After their brief exchange, Arden and Sya joined the others in meditation to circulate their essence, replenishing their supplies and healing themselves. The blight had already been taken back by Sya, adding three more progress points to the next rank. It seemed that she would get an equal amount of progress from reabsorbing blight essence from fallen foes as a normal Starborn would from slaying a Celestial. For every core the Celestial had, she would gain another point towards her progression, so long as she took back any blight essence she had corrupted them with.

  Arden took the time to regrow his lost arm with the biomass he had taken from the bull’s leg. The bone was the first to recover, followed by the interwoven layers of muscles and flesh to make up a normal human hand. He clenched his hand several times after it healed and nodded to himself, satisfied.

  He felt cold glass pressing against his forehead and opened his eyes, seeing Savish standing over him, holding a healing potion by the bottle’s neck and letting it rock gently into him.

  “Take it,” she said. “I grabbed a few after dropping the girl off. Don’t waste your resources on just healing after a fight. Save it for when you need it.”

  Arden looked between the glass bottle filled with the red healing solution and his blistered form. Most of his clothes were still destroyed, meaning that he would look like a lingerie model until the Stoneflesh Shroud recovered enough to be wearable.

  He still wasn’t a fan of healing potions after his trial, but he liked burning through his biomass reserves even less. He accepted the bottle graciously and downed it in a single gulp.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  His blisters disappeared and he was healed most of the way back to normal. Red splotches covered his kin like a sunburn, but it was infinitely better than the severe burns he was used to getting.

  “How are you feeling?” Savish asked. “It couldn’t have been easy fighting something that much stronger than you."

  “I might have gotten blown up once or twice,” he said. “But it wasn't the worst I was ever outclassed.”

  “So I’ve heard,” she replied. “Your armor is supernova rank, right?”

  “That it is. It doesn’t really feel like it though. It’s high rank, but it's only red-tier. Most things of equal tier can punch right through it given enough time. And fire…”

  He shook his head with a scowl.

  “For something with a heat resistance aspect, it doesn't really help when I’m constantly being lit up with red-tier fire. Do you know how many times I’ve been set alight since everything began?”

  “At least twice,” Savish said. “Three if you’re counting the hellfire stigmata.”

  “I was set on fire twice as a mudanne. Once by Yaan, and once from the boss of the stargate we cleared. Since becoming a Starborn, Yaan got me good twice, and this damn cow got me another two times as well. I thought stone wasn’t flammable, but my armor tends to disagree. The reason I’m sitting here with hardly anything covered is because the Stoneflesh Shroud is recovering in my soul cluster.”

  A Status notification appeared in front of him.

  Orange-tier main-sequence Savish has transferred ownership of red-tier protostar Satellite, Enhancement Boon to you.

  “What is this?”

  “Enchancement Boon. All of my boons are orange-tier, so a red-tier boon won’t help me. Consider this a bonus for taking out a supergiant.”

  “Encahncement Boon…” Arden muttered in thought. “Is this like a Transplantation Boon? Does it enhance aspects instead of transplanting them?”

  “That’s right. Use it to enhance the heat resistance aspect. You seem to encounter more fire than any other type of damage. With the enhancement, it’ll be stronger. Perhaps strong enough to graduate from heat resistance to fire resistance.”

  “Vera said it already came with a small amount of inherent flame resistance.”

  “Was it enough?”

  “No.”

  As soon as he said it, he accepted the Boon and entered his soul cluster before he even read the message that appeared, telling him that he accepted.

  Standing in front of the bone pillar, he commanded the red mote containing the Stoneflesh Shroud and the new grey mote containing the Enhancement Boon to appear in front of him.

  The Stoneflesh Shroud appeared hovering in midair right in front of him, and it was as it was when Arden put it back in here after the first explosion. It was in tatters, but somehow not completely destroyed. He wondered if it was because of the Stoneflesh aspect at work.

  Stoneflesh Shroud

  Satellite Tier: Red

  Satellite Rank: Supernova

  Satellite Type: Armor

  Satellite Description: Any beast with power can take control of a mountain. However, it takes a special one to truly become the king of the mountain.

  Satellite Aspects: Stoneflesh, Igneous, Headstone

  Stoneflesh: This armor is very tough, but very light.

  Igneous: This armor provides mild heat resistance.

  Headstone: This armor masks some of the wearer’s signs of life.

  The Enhancement Boon appeared in his hand as the Stoneflesh Shroud slowly mended itself in front of him.

  Like the other boon hovering around his star core, the Enhancement Boon was a simple white token about the size of his hand. Unlike the other one, this one had the image of a plus sign emblazoned on it, not an arrow.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Let's figure this out,” Arden said.

  Making an educated guess, Arden simply thought about using the boon on his armor, like one had to do to get into their soul cluster to begin with.

  His guess was right on the money. The token cracked in his hand, and the three aspects detailed by the Status were now highlighted in the window.

  “Enhance Aspect: Igneous.”

  The token dissolved into red light like every other similar tier Satellite and the text on the Status window changed. The Igneous Aspect was gone. In its place was a new one, Obsidian Skin. Arden read the updated Aspect.

  Obsidian Skin: This armor provides moderate heat resistance, minor flame resistance, and inferior physical resistance.

  “Oh wow. That turned out better than I thought,” Arden said, impressed.

  The heat resistance went up a level, and with it, minor flame resistance appeared as well, just as Savish said. It even provided some extra measure of physical damage resistance too.

  Arden didn't think that the physical resistance buff made him much tankier, but every little bit helped. That tiny increase in defense could be the difference between life and death at some point in his future.

