Chương 19: A New Favourite Skill

The moment the skill tome dissolved she felt a form of energy entering her body, then seeping deeper, and deeper, past the physical and into the part of her she was only newly aware of. The place where the 'she' in the real world connected to the 'she' inside of herself. Then the energy seeped deeper still before she could follow the connection no longer. Now that she had it, Scarlet first queried the guide about her new skill.

[Inspect - Tier 2: Provides an overview of a target's properties, general condition, and immediately relevant qualities. Results scale with user knowledge, target resistance, and relative power.] Okay, time to put the skill to the test. She inspected the Inspect skill. Scarlet couldn't believe it actually worked. [Inspect - Tier 2: Active. A skill that provides an overview of a target's properties, general condition, and immediately relevant qualities. It is a System-assisted appraisal skill. One of the most common T2 advancements in the 'Observe' skill tree. Results scale with user knowledge, target resistance, and relative power.]"Well now," Scarlet breathed, finally beginning to shake off the numbness that had overwhelmed her in the aftermath of the battle and revelations. There was a lot to unpack there. The good thing was that this 'artificial' skill assimilation hadn't done any lasting damage that she could perceive.

As far as she was aware, her soul hadn't exploded, her mind hadn't melted and her body was as intact as it had been before that book had disolved into her. Speaking of books, before she got lost in testing out her new skill, Scarlet reminded herself she wasn't finished receiving her loot. She still had the knowledge tome, and she wondered if it was anything like a skill book. [Tome - Knowledge: A System-supported artifact enabling direct assimilation of information into retrievable memory. Depth, clarity, and integration are determined by the tome's quality and the recipient's capacity and compatibility] She tilted her head slightly, considering the phrasing. Assimilate, not learn. It also appeared that degrees of assimilation were variable based on the individual, which was fair. Adding a cup of water to an ocean wouldn't do much to change the ocean, whereas adding a cup of water to another cup of water would double the volume.

Scarlet had received ' Initiate Guide to Butchering, Harvesting, and Scavenging'. Concepts she was familiar with, though not proficient at. Presumably if some master woodsperson assimilated this tome they might learn a trick or two, but it was unlikely to teach them much, however, if they gave it to a promising new apprentice, the knowledge would be significantly more impactful.

[Would you like to Retrieve Knowledge Tome: Initiate Guide to Butchering, Harvesting, and Scavenging] [Yes] The tome constituted into reality the same way the bag and skill book had. Much like the skill book, the tome was somehow both a book and not a book at all. There was a different off-ness to the tome that she couldn't quite explain. She focused on it. [Assimilate Knowledge Tome: Initiate Guide to Butchering, Harvesting, and Scavenging?] [Yes | No] No matter, she figured, Inspecting the tome in her hands.

[Knowledge Tome: Initiate Guide to Butchering, Harvesting, and Scavenging Tier: 0 Condition: Perfect Details: Contains practical instruction in the processing of many System recognized organic materials, including butchering, resource extraction, and scavenging Effect: Grants foundational competency in tool use, material separation, and resource identification Limitations: Does not grant enhanced physical ability or instinctive execution (muscle memory)]"Oh, Inspect.

What a treasure you are," she murmured, marveling at the details in the item description. No longer would she be left bumbling in the dark about the most obvious items she happened to find. The only real questions Scarlet had were: just how valuable truly this tome was, and how valuable was it for her specifically. Looking around her at all the bodies she had yet to process her eyes fell on the bisected corpse of the shadow bat. It was gross, yes but it was also alien to her.

She had no clue how normal bats compared to these post-Initiation mutations. She was doubtful harvesting creatures and plants with magical properties would be the same. Not collecting the materials from her fallen enemies was out of the question now that she had a handy-dandy storage bag. At present moment, she had no master woodsperson to do the harvesting for her, and even if she did, they'd both be gambling with whether they were making a mess of things. You could be reading stolen content.

Head to the original site for the genuine story. No, better to have the knowledge she figured. [Assimilate Knowledge Tome: Initiate Guide to Butchering, Harvesting, and Scavenging?] [Yes | No] [Yes] Her knees buckled, her stomach roiled, and she felt a pressure in her head that was so overwhelming that she thought her eyes might pop out of her skull. It was a fight to hold in her groan of misery, but one she focused on to get her through the seconds that felt like hours.

Then as quickly as it came, the sensation receded, leaving her with a lingering headache as she apologized to Maus. Poor little fellow had nearly been thrown off when she'd doubled over. After settling her bond, and her stomach, she scanned around the yard again, only this time, when she looked at the bodies, she had a vague sense of 'knowing' something. Like that feeling of having a word on tip of your tongue, only this wasn't a word, it was knowledge.

Somehow, she just knew that if she began to actively meditate on the concepts within the tome, she'd gain a deeper understanding of the knowledge, and that even if she only ever bothered to make use of the surface knowledge, simply beginning to skin and clean the bodies would give her access to the information as she needed it. Overall, a decent reward haul. At least to her limited knowledge. The storage bag by itself was a treasure.

