'Alright so I've already made a list of every species and creature of note on Eden six according to the online forums on the echonet. According to that list Jabbers and their subspecies as well as Saurians and their various species are the most abundant creatures on this rock. The tyrants in particular from the Saurians should have a lot of lifeforce and some decent traits.' I thought as I stood outside the door after the old man kicked me out to fend for myself.
It was as I had come to expect humid and hot as I walked on the dry dark stone outside the front of the manor towards the lift to the small "village" that was built with a deep chasm between it and the manor. It was mainly populated with what can only be described as hillbillies, like besides not being inbred(usually) they fit most of the other descriptors there. They were superstitious, kinda dumb and kept to themselves with their odd customs and practices. The lift itself was just a metal platform moved from the manor side to the village side by a set of turning wheels on either railing powered by what looked suspiciously to be an electric lawnmower engine.-
The dirty folk of the village saw me coming but beside mild interest at the topic of several rumors coming out of the manor after six months they didn't seem to care. The ramshackle wooden and metal buildings that made up the village weren't really anything to talk about but the fact that it was built literally on top of a watery muddy swamp was. You could take two steps out of any building here and step into three inches of mud for fucks sake!-
'Good thing my new outfit was made for all terrain travel, including through space!' I thought with a smirk.
My new outfit was one that I, Clay and Hammerlock designed to be the ultimate apparel for the vast majority of biomes. The base layer was a skin tight airtight nanomaterial regenerating carbon mesh that covered every part of my body except my hands and head. If I added a helmet and gloves I could go directly into the cold vacuum of space with just this layer alone. It wasn't very durable though so otherwise not an ideal outfit.-
I should also point out that you could see EVERYTHING when I was in just this layer, when I said skin tight I fucking meant it. The next layer on my lower half fixed this issue though as it was a sleek armored pair of leather pants and Grogskin boots. For my torso I had a open chested long sleeved synthetic armor threaded black duster coat that had the word JAKOBS printed on the back in big bold tan letters, It had pockets too! The coat also had heating pads on the inside for cold climates. -
My favorite part of the outfit though was the facemask that was designed to filter the air I breath as well as give me a heads up display courtesy of the lenses of the eyes connecting to my echo. The mask itself looked like a snarling Prowler or Lion with my thick dark hair spiked up behind it like a mane. Admittedly the design of the mask was Hammerlocks idea but to be fair he had a REALLY convincing argument.
"If you are to become the ultimate predator the least you can do is look the part!" he had said and gods was he right.
I looked like I meant business with my gun on my right hip and my shield on my left in this outfit.
'Oh? A quest?' I thought surprised when I saw the big yellow exclamation mark above one of the villagers head.
Quests were a fascinating subject about the universe I was in as they were more or less job requests that anyone could issue or take. It was pointed out by that yellow mark and created via the echo HUD with your objective being marked clearly in the right side of your vision and the echo even highlighted the objective items for you, it was all very video game like and user friendly.-
That wasn't a fucking coincidence either as the dude who made the echo's was a video game enthusiast and wanted to make reality more game like. It was a weirdly effective system too as those big bright yellow exclamation points drew the eye and triggered a sort of impulse to investigate them. Anyways I walked up to the shirtless big bellied dude picking his nose that had the quest.
"Whatcha need?" I asked curiously and more than a little excited to do my first quest.
"Huh? Oh right, well some grogs done stole all ma shine! I want ya to get it back and kill those wasted Grogs while yer at it!" he said and I got the quest automatically added to my HUD as well as an area of my minimap being circled to tell me where the Grogs were. I nodded at the dude and started walking through the thick brown muck towards the spot marked.
"I just thought about it and I think i'll throw in a little something extra if ya use a fire weapon to kill them wasted Grogs!" The dude sent over my echo after I started to get close to the area with the Grogs.
"Fuck!" I cursed since I didn't have a fire weapon on me, just the current cryo of my gun.
I saw the Grogs in the distance and identified them easily as [Pollygrog, Wasted Grog, Wasted fire Grog]. There were three of the first, five of the second and one of the last. They all looked more or less the same but each type was slightly different from the last. Pollygrogs were small cat sized bipedal raptor looking things with leafy looking feathers on their heads and large frog eyes that honestly made the things kinda cute, sharp teeth withstanding.-
'I can see why they are kept as pets, kinda cuddly in a weird reptilian way, like an iguana.' I thought right before making all three of the things explode with a bullet each.
"SSSHHHHAAAAA!" the other Grog types screeched and came at me but I just watched as they stumbled about drunkedly.
"That's just sad." I commented and pulled the trigger five more times exploding all of the Grogs which looked the same as the Pollygrogs except were a little bigger, medium sized dog maybe, and had no feathers.
Once my gun was reloaded I casually blew the head off the Fire Grog that once again looked like a normal Grog but was even bigger, person sized right about, and had red skin. My quest updated after they were all dead and the dude spoke up.
"Ah shoot, I was kinda looking forward to seein a drunk Grog running around on fire. Welp might as well grab the rot gut and get back here!" the dude said sounding disappointed.
