Second Genesis

Name: Ancestral Tome of the Blood Witch

—

"What is it?" Amunet asked curiously. Despite this, she didn’t come over. It was either she was too tired, or maybe she thought it was too shameless to try and double check that Grey wouldn’t be lying about its type.

"This is a bit of a grey area," Grey said. "It’s a legacy. An Ancestral Tome. There’s probably some wiggle room on the type of Frame that can use it. Are you interested in becoming a Blood Witch?"

Grey wasn’t exactly the mage type, but Esmeralda’s words had seemed to imply that he was an anomaly for having more than one Frame.

Usually, you shouldn’t be able to gain another Frame until you moved up in Class, and that was only by replacing the one you already had or upgrading it. Meaning, at no time should you ever have more than one Frame at a single time.

Grey, obviously... had two of them.

His head canon for this was that it was related to the fact he had more than one Neural Frame Type. Though he couldn’t confirm, he was fairly sure that meant he probably could have at least four Frames at the same time.

At that point, having four melee type Frames just seemed reductive. The whole jack of all, master of none trope worked up until you actually had that much room to play with.

With too many melee Frames, he would just end up with a million different ways to do the same thing. At that point, it would just be a waste.

The idea of being able to survive a deathly blow to his head and come back swinging sounded appealing to him, though. But he could also already come back from the dead, and there was no guarantee the next item would be something Amunet could use so he thought about just giving it to her.

"This is great." Amunet suddenly said, hopping to her feet.

"Hm?" Grey chuckled. "Excited all of a sudden? And here I thought you were too busy being a goody goody."

If Grey could see Amunet’s face right now, he was sure that she would probably be rolling her eyes.

"You don’t get it. It’s a tome, one that’s passed down. I’ve found one before too, that’s how I have a lot of my abilities. It’s not an item that can only be used once. So long as we have enough energy, we can both use it."

"Oh..." Grey blinked, not having expected such a result.

But that much was true. He had downloaded the Mechanical Jaw Ancestral Tome. The problem was that he had only done it in part.

’Energy. Is that why I could only download part of it? The tome didn’t have enough of it? Or maybe it needed to recharge...?’

Grey looked toward the pile of raw materials and grinned.

He didn’t have a spatial artifact so there was no way he could lug all of that out. But, if he could use some of them...

If he had had the Ancestral Tome of the Mechanical Jaw on him, he would have realized this much earlier. But better late than never.

"It seems we’re in luck, then."

At the back of Grey’s mind, though, he couldn’t help but wonder if Prometheus could just swallow the tome like it had the blueprints as well.

"Here." Grey gave the tome over. "You can go first. I’ll check out the other item."

Amunet seemed taken aback when Grey actually handed her the tome. But after a moment, the shadowy lines of her face seemed to smile.

"I guess we’re both idiots."

"Hey, I never said that out loud."

Amunet scoffed into a laugh. "Asshole."

Grey bent down and scooped up the witch eye as she turned around, rolling it in his palm.

Pulses of electricity coming from it made him feel almost like his hand was going to be burned through.

’So uncomfortable.’

He didn’t even have any pockets to put it in.

Grey found himself staring at the eye for a long while. He wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light, but he could practically see the lines of Neural Frame coming out from it. Not every one, but instead the ones the eye used most frequently.

And that was when he had a thought.

’Why was it such an important matter for her to get another eye.’

Sure, no one would like the feeling of being half blind, but for Esmeralda it had been almost like a life and death matter, as though the only way she would be satisfied was to once again regain sight in her other eye.

For someone who had practically had the power of a god it almost felt so... petty.

Grey’s head tilted to one side, his thoughts becoming lost for a moment.

His eye flashed with a blue arc. He had sunk into such a state of lost meditation that the Neural Frame network around his own eye had flickered to life, following the pulsing pattern radiating from Esmeralda’s.

A spike of pain shook Grey awake and a wild idea took hold of his mind.

If he made the Ball Bearing Eye with Esmeralda’s as the central eye, could he use some of its strength?

A great amount of power was still radiating from Esmeralda’s eye, but Grey could also feel that it was slowly weakening over time as well. It was slow, but it was definitely happening.

’This... might be how we defeat that vampire pimp.’

Grey’s eyes lit up with realization and he clenched the eye into his palm.

’Let’s do this.’

Grey reached forward and touched the second Loot Box. A similar animation played out and the box crumbled into space in jigsaw pieces.

An orb of energy radiating silvery black light hovered in its place.

—

Name: Inventory Embryo

Rarity: Legendary

Accepted Type: ALL

Rejected Type: NONE

Description: Space is commanded by the gods, harboring a secret that hails back to the time of chaos and the reaches of the beginning of all. You, however, have managed to gain a small kernel of this power for yourself, one that even a God cannot take away. However, be wary, young one. The Fog of Chaos comes for all who command a piece of what should be its own.

Abilities: In exchange for energy, store items up to the Legendary Grade.

1 unit for Proving Class items.

10 units for the Established Class

100 units for the Vector Class

10,000 units for the Vanguard Class

...

—