The Myrmur carcass was heavier than it looked. Gael grunted as the three of them manoeuvred the lifeless, grotesque lump onto the surgical table. The human-like thing flopped with a wet thud, its sickly, yellowish-black flesh oozing faintly as it settled.

  A faint, acidic stench wafted up, and Cara wrinkled her nose even with her mask on.

  “This is, without a doubt, the most messed-up thing we’ve ever had to cut open,” she mumbled, stepping back as she wiped her hands on the edge of the table. Gael, however, wiped his hands on her back.

  “Look, sis, this is—” she whacked him on the head the moment she felt his hands on her back, “—for science. Think about it: I don’t know shit about these things because nobody ever documents these things properly, and those silver-tongued Exorcists swoop in to collect the carcasses every time a Nightspawn winds up dead. We want people to stop getting parasitized? First, we gotta learn what makes these nasty bastards sing.”

  Cara frowned, but didn’t argue. Instead, she dragged the surgical cart over with a screech of metal. Gael simply rubbed his hands together and picked up a scalpel, holding it up like an artist appraising a brush.

  “Aight,” he said, his tone dropping into something almost reverent. “First cut. Objective: dissect the bastard and get a general idea of just what we’re dealing with.”

  Maeve and Cara leaned closer, their expressions a mix of curiosity and disgust, as Gael sliced into the Myrmur’s chest. His scalpel sank in between its chitin plates easier than he expected, the outer layer peeling away to reveal a pale, sinewy interior. He raised an eyebrow.

  “Now, that’s weird,” he mumbled, expanding the cut before prying its chest apart with both hands, staring deep inside its cavity. “It’s fucking weird already. No fat layer, just straight to muscle. Efficient.”

  Cara leaned closer, peering over his shoulder. “Efficient for what?”

  “Killing people,” he said, his tone casual, almost cheerful as he pulled out internal organs and dumped them into the cold water compartment under the surgical cart: what seemed like its brain, lungs, foregut, flight muscles, and ovarioles, alongside a few other surface organs like its eyes and mandibles. “I mean, it’s got internal organs, but they don’t seem to be half as complex and complicated as ours. If they’ve got a stomach, it means they can come out and eat, but considering its heart is in the Host, I assume that means they don’t really have to eat manually. They get plenty of bioenergy from the Host already.”

  Maeve winced as he carved further into the carcass. “And you’re enjoying this?”

  “Of course. Look at this!” Gael gestured to the exposed interior with his bloody scalpel, grinning from ear to ear. “It’s fascinating. It’s got no rigid bones, either. Just muscle and connective tissue with its entire human-like form held up by its semi-solid chitin plates. It has a flexible ‘exoskeleton’ that can fold in on itself instead of a rigid ‘endoskeleton’ like we boring humans have, which, I presume, is how they’re able to just slither back into their Host to rest and rejuvenate whenever they feel threatened.” Then he poked the chitin plates on its forehead, watching it almost jiggle under his fingertip. “See? All squish, no structure. Its chitin plates are only tough when it’s alive and pumping blood through them.”

  Cara shivered. “That’s disgusting.”

  “It’s genius,” he countered. “Efficient little killing nightmares, I’ll give them that. If I gotta guess, all of these internal organs can be regenerated as long as their heart in the Host remains. Destroy that, though, and they’re completely screwed even if they squirm into a new Host in an attempt to stabilize themselves… kinda like what this one tried to do to me out of desperation.”

  Then he stepped back, placing his scalpel on the tray. “This is all good for us, by the way. The fact that their bodies are mostly simple means they’re mostly edible. No nasty, bony hard bits to spit out.”

  With that, he flashed Cara a wicked grin as he tossed his scalpel away, picking up two cleavers from the surgical tray instead.

  “My dearest sister—”

  “Already on it.”

  Maeve spun around just in time to see Cara lighting a fire under the surgical cart. A big pot of water was already beginning to boil on the tray above it. Cara winked at her. “The wood fire’s for sterilising tools, but, y’know, it’s multitasking. The surgical cart can be converted into a whole kitchen setup.” She thumbed at the compartments next to the fire, then at the surgical tray. “We’ve got fresh ingredients tucked in those compartments there, and then the surgical tray can be used as a chopping board. Call it… efficiency?”

  Maeve blinked incredulously.

  “And here we have the silver-tongued Vharnish in its natural habitat marvelling at the ingenuity of Bharnish frugalness,” Gael muttered, sharpening his cleavers against each other before flourishing them with a little twirl. “We’re poor. This convertible surgical-kitchen cart is the best investment we’ve ever made.”

