Mathew

Reading minds did not, in fact, give him an edge during the fight. Sure the sneak attack he’d landed on Ben worked, and after that Mathew was just too slow. Cognition and agility both scaled up with leveling. This kept fights feeling the same while still getting faster.

Right this minute, Mathew’s low cognition was showing. Cognition covered mental processing speed and how ‘agile’ willpower was. Even with an intelectus to process the mind-reading for him, he just couldn’t integrate it into his fighting effectively.

Mathew would move to counter the intended attack and Ben would just change his mind. Slipping in some powerful blows where openings in his defenses formed. Oh, and Ben had far too much fun with it.

That’s alright, Mathew knew how this game was played. He’d remember for another time and then laugh and laugh while Ben huffed and puffed on the ground. It was only fair, after all.

Near the end of their training the night before, Mathew started to get a feel for his conditional ambush skill. He could use it in combat. Made sense, against the wraith, he’d always utilized it in head-on combat. But it always felt like the start of a new engagement.

Clearly, he had been overthinking the ambush aspect of the name. Simultaneously maintaining mental attack intelectus and conditional ambush intelectus at the same time let him experiment to discover what a “valid condition” was.

So far, he’d found that valid condition was broken down into smaller segments. Vaguely speaking, half of the condition was about timing and the other half about execution. Then all of that was weighted by the significance of the moment. Engaging, disengaging, using an ability. Mathew was sure there was more but this is what he’d found so far and it was already more than he could handle.

The training was good, though. Even getting a feel for it was a far improvement over expending all his power and being left vulnerable with only one good attack to show for it.

Ben was able to use his netting to mimic smaller monsters. The inhuman fighting exposed a far more significant weakness in his fighting. At least with fighting people, he had examples in memory, movies and games notable. His only mental model of man vs. animal was someone fighting from their back, trying not to be mauled.

To make it a step worse, these monsters were unmoored from Earth biology enough that it mattered. Firebreathing, scythe arms and saw-like horns were just a few notable mentions Ben brought up. At least he had the option to try wrestling said beasts in origami form.

To be honest, he also really needed to relearn his body. Increasing his physical prowess by twenty percent made him somewhat uncoordinated. Encasing himself with an exoskeleton on top of it was just asking to trip and fall on his ass. But he’d follow the motto of the world, adapt then live.

After waking up, they congregated by the smoker. Their meat supply was on a shelf above the drying section. The jerky was bathed in smoke and residual heat to keep it from turning.

“Hey, you never did get back around to the subject of power leveling.” Mathew handed Ben a hunk of smoked jerky.

“Sorry, so leveling is not straightforward. People don’t get stronger from mass slaughter. This world isn’t a game.” Ben put his hands up. “Not that you need me to tell you. Just that leveling is weird. The only sure thing we know is that surviving increases leveling progress and the more you level, the longer it takes to level again. Seriously it’s pretty predictable. People even level in the order they arrive here.”

“Nope,” Amber said. Bringing over a plate-sized leaf. “When Mathew leveled last night, I was only at 93%. I watched him drop to the ground from that transition bubble.”

Amber’s eyes lit up brighter than the dark marks under them. “Let me tell you about it...”

Amber kept talking but Ben turned and asked. “Can you dig into your fixture more? Maybe there’s an answer.”

“Monster. Hey, are you listening?” Amber harumphed. “I’ll just find someone with hospitality.”

Lacing her hand through his elbow and against his forearm, Amber spoke again. “Can you help me with something for a bit? I’ve been up all night thinking about it.”

For the first time after using conversion to recover, he felt the time crunch of an imminent Alpha attack. His plans to grind out skills and power up were being derailed before breakfast.

“What’cha got?” Mathew asked.

“A blueprint and some arrows.” Amber tugged on him. “Let me show ya. I was hoping you could help me get it made up.”

Led away, Mathew promised to get back with Ben on leveling discrepancies.

“Here ya are, Sir.” Amber displayed her work. “Voilà.”

In his head, he’d already judged blueprints as nothing more than a wishlist. This was something else. Mathew knew his way around mechanical blueprints. In his most recent job at a custom parts shop, every job was a blueprint or a 3D file of a blueprint. Hers had the hallmarks of someone who knew what they were doing. As much as he was drawn into the project, how in the hell were they supposed to make machine tolerance bolts.

“First, I’m fucking impressed. We don’t have any of the gear we need to make something like this.” Mathew tried to let her down easily. “Not saying it’s impossible but not anytime soon.”

