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nLike a well-oiled machine, Fanged Rats fell dead one after another. The combination of Brance and Gabby was devastating. With Brance pulling their aggro before flinging them up and Gabby’s rapid-firing arrows into their weak points, it only took a couple of minutes for the pair to massacre the entire mischief.

n-Your Party has killed 14 Brown Fanged Rats.-

n-All Party members have received 180,000 XP-

n-Party Member Gabriella Sanford’s (Gabby) Prestige has increased.-

n-Party Member Benjamin Sanford’s (Benny) Prestige has increased.-

n-All Party members have received 10 AGI and 4 DEX-

n-14 Affinitiless Tier-1 Codexes have been located-

n-Due to the restrictions in place by the Alpha Egress Core, you will have to remove the Codexes manually.-

n-Sliver of Skill (7) have been located.-

nDue to the restrictions in place by the Alpha Egress Core, you will have to remove the Slivers of Skill manually.-

nBrance and Benny stood back to back with shields raised, panting heavily, as was Gabby, who was shaking her right arm vigorously to get the blood pumping again. This left only Cynrik, who had periodically saved the other two boys from getting overwhelmed with an occasional Fireball, to collect their spoils.

nWith Mana Sight active and his left hidden blade extended, Cynrik moved from one dead rat to the next, digging out their Codexes and moving on to search for the Slivers of Skill.

nUnlike Codexes, however, these Slivers didn’t emit a Mana signature, and he found himself at a loss after staring blankly at one of the corpses for a couple of minutes.

nAlthough Mana Sight was extremely helpful in most cases, it wasn’t omniscient, at least not in its current state. So even though it acted like a pseudo-form of x-ray vision, it turned out to be relatively useless when looking for something tiny like a Sliver of Skill.

nWith no other option, Cynrik turned to Tobs for help.

nTobs, can you give me a general location to search, we are pressed for time, and I can’t exactly perform a necropsy on this thing.

n-…-

nPlllleeeaaassssseee! Cynrik even went so far as aiming puppy eyes and sticking out his bottom lip towards the cavern ceiling, where he imagined she was floating.

n-Sigh, check the head.-

nThankies Tobs, love yah mean it, jumping excitedly on the torso of a dead Fanged Rat, Cynrik expertly started carving at the head. Thanks to his STR and DEX, it was effortless to crack open the creature’s skull and cut into its brain, so after a few moments of digging, Cynrik located an anomaly in the rat’s brain and plucked out a tiny wooden piece.

n“Oi Benny, wash this thing off for me,” not wanting to rub the mixture of rat brain matter and blood on his clothes, he enlisted the help of the Party’s Water Affinity User.

nA few seconds and a splash of water later, Cynrik held up the small piece of wood named Sliver of Skill and used his Inspect

n-You have Inspected a Skill Point Item.-

n-These items are broken into the following categories, Sliver, Shard, Fragment, Piece, and Chunk.-

n-Each category has a specific Skill Point value. Sliver: 1 SP, Shard: 3 SP, Fragment 10 SP, Piece: 50 SP, Chunk: 100 SP.-

n-To obtain the SP stored within the item, you must absorb it into your Codex.

n“Shit, that’s pretty relevant,” with newfound vigor, Cynrik bounced around to all the remaining corpses, cracking their heads like watermelons and digging out the other six Slivers of Skill.

nFinished with his task, Cynrik was in the middle of wiping the splattered blood and brain matter off his face when he heard an awkward cough behind him, making him freeze in place.

nTurning his head robotically, his eyes landed on his Party members, of which Gabby and Benny were pale-faced and about to throw up, while Brance had his arms crossed and was shaking his head in disappointment.

nThe three of them had been watching in horror as Cynrik set about cracking skulls and chests to pluck out their war spoils. The act itself wasn’t what bothered them; instead, it was the look of excitement and joy plastered on Cynrik’s face as he violently stabbed the dead Fanged Rats without caring about blood or even brain matter splattering all over his body.

n“Benny, do me a favor and blast my idiot Big Brother with Water Sphere, please.” Brance moved his body in front of Gabby to block the sight of his bloodthirsty brother from her innocent eyes.

n“With pleasure Brancie,” cracking his knuckles aggressively and whirling his right arm like a softball pitcher, Benny conjured a massive Water Sphere and chucked it directly at Cynrik, who didn’t even bother trying to defend himself.

nAll Cynrik could do was suck in a large gulp of air before he was completely engulfed in a ball of water and flung across the cavern.

