After we defeated that initial group of Eaters, all the Rodenti seemed to be very happy with our presence, no longer thinking that we would just be dead weight for the training group. And they made no effort to pretend that wasn't the case. Still, things started to run more smoothly as we went back to the rest of the group and prepared for the next wave of Eaters.
We stayed here in this area of the valley, spread out across a few kilometers [miles]. If anyone noticed an Eater, there would be a mage specialized in long-range communication that would gently vibrate the ground toward the other mages to signal the Eater's location. It was such a minute thing that even someone walking would make a bigger tremor. So unless you had the proper skill to recognize that message, there was no way for anyone to understand that this was more than just something natural. From what they were explaining, I had a feeling that it would be possible to use Morse code using that skill, but I never learned it properly, and teaching the Rodenti how to use it would be even more complicated.
The one idea that I gave, and they seemed to enjoy, was how to better communicate what they were seeing.
"Yeah, so the basically, the first tremor should be short to indicate that you're seeing an Eater. Maybe something that lasts two seconds, and then you give small bursts to communicate how many, so everybody is more aware of the numbers. And if you see something else, some strange monster or whatever it is, then you give a longer tremor, something that lasts, let's say, four seconds. So you count to four while you're doing the tremors, slowly, like one, two, three, four," I gave my explanation.
"Good, good." The Rodenti smiled.
"And let's say that if there's a tremor that lasts for ten seconds, so you count all the way to ten, it means that something very bad is happening and everybody needs to rush back to the village."
"Why that long?" One of the Rodenti asked.
"Because if you do something that is too close to the regular tremors, we won't be sure if it was intentional or just an accident. Maybe someone got distracted for longer than they expected or something. But if you make something that is obviously intentional, it's more foolproof."
The mages nodded in agreement. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Rixnala being even more upset, but I couldn't care less about her. Ever since we first met her, she'd been nothing but trouble.
The mages spent a few minutes testing my recommendation, and they made a few tweaks to make things more clear. Such as, instead of counting to three or four, they would wrap their tails around their waist and then pull it back to signal the amount of time. One wrap meant that there were Eaters, and then the following sequence of tremors would indicate how many. Two wraps meant that there was something else, and four wraps meant that there was something bad happening and everybody needed to rush to the village.
But all that was just for the first part of the day. The second part of the day was spent going after an actual area where Eaters seemed to be gathering. It wasn't a nest but more of a resting spot. Ever since the nest was created nearby, Eaters would constantly show up there and stay for the night or stay for a few days to recharge. No one knew for sure what they were doing, and even when all the Eaters in that area were wiped out, there was nothing on the ground that could indicate why they were there. But since it was a constant and frequent source of prey, we were more than happy to not mess with the environment, just go there, kill Eaters, then leave.
But despite the preparation, killing Eaters was not as easy or as frequent as they made it out to be. First, because not all of them were the same scavenger type that we fought. And second, because they didn't show up as often as one might think. We were not seeing a dozen or more Eaters a day. We were seeing four, maybe five, split into two groups. And there were even a couple of days that there were no Eaters to encounter, although the most correct way to phrase it was no Eaters for us to fight. Even if we went to the resting area, the results were the same. We might be lucky to find a couple more, but since we wouldn't work and grow stronger, there was actually nothing we could do in order to follow Ash's orders, as there were not enough Eaters to make us stronger.
At one point during the week, we even tried drinking the Eater's blood to see if we could convert the liquid into particles, but the rate was too small. Each sip would give us less than 1% of progression, and an entire waterskin would amount to maybe 3%. It was possible that by pooling all the Eater's blood together, one of us would be able to level up, but then what about the rest of the Rodenti who were here trying to do the same?
Still, it didn't mean that we were gaining no benefit from it. During the days that we worked together with the Rodenti, we started to get a sense of how the attack on the nest would actually look like. We slowly learned how to work as a team and even gained a couple of new skills from some of the variations of Eaters. There was one specific type called a Warrior Eater who, after we drank its blood, gave us {Bulletproof Skin}. It was a skill that allowed the Eaters to defend themselves against the weapons of the old world, the guns and rifles that they had back then.
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Bulletproof Skin - Aspirant - Passive
Reserved Cost: 3 Energy
You become resilient against attacks, being able to withstand even the most powerful weapons the world has to offer. Your skin becomes more resistant to attacks that could pierce it. The blunt force of such an attack is also severely reduced.
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It was basically something that solved some of our defensive issues, but at the same time, I wasn't truly that interested in taking anything out for this skill, especially considering that for the attack, one of us would need to have the skill given by Lethea and the Mnems. On the other hand, Astrid was really interested in taking that skill, which made sense since she talked about being on the front lines of the battle.
Another thing that we actually learned during this week was how to utilize Eater's blood as a cooking ingredient. Doing that type of thing by itself wasn't great. Boiling or trying to do anything with the blood as a base was absolutely horrible. It would just remove all the Energy that was condensed inside it and behave almost like some sort of oil or grease that was very easy to ignite, which, while wildly bizarre, still made sense. Eater blood was filled with Energy, which meant that when you ignited it, the Energy would be consumed by the flames to become bigger.
However, if instead I used Eater's blood as a spice, something just to give some flavor to a dish, the effects were very different. Not only would the Energy present in the blood still be maintained, but it seemed to function almost like a binding agent to bring more of the rest of the Energy of the dishes together. Not to mention, it did have an interesting flavor. Using it for cooking was similar to making dishes with alcohol, bringing wine, beer, or vodka, and gave a certain kick to the flavor that dishes didn't have before, although Eater blood was leaning more to the savory side.
