[Title Equipped: Endurance Engine V]

  [The propensity that you will break has been reduced by 20%]

  Kelly didn't break, but she sure as hell bent, folded, and fractured. It burned, quite badly if Kelly had to describe it, and if she turned on her pain receptors, Kelly knew she'd be feeling like a circuit board shoved into a blast furnace.

  But her most impressive Resistance title, Fortress of Endurance, had already slammed into a major milestone: fifth grade. The title wasn’t perfect, but At this level, it not only multiplied her base durability—it occasionally just told reality to sit down and shut up, refusing to let her break about twenty percent of the time. Essentially, it was a gacha roll for temporary invincibility.

  Unfortunately, the lack of perfection came from the title’s interpretation of “breaking,” which was… somewhat interpretive. Her current condition—crispy, crumpled, unmoving, and generally resembling the aftermath of a microwave experiment—made that abundantly clear.

  Kelly sprawled across scorched earth, bones screaming silent complaints. Nothing snapped. Nothing gave. Everything else, though? Completely shredded. She flexed a hand, looked at the mess around her, and muttered, “Somebody call a medic. Oh wait, that’s me.”

  The air thickened with dense mana, still rattling from the blast. A massive snake devoured the sky somewhere in the distance. Kelly squinted at glimpses of the blue behind it. Fortress of Vitality slotted in without ceremony. Healing kicked in, patching broken bits that insisted on trying to ruin her day. Half an hour to full health? Waste of time. She yanked out her new Mana Vacuum title and pulled mana toward herself in a storm. Natural regeneration skyrocketed.

  Fifth-grade Titles were rare. Low-grade Titles leveled fast. Fifth grade? Each rank at that level and above required actions so insane most people would die before trying. Kelly was amused by the thought. Insane shit? Check. If she wanted these Titles to grow, she would have to push further—harder, faster, more chaotic than anything she had done yet.

  And so she lay there, in the ashes of the east side, the last living thing for hundreds of miles, maybe for the next hour. The horizon burned to ash. The ground cracked and shattered, full of remnants of the familiar chromatic multicolored chaotic visible energy furiously flitting about. She muttered, “Perfect.”

  Kelly raised her hand. Her mimic skin had transformed it into a mana-amplifying crystal, flames licking the edges. The crystal flickered, then became ice, then obsidian, then shifted through forms she hadn’t named yet.

  As far as she knew, the mimic skin could copy any material. Living tissue wasn’t on the menu at grade one. Which was the grade every single one of her traits seemed permanently, stubbornly stuck at. A higher grade might let her mimic living tissue. It would probably stack with her primordial blood trait. Let her steal traits with a touch.

  Creatures had traits of all kinds—some horrifying, some useless, some unpredictable. Kelly was picky for a reason: she could grab anything by accident. Tentacles, doppelgangers with questionable appetites, who knows what else. She liked to scan the galaxy of magical data in invader cells and pick exactly what would wreak the most havoc.

  “Fire. Ice. Steel hits like a truck. Obsidian… that’s annoying.” A shift ran through the crystal hand, then shot out perfectly hexagonal structures of metal and ice. “Okay, maybe that one’s worth a spin.” A constant stream flying from her hand like a magician, only the audience screamed instead of applauded.

  “Hmm. A ‘nuke amplifier crystal’ would be nice.”

  She tutted, letting her hand shift back to normal. These crystals they had were basic. Amateur stuff. Playing with matches.

  Kelly wanted to make rockets.

  She needed to take fire and turn it into thrust. That meant tearing the whole concept down to its bones. Finding the pieces that mattered. Cutting out everything that didn't. The rest was just decoration.

  Something to work on.

  The east district was completely wiped off the map. Gone. Properly gone. Mana bled into the soil, twisting the air into visible, multicolored patterns. Kelly watched it. Things were going to grow here, eventually. They would be spectacularly wrong.

  [Title Fortress of Flame IV → Fortress of Flame V]

  A deep, cellular nausea settled in.

  “Right. Reset button.” She said it to the smoldering crater.

  Still, knowing the stakes of her failure now put one of her end goals in her mind. She had grown to like Rowena, and her long-term promise was to ensure that she perfectly stopped the explosion and saved Rowena—oh yeah, and East New York, too.

  As far as she had come, this place was still her home. She liked a few of the people here. Sure, millions lived here, not just the ones she liked, but who cared about that? Nobody messed with Kelly’s home or her people. Especially not some magical spell-slinging tourists.

  But the moment for watching was over. She had work to do. And as the menacing giant leviathan snaked over the apocalyptic, half-destroyed landscape, she intentionally triggered her title for the second time—the one that would kill her if she stopped moving. Then prepared to trigger her other failsafes—just in case. The circumstances were safer than the last time, by a margin.

