Henry spent some tokens and finally brought his ephemeral skills into his class. Occasionally he had to pause and let out the clones that his scouting Octomind was creating, then caught himself.

  Why am I doing this myself?

  Henry ordered one of his idle Octominds to take care of letting the clones out instead, then focused on his interface.

  Alright, the abilities are in my class. Probably sticking to the class-frame. I’ll need to move them to an Aspect without screwing up, he thought as he eyed the list. He wasn’t using an Evolutionary point on any of them.. Right now, the points were too valuable to be wasted just transplanting skills. Fusions–of skills or Aspects–were the priority for those points, and not anything else. Moving a skill out of the class and into the Aspect was probably challenging, but he needed to move a few anyway. If he hit a dead-end, he could try with the System’s assistance and observe the process. For now, there was no rush, and he had some ideas after having observed the fusion process he’d just gone through. He just needed to do some solo-practice for a bit.

  I’m glad there isn’t a limit on class skills any more. Then again, I could only focus on so many things at once. But the new Octominds should help in bringing the new skills up to speed.

  Class Skills

  Control Water (F)

  Sonic Pulse (E)

  Mind Shield (E)

  Invisibility (D)

  Telepathic Orchestration (E)

  Henry took note—or his Octomind did—to test out Sonic Pulse and Telepathic Orchestration to see what he could get out of them, and to see if they were worth transferring to his Aspect. He wasn’t sure about Sonic Pulse, as he didn’t have the hearing or the brain circuitry to interpret the sonic feedback, but Orchestration was most likely making the cut.

  It was a skill to coordinate telepathically, without words. At least, that’s what the description was saying. Henry would test it shortly. As for the remaining skills, they were going to be added to their respective Aspects.

  Invisibility and Mind Shield were amazing and would be extremely useful. Both would increase his stealth capabilities by leaps and bounds, and when he eventually met more telepathic beings, having his mind shielded would be a necessity.

  The Bahamut whales might have been friendly and might have not abused their insight into his mind, but there were bound to be intelligent beings out there who’d exploit everything they could glean. Humans, among others. Especially if telepathy was a common ability.

  Which left Control Water. Even though it was incredibly weak right now, it was a prime skill to assign to one of his Octominds for training. Having seen what could be done with it, Henry believed it could grow to become one of his main abilities one day.

  With that done, Henry turned his attention to his scouting Octomind and was… shocked.

  A trill of excitement ran through the kraken as he watched the sub-mind work.

  They really are better.

  In the few minutes he’d been busy starting at his interface, nearly fifty ink clones had been created and dispatched. No blood clones, as those were expensive in health and mana, but fifty ink clones was a lot more than he’d expected.

  His Octomind was seeing through them, coordinating them with ease. A line of inky-black clones were swimming forward, covering for a handful who searched for safe caves to hide in, while the remaining clones were spread out to watch for danger in a wider circle. Whenever one of them was killed or whenever a particularly dangerous monster was found, the scouting Octomind would make small adjustments, and the scouting party would drift away from the dangerous seas to explore another direction.

  The sheer amount of information Henry perceived would have overwhelmed him before this last upgrade, but not anymore.

  And this is just one of them. It’s not being helped by the others…

  The Octomind was performing much better than he expected. It was almost worrisome, but it only made Henry more excited.

  He turned his attention to the navigator-Octomind. “Coordinate with… the fourth Octomind. Draw us a path toward the next cave, and once it’s confirmed, secure the space and watch out for ambushes, both of you.”

  Henry felt both Octominds confirm, and considered he needed to give them names. At least the ones that would be a fixture.

  ***

  Stormsong watched from the corner of her eyes as ink clones continued to form like clockwork. One after the other, every few seconds. They’d wait until there were five of them, then Henry’s arm would move to unblock the exit and the clones would surge out.

  What is happening to him?

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Henry didn’t even look like he was paying attention. He seemed completely absorbed, staring up at the air in front of him while his arms and body moved independently.

  Next to her, Maurice was staring as well, claws rubbing against each other.

  It makes sense why Maurice wants the ability so badly.

  Even she wanted it, now. The Octominds—if that’s what they were called—were powerful enough before, supporting Henry and boosting his focus and cognitive abilities to frightening degrees, but now?

  He doesn’t even have to pay attention to them anymore. They’re just doing the work by themselves.

  Stormsong looked at the couple of temporary skills she could see in her class, and decided to activate one of them. She had to know if such abilities were even possible for her.

