Eager to see how my new function would work, I pulled my helmet from my inventory along with a vial of signaleech oil. The deciding factor for how useful PEER-AHEAD would be was how it counted the cost of materials; if an already corrupted piece of gear cost as much as corrupting it again, it would only be useful for new gear, whereas if it cost exactly how much potential I would get for consuming the materials, it would be generally useful.

I presented my helmet and the vial to my interface, and after confirming that I wanted to corrupt and not consume my armor and oil, I was presented with two options. Option A: further corrupt my helmet with the signaleech oil for a cost of 400 potential, and option B: use PEER-AHEAD for a cost of 60 potential. It wasn’t as cheap as I’d been hoping, but the fact that I had no plans to further corrupt my helmet made it an easy choice.

PEER-AHEAD ACTIVATED.

CREATING SIMULATION OF CORRUPTED ITEM.

WORKING…

WORKING…

SIMULATION COMPLETE.

A small wrapped package appeared in my hand along with the final words of PEER-AHEAD. It looked about the size of a typical ring box, tied tight with a blue and white ribbon that flowed as if it were alive. I stared blankly at the box for a moment, unsure why I was seeing it instead of a stat screen for my further corrupted helmet. There weren’t many other places I could go from there, however.

With a shrug I put away my helmet and the oil, then pulled on the box’s ribbon to unfurl it. A deluge of numbers flowed down my interface like a numerical waterfall, overtaking everything until all I could see was a cascade of rapidly shifting blue and white numbers. Numbers that peeled themselves off of my interface, forming together into the shape of a helmet over less than a dozen seconds. The helmet hovered fully formed before me, a visage of shifting numbers that looked exactly like my riverbloom helmet save for the broken parts.

//OILBLOSSOM-VISAGE(//CORRUPTED,Professional): Core mastery requirement: 32

Current item mastery: 1.

//SLYKENED-SIGHT: While powered with Slyk Oil, automatically marks core-bearing enemies. Can manually mark core-less entities.You take 10+X% less damage from marked enemies, and deal 10+X% more damage to them.

Oils from stronger Slyk grant larger X values and drain their energy slower.

Upgrades at mastery [1]/22/49/76/???

That didn’t exactly seem like an upgrade from my riverbloom helmet. Especially if I had to constantly fuel it with oils instead of the simple ‘in motion’ or ‘not in motion’ effects it currently had. And that wasn’t even taking into consideration the fact that both of those bonuses were considered active while I was in flowing water, direct sunlight, or extremely hurt. If anything, this helmet was a unanimous downgrade that would cost me potential and item mastery progress.

Which made absolutely no sense. If something was as situational as this, shouldn’t my core reflect that in its potential cost? I shook my head; maybe I was looking at it the wrong way. Maybe it only cost that much because I was re-corrupting something, and if I corrupted everything together, it would be cheaper. Or there was something else I was missing.

I quickly sent Mortician another message asking them to get me as much oil as they could from the slyk titans. They replied just as quickly in confirmation, and within moments I had a package from them containing oil from the stingprey and the bottomskitter. Mortician had made some progress they hadn’t told me about, even if it was on the titan that apparently hated its own life.

After sending back a quick thanks I dismissed the helmet PEER-AHEAD had granted me and went to try again, except this time with the stingprey oil. The cost the second time around was only 25 potential, and I had to squint to tell the difference between it and the first one.

//OILBLOSSOM-VISAGE(//CORRUPTED,Professional): Core mastery requirement: 30

Current item mastery: 1.

//SLYKENED-SIGHT: While powered with Slyk Oil, automatically marks core-bearing enemies. Can manually mark core-less entities.You take 10+X% less damage from marked enemies, and deal 10+X% more damage to them.

Oils from stronger Slyk grant larger X values and drain their energy slower.

Upgrades at mastery [1]/20/46/70/???

The item barely changed when I used oil from what I assumed was one of the most powerful slyk in the entire hazard. None of the actual stats had changed; only the core mastery and upgrade thresholds. It felt like an immense waste of precious resources when I already met the core mastery requirement for the ‘weaker’ oil. Which brought on another thought that cost me 10 potential.

Using the weakest oil I had on hand–the loneswarm oil–produced a piece of gear with a core mastery requirement of 39 and upgrade thresholds of 1/30/59/88/???. So it seemed I would either pay for the item in effort or materials. If I planned on keeping something for a long time, like my weapon, it would make sense to put the best materials into it so it could hit the mastery upgrade thresholds sooner. But if I was going to replace it, like I would most of my armor, I was better off using the weaker materials as long as I met the requirements.

With a satisfied nod that I’d made the right call I opened my inventory and selected my right gauntlet for corruption. I added the signaleech oil to the equation, since it was the oil I had an overabundance of, and let my core drain away 100 potential from me. 40 for the base, non-oil corruption and 60 for the oil corruption. Just in case the oil benefits were better for the gauntlet for some reason.

I came out of it with a choice between two items.