In addition, there was one more surprise that came from using that specific type of ingredient. On the sixth night that we were with Rixnala's group, I made a stew with some chicken and a few plants that existed in the desert as herbs and spices. And while I was just imagining that the result would be somewhat tasty, as I had already discovered the taste of those spices, it was something else entirely.
Chicken Stew of the Desert. One serving of 300 grams will give anyone who consumes this meal in its entirety 20 points of Energy over the course of three hours. In addition, they would also acquire the skill {Resilience of the Desert}.
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Resilience of the Desert - Adept - Passive
Reserved Cost: 1 Energy
Many creatures and organisms adapt to the most harsh conditions. In the desert, those are conditions that deprive them of water and make them exist near constant blinding heat. You are one such organism. The amount of water your body will require to function will be reduced, and the amount of heat you can withstand from the environment is increased.
In addition, the heat absorbed during the day will be stored to be released during the cold nights.
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That was quite an amazing discovery, but at the same time, it was somewhat expected. The System had mentioned that it would be possible to make dishes that gave skills, but for some reason, I just always assumed I would require rare and powerful ingredients in order to do something like that. But it seemed that wasn't necessary. All I needed were specific things, things that could have good synergy and complement each other in creating some effect. This opened my realm of possibilities, and while it gave me one new level in my cook skill, no skills came with it. Instead, I just gained an extra point in body. That worked out great since after my last level my attributes were a bit skewed to Mind. Now they were all the same.
I still believed that going for a well-rounded build was more helpful. Even if I was not yet focusing on spells and skills that required a lot of mind to use, it was something that I very much wanted to do in the future when my skills became more powerful. Not to mention that I very much still wanted to learn more about spellcrafting2. It was nice to have Riley leading the charge, but I didn't think our group would benefit from having just one human mage. One way or another, I decided to check my status screen.
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Cassandra Ydorf - Level 3
Titles: Enduring Heart
Tier 2 - Formless Monk
Mind 20 - Body - 20
Memory - 12 Energy - 9/15 (6 Reserved)
Skills - 10/12
Energy Storage - Passive - 1 Energy
Memory Bank - Passive - 1 Energy
As I Flow so does the Current - Passive - 1 Energy
Room to Grow - Passive - 3 Energy
Body Regeneration - Active - 1 Energy/ 10 minutes
Compression - Active - 1 Energy/ 8 uses
Formless Swipe - Active - 1 Energy/ 5 uses
Firestarter - Active - 1 Energy
Elemental Imbuement - Active - 2 Energy/ 10 minutes
Clash of Nature - Active - 3 Energy
Formless Series - Passive
Formless Change - Passive
Mind of Possibility - Available
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It was really changed our outlook on things. It happened on the seventh day that we were participating in this training exercise. Ash sent a message to us. On the next day, he had a different mission for my group. Rixnala was supposed to stay there and continue to train with more people who were arriving. But since he gave us one last day to stay here, we decided to make the most of it and continue hunting and help fighting the Eaters, especially since we could use an extra waterskin or two of their blood.
We were all waiting by the passage that those creatures were using when a different type of Eater started to approach. It wasn't gigantic, but it wasn't small either. It had maybe two and a half meters [8.2 ft] in height, and that was counting the tentacles being flopped to the side. The legs were thicker than the scavengers, but they did not look all that special at first. Only when it started to move did we all notice how they connected to form almost a shield around the creature itself. The metal plates of the legs pushing closer to its body and moving in a wave that made it seem like the metal was melted and undulating.
The tentacles also were different than what we were expecting. They didn't end at that tip that the other Eaters had. Instead, they had various variations. Some were balls with spikes, others looked like blades, and a few had just square blocks of something on the edge, and they kept flailing from one side to the other, almost as if they were weightless.
Still, we became overconfident, and one of the Rodenti groups tried to attack it from a distance. They sent out a few hurling boulders together with some arrows made out of stone that crashed against the metal legs of the creature, shattering against those shield-like exoskeletons. The moment that happened, the Eater stopped in its tracks. But instead of simply running towards us, it did something that none of us could even imagine was possible.
The circular plates no longer formed a circle around its body. Now they were all underneath it as the Eater itself became one noodle-like creature with various legs covered in those metal plates coming from the side. With a sickening crunch, the legs parted open, revealing another set of legs underneath. Its body went off in different directions as the Eater's body got lower to the ground. In addition, the tentacles that existed above the creature's body shifted and wrapped themselves into the snake-like form of their owner, transforming that noodle into a giant worm of sorts. The ridges dividing the larger tentacles, while the smaller ones tried to function as some sort of connection or reinforcement so the tentacles wouldn't be flying off, almost like a twisted version of a centipede.
After all that preparation, we were not entirely sure how to react. None of us had ever seen this before. But with blinding speed that closed the gap in just a couple of seconds, the Eater dashed forward, aiming at the group that attacked it. The Rodenti tried to jump to the side trying to evade, and a couple were able to do so. But one of the mages was instantly impaled by the Eater's leg in the front before the tentacles that were above the Eater grabbed them and tossed the mage in front of that noodle-like body. The Rodenti was instantly ground up into a red mist.
Rixnala shouted orders for people to attack, and my companions and I rushed at the creature, hoping to help. Just as we were moving, I also remembered to have the System tell me more about this creature in front of us.
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Guardian Eater - Tier two - Saturated
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