  Even if Henry manages to give me one-time copying constructs, it’ll probably take me a lot more work to get something like an Octomind.

  She still remembered the literal mountain of limbs and shells Maurice had gone through to get his own. How long would it take her?

  We’ll see. For now, focus.

  Her mana rushed into the one-time skill construct, and Stormsong tensed. Was it going to react badly? Would it blow up in her soul, somehow?

  The temporary skill detached from where it had been and dissolved into her mana. It rushed forward through her body and stopped at her teeth, clouding them in a red glow that radiated out of her jaw.

  It worked.

  She could feel the skill’s effect. Empowering her teeth so her bite would inflict deep tears into whatever had the misfortune of receiving them. She could feel the small malicious will within them. A curse-effect that would delay her victim’s healing and make their bleeding much worse.

  It really worked.

  From the cave’s entrance Henry looked up and stared at her for a second. “[Is that my temporary skill, or did you get a new ability?]”

  Stormsong beat her flukes and twirled around the distracted crab. She was excited, but she didn’t let it show too much. She didn’t want to get her hopes too high. “[It worked, and it doesn’t look like it’s any worse than you described.]”

  Henry unfurled his arms. “[That’s good. Very good. We’ll be able to get to the next steps soon, and I’d love to pick your brains about a few things, but we should move. Are you two ready to go?]”

  Stormsong blinked at the brain-picking part. What did that mean? She didn’t feel threatened, so she acted the part and bobbed her head up and down, a gesture she’d learned from these two. Then she glanced down at the crab, who finally focused back on his surroundings. “[I’m ready.]”

  Henry picked up the crab, then looked at the dolphin. “[Good. Let’s go, then.]”

  With that, the kraken turned and flew out of the cave. Stormsong followed, easily catching up, but she grew confused at the sudden changes of direction that Henry kept taking. It didn’t take long for her to understand what was happening. He kept zigging and zagging every few seconds, sometimes even going for a wide half-circle before he corrected back, but Stormsong didn’t complain or say anything. She trusted him. Though she was still shocked at how effective the Octominds had become.

  She knew he was using them to scout. She didn’t know how he could take such sharp turns and change of direction through the thick algae without getting lost, and she didn’t know how he was mentally nudging her seconds before he took the turns.

  How is he doing that?

  It was frustrating. But also exciting. She was falling behind, sure, but this also meant there was so much more she could learn from these two. The possibilities were endless.

  All of a sudden, Henry’s guiding skills nudged her firmly down before he dove deep and fast. They landed on the sandy seabed and hid under a whale-sized reef. Before she could ask what they were hiding from, a stifling aura fell on her while the world grew darker.

  Stormsong’s limbs refused to move. She was too terrified to even twitch a muscle for a few seconds. What was up there?

  She wanted to see.

  Slowly, terrifyingly, she tilted to the right and began maneuvering to push her head just past the rock, to look and see what was above them when she felt the mental nudge from Henry.

  He slowly shook his head, saying nothing telepathically. So she remained still and waited.

  The dolphin was terrified, but she also had never been as excited, and she wondered what it was that was passing by.

  ***

  Henry was glad the dolphin could listen to instructions and had the presence of mind to follow his lead. His other companion, on the other hand, was not as quick on the uptake.

  “[Stop talking,]” said Henry. If he heard another peep from the crab, he was sending him to his Maw. Henry could understand the crab being incredibly curious, and to be fair, neither of the two could see what he was seeing, but Henry wasn’t telling him to stay quiet a second time.

  He wasn’t sure if telepathy could be detected, and he wasn’t risking it when the strongest creature he’d ever seen was right above their heads.

  Well, strongest aside from the System. That thing was the closest thing to a god Henry could imagine.

  Thankfully, Maurice had gotten the message, so Henry waited with bated breath as the thing passed over them.

  He had no clue how his scouting Octomind had missed it, though now that he reviewed “the footage”, it was clear that it had come from above.

  It was like a mountain had decided to come by and float above them.

  A deep black plastron with green, glowing edges. Gigantic flippers that ended in green, gem-like claws. A large and sharp beak that matched the claws. Multiple ridges and sharp features that matched the creature’s name. A mountain-like black and green shell. An emerald slitted eye roved around, and Henry could swear it landed on a couple of his clones before they were dismissed.

  Henry had seen islands smaller than the creature swimming past them. Which made sense, considering this was the first A-rank creature he’d ever seen.

  [Dragonic Turtle (?) - Lvl ?]

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