"..."

So that's how it works.

I always wondered how the system decides on names. [Scientific Insight+] would tell me the names of creatures I wasn't aware of when I examined them.

[Unnamed Creature A lv200]

It was a first-come-first-serve situation. I see. Now, what to name these creatures? I could ask my beasts for insights, but I don't want a co-author for this momentous occasion.

Now, I can go with my first impression of their name. [Fucked up Jellyfish], but the scientific community would scalp me.

At the very least, I can keep the naming conventions similar. Description-Creature… maybe I should do a title-sounding name…

It can't be too simple.

Anything with [Jellyfish] is probably already taken. Let's call them [Floaters].

No, that is taken also.

[Toxic Gas Purifiers]. I'm going to name them as if they were appliances. Done and done.

[Thisss one is surprised you didn't name them after your favorite rock.]

"There can be only one."

The system notification announcing my discovery has a keyboard attached to it, so I hesitantly input my answer.

[Congratulations User! You will gain one of their random innate skills as a reward for giving these creatures their first name.]

[Gaseous Purification A

The user can filter and purify toxic gasses - and other non-breathable* gasses - within their body, rendering them harmless and creating breathable oxygen.

The skill is toggleable.

Note: Toxic gasses will still harm the user. The skill doesn’t give them immunity to toxins.]

[You have gained a new title]

[Taxonomist F

You have named a newly discovered species.]

That's a decent skill. I'll have to keep it toggled except for the off chance I want to suffocate on non-breathable gas. Why the fuck would I ever turn it off?

Oh. I wonder what these fucked up jellyfish evolved here from the traditional sense of if they have pre-evolutions running around. Floating around.

I use my boots to test something, and I can walk on these clouds. It's hard to explain how it feels. Like I'm walking on a trampoline that doesn't bounce or marshmallows that don't taste good. Hundreds of feet of gas clouds support me, so if I fell through, I would be more surprised.

I walk towards my new discovery. They don't register me as an enemy. They aren't predators, and they have nothing to prey on them for who knows how many generations, so I guess they are indifferent to my existence.

Or they are blind.

The closest [Purifier] is within grabbing distance, dipped below the ceiling. I grabbed the closest one's tendril. It wraps itself around my hand like a fucked up meat balloon. I really hope these aren't genitals.

It tries and fails to lift me into the air. I let go and unwrapped its tendril from my hand. It drifts away to feed from the ceiling. Honestly, I find them a little cute.

Even though they are weirdly veiny.

I wonder how many pockets of air are in this fracture. How many colonies of these creatures are here? I also want to know what's at the top of the fracture.

The source of all the poison is up there, I'm assuming.

I climb back on Duchess's back, and we continue upwards. There are more specters as we get higher. Eventually, we find what we are looking for.

Many crack-like vents on the roof of this fracture. I reach and touch the ceiling. It doesn’t feel like stone or anything normal. It's a sheer precision cut. The part of the walls connected to the ceiling doesn't seem natural. It's strange.

It must be the edge of the fracture. Breaking through this place would be equivalent to breaking through space. But then, why are there holes in this barrier? Do they lead to that one place between the fractures?

Cause that inky blackness fucking hurts.

The vent spews out liquid all at the same time. As the liquid falls, it vaporizes, adding to the cloud population. This shower of toxins only lasts a few seconds.

Duchess uses her light to help me look inside one of the vents, and I don't see anything. Light is completely absorbed, but it doesn't remind me of that place. I want to stick my hand up there, but putting body parts outside the fracture is a surefire way to lose them.

Fuck it.

I stick my pinky into the hole, and nothing happens. I stick my entire arm up there, and nothing happens. I quickly retreat since a concentrated blast of all that poison would completely melt my arm off.

I spent the rest of my time charting the vents on the ceiling and decided that I wanted to 100% explore this place.

I want my mansion's trophy room to tell me I've been everywhere this fracture allows me to go. Duchess doesn't have the mana for a prolonged expedition through the clouds, so we land and let her into the mansion using the bubble.

With my new skill, I won't suffocate up there. I only have to deal with the poison and specters. I test the metaphorical waters and waltz into the cloud layer. ...By walking up the walls.

I feel fine. Then I feel a bit queasy. Then, I stopped feeling fine. The prolonged exposure to the poisonous gasses makes it ramp up in intensity.

I'm taking damage every second that's slowly growing more and more. Luckily, so are my resistances.

[Resistance: Poison 700 > 701 (841)]

[Resistance: Acid 700 > 701 (841)]

The damage is increasing faster than my resistances, so I can't stay here forever. What I really want is to check something. Once a few dozen feet deep, I remove my boots from the walls and try to walk on the clouds.

It works! I climb higher by alternating which shoe is active and basically stair climb my way up.

Specters notice my presence once I start to move quicker, and they swarm me. Swarm? Did someone say swarm? Too bad my [Swarmbane] title only works on insects.

