When Serenity finished his shower, he noticed there was a sheet on top of his bed, protecting it - which was good, because the sheet was covered in bits of dried … stuff. After he cleared that off and set his dirty - probably destroyed - clothing out to be picked up for cleaning, he noticed that one of the shimmering black peaches smelled intoxicating. It must have finished ripening. The others weren’t yet, but he was certain they were close. Well, he hadn’t finished lunch, this was a good time to try one.

It wasn’t until he was holding it in his left hand that he realized that its black sheen with occasional multicolored highlights was extremely similar to the way his magic showed in the portion of his hand that was still crystalline. He concentrated on the fruit, and did feel a Death affinity, but any other affinity was so weak as to be undetectable.

Probably not something that most people should be eating, though it was weak enough that unless you ate dozens there shouldn’t be any long-term effects. For a Death magic user like himself, though, it was no threat.

It tasted wonderful as he swallowed it.

There was a moment of bliss as the energy rushed into the node in his brain, then it settled into a spreading calm pleasure that swept through his body along the pathways that led to the node, getting weaker as it spread out. He thought it was done, but then he felt a soothing coolness spread from his extremities up his mana channels. It felt almost like using a cold compress while overheated, and it left the channels feeling slightly different afterward. Eventually, it spread through all his channels and the effect dissipated.

He examined his mana channels, and found that they were indeed slightly different. It was familiar, yet something he couldn’t immediately place, so he kept looking. He was checking near his heart when he realized what the change reminded him of - when he had first become undead, his channels had become much more responsive to Death affinity, but completely lost their ability to carry anything else. It had taken decades to regain his old affinities, and centuries before full flexibility was restored.

This change was like that in that the channels carried Death energy better (if not as well as his undead channels had), but it did not seem to have damaged his ability to carry other magics. Or if it had, he couldn’t tell simply by looking. He was going to have to test it.

Plasma was one of Serenity’s favorite affinities, for all that it had never been his best. He closed his eyes, then pulled on the affinity slightly to gather a ball of fire that would float above his right hand. He knew how large the ball should be; if it were smaller, it would tell him his channels were damaged.

He opened his eyes, and saw to his relief that the ball was the size it should be. The light from the ball also made something else very obvious. He had black fractal lines traced all over the skin of his hand. He dismissed the fireball and rubbed his hand, but felt nothing; it was simply color, as far as he could tell.

Serenity walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. The lines also covered his face. He wasn’t sure what they were, other than some side effect from the fruit.

How am I going to hide this?

The lines quickly faded away. He blinked in surprise, and wondered if he could get them back - and they reappeared. He made them appear and disappear repeatedly, but whether or not they were visible didn’t seem to affect his mana channels.

I have no idea what’s going on here. But at least I can hide the lines … whatever they are.

On the way out of the room, he stopped to look at the remaining shimmering black fruits. Not only were they not ripe, he somehow knew that he shouldn’t eat one … yet. It would have bad effects until … something.

Knowing that without knowing how he knew it was somehow more worrying than the mysterious black patterns.

When he walked out of the building into the bright daylight, he realized that he wasn’t sure what he should do next. He had a few unexpected hours available. He could have gone back into his room to try to spend Ev, but he didn’t want to sit down and think. He wanted to move.

So he just started walking.

It wasn’t until he was nearly at the Trials area that he realized he’d had a destination in mind. He wasn’t well armed, but the pair of knives he was currently wearing as his safe-area weapons would do fine. He didn’t want to head back to the armory.

“You’re here for solo Dungeon Trials, aren’t you?” Sillon was sitting at the desk, as usual.

Serenity nodded.

On the way to the portal, Sillon commented, “You know, you should try some of the Trials that aren’t Dungeon trials. They’re the best for leveling, but the experience of the others could be helpful. The Athletic trial in particular might be good to do before Day 12.”

Wheels began to spin in Serenity’s head. “Day 12 is the third mandatory Trial day.”

“Odd coincidence, that.” Sillon paused for a moment, then continued. “Not all mandatory trials happen on the big days. If I’m tracking the records correctly, we’ll have one tomorrow. They’ll be a dungeon Trial for sure, though, it’s still early.”