  Satisfied, he sent the recovering armor back to his core, and left his soul cluster to return to the waking world.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw that the other members of the squad were no longer circulating and recovering. They stood around the corpse of the blast bull and conversed lightly. They noticed Arden’s return to his body and Vera helped him to his feet.

  “You look a lot better,” she observed. “Did Savish hook you up with a potion?”

  “Yup. And a bonus for actually managing to kill that thing. She gave me a boon, which I immediately used. Stoneflesh Shroud received an upgrade. It should actually have some flame resistance now.”

  As Arden was pulled up, he realized that he was wearing clothes now. Judging by the ill-fitting size of his current attire, he assumed that they belonged to the orange haired bulky Torvis.

  The shirt drew most of Arden’s attention. It was a t-shirt with a graphic of a wolf and text in a strange font above it. It took him a few seconds to read it, and he wasn't sure what to think.

  “The dog in me has been euthanized?”

  “One of my favorite shirts,” Torvis said with a laugh. “It goes hard. Not as hard as you, though. You were a monster out there, taking those blasts both times. That's a pretty wicked life steal ability you've got there.”

  Sya cringed in response to Torvis’s words. She seemed a lot more lively now than she had been before her talk with Arden.

  “Please don't refer to my brother being hard in front of me.”

  Torvis laughed boisterously. Arden figured that was part of who he was

  “Sorry,” he apologized. “You were pretty damn good out there as well. I haven't seen a Starborn with poisonous blood before. It sounds rough, having to cut yourself to use your powers effectively.”

  She shrugged.

  “There's plenty of sharp stuff around.”

  Torvis laughed again as Volis spoke.

  “Before we go any further, allow me to give my unrestrained thanks to you and your cohort,” he said, bowing to Arden. “If it weren't for your timely arrival, the three of us would be dead. Instead, we have only a single injured person.”

  “The girl will be fine,” Savish cut in. “Each of these outposts have a healer on standby for incidents just like this. She was already past the worst of it before I started the journey back.”

  A soft smile appeared on Volis' lips. With his chiseled face and boyish smile, Arden again felt that his looks were still lacking compared to literally everyone else around him. He never thought that the Blight Walker at his side would draw more awestruck looks than him.

  “If you don't mind my asking,” Volis said. “Who are you people?”

  “Aspiring Starborn,” Arden answered. “We came out here for training before the field assessment for Starborn warriors at the end of the month.”

  “You too?” Torvis asked. “That's what we were doing as well. Our parents figured it was a good way to get some experience. Most of our party’s powers can’t really be used in a normal training environment.”

  “Tell me about it.” Arden held out his hand. “I’m Arden.”

  Torvis grabbed the hand and shook it.

  “Torvis.”

  “I’m Volis,” Volis introduced himself with a short, formal bow. “Again, thank you for helping us.”

  He turned to Savish who for the most part had only been observing the group. For her, he gave a full bow.

  “And thank you for getting Liva to safety. I know I can't do much to help an orange-tier like yourself, but if there's anything we can do to help you, the Indigo Flash guild will not hesitate to help.”

  “Indigo Flash?” Arden asked Vera in a hushed voice. “Do you know them?”

  “Not really,” she answered. “Only the most basic knowledge. They're a fairly successful guild on the east side of Ring 4.”

  “I can ask for anything?” Savish asked for clarification.

  “Within reason,” Volis nodded.

  She raised a hand and pointed to the corpse of the blast bull.

  “I want that.”

  “You want the dead bull?”

  “Yes.”

  Volis looked between her and the bull several times with a confused expression.

  “Like, just the bull? Nothing else? No Satellite or anything?”

  “I don't want Satellites. I want to cook the cow.”

  “Um, okay then,” Volis said hesitantly. “You can take it. But I won’t let that be your only reward. You brought your protegees to help slay the blast bull and got a member of my party to safety. A single cow is not enough to repay you.”

  Savish sighed inwardly, but did not show her displeasure at being forced to accept a reward. The meat from the bull was all she wanted. She liked that Volis was sincere, but his sincerity was a tad overwhelming for someone like her who only wants to run her restaurant in peace. Building connections with guilds was good, especially when she was just a contractor, but she was content.

  She didn’t want to refuse the reward, knowing full well that not every guild was as friendly as Miasma and could even take offense to having their gift rejected.

  ‘What a drag,’ she thought. ‘Relationships with guilds are cool and all, but I can’t turn relationships into steak.’

  A lightbulb went off in her mind with that thought.

  “Okay, how about this,” she said. “Can your guild be suppliers for my restaurant? Quality beef only.”

  “That still seems small…” he muttered while rubbing his chin in thought. “But it’s big enough to mollify me.”

  He withdrew several cards from his inventory, all of which had the emblem of a storm cloud with a purple bolt of lighting arcing through it., just below was the address and title of the guild. Pulling a marker out alongside the cards, he quickly wrote his signature down on each of them before handing them out to Savish, Arden, Vera, and Sya.

  “Show those to the guild workers to verify your identity. Indigo Flash will be waiting for you. All of you,” Volis emphasized, giving all of the red-tier Starborn lingering looks. “We’ll be heading out first. I want to check up on Liva.”

  He and Torvis climbed up out of the crater ahead of everyone else. When they reached the top, they looked back at the group still in there talking among themselves.

  “Hey!” Torvis called out, drawing their attention with a wave. “See you guys at the field assessment!”

  With those parting words, they disappeared back into the forest.