Instead of swinging my sword, I swing Flash Gordon. Flash Gordon has a [Spiritual Body], meaning that his attacks hurt those who are spiritual entities. My sword deals less damage as I get more and more hurt, so it's not ideal in this situation.

Flash Gordon one-shots them with every casual swing. These creatures are glass cannons, and I like it like that. The trade-off in that style is that every person you can one-shot is somebody who can one-shot you.

Too bad the only attacks they can hit me with deal less damage than the environment they're in. They spit poison or push gusts of their cloud at me, but it’s nothing to write home about. One of them manages to sneak up behind me - I can’t see that well here - and stabs its long, sharp claws into my back.

It hurts. It didn’t trigger any of my resistances except maybe poison. A chunk of my health disappears, and I see a notification.

[Resistance: Spirit 0 > 1]

Ah. A new resistance stat. That’s my seventeenth one. I’m assuming it gives me resistance to spiritual attacks. I have a new stat to train… I don’t want to grind here. The environment makes this not a safe location to be wailed on until the stat stops growing.

I deactivate my shoes and fall from the clouds until I hit the ground, bouncing a few times. Taking no-fall damage is always funny to me. I heal myself with my skill while downing a mana potion. I’ve been drinking too many of these recently. I’ll need to clear these specters out to map this place.

…wait. I have an ingenious plan.

I run up the walls again, and I don’t stop. Since the specters are coming from fewer directions, it’s easier for me to defend myself with Flash Gordon. I got hit a few times, but that’s fine since my resistance grew.

[Resistance: Spirit 1 > 10

Eventually, I break away from the wall and reach the fucked up jellyfish. The specters don't follow me into the clean air, and I catch my breath. Both 'figuratively and literally,' because I'm about to unleash hell on this place.

I use my [Bestial Storage] skill and summon Khan from my mansion to this pocket of oxygen. I pet the closest one, starting deep into their doll-like eyes. I tested one of his skills before gifting Khan one of mine.

I gave him my new one. My [Gaseous Purification]. I gave Khan express instructions to only attack the specters and told him to go hunting. I had to show him the [Toxic Gas Purifiers] so he knows what to spare.

Khan can substitute his bites with elemental damage, meaning these specters will be ripped to shreds by him. I can't see him, but I can hear the screams of death the specters let loose as they fall.

Khan doesn't worry about the clouds of toxicity, thanks to the armor he wears. It can turn his compositions into clouds, and last time I checked, you can't poison a cloud to kill it.

The gas clouds turn turbulent as the crackle of lightning and the booming sounds of thunder ring through this underground sky. I chill with my meat balloons until I run out of mana since my boots require them to function.

I fall from the sky and hold my breath till I'm at the bottom. The ground is littered with crystals, and I didn't meet a single specter on my way down. I summoned Khan to my location with a whistle, using some of my held breath, and noticed that he lost roughly a quarter of his squad. I sent him back to the mansion before reclaiming my skill.

I check the crystals. They are a bit damaged but are in good condition for falling a few hundred feet. I leave the fracture to wrap up my second day working here.

~~~

I contemplated if I wanted to tell the FIB about my discovery, but what would I get from hiding it. I'm slightly attached to those creatures just because they carry the name I give them, but the FIB shouldn't be slaughtering them into extinction.

With proper domestication -which they are already halfway there - they can become tools to help clear other fractures. Finding out how to breed more is the thing you need to know before you can turn entirely unbreathable land into something better.

If air pollution was still a huge issue, then these babies would be able to get rid of it. I base most of my report on their existence and the vents at the top. There are a few tags I have to attach to it, and I put the [New Discovery] one on it.

I send copies of my reports to the relevant people, and a few minutes later, my fracture manager calls me.

"Yo, are you finding new species on your second day here? Damn, congratulations, man. Research is going to be all over you."

"Do you read my reports as soon as I send them? Why?"

"Poisonous fracture, man. I can't be near it when you leave since you could contaminate me. Notice how I wasn't there either time? Your report tells me that you lived."

"How will research be all over me?"

"...hmmm. I had a guy who worked in a fracture I managed. 'Not an explorer, someone who just harvested materials. He found a new armadillo in the fracture that everyone else missed. Researchers hounded him with questions and something about signing over some right."

"What right?"

"I don't know, man. Some obscure policy? Regardless, the pestering got so bad that he quit after relenting to the harassment."

I get a call on my phone.

"One second." I switch the line over.

"Mr. Vincere? This is Researcher H-"

"Don't call my personal communication device. This is a breach of policy. I'm hanging up."

I block them and continue my conversation with my manager.

"One of them called me, but I never put my phone number on my reports."

"They grabbed it from the internal system. They did that to the guy I was talking about, also. Good luck with dealing with it. Let me know if you need help, but I don't know if I could do anything even if I wanted to."

"Okay."

I know every policy in the FIB thanks to my [Lexicon], and nothing matches my manager's story. My phone starts to ring. Messages pop in.

I turn my phone off and go on the rest of my day like nothing happened.