“Try me,” Amber’s typical smirk took on almost a snarl quality. “What would you want that you don’t have? Lumber with the strength of metals bridges the material gap. An’ you’re a living CNC machine.”

She has a point. Maybe there is a chance.

“No promise I can break down lumber. If I can’t do it now, we just need to get me some beaver steaks.”

Digging a claw into the corner of a hunk of wood, Mathew gouged a sliver out of it. Bringing over Ripper, he tried using it to feed on the fragment of wood. Smothered in a thin dense layer of digestion magic, Mathew could feel destruction breaking apart the sliver. Eating into the bright expanded grains of wood and gnawing at the dense winter growth. Slow, but he could do it. Focusing nearly all his willpower through Ripper, Mathew concentrated the digestion magic further. Before this, he had relied on the special effect of using Ripper as a conduit for the hunger. Focusing the magic noticeably sped up the conversion of the splinter. As his digestion magic compressed, he began to feel resistance like two north-end magnets. The energy would slide away rather than go together.

[Digestion perk discovered: Liquid hunger]

Sending the notification to the others, Mathew opened up the digestion perk menu.

[Digestion ~ perk tier one

Storage - Soft cap on reserves increased 500%. Transfer reserves to a creature by touch

~perk tier two

Liquid hunger - Compress digestion points into drops of liquid hunger

~perk tier three

Living hunger - Willpower component of magic in enhanced]

Sending that notification as well, Mathew considered for himself. Of course, they spent time theorizing the best way to increase their survival odds, but it always had this awkward tacked on. “Do what you want, though.” Or a “It’s your life, do what you want.” He planned to put a stop to that. Reserve transfer would let everyone benefit from his high-power digestion. As creepy as it sounded, it would be a real help. In theory, they could dig a deep hole and live in the ground with him, eating rock. Mentally he filed that idea away code name bunker plan.

“Anyone have an opinion?” Mathew started the conversation.

Harper yelled from the other room. “Too busy, don’t care, I trust your judgment.”

“Which one?” Mathew hollered back.

“Pick one.” Harper answered.

“We’ve always been looking for more information so we can record it and pass it along.” Ben shrugged.

“You’re being silly. This is your life, do what you want.” Amber shook her head.

“I didn’t do this-” Mathew gestured at all of him. “To ignore what is best.”

“I mean it.” Amber puffed up. “You don’t get to blame me or any of us for what you chose to do.”

Had he been doing that? Not out loud but certainly in his own thoughts.

“How long has he been out?” Mathew pointed to Grant.

“Three days.” Ben offered. “He never was really open about his- anything actually. But I do know his magic can convert into health or revert into reserves. I uh. don’t know how much he has left of how long it will last.”

“Okay, the transfer perk it is.” Mathew made the selection.

Amber just nodded. Mathew had to consciously relax his jaw.

Storage gave Mathew a better mental grip of where his reserves were located. A place that wasn’t here but moved with him. Disturbing, but he’d gained a lot of experience adapting to disturbing lately. Laying his hand on Grant’s forehead Mathew sent him fifty units of reserves. Nothing seemed to change about the man’s condition but that was too much to hope for.

Settling back to work, the morning went by quickly. Cutting material away and roughing it out before he used his magic for detail work got them a collection of unassembled parts as the sun rose to it’s highest point. Mathew tried to sneak out and let her finish assembly but he hadn’t made all the parts match evenly. There was a difference between imagining a bolt with threads and doing so perfectly. Then carving out the threads on the receiving part. After reworking parts for half an hour, she’d assembled an honest to god compound bow. Mathew was released for the time being while she worked on tuning everything.

“Thank you so much.” Amber pressed against him in a full-body hug he wished he could’ve enjoyed.

“Your welcome. Do good by me. You’re my backup.” Mathew missed his face. He’d always shown humor with his cave man eyebrows.

“Psh, I’ll knock ’em dead before you get a chance to do anything. Then you’ll be my backup.”

Leaving her to her work, Mathew left to his.

Squaring up to the doorway, Mathew practiced his conditional ambush ability. It wasn’t finessed and deep practice like he did with Ben rather, this was brute force practice. Throwing his anger and regret into each stab, he sapped the energy of those useful but poisonous emotions. When he finally did slot the Rock Tooth Slime into his Alpha phage skill, he had a pile of gravel to focus on. Channeling through Ripper had become a habit for most of his magic usage and this was no exception.

