Second Genesis

Name: Inventory Embryo

Rarity: Legendary

...

—

The excitement of the first two lines alone had Grey practically jumping out of his skin. He could finally stop carrying everything around like he was some sort of bastardized hoarder without even a home to call his own.

But the description made him raise an eyebrow.

’Commanded by the gods...’ Grey’s eyes narrowed.

That asshole had said that spatial items were restricted materials under the jurisdiction of the goddess. That was why he had confiscated the tool belt and took all Grey’s riches along with it.

Now this was being mentioned again, but instead in relation to the Fog of Chaos. What was the correlation?

Grey found that he was getting a lot of tidbits of information that might help in his Quest, but nothing was quite complete. It was like there were still countless holes that needed to be filled.

"What is it?" Amunet asked, trying to pretend as though she wasn’t completely enamored by the blood witch tome.

"It’s an inventory space treasure. You exchange energy to create space to store items. The more powerful the item you want to store, the more energy you need."

"You need to pay energy every time you want to store an item?"

"No. From my understanding you pay once and have the space forever. But it will forever be limited to the Class tier you crafted unless you spend more energy to upgrade those slots as well. The best part about this is that it’s personal and it can’t be taken away. It’s hidden within yourself."

"Where are you seeing all of that?" Amunet asked, walking over to get a read herself.

Grey blinked. Wasn’t it obvious?

"Just a guess?" he replied.

Amunet raised an eyebrow but then shrugged.

"Take it. This blood witch tome is more than I thought I would be getting. There are quite a number of Cyber Cores here, too. So I can download quite a few pages before I run out. You don’t mind, right?"

Grey looked toward the Cyber Cores. They would be nice to have, but the tome was just one item. The way Amunet was speaking, it sounded like she also had every intention of letting him take it as well after they left here, so it was only fair he give her some help in downloading what she could now.

"No worries. I just need a few of them."

"Yeah, I wasn’t going to take them all."

"No, I meant I need a few of them for right now." Grey said. "I think since this instance hasn’t ended, we’re going to need to kill the vampire pimp."

Amunet seemed to roll her eyes beneath the shadows, but she didn’t say anything about Grey’s naming sense again.

"You’re going to try and trick it the same way?"

"That would be way too coincidental. No way that pimp is also going to be in need of the exact same prosthetic. No, I’m going to create this for me to use."

Amunet took a breath and exhaled.

"You take however many you need, then. If we don’t survive, it won’t matter how many pages I download."

"There is one more thing we have to split first, though." Grey said with a grin.

He reached out a hand and Amunet sighed.

"You just want to hold my hand, don’t you."

Grey was about to respond with a quippy reply, but then he remembered that the current Amunet wasn’t the same one that had seen him see her true appearance. So he wisely slotted away his thoughts about how much of a bombshell she was for future reference.

Amunet pulled her hand away before he could take it. "Ew. Don’t tell me I’m right?"

"Oh shut up woman and give me your hand. We left the land of flowers and consent a long time ago."

He snatched up Amunet’s hand—not that she resisted all that much—and pressed it forward with his own. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

—

[You have defeated the Blood Witch Esmeralda!]

[+237 Free Stat Points Awarded]

—

Grey whistled.

When he looked at his screen, the points had been split perfectly in two. Well, as perfectly as you could split an odd number of points. His own screen read 119 Free Stats.

It felt like so much until he realized that if he perfectly divided it between everything he had, it would only mean +20 to every stat.

According to the tutorial, every level in an ability of the Proving Class was worth about the same as 10 stat points. Meaning, 119 Free Stats was only just better than having an ability at Level 10.

When you put it like that, and considered how many abilities Grey needed to get to Level 10 before he could go beyond the Proving Class, the large number was far less impressive than it looked.

’Come to think of it, Goblin Warlord Spirit has been stuck at Level 5 for a very long time... I wonder what’s up with that...’

Part of him just wanted to dump everything into END and see if his stamina would finally go up.

Esmeralda had said that his stamina was a combination of Endurance, the quality of his Frame, and the strength of it. So, logically, if he tipped the balance enough, there should at least be some change, no?

’Okay, let’s not be stupid. Stats and abilities work hand in hand. Back when I formed Metal Body, my endurance increased and my speed went down. The ideal way to go about things is to improve my stats so that they can support my abilities.

’Right now I have a ton of metals and can’t even eat them because Metal Digestion is too low level and my body rejects it.

’Logically, it seems just pouring it into END will fix that. But will it?’

Grey’s eyes narrowed as his gaze shifted to his lowest level stat.

—

INT: 11

—

He grinned ear to ear.

It all made perfect sense to him. Metal Body and Metal Digestion weren’t the only abilities he had gained at the time. Metal Affinity came with it as well, and it allowed him direct control over metals. He had thought that was all, but was it truly?

If he was converting his body into metal, wouldn’t he need a strong affinity for it?

All of these things were connected into one fluid line.

Without overthinking, Grey split his Free Stats into 40, 50, and 29. He dumped 40 into END, 50 into INT, and 29 into SPD.

Then he looked over toward the pile of metal, hunger in his eyes.

Even if his speed took a hit from Metal Body, he had just mitigated it.

’Let’s see how much my gut can take now.’