Serenity walked through the portal to the next Dungeon before he replied. “Can you put me down for an Athletic Trial tomorrow? And let Echo and Lancaster know? Right after lunch, I think.”

Serenity could take a hint when it was as big as the one Sillon had just given.

“The Athletic Trial isn’t open until Day 9. I’ll happily put you three down for the first afternoon slot that day.”

Serenity refocused on the dungeon. There was no quest for this one, so it likely was something that he wouldn’t be able to just avoid - not that he would. He was feeling like killing something, and this was a good place to do just that.

The dungeon was full of lizard-like creatures. The first one was green, four-legged, and about the size of a common dog. It ran at Serenity and was quickly dealt with.

The second one was white and had two stunted wings as well as the four legs. It seemed to have some sort of light-based ranged attack from its eyes, but it was slow to charge and easy to avoid.

By the third one (black and with an annoyingly poisonous aura - Serenity used his plasma beam instead of his daggers) - Serenity knew that the theme of this dungeon was elemental drakes.

It was a step up in difficulty from the previous dungeons, because it required the ability to quickly adapt to the particular monster. There were also a LOT of them, more than he’d seen in the previous dungeons. Fortunately, they were all still alone and very weak; one hit would kill almost any of them. Only the particularly sturdy or agile ones took a second attack. Serenity was able to clear the dungeon as quickly as he could dig the monster cores out of the drakes. That took longer than in previous dungeons, but Serenity wasn’t willing to leave them behind.

After the sixteenth drake, Sillon seemed a little disturbed by his willingness to take each core. “You know, drake cores aren’t really worth much. Most groups only take a few, then the boss core.”

“It doesn’t really take that long.” Serenity had worked out a method - crack the drake’s skull, then stick his hand in and aim for the spot where the node in his own brain was. If he was off a little, he could feel the core and grab it anyway.

“Most people aren’t willing to do what you’re doing. You’re touching the cores with your bare hands. Most people - well, after the tutorial, most people find someone with a Loot ability.”

That got Serenity to pause. In his past life, by the time he got to the point where he cared about the value he could get from cores, he had people to clean up the battlefields and collect them, so it wasn’t something he’d ever done. Before that, he'd been in adventuring parties, and he'd never been one to worry too much about the rewards; he took his split of the party treasure and used it. It'd seemed fair enough - as the tank, everyone had wanted him to have good weapons and armor, so he'd never felt cheated.

He didn’t really know that much about cores. “I’d heard they were poisonous to eat, is there a problem with touching them?”

“They’re not poisonous, they’re corruptive. Eat enough of them, especially from one monster type or a powerful enough monster and you can warp yourself to be more like the monster. Some people do it deliberately. Thing is … it messes with Paths, and can actually leave you with no Path to follow. Touching them … I’m not sure why it’s not affecting you. Maybe you’re not holding them long enough. Here, hand me one, then look away for a couple minutes.”

Serenity had a suspicion of why it wasn’t affecting him, and an idea on something to try. He handed one of the cores to Sillon, then took one out to hold in his own hand. He shielded his hand from Sillon’s view with his body, then concentrated on trying to absorb the core he held.

It wasn’t easy, but after a moment the black lines appeared and the core appeared to melt in his hand and disappear. It wasn’t as pleasant as eating one, but the feeling was similar and it still granted Ev. The moment the core was gone, the black lines disappeared.

It was interesting, but not something he could think of a use for immediately.

He hoped that it wasn’t adversely impacting his Paths, but at this point there was nothing to be done about that.

A moment later, Sillon said “Turn around now.” He held his hand - still holding the core - out for Serenity to see. Around the core, Sillon’s hand seemed to have developed small green scales. “You see? This is temporary, but between the unpleasant feel of a core and the chance it can do something to you, no one really likes holding them.

“They feel unpleasant? Huh. It’s just a mild warm buzz to me.” Serenity stuck the core back in his bag.

“I don’t know what to think about you sometimes.”