You have accumulated sufficient experience to cycle up your core. Your new cycle is: 29.
You have accumulated sufficient experience to cycle up your core. Your new cycle is: 30.
You have accumulated sufficient experience to cycle up your core. Your new cycle is: 31.
You have accumulated sufficient experience to cycle up your core. Your new cycle is: 32.
You have 20 attribute points awaiting allocation.
For defeating multiple cored opponents Stage 2 or above, several of which possessed additional Mortium, you have earned 29 Mortium.
Whoa. That’s a lot of lifecoins. Shaking his head in disbelief at the number on the screen, he considered how he wanted to spend his attribute points.
After fighting in several large-scale battles, Edge had come to appreciate just how important it was to be able to use his skills freely. He’d picked up quite a few passives, not to mention Manifest Chain, Maelstrom, and Warlord’s Mantle.
Most of his powers were Rare or above by this point and fairly expensive to activate. Going forward, he needed to stack passives and unleash combos without running out of mana and save Overdrive for emergencies or hunting big game. Being able to maintain Mantle on large groups will come in handy too.
After thinking the matter through, he decided to put all 20 points into Generation. He no longer had a set plan for his growth—although he intended to focus heavily on his skills—and would play it by ear from this point on. I’ll put another 10 points into Generation soon, then I should be set until I evolve and gain more slots.
On top of all the amazing skills he had picked up, Edge was thrilled to have officially crossed the halfway point to reaching stage three. That thought reminded him of his unresolved situation with Skill-Eater, but he refused to contemplate the matter until he’d taken a few days to enjoy his homecoming and victory over the Claws.
As he walked, he opened his profile to check out the progress he’d made during the war.
Personal Statistics: Edge Vasher
Attributes (Values in parentheses are provided by your traits)
Physical Attributes
Power: 20 (25)
Endurance: 20 (25)
Durability: 35 (41)
Reflex: 17 (20)
Speed: 20 (25)
Control: 20 (25)
Perception: 23 (26)
Energetic Attributes
Generation: 48 (51)
Amplification: 41 (44)
Disruption: 35 (41)
Core Information
Name: [Skill-Eater]
Stage: 2
Cycle: 32/63
Rarity: Unique
Category: Unique
Attribute points per cycle: 5
Ultimate Abilities
[Extraction]
Uses per day: 3
Cooldown period: 20 hours
Steal the skills of monsters, men, and beasts and claim them for your own.
[Overdrive]
Cooldown period: 1 week
Overdrive increases your Amplification by (10 x stage) for 60 seconds. Activating skills will not require mana during this period. You will be severely exhausted for 60 seconds after Overdrive is complete.
Skill Bond
Your relationship with your skills will enhance their power. As these bonds deepen, it may alter their behavior in novel ways.
Core Traits
Collector (Unique)
You can no longer acquire or rank up skills through normal means. You may slot twice as many skills as before. Additionally, you will gain an extra skill slot with every new stage.
Devourer (Unique)
You may absorb an unwanted skill, freeing its slot and granting a fraction of its experience to the skill of your choice. Be advised, the return on this exchange is significantly less efficient than extracting a duplicate of an existing skill.
Skills
Skill slots: 18 (Unused slots: 1)
Counter Disruption (Uncommon): Rank 2. Path: Dual-Link.
Enhance two paired powers by making them resistant to Disruption Fields.
Harden (Uncommon): Rank 3. Path: Coverage.
Cover large portions of your body in diamond scales.
Regeneration (Uncommon): Rank 4. Paths: Unlimited Regeneration/Purification.
Rapidly heal wounds. Regeneration can restore destroyed organs at a significantly slower rate. Regeneration will actively purify foreign mana from your body.
Regulate Temperature
(Uncommon): Rank 3. Path: Protection.
Gain significant insulation against temperature change, including elemental attacks.
Repel Water
Push large volumes of water away from the user. The shape of the repulsive field can be altered at will. Additionally, a second field may be placed that manifests a considerable volume of water.
