The seed shuddered in Jun’s hand as if there was something alive inside of it. She looked at me in confusion. A look that I returned as I watched the strange little thing jump and shake like one of those… what were they called… they sold them in gift shops back on earth. Jumping beans? Something like that.

“It’s alive?” Jun half-said, half asked. She sent the helmet into her inventory, the relic completely forgotten in the face of a tiny mystery. “I don’t think seeds are supposed to do this. Do they do this on Earth?”

I shook my head. “They don’t. And this is a Staura hazard, so it wouldn’t matter anyway.”

“Good point.” Jun held the seed at arm’s length, then swiped through her inventory and instructed it to analyze the thing. After a quick look, her body language relaxed substantially. “Okay, so it’s not the seed that’s alive. There’s something using it as a little protective shell, and the seed’s using whatever’s in there as an energy source. It says here that it’s a material, though, so… I guess we could use it to craft something?”

I needed to see that for myself. While I was at it, I might as well check to see what the marrow-like liquid from before was worth, if anything.

//SYMBIOTIC SEED.

//The seed of an ancient plant, inside of which resides a larval insect. The insect is protected from the outside world inside of the seed, and the seed feeds on the insect’s excess energy to continue to produce nutrients to survive. Will not grow if planted.

Uses: Crafting, Cuisine.

Potency: Crafted.

Rarity: Scarce.

//SAPMARROW.

//Lower quality sapmarrow from one of the species of creatures native to the hazard in which this was found. If removed from the hazard, this will disappear completely. If consumed, removes 30 of all stats from the consumer until they leave the hazard.

Uses: Consumable, Crafting.

Potency: Masterpiece

Rarity: Common.

Well that was one consumable I was definitely not putting into //ENDLESS. And the symbiotic seed didn’t have the same ‘if you leave the hazard it disappears’ clause as the sapmarrow and the helmet. That was nice.

“Well, looks like the sapmarrow’s useless.” I said, but didn’t move to empty it out. I had plenty of room in my inventory, so why not keep it around? “And the seed has to be worth something. Maybe Okeria can do something with it.”

Jun shrugged. “Okeria’s more of a metals guy. We need someone like Keratily who could make blessings. Not Keratily, obviously, but Okeria has to have someone in his entourage that’s good with blessings.”

“There is one obvious large problem with that option.” Mortician said solemnly. “Do we have to point it out?”

“No, no, I know.” Jun sighed. She handed me the seed, and the second I felt it hop, I sent it to my inventory. She chuckled at my surprised reaction, but it was short-lived. “I guess I’m just trying to be optimistic. It’s sort of working. On that happy note, why don’t we open the rest of the boxes? There has to be something in there that’s worth taking a look at.”

Mortician froze once again. “We thought we had permission to open them all.”

The rest of the boxes were, indeed, open. I shook my head and snorted out a quick laugh, moving towards Mortician’s hoard of empty boxes while they had the decency to look as embarrassed as someone could through a suit of armor.

Unfortunately for Mortician’s curiosity, most of the other rewards were horribly insufficient. Chunks of rock we could pick off the ground, blessings that gave single-digit increases to our stats, and a rusted axe that would only take fifteen potential to corrupt. These were the rewards for a hazard rated one or two, not one rated in the twenties.

“Another point in the ‘something’s wrong here’ column.” I muttered to myself as I tossed back one of the blessings. It lasted two hours and only gave me seven recovery, but it was just barely better than nothing. “None of the monsters were named, none of them had hazard ratings, and now we get a bunch of trash for our ‘reward’. The one hazard I remember like this from my old life actually had a range for its hazard rating, but this one has a flat rating. We shouldn’t be seeing rewards like this for combats we would’ve died against if we were twenty hazard tolerance lower.”

Jun attempted to glare a hole in another one of the blessings. “There’s something wrong with these blessings, too. I’m pretty sure this is standard issue for new recruits. Like, hazard tolerance zero to one new.” She tapped on a U-shaped symbol on the sphere. “I saw some like these in Nia’s office back in Walkalong.”

I tilted the blessing I’d just drank to look for a similar symbol, and lo and behold, there it was. It was like someone was actually supplying the things for this hazard instead of the system creating the rewards out of thin air like it was supposed to do.

“Okay, this is just strange.” I sighed. The only thing in this entire room that didn’t seem useless, tacked on, or just a bad sign in general was the helmet and the bug-seed. “It’s really too bad Okeria’s communicators don’t work while we’re in the hazard. He’d be able to clear some stuff up right away.”

