Kyle swore as the lifeless body of a fish crashed into him.  He’d gotten much better at dodging in the volcanic glass sand, but he still felt clumsy.  Standing up as the wind blew, Kyle brushed himself off and looked around.  His clothing was reduced to little more than tatters, his stonebloom armor resting back at the entrance platform until he was confident in controlling Parasitic Resonance. 

If he messed up when connecting to the armor, he would risk damaging the natural properties that made it so useful to him.  Instead, he relied on his Enhanced Carapace to keep up with the scouring blades and stony teeth, even though it meant allocating more resources to healing.

This was the fourth school of the fish he’d encountered during his exploration, and he knew what to expect.  Where’s the D Grade?  As if on cue, a blade of black sand materialized.  There.  Kyle focused as C.H.A.D.D. highlighted the location of the creature, sidestepping the blade.  Once it had passed, he didn’t give it a chance to change tactics.  He burst into action, Ignition burning in his veins.

With an enormous effort of Willpower, Kyle pushed the tendrils of Parasitic Resonance into the Maw, connecting with its pathways.  The beast’s jaws closed around him as Kyle prepared a smaller Storm Shelter, protecting him from being chewed up while his other skill worked.

Kyle gritted his teeth as he resisted the skill’s natural inclination to rip the mana away from the creature, holding the effect at bay for one second after another as the tendrils further infected the beast.  The Maw, seeming to realize that something was wrong, tried to spit Kyle out.  He pushed the plates of Storm Shelter out just a bit, wedging him inside the mouth as Parasitic Resonance spread.

Finally, after nearly a minute, Kyle shifted his focus from infection to destruction, tearing away the monster’s energy and life.  It thrashed in the sand twice before collapsing, motionless.  Just like the last two D Grades he’d encountered; it didn’t even have an opportunity to use its trump card.  As powerful as the fish were, their combat style was simplistic.  For whatever reason, they didn’t view Kyle as a threat worthy of their best until it was too late.  That was fine by him, because being wrapped up in a magnetic storm like he had in the first encounter was terrifying.  It was enough being surrounded by goo and bladed teeth.

The barrier provided by Storm Shelter faded away as Kyle extricated himself from the fish’s mouth, slime dripping all over him like rain before he could fully escape.  Wiping his slime-covered hands on the ruined shreds of his trousers, he looked out at the crimson glow on the horizon.  With the sun as large as it was, there wasn’t a meaningful night, at least that Kyle could tell. 

The indicator on his nav bracelet showed that he’d been on the planet for just under four days, and he’d barely made any progress toward the center of the settlement.  Calling the schools of fish territorial was an understatement, and shortly after drifting past some indeterminable threshold he found himself under attack. 

Kyle let out a sigh as he grabbed a couple of the fish and started walking back to the entrance.  There were a few office buildings nearby he could explore, but the results from the last couple were disappointing.  The Practicum offered no insight in regard to the value of the items he retrieved, though from what he could tell there wasn’t much of value.  That wouldn’t stop Kyle from scouring them later, but he had a more pressing issue to deal with. 

He got back to the entrance where a small cooking fire burned, fish meat smoking over the coals.  He heaped the undamaged fish in a pile, where they awaited their turn in the heat.  Kyle decided pretty early on not to trust the rations, given that somebody seemed to have it out for him.  Neither Identify nor C.H.A.D.D. saw anything inherently dangerous, but some risks weren’t worth taking.  Fortunately, there were also tools he was able to put to use. 

A small kit, including a portable torch were in the supply case.  After bringing out piles of broken wood from the ruined furniture inside the buildings, he repurposed it as a fire starter.  A tent was also provided, which Kyle used as his loot bag.   The fibers of the material were thick, and resisted being slashed open by the blowing glass.  The makeshift bag wouldn’t hold up against direct attacks, but worked just fine after he cleared out a section of the city.

And of course, he was thankful for his canteen.  Despite the arid and hot climate, the little bottle continued to do its job, providing plenty of fresh water for him to drink.  It was one of the best survival purchases he’d made, and was baffled that any human looking to leave the safety of the Hub wouldn’t buy one.  The inscriptions were simple, and the value was incalculable.   

He took the fish off the fire, not even bothering to put on gloves.  Steam rose off the scales while the meat underneath sputtered and sizzled.  While his unseasoned, smoked fish wouldn’t be winning any culinary awards, Kyle thought it tasted downright gourmet when compared to the beetles he’d subsisted on back on Earth.  “C.H.A.D.D., are you willing to let me run a test?” Kyle said between bites of flaky whitefish.

[AS LONG AS YOU FOLLOW ALL CLINICAL TEST PROTOCOLS.]