nSPLASH, BANG

nSwept away through the air by the ball of water, Cynrik slammed into the rocky wall, which not only shattered the Water Sphere but also nearly cracked his head on the wall from the impact.

n“Mother **er, BENNY CMON MAN, couldn’t you have been more gentle.”

nBenny didn’t bother responding and turned instead to Brance, holding Gabby’s head against his chest and looking in the opposite direction.

n“He’s all clean, Brancie.”

n“Mhm, OI CYN, do something about those freaking corpses; your little stunt is gunna give Gabby nightmares.”

n“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it,” picking himself up and dusting his jacket off, Cynrik waved his hands and summoned 14 balls of BlackFire the size of his fist, and directed one to each corpse; due to the corrosive nature of the flames, the instant they made contact with the bodies, they erupted in fire, and moments later, were turned into ash.

nClearing his throat to signal the deed was done, Cynrik pulled out the seven wooden Slivers from his inventory and gave them another look over.

nBrance first made sure Gabby was fine before making his way to his brother and checking out the items received from the Fanged Rats skulls.

nCynrik only pulled his attention from the Slivers for an instant before extending his open palm to Brance, who subsequently plucked one of the Slivers of Skill from his hand.

n“Well, this actually makes a lot of sense. I was always confused about why skill points had a monetary value, considering how big of a pain in the butt it’s been to earn them. Now we know you get them from killing Egress monsters.”

n“Un, from what I know, 1 SP is the equivalent of two hundred Credits. If we use that conversion ratio, then we’ve got 1400 Creds, tack on the value of the rat Fangs, which according to the Compound Hub, sell for about 500 each, and the Tier-1 Affinitiless Codexes, which go for around 1k each, our sum total just off a single battle is 30k. Split that four ways, and we each get 7.5k creds.” Cynrik did the math out loud, and out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Benny and Gabby going wide-eyed.

n“Oh, this is nothing, you two, just wait till we jump into higher grade Egresses, its not uncommon to walk away with millions of credits.” Cynrik and Brance both chuckled lightly as they caught Gabby wiping the drool from her chin; it was clear she was only thinking with her stomach at that moment.

n“Alright, Gabby, you should only need to eliminate six more rats, and Benny still needs ten more. Sigh, watching y’all have all the fun is making me itchy, so let’s try and clear them up as soon as possible.”

nTaking a knee and waving his Party members over, Cynrik started drawing a crude map on the dirt floor with his index finger. Within a couple of seconds, he dexterously and accurately established a rough draft of the dungeon’s layout for the others.

n“Now then, the boxes that have a squiggle in them represent the Fanged Rat’s nests. As you can see, there are a total of eight left since we already cleared out the first. So these boxes here…here…and here, which I’ve marked with a star, represent treasure rooms.”

nGabby and Benny listened closely and followed with their eyes wherever Cynrik pointed, and Brance watched quietly from behind. He had already been filled in, and since they could send images through their mind link, Cynrik had already shown him the mental picture of the map he had memorized earlier.

n“The boxes with an X represent where the Packhounds dens are, and lastly, the circled boxes are the potential Boss room spawns. Since the Boss room is constantly moving in an unknown pattern, the best I could gather is it’ll end up being one of these.”

n“Our goal, for now, is to skirt around all the Packhound dens and single out only the Fanged Rats until we’ve all cleared the quest tasks. Keeping up the same pace we used for the nest we just cleared should take us roughly three to four hours to wipe out all eight remaining nests. Then, once we are done with the rats, we will stop for an hour to recuperate any lost Mana and Stamina, as well as it’ll be lunchtime.”

nWhen Cynrik finished speaking, he looked up at Gabby to try and figure out her mental state. When he saw her eyes were lively and she seemed as energetic as usual, he calmly stood up and tussled her hair. Earlier, his Æsir Bloodline had caused his bloodlust to peak, making him worried that he’d frighten the little girl too badly, but when he saw she seemed fine, Cynrik pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind.

n“You did well out there squirt, have a sourball.”

n“YAYYY!”

nWith a flick of his wrist, a neatly wrapped sour candy appeared in his palm, causing Gabby to squeal, snatch it from him, and jam it into her mouth happily.

n“Ohqay, Onwawrd koo dah ext wats!” Gabby proclaimed, pointing towards the tunnel at the far side of the room. The others were used to Gabbys attempts to talk with candy in her mouth and quickly translated her words to “Ok, onward to the next rats.”

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