  With that, he went to town on his target, his cleavers flashing as he expertly dismembered the carcass. He hacked away the inedible chitin, slicing through sinewy flesh with needle-point precision. Each cut was deliberate, each movement smooth and practiced. In no time, the inedible soft-chitin parts were all neatly piled to one side, while the meatier, fleshier bits were arranged meticulously on the other side of the table, closer to the bubbling pot of water.

  “Where’d you learn to dice up a carcass like that?” Maeve asked, scowling.

  Gael didn’t look up. “You don’t wanna know.”

  “Plagueplain Doctor.”

  “You don’t wanna know.”

  Once he was done dicing up the flesh, he moved to the chopping board, grabbing a handful of wraithvine bulbs from the stash beneath the cart. Their glossy, pale-green skins gleamed faintly in the dim light, exuding a faint licorice-like aroma. He set them aside on the tray with a chef’s flourish before moving on to a cluster of nightshade sporecaps, their delicate black stalks curling like wispy tendrils.

  Maeve leaned against the edge of the table, arms crossed, her expression torn between skepticism and reluctant fascination.

  Gael grinned at her as he picked up a cleaver again. “You’re about to witness culinary history, Exorcist. Step one: prep the meat.”

  With precise, almost surgical cuts, he diced the already diced Myrmur flesh into more manageable chunks, each slice accompanied by the soft squelch of blade through tissue. The unnatural meat gave off a faint, metallic tang, but his hands never faltered.

  “Step two: marinade. You can’t just toss meat into a pot and hope for the best. This,” he gestured dramatically to the ingredients on the tray, “is where the magic happens.”

  He bent down and grabbed a dark, waxy root—a gravebriar shard, twisted and gnarled—and grated it over the meat. Its pungent, smoky scent filled the room, sharp enough to make Maeve wrinkle her nose. Next, he squeezed a few drops of bloodthorn sap, the ruby-red liquid glinting like liquid gemstones, before sprinkling in a generous pinch of widow’s ash for that little bit extra smokiness.

  “Let it sit with the gravebriar shard and the widow’s ashes,” he murmured, tossing the bowl aside to rest, “for about three seconds. Now that it’s done, toss the meat into the pot and chuck in your aromatics. Hollowroot stems alone will add enough spiciness to the meat.”

  He grabbed a bundle of hollowroot stems, crushed them between his fingers to let its translucent gel drip into the pot, and then dumped the marinated meat into the bubbling pot.

  By now, Maeve’s skeptical frown had softened into something closer to intrigue. “Where do you even get this stuff?”

  Gael didn’t look up as he licked the widow's ashes off his fingertips. “Oh, you know. A back alley here, a shady trader there. Bharncair’s full of treasures if you know where to look.”

  With the meat added to the pot, he stirred vigorously with his bare hand—he’d long since messed up the nerves in his hands with the amount of poisons and venoms he’d injected into himself—and he watched, with glee, as the broth began thickening with the Myrmur meat.

  The previously clear water transformed into a murky, crimson stew, and he tossed in both the wraithvine bulbs and the nightshade sporecaps for a bit more texture

  “Almost done,” he said, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a small, unmarked pouch. Fine white powder shifted inside. “And finally, for the most important secret ingredient: the brain destroyer.”

  Maeve straightened, her eyes narrowing. “The what?”

  Gael held the pouch aloft like a prize, shaking it slightly with a mad grin. “Gods, Exorcist. You’ve never had the brain destroyer? It brings out maximum flavour in everything it touches, sharpens your senses, and makes your brain fluids leak out of your ears. It’s fucking phenomenal. Back when I was a wee old lad, I used to do this six times a day with Croaky the backyard aphrodisiac frog. You’ve gotta try this—”

  Cara picked up a stool and smacked him on the back of his head, snatching the pouch from his hand as she did.

  “No brain destroyer,” she said firmly.

  He grumbled with a huff, turning back to the bubbling pot. The fire was really fierce, so once he was sure the stew was just about done, he yanked the pot off the cart and set it smack dab in the centre of the surgical table. Its rich, spicy aroma filled the small room.

  Sweat beaded his brow, but his grin was as smug as ever. “Well, Exorcist? Tell me this ain’t the most magnificent dish you’ve ever seen.”

  “We just had noodles,” she said uneasily. “I’m not hungry.”

  “I don’t care. I assume we both have to eat it to get stronger, so let’s start, and you can give me the introductory lecture to that system thingy.”

  Cara plopped herself down on her stool and sighed, evidently content with watching the two of them have their fill of bug meat. Gael picked up his ladle from the surgical tray and handed Maeve one as well—she hesitated for only a moment before taking it from him.

  “We’re… just eating this straight out of the pot?” she asked.