Kyle took a swig from his canteen, which had refilled to the brim.  “Very funny.  Seriously though, if anything feels off, I need you to tell me right away.”

[I WILL, DR. MAYHEW.]

“I’m holding you to that.”  Kyle finished his meal in silence, watching the dunes shift in the wind.  The last thing he wanted was to put the drone at risk; at the same time the risks were too great if he didn’t have access to C.H.A.D.D. through the link.  Regenerating his armor, manipulating the negation field, and tapping into other plant life in an emergency were all too valuable to leave off the table.  Whatever hunger his skill developed, it was something he’d have to control if he wanted to survive.

Extending a furtive tendril of energy, he connected first to C.H.A.D.D., and then to the World Tree Seed.  He felt a reflexive action to try and drain their energy, which he clamped down on immediately.  Instead, he gently fed some of his own mana through the connection.  Easy part down, Kyle mused.  More tendrils of energy began to bloom around him, connecting to the discarded scales and bones. 

Even though the materials had no mana running through them, Kyle worked to make subtle changes by infusing them with his own, all the while keeping his focus on the tendril connected to C.H.A.D.D.  As minutes passed, Kyle became more and more comfortable managing both. He certainly wasn’t completing detail work; although using Parasitic Resonance to kill hordes of weaker enemies didn’t require much detail to begin with. 

He continued to practice for several more hours, enjoying the challenge of splitting his mental focus in this way.  Up to this point, Kyle hadn’t been pushed to need this level of control of his skills, which opened up a challenging question to him.  What other skill improvements could he focus on?  Already, this experience had forced him to work on different applications for both Parasitic Resonance and Storm Shelter.  Phase One had allowed him to take advantage of Adaptive Regeneration.  Phase Two helped him refine Ignition.  What about Heal?  Identify? 

Kyle still had his sights set on C Grade and beyond, though he understood that he still had a long journey ahead of him in D Grade.  Finding more opportunities for incremental enhancements would be time well-spent along the way.  For now, however, he had other work to do.  Standing, he retracted all the tendrils of his skill but two, one of which was connected to C.H.A.D.D., as the other reached out to his armor. 

Putting it on, he sighed in relief as the wooden plates began to visibly mend.  The stonebloom material greedily drank in his mana as C.H.A.D.D. guided the recovery process, encouraging new growth from the core of the hardy plant.  As it regenerated, Kyle tested the field provided by the armor, expanding and shaping it.  Even though the armor itself required a little more time to fully mend, its special properties still worked just fine.

Taking a little more time to practice with the mana-negating barrier from the stonebloom armor, Kyle finally felt it was time.  He hefted the empty loot bag over his right shoulder.  “Are you ready to go scout the buildings?”

[I WAS AFRAID YOU’D NEVER ASK, DR. MAYHEW.]

Kyle activated Ignition as he sped through the dunes, still stumbling occasionally as he misread the depth of the sand.  Covert Dexterity was doing its part, even though there was only so much that he could expect when moving on terrain like this.  Kyle idly wondered how easily he could have moved if he selected Strider instead of Ignition, and dismissed the thought shortly after it popped into his head.  No need to reflect on what could have been.  He was happy with his choice.

Soon, he was back at the area he’d finished clearing.  The buildings jutted out of the dunes like misshapen teeth, and he broke the closest window to enter the first building.  The structures were similar; each building consisting of several floors, broken furniture, and very few items of significance with the exception of the top.  The highest floors universally had desks and other features that could only be activated by awakened.  Typically, there would be a couple items within that would give him an impression that they were worth taking, though the purpose of the trinkets was a little beyond him.

What he did know was that he wasn’t satisfied with either the quantity or quality of what he’d retrieved so far.  He didn’t have a rubric or ongoing score he could follow, and he held no confidence in getting a good evaluation based on his accomplishments thus far.  Compared to the high-quality natural treasures he helped scout with Corthian Mining; these could barely be considered interesting.

While there were still a couple more peripheral areas in the city he could explore, Kyle didn’t see much purpose.  Leaping out of the last building onto the sand, he hefted his half-empty bag.  “C.H.A.D.D., is there anything else we’re missing?”

[NOTHING GIVING A MEANINGFUL IMPRESSION, DR. MAYHEW.]

Kyle nodded.  Going back to the bodies of the fallen fish, he grabbed two more.  “I think we’re about done in the outer zone.  Tomorrow we’re going deeper.”

[IT WILL BE DANGEROUS, DR. MAYHEW.]

Kyle smiled.  Overcoming dangerous circumstances and surviving against the odds was central to his path, after all.  “I’m counting on it.”