All-Seeing Gaze
(Rare): Rank 1.
You may peer through plants or use particles of mana to create a representation of your environment. The first configuration of this power includes a weak thermal vision component. Additional information may be revealed while using both modes at once, although doing so may induce sensory overload.
Double Slash (Rare): Rank 3. Path: Disruption.
Empower an attack with a bladed weapon. The weapon will have an offset double, and its edge will be magically sharpened while the skill is active. Additionally, the blade will be coated in a weak Disruption field.
Elemental Blade
Create a subzero blade of ice or infuse a bladed weapon with a chilling aura.
Mental Fortress
(Rare): Rank 1.
Provides a potent layer of protection against any magic attempting to influence your mental state, emotions, or sensory perceptions. It can shield you from direct mind-reading, but not skills that interpret body language, vocal tone, or biorhythms.
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Sense Natural Treasures
(Rare): Rank 2. Path: Rarity.
Detect any nearby resources that are unusually rare, valuable, or useful in crafting. These deposits will be indicated by glowing light, with brightness corresponding to size and quality. This power may penetrate several feet into earth or stone and can detect even minute quantities of extremely rare resources.
Shadow Play (Rare): Rank 1.
Transform into shadows. In this state, your body is malleable and immune to physical attacks. The cost of transforming your gear is greatly reduced.
While in shadow form, you may jump with explosive force without consuming additional mana. Additionally, you will emit no scent or heat signatures, and your mana signature will be muted. Visually, you will appear to be a faint shadow that blends in well with most environments.
On activation, the last 25 feet of your trail will be removed, and your Durability will increase for 10 seconds.
Warlord’s Mantle
Cover yourself and chosen allies within range with a mantle of mana. Anyone bolstered by Warlord’s Mantle will receive a significant boost to Power and Speed and a moderate bonus to Reflex and Control. Additionally, they will receive a slight enhancement to their combat awareness. Any blow passing through the mantle will have a portion of its energy sapped.
Wind Ward
Wind Ward creates a powerful vortex when it detects an incoming projectile attack. This effect is triggered automatically. The ward is potent enough to destroy many missiles outright and strong enough deflect even more. If for some reason a projectile cannot be deflected, Wind Ward will attempt to reduce its velocity instead. This skill has a cooldown of 5 minutes.
Intimidating Roar (Epic): Rank 2. Path: Pack Leader.
This aural attack infuses the listener’s nervous system with a powerful wave of mana, creating an intense state of fear. Intimidating Roar can cause complete paralysis against weaker opponents and may impair stronger creatures to a lesser extent. Allied creatures will not be affected by this skill.
Fear the Seasons
(Epic): Rank 2. Path: Elemental Enhancement.
This skill features two separate components, which are both influenced by the turning of the seasons. The passive component may be activated independently of the domain and provides a significant bonus to a single attribute. Manifesting the skill’s domain requires payment up front and costs a modest amount of mana to maintain.
At Rank 2, Fear the Seasons provides the following benefits:
Season (Passive attribute bonus, Element bonus, Domain)
Spring: Generation, Water, Deluge.
Summer: Power, Fire, Heatwave.
Fall: Speed, Wind, Maelstrom.
Winter: Disruption, Ice, Blizzard.
Additional powers may be unlocked as the skill advances in rank.
The current season is: Fall.
Summon Companion
Summon a bonded Companion to your side or transport it to a pocket dimension where it can rest safely.
Companions are living creatures. They may acquire skills that will naturally advance over time. Summon Companion does not have a rank and cannot acquire experience via Absorption. If your Companion dies, this skill will be destroyed.
Manifest Chain
You may summon a chain of oblivion and guide it by your will. The chain may also be freed to act at its own discretion. If the manifestation is destroyed, it cannot be summoned again for 24 hours.
At Rank 2, you may only manifest the left chain, Foebinder. Foebinder can carry considerable weight and features considerable retractive power. It is resilient to physical attacks and weak against magic.
2 unknown skills (Rare) are being digested.