  Her body accepted the invitation. Internal combustion was a very fast process. She had a half-second to appreciate the engineering before the flames tore through her ribs.

  The world went white, then black.

  [Magic Tinkerer II → Magic Tinkerer III]

  [Mana Focused Student I → Mana Focused Student II]

  [New Title: Mana Gardener (Extremely Rare, Grade-I)]

  Her new Titles leveled up to grade 2 and 3 over the course of her next loops and constant GMO experimentation, which had also gained a brand-new title labeling her as a magical gardener.

  Rowena leaned back in her chair, scanning the console. “I have to admit… I’m impressed.”

  A lab assistant gasped and spun around. Rowena ignored her and continued, “Not bad, Dr. Voss. Not bad at all. Have you done plant GMO work before Vaughn? I don’t see it on your resume. Wasn’t aware you were this experienced… a personal project, maybe?”

  You could say that again.

  Kelly leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “I’ve dabbled here and there. Mostly trying to keep things alive that shouldn’t be.”

  Rowena’s eyebrows shot up. “Honestly… you’re in the wrong field. You could be leading the plant GMO initiative for a bigger company, or even an off-world nation. After today, there’s no way you’re still an intern.”

  Kelly shrugged. “I’m still figuring things out. Just been at Vaughn for a month. Graduated last year.”

  Rowena blinked. “I mean… seriously. One of the most talented people I’ve come across in years, and you’re just here, barely a month in? How is that even possible?”

  Kelly tilted her head, smirking. “Guess I like to stick around and see what breaks next.” She paused, then added, “Now then, if you don’t mind, I’m about to do something that will advance mankind and make a seven-foot pigeon swear.”

  Rowena blinked. “A seven-foot pigeon?”

  Kelly gave a knowing look. “Yes. It taught me that patience is for losers—and a seven-foot pigeon has no right to boss me around.”

  With that, Kelly turned back to her console and began one of her greatest experiments yet.

  She tried to find the right combination of crystals to generate power. None worked. But she did try several different experiments. Then she found something that changed everything.

  Runes.

  Every crystal had them. A microscopic magical language written in pure mana. At first, she had missed it. Her ocular mana scanners alone weren’t enough. Only when paired with the lab’s machines and signal boosters did the hidden patterns emerge, peeling back the crystal’s skin. Inside were the runes—fixed, static patterns. A language. A code.

  It was simple. Basic math. One-plus-one-equals-fire. Portal creature DNA was different—dense, living encryption, the neural-net-dense architecture that built Traits and Skills. This was the crude blueprint. The kindergarten version. Small and elegant, but powerful in its simplicity.

  Almost every crystal carried at least two runes. The first was ‘[Absorb]’. That one pulled mana from any mana source that came into contact with it. Kelly tapped a crystal with her finger and felt the faint tug. She watched the scanner feed. It drank from her, just a sip. She wondered why it did not pull from the very air like she did. Maybe it was picky. Or stupid. The second rune other crystals had was the one that dictated specific, singular effects. That was the action. That was the command.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The end result was a magic bullet. She etched two runes into a crystal shard. [Absorb]. [Explode]. Invader flesh imbued it with mana. It blew up. It was nothing tech could not already do. A grenade was simpler. A block of C4 was more reliable. But that was not the point. The point was the language.

  And, finally, her sixth vacation had to end. She needed to throw herself back into the grinder of combat if she wanted to move forward and figure out what else she could do. She had to find crystals that could actually work like mana batteries, not just these little enchanting amplifiers she was stuck with. The whole rune thing had been under her nose the entire time. She’d been sitting on the answer and using it as a coaster. She needed to get out, to explore, and to look for anything she’d missed.

  It was a little embarrassing, really. Her weapon could slice the bonds between atoms, but show it a decent spell and it just sighed and gave up. A lot of the tougher beasts had made that point for her. The undead knights had treated her best blade like it was a piece of limp string. Even that messed-up creature in the mist-market had swatted her chainsaw away like a bad smell, and that should have been flatly impossible.

  So, she got to work.

  She made two distinct changes to her monomolecular switchblade’s stored forms.

  The first was a tweak to its chainblade. She used the basic runes for [electricity] and for tossing out bits of [metal]. The blade could now spit thin, wire-like streams of liquid metal and shove a frankly rude amount of electricity through them. It had evolved into something between a taser and a lightning whip. Close-quarters work suddenly became electrifying in the most uncomfortable way.

  The second change was a whole new form—a long-range projectile weapon. It resembled a strange kind of magic shotgun, and it was a little… strange. She crammed in almost every basic element rune available: [metal], [ice], [air], [earth], and [lightning], along with the one associated with [fire], which simply produced heat and flames just as fire normally would. The weapon released these components at a steady, slightly alarming rate.

