Chapter 3 - Down the Hatch

  "Sometimes the only option is the one you live with, and that ain't philosophical. That's actual advice. Fighting for honor or morals is the business of dead men. I find coin, shelter, and a good woman more agreeable. In short, start casting, or I'll kill you."

  - Carlos Martin, Captain of the infamous Bloody Rivers Company

  [Shielding] had a very interesting interaction with the world, which Solis very much appreciated. [Shielding] wasn’t a representation of health; it was a literal barrier that would absorb any and all damage, no matter how insignificant. As an added benefit, excess damage didn’t bleed through [Shielding].

  In practice, that meant that no single attack could kill someone who had any [Body] or any of its substats active.

  The only reason he hadn’t just jumped off the mountain was that he was scared the wind would blow him backward, into the wall, breaking his [Shielding], followed by his bones, and hopefully his skull as he hit the ground for a quick end.

  No, jumping into the mist was not an option yet, but a point-blank grenade going off in, or very near in, the monster's fleshy mouth certainly was.

  Solis was still as a statue, not wanting to move any more than he absolutely had to. He had his extreme option, but Fami had always urged him not to jump to his first ideas, as in her words, “it’s like you think of something that would work and consider it the only option.”

  Normally, he wouldn’t have the time to think through his options, not with a beast that could wake up at any moment, but Solis wasn’t building pure [Resonance] for no reason.

  He activated the stat at full blast, all eight points of it. The icy chill it gave as feedback would forever be impossible to get used to.

  The present etched itself into his brain with such force that he could not forget a single detail.

  He thought faster, much faster. Not, as he had come to learn, smarter, but in some cases, the difference between making a smart decision and a stupid one came down to having time to consider both.

  Lastly, and most notably, was the effect of [Division]. With two and one-third points in the sub-stat, he could think in parallel with zero disturbance or noise.

  With his augmented mind, he thought of possibilities, throwing a [Simulate] at the ones he liked.

  [Simulate]

  —

  He cut the simulation short when he woke the creature, because there was zero chance of survival if that happened. He didn't even need to waste the mana to see it.

  The [Simulate] skill wasn’t terribly reliable here, as he had never seen the monster in action, but it could tell him something based on the other monsters he had killed, as well as the most important basic system information.

  Like if a monster had [Shielding] of its own.

  The creature in front of him didn't, which meant those plates of bone would act like a carapace. It also meant that if he managed to get the grenade into the creature's mouth, its bone carapace would actually hurt it far more, as all that energy bounced and shredded it inside out.

  The more he thought, the more he liked his grenade plan.

  A mana construct, maybe? A sort of slide he could put the grenade on that would roll down into the creature's mouth?

  ‘What in the loony-toons Rube Goldberg machine idea is that?’

  No, the best idea would be to shove his hand into its mouth.

  He could practically hear Fami, Lyla, and Ricky screaming “NO” at him in unison.

  The thought made him smile.

  With one last thought, he checked the list of requirements for his class.

  —

  He pulled up the last two skills through the System and dedicated one stream of thought to each.

  —

  It wasn't much of a contest.

  What he needed was Anchor. He could float the grenade over to the monster’s mouth, pull the pin, and shove it inside.

  He could even create a small barrier with [Mana Manipulation] between himself and the monster to protect him from the blast.

  He selected the skill, which ended up solving two problems. One: a way to get the grenade to the monster's mouth; Two: not making noise to wake the creature.

  Creating a tendril of mana out of the back of his neck, Solis guided it to his bag, a sack in truth. The tendril jostled around for a moment, breaking against all the objects until Solis decided to just flood the entire bag and try to tell where the grenade was based on how the empty space – for lack of a better word – felt.

  Once found, he activated his new skill for the first time. He found the mold that all skills took. Skills floated around in some nebulous half-space like the System prompts. Not quite there, but you swore you could see it if you focused.

  The [Pools] were also somehow connected to that space, as once a mold was found, something had to be pushed into it. In this case, mana.

  Solis did just that, making a connection between his mana and the skill and shoving in the substance like a caveman. Funnily enough, skill didn’t come into play when activating [Skills]. They just did the thing they were supposed to do. Most benefited from knowledge or finesse, but they never failed due to a lack of it.

  With the [Anchor] set on one of the grenades, Solis lifted his mana tendril, finding it more sluggish and difficult to command, and it already moved at a snail's pace before.

  One stream of thought guided the grenade while the other started by laying out a mana construct wall.

  A few seconds later, the grenade was at the monster's mouth. All he needed to do was pull the pin. Which he found wasn’t as simple as just wanting it to happen.

  ‘Ahhh crap. No, no I can fix this.’

  He set an Anchor on the pin and the mana and moved the pin. The rest of the grenade moved with it, and Solis wanted to curse, but he stayed focused.

  Pushing the grenade closer, he unanchored the body of the grenade, keeping his focus on the pin, hoping gravity would pull it for him.

  Nothing happened. It was as if the skill treated the grenade and the pin as a single entity. One moved, both moved. That, or the weight of the grenade wasn’t enough to extract the pin. He had never used one before, so genuinely had no idea one way or the other. He decided it had to do with his skill.

  ‘Continuous mana,’ Solis mumbled internally.

  He abandoned the idea of creating a wall. With the free stream of thought, he reshaped the mana originally intended for the wall into another tendril, guiding it forward.

  One tendril anchored to the grenade and the other to the pin.

  He pulled them apart.

  The pin came loose, a small metal ching sound seeming to roar in Solis's ears. He used the mana tendril to shove the grenade into the creature's mouth as far as it could go and held it there, but the monster was awake.

  It thrashed violently for a moment and then instantly found Solis. Mouth wide, it let out a screech. Even with eight of his [Resonance] Solis had no time to think. The monster’s body was curling like a spring, each interlocking plate snapping into place with the sound of shattering trees. Its mouth opened wider and—

  Solis threw himself out of the cave.

  He twisted in the air, head searching for what he already knew would be there, thirty feet below. He spread his arms out wide. Just before he hit the tree, he pulsed [Body], impacting with a loud thunk, and losing seven [Shielding] for the trouble.

  Head turning up, Solis saw the monster launch itself out of the cave mouth as a blur, the body seeming to leave an afterimage giving the illusion – for a moment – that it was never ending.

  The monster twisted in the air, four sets of wings flaring, twitching, and flapping as each set made tens of microadjustments each second.

  Its wings caught the wild winds, and just as fast as it had shot out of the cave, it shot back at Solis in an arching blow that could’ve turned an elephant into paste.

  Solis’s [Shielding] broke with the sound of a car being crushed and a migraine that tore at his eyes. He wheezed out a breath, finding it difficult, pinned as he was between mountain and monster.

  He held his breath. In the next few seconds, he’d be alive or dead. He waited, and nothing happened.

  Opening his eyes, he looked down at the flying winged beast and saw it still, blood and wetness pouring from its mouth. Down the length of its body, around half the way down, is where the grenade had been when it exploded, blowing chunks of the creature off.

  The monster was dead.

  Oh, so gloriously dead.