Now that the battle was over and everyone had consolidated their gains, there was one last thing Edge’s crew needed to do before they left the Deep-Gill Grottos—harvest the remains of the colossal catfish.

  Time was of the essence, but Trapper’s team had been hiding under the mountain for weeks, and that much meat could feed a lot of hungry mouths. Additionally, collecting some high-grade crafting materials from the stage-three beast would help Puppet Town arm more of its residents with quality weapons and armor.

  After talking the matter over, the team decided to collect whatever they could over the next hour and then make their way out of the biome.

  Sasha and Edge were professional beast hunters. Between them, they had a fair amount of experience in taking massive carcasses apart. They volunteered to carve up the gatekeeper while Mel stood guard, discouraging the handful of lampreys that were still alive from coming too close. Lilly would focus her efforts on collecting scales and bones. Extracting valuable materials was a regular part of her job as a shadowkiller, but butchering wasn’t, since monster meat was poisonous.

  Before they got started, he froze the water beneath the beast’s body so everyone would have stable ground to stand on. Then the crew went to work.

  He began with a few Slashes to open the fish’s belly. Sasha and Edge pulled out the guts, then began carving giant fillets out of the towering wall of muscle. 45 minutes later, they had separated so much meat that he doubted he had room for it all. They stopped cutting, and he started storing everything inside his Spatial Storage Rune.

  He began with the parts Lilly had prepared. She ignored everything that had been damaged in the fight and focused on collecting intact strips of skin and the sturdiest bones. He picked up each load and then focused his will—imagining placing the items into his vault. After paying a small amount of mana, the items disappeared with a snap of displaced air and he grabbed the next set.

  It came out to around 300 pounds worth of high-grade materials, which left him with enough room for over 1,000 pounds of meat. Starting with the choicest cuts, he continued filling his spatial storage until it was packed to the brim, removing some unessential items along the way.

  “That’s a lot of provisions,” Sasha said while washing up in the lake. “It would be a shame to let it spoil, given how nutritious high-stage beast meat is. We should use your iceblade to deep-freeze the lot, so it will keep until we’re ready to eat it.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Edge replied. “Some of it is frozen already, but I should have chilled the rest before I started storing it.” He was about to start taking the fillets back out when inspiration struck. Since the storage vault exists inside my inner world, maybe my avatars can interact with the contents.

  He had no idea if this was going to work, but he figured it was worth a shot. He stepped inside his central chamber and walked over to his skill village. He asked Chibime to help translate, then came to a stop in front of the glowing crystal sword that represented Elemental Blade.

  “Hi.” He waved to the avatar. “I want to perform a little experiment and was wondering if you could lend me a moment of your time.” The skill bobbed its agreement, and the three of them walked over to the reinforced door that led to his vault. He swung it open, then pointed to the towering pile of fish fillets inside. “I was wondering if you could freeze that for me.”

  The sword paused as it considered the request, and Chibime made a series of gestures while Sea flew over to find out what they were up to. Then Elemental Blade floated into the vault and touched the first mound. To Edge’s delight, the whole pile was frozen solid within a matter of seconds, and the sword moved onto the next.

  When it was done, he thanked the avatar for its service and asked, “Do you think you could do this again every so often? Keep everything nice and frozen.” Chibime translated then flashed a thumbs up. “Awesome. You guys are the best. Keep up the good work.”

  The fact that his avatars could influence the contents of his spatial storage was a fascinating development. Edge suspected it would lead to some interesting interactions later down the road. At the least, he could use his vault as a freezer without having to micromanage everything himself. He should never have to worry about running out of provisions again, and it would be easy to keep his kills in pristine condition going forward. That rune really is an Epic reward and more than worth the implant points it cost to bind it.

  Now that the labor-intensive job was finished, everyone took five minutes to catch their breath and clean up, which gave him a chance to check out his new powers. He would get to Darkvision a little later, but he could take his rank-four upgrades for Repel Water and Conceal on a quick trial run now.

  Edge tried out Conceal first. Using the stealth skill felt the same as always, although the cost was a little higher than before, since the drain from the added functionality wasn’t quite balanced out by the improved efficiency.

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  When he asked the women what they sensed, they reported that he was almost impossible to detect by both mundane and magical means. Even when he paid for a quick combo and manifested his iceblade, Lilly said the spell’s signature was faint enough that she wouldn’t have noticed it if he wasn’t standing right beside her. I should ask Tessa to take a look later and see how well it holds up against her mana sensitivity.

  Then he moved on to Repel Water. He had learned some details from the vision that accompanied the upgrade, but he needed some hands-on experience before using it in battle. When he activated the skill, shaping the repellent field worked just like before, though the cost was lower thanks to the enhanced efficiency that came with each new rank.