  On contact, the mixture did not pierce like a conventional bullet. It draped itself over the target, filling gaps and crevices, and then hardened in a way that screamed, “you’re not moving ever again.” The metals and particulates rapidly solidified, either through sudden cooling or chemical reaction, effectively locking moving parts together. Any energy-dependent components shorted or drained due to the electrical charge. The result was not destruction in the traditional sense; it was permanent immobilization, as if the target had been glued and short-circuited simultaneously, with a side of “please don’t wiggle.”

  A truly advanced suit of armor could probably stop it. That armor would need an outside layer that repelled everything. It would need internal layers that could shift and flow to seal up breaches the moment they happened. It would need tiny, built-in cleaners to scuttle around and neutralize any gunk that got inside. That sort of equipment wasn't for ordinary soldiers. It was for someone who was very, very important, or very, very paranoid, and it would cost more than a functioning city block.

  The next day, Kelly finished within the hour. Rowena handed over a personal contact chip. “Access is unrestricted. Really, Kelly. Come by any time. Any hour.”

  “Appreciated.” Kelly pocketed it. Open invitations were her favorite kind. She appreciated it. Really, she did.

  A quick trip to Times Square yielded interesting results. Her weapon worked well. Against mana creatures, of course. Simon and his men were really complete weaklings in the grand scheme of things. The lesser troll was too, not even reaching the EQ threshold, with no magic to speak of outside of its rapid regeneration and dense bones. Kelly suspected it didn’t even have any skills. Maybe it was a kid? A giant troll toddler? Now that was a thought.

  But the bullets exploded, had various effects once they pierced its skin and absorbed its mana. So, success.

  Basic runes, though. Super basic. ‘[Fire],’ ‘[Air expansion],’ ‘[Metal].’ Just superheated plasma; decently powered, nothing revolutionary. The shadow marbles were overpowered as all hell, though. The shadow stones? shattered from the speed like short-range super shotguns. The stones she could use. She didn’t want to use the marbles or the statue gun on anything she couldn’t take out with a few regular guns and a knife. Overkill would ruin her Title gain.

  The Hyperloop corridor was a graveyard of bodies and something that had been hunting them. Kelly stepped over fractured silicate, her boots crunching on debris. Her weapon—a shifting length of metal alloys mixed with strengthened crystal so seamlessly it appeared as one solid construct—hummed in her hand, its faint glow pulsing against her senses. She was looking for a specific density of rubble to test the force projection.

  Ten Obsidian Mercs emerged from the shadows, moving with coordinated caution. At their front, a massive half-AI brute detached itself, cybernetic eye scanning the corridor, heat-seeking missile implants and weapon augments humming along his arms. The other mercs fanned out behind him, rifles ready, adjusting positions behind debris.

  “Turn around. This tunnel’s claimed,” the brute said, his deep synthetic-edged voice cutting through the corridor.

  Kelly didn’t stop walking. “By who? The ghosts of your shareholders?”

  “By me. The guy with the gun. Drop the fancy stick and your pack.”

  “It’s not a stick.” She flicked her wrist. The weapon reconfigured, segments sliding and locking with a series of solid clacks into a long, heavy blade form. The runes along its spine brightened, drinking from the well of mana stored in her palms. A jagged blue light fractured across the walls.

  The brute’s cybernetic eye glinted as he raised his arm, firing a superheated bolt. Kelly moved, not away, but closer. The bolt seared past her shoulder. Her shadow, stretched long by her weapon’s light, rippled across the floor beside the brute’s cover. From it, shards of fractured stone, sharper than spears, shot out at the speed of sound.

  There was a boom.

  It didn’t hit him. It hit the pillar he was using for cover, exploding it into a cloud of dust and shrapnel. He stumbled back, coughing, weapon swinging wildly. The other mercs scattered, ducking and rolling to the sides as their cover crumbled—one slid behind a pile of rubble while another tried to fire from a safer angle.

  “What the hell was that?” the brute shouted.

  Kelly didn’t answer. She stepped lightly over debris, weapon humming, shadows stretching along the floor, every shard and stone and sonic boom calibrated perfectly to keep the Obsidian Mercs scrambling.

  She raised her hand, forming a finger gun, dramatic and slow.

  A tiny jet of harmless orange fire puffed out of her fingertip like a malfunctioning birthday candle.

  She frowned.

  “Sorry. Wrong crystal.”

  She shook her hand twice like trying to restart a lighter, then muttered, deadpan,

  “Well… I guess today’s not about killing anyone. It’s about party planning.”

  The brute blinked, then fired everything he had.