//RIVERBLOOM-GAUNTLET(//CORRUPTED,Professional): Core mastery requirement: 27

Current item mastery: 1.

//GLITTERING-FLOW: While in motion, increases skill with equipped weapon by 20%. Further increased to 35% when in motion for a longer time.

//DEVASTATING-BREAK: While stationary, increases grip strength by 20%. Further increased to 35% when stationary for a longer time.

While in flowing water, bright sunlight, or when critical, both //GF and //DB are always considered active.

Upgrades at mastery [1]/19/40/63/???

//OILBLOSSOM-GRASP(//CORRUPTED,Professional): Core mastery requirement: 32

Current item mastery: 1.

//SLYKENED-REACH: While powered with Slyk Oil, all functions that improve weapon performance are enhanced by 10+X%.

Oils from stronger Slyk grant larger X values and drain their energy slower.

Upgrades at mastery [1]/22/49/76/???

It came down to a question of what I thought was more valuable to add to my arsenal. I already had whatever made me know how to wield any weapon I picked up, which could scale with the percentage bonus from the riverbloom gauntlet, or it might override it completely. And, to be honest, I really couldn’t care less about grip strength. If that ever came into play, an extra 35% wouldn’t be enough to save my life. And if I was going to sacrifice a piece of armor to test how the oil-powering part of the oil-corrupted armor worked, then it might as well be an easily replaceable gauntlet.

I swiped away the PEER-AHEAD created copies and selected the oil-corrupted version to create. My function activated, drained 938 potential from my reservoir, and gave me a litany of error messages in return. Most of them were warnings about slyk oil that I dismissed right away, considering I seemed to be becoming part slyk, but two caught my attention.

//SLYK OIL INFUSED ARMOR PIECE CREATED: CONNECTION BETWEEN ENVOY ‘SEBASTIAN CORMIER PERSEPHONIA’ AND DENIZEN ‘MORTICIAN SLYK’ STRENGTHENED AND SOLIDIFIED.

//SLYK OIL SOURCE DESIGNATED AS OILMIND ‘SEBASTIAN CORMIER PERSEPHONIA’.

Apparently I was collecting titles now. ‘Persephonia’ from Nia, ‘Envoy’ from The End, and now ‘Oilmind’ from Mortician. I briefly tried imagining how that would look if I put them all on a resume: Envoy Sebastian Cormier Persephonia the Oilmind. It had an overly-long ring to it, but it was also strangely comforting seeing what had happened over the past few months solidified into my name.

Maybe this was how Jun’s people felt when they made names for themselves. I stuck my hand in my new gauntlet to see how it fit, and was rewarded with a constant barrage of static shocks as I did. By the time my fingers touched the end my hand and forearm were mostly numb, little nips of electricity licking against my skin while the gauntlet’s function was inactive. That wasn’t a great sign for what it would feel like when I activated the function.

I flexed my fingers with a slight grimace, staring at my gauntlet that looked like it was painted on with still wet white and blue oil paints. The colours slowly shifted and swirled on my hand, lazily moving to the constant snaps of static, making me wonder if I’d made the right choice with this thing. I opened my inventory and summoned another vial of signaleech oil, then stared at my gauntlet and the oil in turn.

How the hell was I supposed to ‘power’ it? I tried giving it a mental command, but that didn’t do anything at all. I looked all over the gauntlet for an intake valve, or a hatch I could open, but it was one solid piece. Then I checked my interface once more, swiping over to my equipment screen to see if there was anything new that had popped up there. At first I didn’t notice anything new, but after a more thorough check, I found a single L-shaped line coming off of my new gauntlet’s name. I swiped over the line and a new window popped up.

It read: ‘Power supply for slyk-oil powered gear. Current supply: Oilmind Sebastian Cormier Persephonia. Strength of sample: middling.’

“I’m not middling.” I muttered. “I’m upper-middling at worst.”

Fighting against my pride I pressed and held on my own name until a list dropped down from it. The names of the four slyk oils I had on me were in it, with their own strengths listed next to them. The chipspeck mass was the lowest, listed as ‘weak’, and the stingprey was tied with the bottomskitter for the strongest. Those two were listed as ‘absurd’. And then there were the loneswarm and signaleech, which were ‘middling’ and ‘strong’ respectively.

Since I still had more signaleech oil than the others combined, and it was stronger than my own weird oil-blood mixture, I pressed on it and set it to the designated power supply. My gauntlet’s static shocks instantly stopped, the swirling white-blue painted pattern shifting to something like white glass with blue fractures all throughout it. A lump formed in the pit of my stomach, as if my body was rejecting this new power supply, but it was gone as soon as it had come.

//ALTERED SIGNALEECH OIL DETECTED.

//VALUE OF X SET TO 38%.

//WHILE ACTIVE, THE CURRENT DESIGNATED SUPPLY OF (1) VIAL WILL LAST FOR 3 HOURS.

Not bad. I dismissed my gauntlet and pulled its twin out of my interface. I still had some potential to work with, and more than enough signaleech oil to power my new creations.