Traits
Trait slots: 5 (Unused slots: 0)
Triple Tap
You are either a genius, blessed by the heavens, or the luckiest motherfucker on the planet. You managed to win a fight against three opponents at least one stage higher than yourself and—more or less—landed the killing blow on each.
Effects: +10% to Power, Speed, and Control (minimum gain of 1).
Wanted
You have found 1 of the 21 Unique cores in existence, which has painted a target on your back. In fact, checking out the bounty board is probably something you should do sooner rather than later.
There’s a good chance that this is going to end spectacularly badly for you, and I can’t wait to watch it all play out. This trait might help you live a little bit longer, but I’m not holding my breath.
Effects: +10% to Endurance, Durability, and Disruption (minimum gain of 1).
Big Game Hunter
Holy shit. That. Was. Fucking. Awesome!
You managed to score a kill on a colossal and behemoth creature, all in the same afternoon. I’m shocked to my circuits that you’re still breathing and loved every second of the show.
I hope that you try something that batshit crazy again soon. Here’s a trait that should incentivize you to do just that.
Effect: 50% more damage with weapons and skills to creatures at least 20 times your size (excluding magitech weapons, traps, and spellshots).
25% extra Perception when sensing creatures at least twice your size.
Raid Wiper
Your actions have led to the death of multiple cored crews in a short span of time. Your involvement wasn’t direct enough to award experience, but you get an A+ for effort. Not to mention, a sexy new trait to commemorate the achievement.
Don’t worry, none of your people were inside when the dungeon sealed itself.
Effects: +30% damage dealt when facing 5 or more enemies at or above your stage (excluding magitech weapons, traps, and spellshots). Once activated, this bonus will persist until the end of the fight.
Spelunker
I didn’t think you had it in you, but once again, you’ve proven to be remarkably resourceful and harder to kill than a stage-seven cockroach. Not only have you managed to successfully cross an unknown biome filled with hostile beasts, you did it fast enough to make it in time for the main event.
If you hurry, you can join the showdown between Puppet Town’s expeditionary force and the Crimson Claws, which is set to begin approximately… now. The fight with the fish was fun, and I’m ready to enjoy the second screening of this glorious double feature, so get up there and show those jailbirds what the hunters of Ord are made of.
I’m rooting for you, although watching you die should be almost as entertaining. Either way, today is going to be awesome.
Effects: +3 to all attributes.
Fit and Toned (unequipped)
You’ve managed to push your new body to the limit, maxing your conditioning across the board. I must admit that you’re looking pretty good. The monsters will have some eye candy to appreciate while they’re tearing you apart. That being said, you aren’t the baddest mofo in the dungeon. Not by a long shot.
Oh, and be careful—I don’t think the bone slime will be alive for much longer.
Effects: +1 to all physical attributes.
Implants and Runic Bonds
Implants
Implant points: 6 (Unused points: 0)
Heart-Guard (Common)
Size: Small (1 implant point). Aether type: Silver. Charge: Empty.
This implant generates a barrier to protect the heart when it detects incoming damage.
Auxiliary Skill Slot (Uncommon)
Size: Small (1 implant point). Aether type: N/A.
This Auxiliary Skill Slot can be used to socket an extra skill beyond the limit of your core. The skill placed in this slot cannot gain experience, cycle up, or be merged or altered in any way, although it can be Absorbed and replaced with a new skill at will.
This is a passive, structural implant. As such, it does not require an aether charge to function.
Contents: Sense Fruit.
Bound Runes
Frostfury Medallion (Rare)
Type: Runic item.
Strain: Low (1 implant point).
Significantly boost the output of all cold-based magic.
Rune of Spatial Storage (Epic).
Type: Core rune.
Strain: High (3 implant points).
This rune creates a spatial storage chamber within your body that can be accessed at will. The dimensions of the chamber total 5,000 cubic feet, and its maximum load is 2,000 pounds. Storing and retrieving items from this space will drain a small amount of mana.
