[Skill-Eater 2] Chapter 80: Extraction Distraction (Patreon)

The resource in question was a cluster of purple crystals sticking out from the surface of a big black boulder. Edge didn’t recognize them, but given the minerals’ appearance and placement within the dungeon, the odds were good that they were a high-grade crafting material.

The outcropping wasn’t much bigger than both of his fists together, and he had plenty of room in his pack. Since he lacked the time and the tools to try anything fancy, he decided to remove them the only way he could think of, carving into the rock with Double Slash and then pulling the cluster free.

The problem was that the extra blade the skill created would lower his precision, increasing the odds of damaging the gems and lowering their value. It’s too bad that I can’t use my old Slash skill anymore. It would be perfect for this job. That was when he remembered his conversations with Regeneration and Conceal. Wait. Maybe I can.

Edge sent his consciousness into his core. Then he walked over to his skill garden and stopped in front of the stone statue of a man carrying two overlapping naginatas that represented Double Slash. He bent down and waved hello. “Hey there, friend. How are things?” The statue looked up, waved back, then shrugged. So far, so good. Let’s give this a try.

“I absolutely love Double Slash, and I’m thrilled that your merger worked out so well, but I was wondering if it might be possible to use the slash part of your skill without the double while I dig some crystals out of a rock. I won’t bore you with the details, but it would really help me out.”

He wasn’t sure that the skill’s avatar understood him, although they communicated through their bond more than his specific choice of words. Before Edge could call Chibime over to help translate, the statue rubbed its chin and nodded. It reached out with its miniature polearm and concentrated. To his delight, the overlapping blades shifted into a single naginata, before blurring back into the weapon’s dual configuration.

Edge had the sense that if he willed it, the skill could mimic the old version of Slash going forward. It wouldn’t lower Double Slash’s mana cost to its previous value, but he could use a single blade when he needed to unleash a precision strike and retain the bonus sharpness and extra power the skill provided.

“Thanks. I appreciate you being flexible. Not to mention, saving my ass pretty much every time I get into a fight.” The naginata-wielding statue bowed and then ran off to play, joining Conceal, Repel Water, and Regeneration in a complex game he couldn’t even begin to guess the rules of. He stopped to greet each of his skills and thank them for their service, then returned to the outside world, where a little over three seconds had passed while he was away.

Edge raised his polearm, turned to face the cluster of crystals, then Slashed at the rock beside it. As he’d been hoping, mana congealed along the blade to sharpen the cutting surface, while flowing through his arms to increase the momentum of the blow. With a great spray of stone, the naginata’s blade carved into the boulder.

Three more well-positioned Slashes and the gemstones came free, without a single scratch marring their surface. Awesome. He was thrilled that his idea had worked out so well. Now it’s time to get out of here, before something shows up to see what was making all that noise.

Although the clock was ticking and each second was a precious resource, the brief break had yielded some valuable rewards. Edge had picked up a new crafting material and deepened his relationship with Double Slash in the process. After placing the crystals in his bag, he was ready to resume his hunt for a skill the black chains wanted and pray that he found what he needed before long.

Two arduous hours later, he had only managed to travel another half mile. The swamp was even more treacherous to traverse along this section of the dungeon’s wall. While he was slowly mapping a viable route with the assistance of his wayfinder, it was taking far too long to move from one strip of dry land to another. And as bad as it was here, the rivers and islands in the fourth zone would be even more problematic to navigate.

I need to find a way to cross open water instead of walking along this warren of islands, isthmuses, and peninsulas. It would save a ton of time and dramatically expand my options.

He spotted several more monsters as he continued his search, including two that he intended to fight once he managed to evolve. Unfortunately, none of them were packing a power that the living links wanted as far as he could tell.

Too many of the creatures in this zone live below the water. I need to move back into the jungle as soon as the mist returns. Trying not to let his impatience get the better of him, he forced himself to focus on his surroundings and resumed his painstaking search.

Late in the afternoon, Edge came across a dying insect monster, which reminded him of a weaponized water strider the size of a small boat. After making sure that whatever had wounded it was nowhere nearby, he walked closer—narrowly avoiding a wad of poison that it shot from its rear along the way.

He Shadow Stepped to close the distance, then summoned his iceblade and pierced its abdomen. Once the subzero sword had lowered the monster’s temperature to the point where it was so weak that it could barely move, he reached out and used Extraction.

Since the monster was dying and he didn’t want to suffer the consequences of exposing himself to the corruption inside its core, he only took a quick peek before leaving and letting the chains handle the rest.

The strider’s inner world featured a fetid swamp, with water so purple that it was nearly black. The scent of decay filled the air—even sharper than the filth suffusing the Savage Garden. It was night and the sky was overcast, but he was pretty sure that it was the same world he’d seen before. Although it couldn’t be anywhere close to the landscape he’d witnessed inside the elite’s inner world, given the wet climate and lack of volcanic activity.

The monster was too weak to steal more than one power, but it had a duplicate of a skill that was already in Edge’s collection. He claimed a copy of rank-two Repel Water, which filled the cup representing his version’s skill experience over a third of the way by itself. As he pondered his latest acquisition, an insight came to him. It must have been using Repel Water to travel across the surface of the swamp. Maybe I can do it too.

Given how powerful the monsters inhabiting the Savage Garden were, trying to swim from island to island was a veritable death sentence. Making a raft and floating across would be almost as bad, since anything adapted to living in the water was bound to be able to swim faster than he could paddle.

But if he could form the right shape with the skill’s versatile field, Repel Water just might do the trick. Whenever he used the power, Edge felt a sense of resistance pushing back the other way. It wasn’t nearly as intense as the repelling end, but he thought that if he pressed against a large enough body of water hard enough, he could use it to float while propelling him across the surface—effectively water skiing without a boat. Maybe I should call it Repel Waterskiing if I can get it to work.

While he walked, he kept an eye out for a place where the water ran shallow, so that he could make a hasty exit if this didn’t wind up working out the way that he hoped. He eventually came across something promising—a vast pool surrounded by mud that was only three feet deep.

After making sure that nothing nasty was lurking near or below the waterline, he approached the shallows and gave it a try. Edge ignited his core and activated Repel Water, visualizing the field as a hemisphere spreading out below his boots.

Refined mana flowed out of his reactor, through his skill socket, then out beyond the boundary of his body. Once the field was stable, he stepped into the puddle. He immediately turned sideways and fell over, driving himself face first into the mud before he turned off the skill.

Glad that no one was around to witness the embarrassing incident, he crawled out the muck and shook himself off. The field was too narrow and too tightly curved. I need to make it broader and flatter around the ends. He imagined the new shape he wanted the repulsive field to take, then gave it another try.

Edge nearly fell over again, teetering precariously until he refined his technique enough to remain upright. He was hovering just a few inches above the surface, displacing the water enough to reveal the mud below.

This area was too shallow to see if he could move while using the skill, although the results were promising. He walked a few feet deeper and tried it again. This time, the water bulged below him, like someone had pressed an invisible spoon against the surface.

He was able to rise a bit further, but he could already tell that it wasn’t going to work. There wasn’t enough lift to get him moving, although it was encouraging that the skill could support his weight. He was pretty sure that he could make this work after all, but not today. His best option was to put a few more cycles into Amplification, take Repel Water to rank three, then give it another go.

Happy to have stolen a skill and come up with a solution to a pressing problem, Edge lowered himself to the ground, and resumed seeking a power that would help him evolve.