  Now in the Hyperloop, Kelly looked at the overclocked team, still catching their breath from Rook’s anti-terrorist defenses. “You guys are pretty weak. You know that, right? Was this a delegation? ‘Here, go do the grunt work.’ Or is this an enhancer initiation ritual? ‘Prove your worth by babysitting freaky beasts.’” She shook her head. “Staying behind to catch these things is a terrible idea. For you guys, I mean. I’m having a blast.”

  ”SINGLE HOSTILE! PINCER THREE!” A merc yelled as the rest surrounded her in a half circle

  Before anyone could reorient, rifle fire erupted from ten angles. She didn’t duck—she simply sighed, brushing hair from her face as bullets tore past her, fell into her floating shadow shield’s dimension, and pinged off her mimic skin.

  She immediately sat cross-legged on the floor, pulled yarn from her pack, and began knitting in the middle of the firefight, humming a gentle little tune that absolutely did not match the hail of gunfire around her.

  Then, casually, conversationally, she said:

  “Yes, I’m single. And hostile. I love being single. Haven’t had this much sex since I ran the church bake sale.”

  A merc peeked over debris, confused, as a second gunman rushed her from behind with a long, complex-looking weapon raised.

  Without looking, she swung her crystal hand backward and punched him.

  The man went flying.

  Kelly yelled at the Obsidian brute as his micro-missiles streaked toward her. “You brought fireworks to a gunfight!” She blocked the volley with Fortress of Flame, letting the Title eat the kinetic energy and convert it to a harmless thermal wash. She even didn’t bother with a shield.

  In hindsight, it was obvious. They were the organization’s bottom tier. A throwaway team for throwaway, dangerous jobs. Local thugs with delusions of military grandeur. They could dominate unenhanced civilians and dumb beasts. Their equipment was garbage by actual military operational standards—barely Threshold-grade, mass-produced junk. The average civilian cowered before their spray-and-pray firepower. If not for her warning Rook, they wouldn’t ever have needed to fight anything but monsters.

  They were one of many low-level Obsidian teams clogging the city, a lesser-equipped one. Definitely not capable of handling anything above the 6.0EQ enhancement Threshold. They were target practice with bad attitudes.

  Kelly had fought Thresholders, actual tanks, and witnessed Elites of all kinds. She decided to come back here and attempt to test and experiment on her weapon configurations and crystal enchanting against the weakest enemies she knew.

  She battled mimics, fought lesser enhanced-level teams and creatures in and around the Hyperloop while searching for different types of crystals, staffs, and enchanted weapons, studying the complex runes crafting, and tinkering with the few runes she had mastered. Her shadow stretched and twisted, opening portals that hurled fractured stone at the speed of sound into anything moving. Limbs snapped, armor shattered, and sparks flew with every strike. She occasionally shouted at an unleashed mimic thrashing in her path. “Yeah, yeah, I see you trying. Don’t quit your day job, genius.”

  Her sixth loop yielded an unexpected result.

  [New Trait: Mana Conduit (Grade-I)]

  That was not a title but a trait. Always active, always on. It came from a skeletal knight that could overload her weapons and mana crystals, causing her weapon to backfire and kill her. She had to break into GenCorp while being chased by an angry horde of monsters to alter it, take it apart, and make it useful. She escaped while every creature in many blocks turned their HQ into a literal house party.

  Mana was still compressed in her, still drawn every second, but the trait allowed her to successfully channel a portion of the mana her body constantly absorbed into crystal implants embedded in her palms. Yes, Kelly was part plant now. It didn’t give her any new traits—it fit perfectly into her chimera trait. Her palms now grew amplifier crystals that [Stored] mana with single runes. It freed her mimic skin, meaning she didn’t have to use it to turn her hands into mana crystals.

  This mana was then absorbed into the [Absorb] and [Store] runes embedded into her transforming weapon, filling it with raw, unfiltered mana.

  It didn’t do much right now, but it was the first step. She had gotten the idea from her mimic skin trait, Angel Killer, and Mythril Fist titles, which showed her that mana could be infused into specific parts of her body.

  A scurrying sound drew her attention.

  A large, mutated mouse erupted from a crate and darted across the floor, clambering on her leg.

  Her eyes widened slightly.

  “Oh no. Absolutely not.”

  Her weapon transformed and blasted in a wide spray, erasing the mutated creature, half of the space, and any merc who was in its path.

  The rest ran.

  Kelly sighed and sat back down, examining her gains.

  For now, the stored mana lit up her weapon to her scanners. That was enough. It was proof. It was the first step. She would figure out what it could do by smashing everything in sight until the answer emerged.

  “Oh, come on! Come back! Don’t run! Hit me! I need the practice!” she yelled at a group of escaping mercs and the abandoned mimics closing in, a burst from her shadow sending one flying into a wall. The laughter, the chaos, the hum of energy—it all meant one thing:

  She was on the right path.