System Currency
Credits: 104,150
Mortium: 119
Fantastic. On top of everything else, he had two Rare skills that were almost finished digesting, including the deadly attack Yussuf had used to claw his way up to the top of the Claws. Edge winced at his own pun, which reminded him that he wanted to check in on the peacekeepers and find out how Mel and Earl were doing.
The injured defenders were recovering in the hospital attached to Doc’s clinic, so he walked over to the facility and quietly stepped through the door. Most of the people inside were resting, including Doc and his apprentices—who had been working through the night to treat all the wounded warriors.
Edge asked the woman working behind the front desk where Mel was, then headed over to the room she’d been assigned. When he poked his head in, he saw she was awake, although the guardswoman was on a massive dose of painkillers until her injuries could be treated with another round of healing magic and alchemical medicine.
She smiled when she saw him. He smiled back, took her hand, and sat in a chair beside the bed.
“Mel. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you’re still in one piece. How is Earl doing? None of us would be here without him.” She told him the sheriff’s surgery had been successful, and while Earl was down an arm and a leg, he was out of the woods and in stable condition.
She also had the tally of their losses. Since the expedition had left for the Savage Garden, Puppet Town had lost 47 people, including twelve peacekeepers, ten hunters, and eleven members of the support squad. The other casualties had been uncored civilians who were killed by Claws inside the walls. The settlement had also lost seven trained beasts. It was a tragic loss of life, but a miracle under the circumstances.
Edge spent a while chatting with Mel before being chased out by one of Doc’s apprentices. He said hello to Violet on the way out, then moved onto the next item on his list.
He had quite a few places he wanted to stop by over the next few days. He needed to have some work commissioned at the Forge using the best materials he’d acquired during his adventures, then get the rest of them out of his vault and into the hands of the town’s crafters.
He planned to stop by the Consortium’s store to restock his consumables and visit the alchemists’ ward to buy more medicine and weapon oil and pick up the reward Melchior had mentioned. Most exciting of all, he was ready to visit the Mortium exchange and turn in some of his stash for an assortment of the high-grade gear he’d been fantasizing about since the first time he had stepped inside the store.
While I’m there, I should say hello to Ann and look into upgrading my implants like Lilly suggested. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to get a chance to cut me open. But before he got to any of that, Edge needed to find out how many Credits he had to spend, which meant it was time to stop by the bounty board and pick up the rewards he’d earned from killing the Claws.
As he walked over to the town square, Edge decided he had mixed feelings about using the bounty board. On one hand, he didn’t like the idea of being paid to kill another person—especially considering the astronomical bounty someone had placed on people with Unique cores. On the other, the jailbirds he’d defeated had attacked his people without provocation, intending to slaughter them without mercy and steal their home.
Under the circumstances, he felt it was only fair that their deaths resulted in reparations to the people they’d harmed. That being said, we should probably get rid of the board after everyone collects what they’ve earned. The whole bounty system was a legacy of an era that had ended with the anomaly—when every aspect of Puppet Town had been geared toward maximizing the profits the System made from the Prison World feeds.
The kiosk was an artifact of when life on Ord had been a cross between a popularity contest, a death game, and a dream vacation. It no longer had a place now that people were stuck here for good and their deaths were all too permanent.
After ducking inside the small chamber, Edge Concealed himself out of habit, then waited for his Guide to appear. The mote of golden light floated up to the pillar of machinery comprising the kiosk, updating the bounty board with the information from his latest exploits.
Edge had killed twenty-three Claws during the war for Puppet Town, including Yussuf the Red and three of the gang’s elites. It came as no surprise that the jailbirds had plenty of enemies, and his combined reward came out to a jaw-dropping 450,000 Credits.
Combined with his 119 Mortium, there was a good chance he was the richest person in the settlement, and that didn’t even take into account the heaping mound of valuable resources filling his spatial storage.
“Hell yes!” Edge pumped his fist as he stepped outside the kiosk and let the next person take their turn. “At long last, it’s time for a mega shopping spree.”