Perhaps skill books and tomes were as common as self-help books in other worlds and factions, not that scarcity made them any less useful and timely. Now that she had her System rewards, it was time to finish collecting her battle loot. Unfortunately, she'd have to harvest it herself. She shifted her attention to the nearest carcass and inspected it. [Roidcoon Corpse – Level 3 Tier: 0 Condition: Damaged Details: The corpse of a Tier 0 creature. Harvestable materials include pelt, bones, and some meat and organs] Interesting. She wondered if perhaps her new harvesting knowledge was helping Inspect give her more information. She Inspected the rest of the roidcoon corpses and received similar information, until she got to the final one. The one that had blasted them with that sonic attack. On top of the usual information about levels and harvestable pelts she saw something new. [… Harvestable materials include pelt, bones, some organs, and a kinetic mana shard.] Just what was a kinetic mana shard? She queried the Guide. [A mana shard is a partially formed mana crystal or mana core. They are produced naturally within creatures or areas of high mana density. Shards may contain either attuned or unattuned mana.] She turned to the shadow bat to see if she found something similar in the only other creature she'd fought that had used a skill.

[Shadow Bat Corpse – Level 5 Tier: 0 Condition: Damaged Details: The corpse of a Tier 0 creature. Harvestable materials include pelt, bones, some organs, and a kinetic/shadow mana shard.] Okay, this she had to see. She needed to use Inspect on it, and that meant she had to find it. She trudged to the detached garage where she kept her father's hunting kit – asshole knew his stuff, her cleaning supplies, and extra nitrile gloves.

It also had a conveniently placed sink where a certain nasty mouse could receive another good scrub. Once she was back out under the floodlights it took her little time to begin the harvesting process. It took considerable effort and willpower for her to systematically butcher and harvest the creature according to the information from the tome. She really wanted to just get to the shard, but impatience would get her nothing but waste.

If she had to collect her own loot, she was damn well getting every last usable claw and tendon these nightmare creatures had to offer. On a positive note, she found that all the parts she collected had a close enough 'signature' that her new storage bag let her put it all in one slot. Also, watching things appear and disappear into the bag was both fascinating and deeply unnerving. She'd discovered she didn't even need to place items into the opening.

So long as she made contact and willed it into the bag, whatever she had been touching would just, vanish. She looked down at the slightly damp Maus, who was staying warm inside her shirt, and thought of all the mischief they could get up to if she shared storage access with him. She continued to butcher the roidcoon, glad this one had bled out so she didn't have to hang it up with some of the others, when finally, the shard was in her hands.

The shard looked a bit like a translucent silver crystal with some red and gold iridescent facets depending on which way she turned it under the lights. It was both smaller and bigger than she'd thought it would be. About the size of a peach pit, but relative to the size of the animal, it was substantial. She wondered just how much bigger a fully developed core might have been as she used Inspect.

[Kinetic Mana Shard: Tier: 0 Condition: Perfect Details: A shard containing kinetic mana formed within a Tier 0 creature.] There was that word again, attunement. When she'd queried the Guide, it had given her the predictable nonsense about needing to advance before it gave her more information, however she was picking up enough clues to understand that mana attunement had something to do with different types of mana. The process of butchering the shadow bat took much longer.

Not because the skin was tougher, in fact it was the opposite. Unlike the roidcoon whose mana seemed to mostly concentrate in the area around the shard, the shadow bat had mana suffusing it. Scarlet was quite glad she'd decided to assimilate the tome because she would have absolutely butchered the shadow bat harvest otherwise. Pun absolutely intended.

Once all the usable pieces of the bat were neatly stored away in her handy-dandy storage bag, Scarlet was left with what appeared to be a grey and silver, translucent crystal about the size of a cherry stone. [Shadow/Kinetic Mana Shard: Tier: 0 Condition: Perfect Details: A shard containing both shadow and kinetic mana formed within a Tier 0 creature.] Two attunements? She knew it. Mana was not homogenous. This was something she was sure she'd felt before when she'd first learned Meditation, and later Mana Sense.

The mana in the air was not uniform. Around the tree line, most of the mana had a very… verdant feel to it. Earthy, and vibrant, and alive. If she had to name it, she'd call it something like nature mana? Or perhaps life mana? Or maybe life mana was a part of nature mana, much like death, or decay mana would have to be. Scarlet knew an attunement like that existed because she was sure that was what she could feel emanating around the areas where the corpses were clustered.

The energy was not repulsive in the same way compost was not repulsive, just gross in a 'don't-stick-your-hand-in-that' way. Unfortunately, she had and would continue to stick her hand in that as she resigned herself to the task of manually collecting the much less interesting, but no less useful loot she'd earned with her and Maus's new penchant for killing. Something she suspected she'd need to get used to fast in order to thrive in this new world.

She had no idea just how right she was, or how quickly that chance would come.