  “Plates are for civilized people,” he said. “Besides, it’s best piping hot. Builds character.”

  She rolled her eyes but followed suit, pulling down her mask as she dipped her ladle into the stew. They shared the first bite together, broth and meat together, and the first taste hit like a punch to the gut—spicy, smoky, and oddly sweet, with a bitter edge that lingered on the tongue. Gael loved this shit. Maeve didn’t grimace, either, which was the highest compliment he figured he’d get.

  “... This isn’t half bad,” she admitted, blowing on another bite. “In my experience, Myrmur meat is always a bit… revolting.”

  “High praise,” he mumbled around a mouthful of meat. “I should open a restaurant. Gael’s Guts & Glory.”

  Maeve squinted at him for a moment, her brows furrowing like she was chewing over more than just the meal.

  “You know,” she said, “I have been thinking about how to explain systems to you. You should at least understand the basics if we’re going to be connected from now on, but I don’t know how much you already—”

  Gael snorted. “Basics? Sure, I know a thing or two.”

  “Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. “Do you even know what a system looks like?”

  Gael leaned back, waving his ladle like it was a pointer in some mock lecture. “Well, no. Bioarcanic sciences isn’t exactly my field of specialty, but I’ve heard they’re some kind of advanced bioarcanic implant that goes inside your body—”

  At that, Maeve lifted her left ankle, and the chain connecting hers to Gael’s own ankle clinked softly. “This is it.”

  He squinted at her. “What, the cuffs?”

  “Exactly,” she said. “You’re right. Usually, systems are implants that go inside the body, but the bioarcanic engineers employed by the Symbiote Exorcists designed these to stay external. I guess that makes them not really ‘implants,’ but… semantics.” She tugged at the chain. “This is the system we’re using, and there are two ends. Yours, tinted slightly blue, is the Host end. Mine, tinted slightly red, is the Hunter end. Together, we share the Wasp Class.”

  Gael stared at his own cuff. “Okay.”

  “...”

  “... And why the fuck did your bioarcanic engineers make it so we have to be connected all the time?”

  Maeve set her ladle down, her expression growing serious. “Remember? In order to combat Myrmurs that can retreat into their Hosts at any time to rest, the Hunter must possess extremely toxic blood and abilities so we can wound them even as they hide—but that comes with a cost. By making sure we’re always connected to someone else, we can drain our toxic blood and offload some of our toxicity to our Host.”

  “Comforting,” he said dryly. “And the only way to remove these cuffs now is to cut off our ankles?”

  “Correct. Normally, you can’t remove a Symbiotic System once you’ve integrated with it and received a class—because the system is now regulating your enhanced biological functions, so removing it is tantamount to removing a vital organ—but if you’d let me cut off your ankle during the thirty minutes of system integration last night, you could’ve gotten out of this with just one less foot. That’s why there’s always a thirty minute integration time for if you suddenly decide you don’t want your particular class anymore.”

  He chuckled irritably. “So you’re saying we literally can’t go our separate ways now, because if either of us lose our connection with the system, we’ll immediately die.”

  “Yes. Fortunately, these cuffs have special bioarcanic glyphs etched into them. The longer we remain chained together, the more blood that’d be drained from the both of us to forge new links and extend the chain even further. The cuffs will also automatically shorten the chain if we’re close together, so we don’t have to worry about having to reel in the extended lengths,” she explained. “Right now, we can go as far as thirty metres apart from each other, but by the end of the year, the chain should be at least a hundred metres long… which means we can stay decently far away from each other and still lead our own lives relatively fine. We don’t have to bother each other or see each other’s faces anymore.”

  “Oh, thank god. So you can be a wife that lives apart from her dearest husband after a year, only popping in during clinic opening hours every once in a while to be a pretty face?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Do you want to see your status interface now or what?”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Just think you want to see it. It’s connected to your nervous system.”

  Gael did as instructed, squinting at empty air as he tried to visualize what an ‘interface’ would look like.

  I’ve heard it’s some kind of black box that appears as a mirage at first.

  Once you feel the air is getting wavier, you stare at it really hard, and then…

  A second later, a black interface flickered in his vision, and he stopped eating for a second to stare at it with widened eyes.

