Second Genesis

Grey chose to drown his sorrows with more treasures.

After he picked up his second, he finally noticed that his Energy Reserve had nearly hit rock bottom. Putting two and two together, he could only assume it had something to do with the Plague he was cursed with.

—

[You have defeated the Twin-Headed Mutt]

[+4 Free Stat Points Awarded]

—

Name: Automatic Rope

Rarity: Common

Accepted Type: Recursive

Restricted Type: Branching

Description: An item for the working man. Throw this weapon at a target and form an automatic lasso around a body part that will hold tight so long as the rope is not damaged or destroyed.

Abilities: Strength of the lasso’s hold scales with STR stat. Rope will hold with +100% STR up to 50 STR.

—

Grey didn’t find this item to be that bad. At least he wouldn’t have to run around with May’s Nexis Suit like this anymore. He wondered how much propaganda the Producers had been able to force because of that.

It wasn’t lost on him that he had pretty much found all the items he came across useful because he really didn’t feel like there was any one that he couldn’t use.

But it was starting to get annoying to hold all these items.

He looped the rope around his shoulder. The panties were stuffed into the pants lining of the Nexis Suit he stole off of Fitz’s corpse, and the Skrill Chainsaw hung from his back on its strap.

If he got any more large treasures, he’d run out of surface area. But more important than that, he’d yet to find anything he could give to the Baron.

’Keep moving.’

Grey allocated his four Free Stats to his SPD and DEX again, pushing them both to 19.

...

Soon, Grey had made it to the next spot. He ended up with a useless treasure, something the system thought was cute enough to call ’one man’s garbage is another’s treasure’... but it was just a literal empty tin can.

It had no special abilities at all. There wasn’t even a screen that popped up, much like when he tried to scan the starter weapons their hosts gave out.

Still, Grey stuffed it into his waistband along with the panties. Who knew, maybe he could use it as material for something else. It felt a little heavier in his hand than it should.

This time, with his four Free Stats, Grey put two into STR and another two into DEX. He immediately felt lighter.

Though he was still just randomly deciding, it felt good. Maybe part of that was literally just feeling his body become superhuman, but the Looping Necklace also played a role.

He felt every change to his body more intimately, and he could almost hear it speaking to him.

This time, he felt that his STR was falling too far behind, so he decided to bolster it, and he immediately felt more balanced.

Grey started walking toward his next destination. He still had quite a few left to go, a full four more. Five if he included the witch.

He had only been looking for the tome back then, but was that really the reward? He hadn’t gotten any notifications about Free Stats or anything back then.

Granted, he was only relying on May’s suit back then. But Grey still thought it was best to double check just in case.

His best reward had come from his toughest battle: the Elite Skrill. So what sort of reward did the witch have waiting?

...

Grey quickly made his way through the ruins he had already cleared. He would have been smiling ear to ear if it wasn’t for the iron jaw weighing half his face down.

The haul was definitely pretty good.

He had ended up with two more garbage pulls that he kept. One of them was a tin can just like the first, but the other was a broken glass that looked like something a duchess from the 1700s would have used.

The latter one was what made Grey feel his decision was right. He’d have to do a proper scan to see if the tin cans were made of a useful material—something he couldn’t do right now since that prick of a captain had stolen his Cyber Mat. But he could feel something unique from the broken mirror, something that reminded him of something quite particular...

Cyber Core.

There was a spark Grey felt every time he ran his fingers along the crack of the mirror. There was definitely something in there.

Maybe the system wasn’t just making fun of him after all. Maybe this "garbage" really did have some uses.

Even if they were trash, though, the other two items were quite good.

—

Name: Chad Suit

Rarity: Common

Accepted Type: Linear

Restricted Type: Branching

Description: Not everyone has the time or patience to get jacked. You certainly have neither, so wear this muscle suit instead.

Abilities: +15 STR. -3 PER to enemies within five meters of you.

—

Name: Curved Rusted Saw

Rarity: Common

Accepted Type: Linear

Restricted Type: Branching

Description: A weapon for a man who can’t decide whether to record the next chainsaw massacre or cut his grass in the middle of a blood moon. Your enemies hate to see you coming. Is that because they don’t want to waste the brain power on trying to figure out why you’re trying to use such a ridiculous weapon? Maybe...

Abilities: Slight curse effect: wounds inflicted upon enemies hurt more. Blood self-sharpens this weapon.

—

Both treasures looked exactly like one might expect. The first was a muscle suit Grey didn’t hesitate to pull right over his head. He had little need for these fake muscles, but the teasing words weren’t about to make him look a gift horse in the mouth.

The Curved Rusted Saw was half sickle, half hand saw. It had the shape of the former and the teeth of the latter, making for an odd weapon. But it at least had more range than his current dagger.

All that just left one more place to check.

The witch.