and he squeezed the trigger as smoothly as he ever had a .22 rifle.

And absolutely obliterate the tusker’s head in a flash of superheated plasma, before tunneling a hole through the entire carcass.

Congratulations! You have successfully quantized Arcane Blaster Rifles at Rank 1! Note! This Tier 2 hardware is currently OUTLAWED on Subjugated Planet 6783Y! - Note! Master Criminal Title Mitigates this penalty! (Every rogue worth his salt has a few lucky aces up his sleeve!) As per your Elite Title Boon, you have +25% bonus to skill rank increases and achieving mastery with this piece of outlawed hardware! - Note! Survival Prerogative trumps all Council Strictures! As this weapon was seized directly from enemies attempting to kill you, you may freely use this weapon in any acts of Self-Defense (or Territory Capture as a Contender) –

Note. - Selling or Trading this OUTLAWED Artifact is forbidden. Purchasing additional ammunition beyond that which your assailants carried is restricted, and counts as a Class 1 Misdemeanor!

Eric shook his head, having felt the oddest tingle from his Arcane Potential, realizing that he hadn’t had to channel a thing.

The weapon had sucked a single point of mana, ticking back moments later.

And using it, he found, casually sighting down the length of the barrel and unleashing a second and third squeeze that tore through the carcass with several more 3-inch-wide smoking holes erupting in flame, was every bit as easy as using a hunting rifle.

Easier, with the only kickback being the tiniest tug from his Arcane Potential, which bothered him no more than a tiny itch in his brain.

Cross Class skill synergies detected!

Advanced Arcane Weapons (Blaster Rifle) is now at Rank 3!

Eric flashed a brief, hard smile. As much as he enjoyed the delicious fantasy of being a medieval weapon and magic wielding badass, he wasn’t so proud as to turn his nose up at using a high magitech weapon that near 30th level goblin hit squads favored as their ace in the hole.

Even if it wouldn’t earn him shit, experience point wise. In the right place and time?

It might just save his life.

His frowned as he reread the cross class perk bonus. It made sense that he wouldn’t be penalized for making use of an artifact his enemies had used to kill him, but the fact that his Master Criminal Title also gave him a free pass, regardless, was troubling. Why would he, in effect, be awarded the right to use highly restricted weaponry without any penalty whatsoever, under any circumstances? It was ludicrous that the supposedly fair and balanced System would allow for any such exception at all. Not unless…

A cold chill raced down his spine as it all suddenly clicked.

Because those titles weren’t meant for him.

They were meant for the spoiled brats of rich extra-planetary power brokers wanting their children to have every advantage possible when it came time to feast on the spoils of newly claimed territories. No doubt their kiddies would know all sorts of backdoor hacks to claiming all sorts of illicit and power-boosting titles. And if those titles also awarded the occasional Jack and Jill with the rights to use arms and armor that the natives were normally totally barred from, then that was the icing on the cake that legitimized the whole process.

It would be like steel covered conquistadors absolutely butchering the native population with their hacked bronze cannons, while the priests in this case wore System uniforms waving around rule books and pointing at the tiny handful of natives that had stumbled upon the rare piece of decent equipment, then screaming that everything was fair and balanced, with equal opportunities for all.

Because the natives could hypothetically be just as well equipped, with fancy toys of their own.

But only if they had the extremely unlikely confluence of odd talents, skills, opportunity, and most of all, blind luck, to smash open a hyper-secure vault sealed tighter than fort Knox while being desperate enough to force-evolve a System perk that could have so easily killed them, but instead netted them an ungodly fortune in gold.

And if they weren’t one of those one in a billion lucky bastards…

Then they might as well get on their knees and pray, because they didn’t have a chance in hell against the bastards that Eric just knew would soon be joining all the other factions of intergalactic assholes feasting upon a freshly ascending Earth's potency like pigs at a trough.

Eric took a deep breath while his heart pounded with fury, carefully putting down his high-tech weapon of destruction in trembling hands until his fit of rage had passed.

Because how stupid would it be for a moment’s fury to have him break the deadliest toy he might ever own?

Instead, he calmly set up a second boar and carefully lined up a fresh shot. Only now he wasn’t going for a single pinpoint shot, but a burst of fire as he moved his blaster in a tight, left-to-right arc far deadlier than any spray of bullets, just like a certain assassin had tried to use to cut him in half.

And much to his own fierce delight, and a certain goblin’s dismay when Eric’s essence infused scales proved too stubborn to be so easily hewn… the massive cadaver was split cleanly in two.

At a cost of ten rounds.

Only then did Eric pay attention to the count, wincing as he did so.

Mark II Deathblaze is at 100% Integrity! 141 Rounds remaining.

“Shit,” he whispered, belatedly sensing the modest dip in mana drained by the blaster, the tiniest fraction of his 204 Mana Pool, ticking back up to full again in less than a minute.

He gazed down at his Mark II Deathblaze blaster. Because it certainly was a deadly fine ace in the hole.

The only problem was that with he and the goblins now being somewhat at odds... as in they were just behind orcs in the list of enemies of humankind that he would happily purge from his world, it didn’t look like he’d be getting fresh ammo any time soon.