  [// STATUS]

  [Name: Maeve / Gael]

  [Grade: F-Rank Wretch-Class]

  [Standard Class: Wasp]

  [Passive Mutation: Profane Eyes]

  [Essence Arts: Purging Blood / Blood Covenant]

  [Aura: 136 BeS / 113 BeS]

  [Points: 19 vBe / 13 vBe]

  [Strength: 2 / 1, Speed: 2 / 1, Toughness: 1 / 1, Dexterity: 1 / 1, Perceptivity: 1 / 1]

  [// MUTATION TREE]

  [T1 Mutations | Pheromonic Latch Lvl. 1 / Miasma Mantle] 15P

  [T2 Mutations | Basic Claws / Basic Repository | Basic Chitin / Basic Chitin] 50P

  “... I’m gonna get a seizure looking at this fucking mess,” he muttered, staring at the half-translucent display hovering next to his face. Lines of glowing text scrolled before his eyes, listing off a bunch of numbers, and he lifted his hand in an attempt to swipe at them.

  No luck. His fingers passed through the display like it was made out of thin air.

  “What are you looking at?” Cara called from her stool, frowning at the two of them staring at the same display.

  “The goddamn future, that’s what this is,” Gael murmured.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Maeve nodded grimly. “Unfortunately, Cara can’t see it. Status interfaces are user-exclusive. It’s something called a ‘projection’, which means—”

  “The system is a bioarcanic implant that can analyze our biological properties and display them in numerical form,” he mumbled, trying to grab the edges of the display again. No luck again. “It’s not that far of a stretch to believe the system has hijacked our sensory organs to make us see things only we can see… or maybe it’s a different biological process? How does this work exactly?”

  Maeve coughed into her first. “I can’t explain it unless I start from the beginning. Do you even know what bioarcanic essence is in the first place?”

  “When the Nightspawn—and a small subspecies of them, the Myrmurs—fell into this world in Year Zero, they also brought bioarcanic essence with them, which is like… a living, writhing magic source,” he said, eyes rolling up as he tried to remember everything he’d ever gleaned from a textbook in the local abandoned library. “They perpetually generate essence in volatile form while they’re still alive, and the primary tendency of volatile essence is to strengthen organic material, so by stabilizing the volatile essence they naturally produce in their bodies into permanent biological upgrades—which is something they can just do as naturally as breathing—they’re able to grow far stronger than what’s biologically possible. Essence fortifies their muscles and chitin past biological limits. Essence lets them cast biomagic. Essence lets them do a lot of weird, fucky things, and the shittiest part is, only Nightspawn are born with it. No other living being, plant or animal, can naturally generate essence inside their bodies.”

  “Correct. And do you know what happens when a human tries to consume bioarcanic essence?” she asked.

  “They turn into monsters,” he said casually. “Bioarcanic essence belongs to Nightspawn, so when they eat each other, their hearts act as a conversion organ that converts the foreign volatile essence into their own essence, essentially allowing them to stabilize the consumed essence to grow stronger even faster. Otherwise, the foreign essence will cause biological incompatibility and hurt them when consumed. But human hearts don’t have the ability to naturally do that, so when humans consume volatile essence—”

  “They’ll start mutating hardened chitin plates and monstrous traits on their bodies. This uncontrollable flesh and blood disease is called ‘Carapathy’, and people who have consumed essence are called ‘Afflicted’,” she said. “Carapathy causes the Afflicted to become physically stronger and allows them to use their mutations, like mantis scythes replacing their arms, cricket legs replacing their legs, or compound eyes replacing their eyes. A Moth Afflicted is someone who consumed moth essence first, while a Spider Afflicted is someone who consumed spider essence first, and once an Afflicted consume one class of essence, they cannot consume any other class of essence. After all, humans cannot naturally convert foreign essences into their own, and clashing essences causes biological incompatibility. A Moth Afflicted with moth mutations trying to consume spider meat will just regurgitate it, expel it as undigested waste, or die outright, so there are no such things as Hybrid Afflicted.”

  “And the more essence an Afflicted consumes, the stronger and wilder mutations they’ll get as they progress further along their unique class of Carapathy,” he mused. “Carapathy ain’t just an easy way to power up, though, ‘cause—

  “Because strength from Carapathy comes at the cost of gradually eroding humanity,” she finished. “Given enough time, the Afflicted would lose their humanity completely and mutate into a mindless, flesh-hungry monster. Carapathy is irreversible. Mutations cannot un-mutate. Some people are naturally born with higher essence aptitudes, meaning they can tolerate more essence inside their bodies and resist losing their humanity as quickly, but make no mistake: all Afflicted are always at risk of losing their humanity, and past 300 BeS—the scientific unit measuring the total bioarcanic essence saturation in a human body—there is nobody who can maintain their humanity for longer than a month.”

  “I know a guy who had that happen to him,” he said, glancing at Cara as he did. “Remember that Calhiro mercenary man? The wannabe enforcer who said he was gonna go up to the upper city and make a name for himself working as a Mortifera Enforcer? What happened to him?”