I just chuckled and moved over the the Fire grog to grab my real prize.
{Fire Grog
Lifeforce: 572
Traits: [Aphrodisiacal sweat-Rare grade]- 5000 units, [Projectile gland-Common grade]- 500 units, [Pyro Oil production-Uncommon grade]- 1000 units, [Poor sight-Trash grade]-50 units, [Keen nose-Common grade]-500 units, [Fire resistance-Uncommon grade]-1000 units.}
'The fuck!? This thing has horny sweat? Why does this thing have horny sweat, like what fucking reason would it evolve to have that!? God you there? I have questions man!' I thought absolutely bamboozled by that first trait.
That said I was SORELY tempted to grab it simply because it might come in handy if I ever wanted to get laid. Can you image how erotic it would be for a chick to lick the sweat off you and it ACTUALLY makes them more horny? Wet dream material right there. I didn't actually take it though since I wasn't unreasonably insane, just mildly. I did take that [Fire resistance] though, since I too enjoy not burning to death. As for the oil and spitting gland traits those came with some negative side effects that I wasn't okay with. I moved on to the Grogs after that and upon seeing they had weaker versions of the Fire grogs traits minus the resistance trait I just took the nifty three to four hundred units of lifeforce they each had.-
Pollygrogs had only one hundred ish units each and again no new traits. I was a bit disappointed in the haul this time but not every trait was going to be a winner. Grabbing the bottles of booze strewn about the Grog nest I checked for anything else but seeing as there wasn't anything of note I headed back to the due that gave me the quest.
"Shame ya couldn't set them Grogs on fire but ya got ma shine back so I'll say that's good enough. Here's ya pay." The dude said and a gun got transferred to my inventory.
[Name: Jar227 pyro
Level: Uncommon
Type: Assault rifle
Damage type: PyroX1
Manufacturer: Jakobs
Affix: N/A]
I couldn't help but feel my eyebrow that had grown back in the last six months, twitch. I took a deep breath and left it go since I doubted it was intentional. For those wondering why I didn't just use the fire weapon I got from the vault the answer was I could only use one or two weapons at a time. This wasn't a video game as much as it seemed like it sometimes and that meant I couldn't reasonably carry a small armory of weapons on my person at all times.-
Digistructing the guns in my inventory to my hand also wasn't a fast process and took a few seconds to do. This meant that unless the weapons were quite small I could only have maybe two holstered on me at a time one of which was always going to be my gun. I was being picky to simplify. I wanted my second weapon to be really damn good just like my first, so no fire weapon at the moment.-
Anywho after taking care of that quest I simply left the village and followed the dirt road. It didn't take long doing so for me to find some more prey. [Ravager, Slinger] were the names of these new type of Saurians. Ravagers were effectively velociraptors but more ugly and Slingers were basically Ravagers but with hard spikes growing out of their long flat tails that they as the name implied slung at you. It took two shots for both species of which there were an even split of two each. I was mostly pleased with the traits though.-
{Ravager
Lifeforce: 792-821
Traits:[Aphrodisiacal sweat-Rare grade]- 5000 units, [Predator muscles-Common grade]- 500 units, [Tough skin-Common grade]- 500 units, [Poor smell-Trash grade]-50 units, [Strong teeth-Common grade]-500 units}
{Slinger
Lifeforce: 801-857
Traits:[Aphrodisiacal sweat-Rare grade]- 5000 units, [Predator muscles-Common grade]-500 units, [Tough skin-Common grade]-500 units, [Poor smell-Trash grade]-50 units, [Strong teeth-Common grade]-500 units, [Bone regeneration-Uncommon grade]-1000 units, [Projectile growths-Uncommon grade]-1000 units}
I took all four sets of [Predatory muscles], [Tough skin] and [Strong teeth] as well as both sets of [Bone regeneration] for a total of 8000 units of lifeforce spent. That left me at 1447 units of lifeforce but it was a good trade as once all these traits were fused and integrated I'd get a sharp increase in my physical stats.
[Bone regeneration] however was a trait I took for a single reason, self healing. While in the Slingers it was used to rapidly regrow their projectile spikes that were made of bone in my case it meant broken bones weren't a fucking problem any more as my bones healed themselves back perfectly in no time flat.
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Author here!
This part will be hosting my pa treon and the "status" of Alex so you can get a definitive look at where he stands at any given moment lifeforce and trait wise.
https://www.pa treon.com/user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa treon.com/pa treon_loskro
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Alexander Drake
Lifeforce: 1447
Integrated Traits: [Gun expertise-Uncommon grade], [Clever mind-Uncommon grade],[Enhanced senses-Rare grade], [Omega body-Rare grade],[Dense bones-Uncommon grade],[Armored hide-Uncommon grade], [Fire resistance-Uncommon grade]
Stored traits:[Predator muscles-Common grade]X4, [Tough skin-Common grade]X4, [Strong teeth-Common grade]X4, [Bone regeneration-Uncommon grade]X2