  But there was another component Edge could add that would make things considerably more complex—a smaller field that could burn mana to generate water. He turned off the repulsion field, then tried out the new functionality, placing the generative field a few feet in front of his body.

  To his delight, a stream of pure water gushed forth, splattering against the blood-soaked stones before draining into the lake. It took considerably more mana to create water than it did to push it, which meant he couldn’t leave it running for more than a few minutes at a time. All right, that was easy enough. Now let’s try using them together.

  Remembering what he’d sensed during the battle, he created a narrow cone of repulsion, then placed the smallest generative field he could make at the base and switched the water on. A spray like a firehose erupted from his position, knocking him off his feet. Everyone got a good laugh as Edge stood up and gave it another try. This time, I’ll add a repulsive section behind the generative field. It should strengthen the output and keep it from kicking back.

  When he activated his revised creation, the spray was stronger than before and didn’t shove him around. It wasn’t nearly as intense as the gatekeeper’s drill, but the flow was impressive for an early attempt. When he had time to experiment with adjusting the shape of both components and worked out the optimal way to combine them, the skill should pack a real punch.

  He broke into a broad grin as he shut off the flow. It’s going to take some practice to get this right, but I finally have my first ranged attack skill. By now, the crew was ready to head out. Everyone rose to their feet and left the cavern through the tunnel on the far end of the lake—eager to leave the biome and reunite with Trapper’s team.

  They pushed themselves hard, but eight hours later, Gauge Depth told him they were only about halfway between the gatekeeper’s lair and the surface. The borderlands between the grottos and the tunnels under the mountain were complex and twisting, although there were far fewer beasts.

  While they were worried about their friends, it gave the crew a chance to refill their reservoirs and recover from the fight. Since everyone was sleepy and they still had a long way to go, they decided to sleep for four hours and make the final push when they woke up.

  Extraction should be ready by the time we reach the expedition. Edge nodded to himself. Stealing the jailbirds’ skills will feel good after what those bastards put me through in the dungeon.

  He volunteered to take the first watch. Since this series of switchbacks was pitch black—unlike the regions illuminated by fungus or crystals—it was a perfect opportunity to try out Darkvision. After making sure nothing dangerous was lurking nearby, he switched off the magelight Lilly had loaned him, plunging him into impenetrable velvet midnight.

  A shiver ran down his spine as he stared into the darkness—blind in the midst of a deadly frontier region. That all changed when Edge ignited his core and willed the skill to activate. Refined mana came flowing out of his reactor and gathered in front of his eyes, at which point something incredible occurred.

  This skill worked a bit differently than Penetrate Mist or Penetrate Foliage, which modified the properties of his eyeballs. Instead, Darkvision projected an image directly onto his retinas, which gave it the unusual side effect of working even when his eyes were closed or his head was covered.

  His jaw dropped when he realized he could see the unlit cavern clear as day, although there weren’t any colors at all—just varying shades of gray. He soon realized the skill worked a bit like echolocation, projecting particles of mana from his position, then reading them when they bounced off objects and returned to his body.

  Since it was an ocular power, he couldn’t see behind objects or sense anything that was beyond his field of view—though that might change after an upgrade or two. On the other hand, he didn’t have to learn how to use a brand-new sense, which meant he could use the skill to its fullest without having to practice.

  There was a period of adjustment while he got used to the color scheme, but after leaving it on for an hour, Darkvision felt almost as natural as using his own eyes to see. It had a range limit of a few hundred yards—beyond which objects started to grow fuzzy—though he could still get a sense for motion further out.

  He wondered that since the skill let him “see” by bouncing mana off his environment, it would be able to pierce certain types of concealment skills, which would be a juicy bonus on top of its primary function.

  Not bad at all. Now I can move through dark places without giving my location away and can see even if I’m blindfolded. The mana drain was trivial, which meant he could leave Darkvision running without having to worry about the cost, and since it was a passive skill, it wouldn’t count as a combo.

  Best of all, he wound up being wrong about light being a problem. When Edge flicked the magelight back on, nothing changed… until he opened his eyes. He yelped in surprise when an intense bar of light blinded him, which went away the moment he closed them again.

  He quickly realized what the problem was. Since it’s projecting light onto my retinas, the radiance is doubling up when my eyelids are open. He decided to leave both Darkvision and his magelight running so he could grow accustomed to the grayscale view, but the women wouldn’t worry if they woke up and couldn’t see.

  Now that he was certain he wanted to keep the sensory-enhancing power, he had an idea he wanted to run past the master of skills—merging Darkvision and Penetrate Foliage.