Burning pain coursed through Mike as he came back to consciousness with a shuddering gasp. A multitude of notifications awaited him.

[Poison levels diminished to baseline.]

It looked like like Hands of Healing had pulled through again. He didn’t understand why he still hurting though, until he continued reading through his messages:

[Warning, you are consuming Spiritual Beast without having reached a necessary level

Damage will be incurred each second until digested.]

[Warning, damage incurring at a higher rate due to continued consumption]

The warnings were the same he had seen before, but changed from there:

[Congratulations! You have learned the skill Gluttony (Passive).

Your greed causes you to gorge yourself on things you shouldn’t.

Spiritual foods above your current Tier result in fewer toxin accumulation.

Spiritual foods can now be processed to directly give attribute increases

This ability eventually caps (logarithmic) and progress will require higher grade food]

This was also the first ability he had learned that was labeled “Passive”. This was also the first time that the System had mentioned Tiers or Spiritual Foods before, and Mike didn’t think it was a coincidence that this happened after he had heard these terms from others. It would make sense for the Assimilators to not share knowledge about the multiverse outside of what was necessary.

I wish I knew why the Assimilators do what they do. I’ll have to find a way to get this information from a trustworthy source. Currently, I am at a disadvantage of not knowing who I can trust and who is giving me accurate information. He thought, before returning to the backlog of messages.

[Congratulations! You have learned the skill Poison Excretion (Passive).

Passively excrete consumed poisons through your skin.

Rate of Excretion based on Luck.]

It wasn’t until reading this message that he noticed his whole body stank profusely and was covered in a sticky sheen of what looked like a mixture of sweat and tar. Fighting through the nausea-inducing fumes, he finished the last of the messages.

[Poison has reached equilibrium and damage rate is diminished.

Remaining time until poison is expelled: 15 Days (local)]

Not the worst meal I have ever had. I certainly feel better than after that Thanksgiving at Aunt Carol’s. And netting two new passive skills, even if one was based on my Luck and probably won’t be overly helpful makes the pain worth it. he thought, before concluding, It definitely needed some seasoning though.

Despite his optimism, he could tell that he was still in a dangerous position. Hand of Healing had brought the initial poison levels down to zero, but there was enough food still in his stomach to push him towards extreme toxicity again. And despite him now excreting the poison, he was still taking damage and would have used Hands of Healing again if it wasn’t on cooldown for another 16 hours.

He tried to roll to a seated position, but found that he was both too weak and that the slightest movement caused immense pain. Ok, maybe this is as bad as Aunt Carol’s cooking. He conceded with chagrin.

Without any new notifications to distract him from his predicament, he simply lay faced down in the dirt, feeling the rhythmic pain that matched the pumping of his heart.

With time, he became aware of another feeling inside of him, a satiating heat that seeped from his stomach. As he focused on the heat, he found that he could trace its course from his abdomen to other parts of his body. The distance he could trace the heat increased with time, until he felt that he could follow it from his abdomen to his heart, and from there throughout his entire body, until it ended at the tips of his fingers and toes. As he continued monitoring it, he began to notice that the pleasant heat seemed tainted with darkness, which seemed to ooze out of him wherever the heat went.

Realization dawned on him: I’m sensing the energy that powers my skills. The heat is Gluttony, pulling energy from the meat, and the darkness is Poison Excretion, pushing the toxins out of my skin.

He grasped at the new knowledge like a lifeboat. These two skills were the only things keeping him alive. But the longer he watched it, the more he noticed that the poison had totally flooded his body, and he could feel himself getting weaker. Desperation pushed him to try anything he could, and he willed the poison out of his body. No changes were noticeable at first, but over the course of several hours, he noticed that the poison was flowing out of him faster.

Butther’s voice broke his concentration, “Mike.. waaabgh… hack…. *COUGH*.... “ his voice degraded in an instant, until only a hacking cough remained.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize you were relieving your self in there” Butther continued after some time, “that is some seriously impressive stuff man. I didn’t realize you were a Stercus cultivator.”

Mike tried to reply, but was in too much pain to do anything more than breath out a sigh.

“Less noise would be appreciated.” Butther said in response to the sound. “Listen, I was just coming to let you know that my shift is over and that your next meal is in roughly 12 hours.

“I’ll see you again after your day off.” he concluded cheerily, his voice fading away and leaving MIke once again in the painful darkness.

Recentering himself, he once again focused on pushing the toxins from his body, but no matter how much he pushed out, more always took his place. In frustration, he eventually traced the heat back to his core, where he noticed that the ball of energy that represented the Helios Flank was nearly as large as it was when he had first noticed it.

In addition to pushing the poison out faster, I need to finish digesting this steak or else the poison levels will never decrease.

Following what he had done before, he willed Gluttony to process faster, until it began to circulate the energy with an almost visible rate.

[Warning, damage incurring at a higher rate due to continued consumption]

The message came out of nowhere and completely broke his concentration. It took another 10 minutes for him to find the energies and the toxins within him again, and when he did, he immediately noticed a difference. The poison levels had dramatically increased while he had been focused on Gluttony, and his whole body looked black to his inner sight. In panic, he once again focused on Poison Excretion until the levels were once again in equilibrium with how fast the energy was being harvested.

Over the next two hours, he quickly swapped his energy back and forth between the two passive skills, his efficiency increasing with each rotation, until he finally got a notification:

[Tier 2 Helios Flank fully processed.

+1 Toughness and +1 Strength]

Elated at his success, he focused purely on irradicating the poison and got another notification only 20 minutes later:

[Poison is fully excreted. Damage per second reduced to zero]

With the ordeal finally over, he once again tried to roll to a sitting position and found that other than being covered in a disgusting mixture of dust and toxic goop, he felt much better.

“In fact, I’m a bit hungry” he said, before pulling out the last chunk of bison jerky from his spatial bag and putting the large handful into his mouth.

“Now that is some properly seasoned meat!” he said with a sigh after swallowing the savory morsel.

That accomplished, he turned to the small pile of Mythril. It hadn’t grown since the first 8 hours of his shift, and he only had about 12 hours left in his shift based on his estimations of how long he had been processing the food.

Grasping the end of the pick, he activated Footsteps of the Wind and got back to work.