“The loss of your interface’s communication abilities was a harsh blow as well.” Mortician added.

“Yeah, that too.” I agreed.

Jun drank the blessing she’d been eyeing for a few minutes, wiped her mouth, and re-summoned her helmet. “Maybe the hazard description for this was just plain wrong. I mean, the things we’re fighting are a little more dangerous than the average slyk was, but that big thing would’ve killed us a few months ago. So… maybe the average fights are actually hazard level three or four, and are only there as a stop-gap so we don’t get too far too fast?”

“Good theory.” I nodded. “But I guess we’ll just have to see what happens with the next few fights. They could go back to like they were before that fifth fight, or they could all be just as dangerous as it was.”

“All the more reason to be completely prepared.” Jun said as she opened her interface. “Cacophony just leveled up from killing that big monster. It’s not a huge upgrade, but that’s probably because most things get their first ‘upgrade’ at level zero, right?”

She summoned her gun and tossed it at me. I snagged it out of the air with one hand, took a quick look to see if there’d been a visual transformation with the level up, and noted nine small notches in the barrel. One for each item mastery level the gun had gained.

//MASTERY 8: When //SHATTER is triggered, gain an 8% increase to speed for each shattered crack. This bonus lasts for 2 seconds per shattered crack.

“Twenty-seven seconds of 81% increased speed doesn’t seem like a little upgrade to me.” I threw the gun back to Jun, who caught it easily. “Even without your core, it would’ve been sixteen seconds of 64% more speed. That’s still a lot.”

Jun shrugged and tapped her gun to her thigh. “It’s just speed, though. The stat that matters the least if I’m at a distance. And if I’m up close and personal, I should probably be using a different gun.”

“Hey, you never know. It could end up being a lot more useful than you think.” I insisted. “A lot of people would kill for that much of a boost, even if it's temporary and short-lived.”

“I know, I know. I’m just being picky.” Jun ceded. “It’s not like it makes the gun any worse.”

It definitely didn’t. And when Jun found herself in a sticky situation, she’d be thankful for the ability to run a whole lot faster just for firing off a few shots. I nodded and opened my interface to see if anything of mine had leveled up enough for an upgrade, and was pleasantly surprised to find that all three of my oilblossom armor pieces had reached at least item mastery twenty-two. Just over enough for an upgrade.

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

Current item mastery: 24.

//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.

//Mastery 22: Gain 3 recovery for every piece of gear that is currently powered by Slyk Oil.

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

//Mastery 22:

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

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

Current item mastery: 22.

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

//Mastery 22: Gain 2 power and 1 speed for every piece of gear that is currently powered by Slyk Oil.

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

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

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

Current item mastery: 26.

//SLYKENED-ARSENAL: While powered with Slyk Oil, all equipped weapon’s functions are enhanced by 10+X%.

//Mastery 22: Gain 2 battery and 1 recovery for every piece of gear that is currently powered by Slyk Oil.

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

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

Flat stat bumps for every piece of gear powered by slyk oil. Not the flashiest bonuses, and not especially powerful while I only had three oil-powered pieces of gear, but it’d scale pretty well into the future. Especially if it counted trinkets, since I could make quite a few of those. I checked my stats to see if it counted gear that could be powered by oil, or if the gear had to be currently powered by said oil.

No difference, so it actually had to be consuming oil to grant me the bonuses. A little worse than if it were just passive, but still fine nonetheless. Maybe it was time to corrupt some of my other gear into oilblossom stuff. In fact, I did have a little potential from consuming that thing’s core, and a riverbloom chestpiece that was just begging to be corrupted…

“Why not?” I mused, pushing signaleech oil and the chestpiece into my core as I activated //CREATION. “Jun, do you think we should try corrupting the little gun Okeria gave you?”

She considered the offer for a moment, then shook her head. “Not until I get a chance to use it. It might be good enough on its own.”

“Sounds good.” I replied, then pulled my newly re-corrupted chestpiece out of my core.

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

Current item mastery: 1.

//SLYKENED-ACCELERATION: While powered with Slyk Oil, increases all cooldown, regeneration, and recovery rates by 10+X%.

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

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

Just a flat-out better version of its riverbloom counterpart as long as I powered it with oil. The same as all of my other oilblossom armor. This one would probably give me a resilience bonus when I hit mastery 22, which would round out my stats fairly nicely. I summoned it to my body with a thought, then looked around and crossed my arms.

“That’s pretty much everything we can do in here.” I said with a quick scan of the room. “Should we keep moving, or do either of you have anything else you want to do here?”