The wheelbarrow-sized pile ate away, leaving Mathew with 115/350 digestion points. Reserve efficiency wasn’t very high and for the first time, Mathew realized that the simple rules of reality like conservation of energy may have a whole nother layer of complications. After testing the difference between absorbing pre-ground rock and just sticking his magic against the wall was negligible. And no matter how many training montages he’d seen, living one out wasn’t one “eye of the tiger” playthrough away.

Instead, he spent the downtime carving at an extra block of wood with a glass knife. Sure he could use his magic or any of Amber’s tools. But he wasn’t trying to get the job done quickly.

Mathew remembered being young and dumb. There are two types of big guys. One that learns they can get loud and get what they want. The temptation of being intimidating is insidious. It’s not their fault the other person gave in, everyone raises their voice, no need to make a big deal of it. The other type would realize they could hurt others and transformed into gentle giants. Mathew had been the former.

In Pa’s shop, he’d been acting the fool, horsing around and broke a display case. Not just the glass but the engraved wood supports. No matter how bad Mathew had blustered, Pa just waited patiently. Looking back on it, he’d been right there when it happened, probably following the group of hooligans around the store. Pa must have seen something because he asked if I wanted to handle it or if I wanted “daddy” to. I had my own money of course I was going to pay for it. But no. After I told him I’d handle it, he demanded I rebuild it.

Even to this day Mathew had never accomplished the task. For years it was their inside joke. “I need more practice to make that display. What have you got to show me?” “Take care of yourself. You still owe me a display.”

So Mathew worked and remembered. At times adjusting his claws to make a better tool. These hands were going to do more than just destroy. Making a bow for Amber, giving strength to someone who needed it. Making the memory of something worthwhile into a tangible piece of art. He would use the weapon he had crafted of himself into a tool of creation.

Toiling away like this, the day went by. Ben left to hunt down reagents for Harper. Harper stayed in her back room working on some project... or not, maybe. Mathew wasn’t sure but if she needed a day or two to process all the shit they’d been through, he wouldn’t fault her.

Ben returned later and they used the remaining daylight to practice combat outside. After a day of being cooped up, being able to see the sky was nice. Feeling the warmth seep into his bones almost made up for not being able to feel the wind on his skin, almost.

“Did you find time to check for where your faster levels came from?” Ben asked.

“Damn, sorry I forgot to look.” Mathew drew up his status, looking for things he’d overlooked.

Mathew found it on the second line.

[Otherworld Human/Carrion Beast Hybrid]

Devouring the information behind the fixture, he could see the exoskeleton trait had increased its cultivation spectrum effect to -20% human and +40% Carrion beast. Maybe it was the higher stats or world knowledge or having gone from ‘unknown’ to ‘Carrion beast.’ Whatever the cause, more information was available now. Energy of Leternum flowed in different spectrums. Every living thing would absorb this energy based on their biology and territory. As a hybrid, Mathew got to double-dip. Well, not quite. He absorbed less human spectrum energy as he became less human. That being said, there was an overlap where he could absorb more than 100%. That let him level up faster.

In a light bulb moment, his award when leaving the transition made sense.

Adapter - Gaining a racial hybrid. Spectrum overlap doubled.

He explained it to Ben.

“Damn, nothing we can replicate, yet anyway. It’s getting dark enough I don’t want to be exposed if the Night Stalker comes out.”

“Yeah, go ahead. I’ll be right in.

Mathew’s eye had caught on his perk menu as he went past it. He had a perk point just burning a hole in his pocket.

[Living skeleton weapon

~ Perk tier two

Organ reconstruction Carrion flesh - Caft Carion beast muscle and web tendions

Magic bone - Craft skeleton weapons with known magical effects

Ability channel - Align skeleton weapons to a known ability]

Carrion flesh overrode organ reconstruction because of his class.

Living skeleton weapon wasn’t just a skill anymore. It was his life. The weight of it pressed on him. Now that he knew conditional ambush, ability channel would have clear benefits. It was the right choice. To protect others and keep everyone alive. Selecting carrion flesh, Mathew dug into the new skill greedily. More than anything, he wanted whatever option enhanced his flexibility with crafting. This would do that. This betrayal of who he was may just be the lifeline his sanity needed.

Walking back inside to the people he was bottled up with, he brushed the new plaque. “Heigh-ho”