  “Turned into a half-spider, half-human after he bought and ate black market Nightspawn meat,” Cara answered immediately. “Last I heard of him, he did win the preliminary exam rounds up in Umbracross by killing all of his opponents also vying to be a Mortifera Enforcer, but then he disappeared into the pipes. Heard he lost his mind.”

  Gael turned back to Maeve, grinning. “Yeah, I know. Eat Nightspawn, and you’ll get strong, but eat too much and cross the threshold, and there ain’t no coming back from it. Mutations can’t un-mutate.”

  Maeve nodded hesitantly. “But if we can’t naturally stabilize the volatile essence we consume to reliably strengthen ourselves without losing our humanity, how is it that we, as a species, haven’t been wiped out by the Nightspawn yet?”

  He raised his shackled right ankle.

  “These things,” he said. “These ‘Symbiotic Systems’ you Vharnish created.”

  Maeve nodded again, though she frowned a little at the term he used for her people. “They’re advanced bioarcanic constructs created by Vharnveil’s brightest bioarcanic engineers, and they have one function: they weaponize and control Carapathy by acting as a synthetic Nightspawn heart. When someone has a Symbiotic System, they’ll be able to convert all foreign essences into their own so the person doesn’t experience biological incompatibility when consuming essence. They'll also be able to go past 300 BeS without losing their humanity, and they’ll be able to stabilize volatile essence they consume into permanently enhanced strength carefully via the neural status interface.”

  “Do I have to jot this down or wha—”

  “Furthermore, each Symbiotic System comes with a predetermined ‘Standard Class’, so someone with a Wasp Symbiotic System will be able to unlock wasp-specific mutations and use wasp-specific Arts. As they progress further and further along their mutation tree, they’ll even be able to mutate their Standard Class into an Advanced Class, and then into a Specialized Class, each time mutating and strengthening their class-specific mutations and Arts.”

  “Right.” He nodded. “In short—”

  “In short, Carapathy will no longer pose a danger to people with systems. Systems also act as a biological regulator and help Afflicted control their enhanced bodies,” she finished. “Hence, why I couldn’t use my enhanced strength and biomagic at first when we were fighting the Myrmur last night. During integration, the biosynchronization function of the system is shut down, so I couldn’t control myself until the very end.”

  Gael waited one second.

  Then two seconds.

  Then three seconds.

  He only spoke once he was sure she was actually done.

  “... So the system’s just a loving mother who holds our hands while we get stronger and shows us how much progress we've made, but it ain’t a hundred percent necessary if you’re just looking to get stronger,” he muttered. “‘Cause I’ve heard of people with naturally high essence aptitudes who can control their Carapathy and use Arts even without a system… for a little while, at least. Most of them still fall off the surface of the world sooner or later. I’m assuming they’re all eating live rats and old men down in the pipes now.”

  Maeve scowled at the imagery. “Irrelevant. Now, each Symbiotic System comes with a predetermined ‘Standard Class’, so someone with a Beetle Symbiotic System will be able to unlock beetle-class mutations and use beetle-class biomagic. However, Afflicted can only obtain a system that is the same class as them, because otherwise there’d be biological incompatibility that’d kill them during the integration. A Moth Afflicted cannot integrate with anything other than a Moth Symbiotic System, while a normal human can integrate with any class of Symbiotic System they want. In our case, since neither of us were Afflicted before we got our systems, we both managed to integrate with our Standard Wasp Class no problem. Can I move onto how you read your status already?”

  He gestured broadly.

  With that, Maeve raised her finger and pointed at the topmost line of text on the interface.

  “From top to bottom, there are our names, our grade, our class, our passive mutations, our Essence Arts, and then our aura,” she said, pausing in the middle. “Our grade is basically our estimated overall strength level relative to what level of Nightspawn we can beat. There are five classes of Nightspawn, and from weakest to strongest, they are: Grave-Class, Wretch-Class, Blight-Class, Dread-Class, and Nightspawn God. Then there are seven ranks within each class, ranging from weakest at F-Rank to strongest at S-Rank. Nightspawn at S-Rank of one class can evolve to F-Rank of the next class by consuming enough essence, and whenever they move up a class, they gain far more powerful abilities.”

  “So you’re telling me we fucking suck at F-Rank Wretch-Class.”

  “Considering Grave-Class means the Nightspawn is little more than a corpse-scavenging bug that is hardly a threat to anyone, yes,” she mumbled, sounding disappointed herself. “Moving on. There’s our class, which determines what sort of mutation tree, passive mutation, and Essence Art we get. Passive mutation, in this case, meaning our ‘Profane Eyes’.” She pointed at her right eye and his left eye. “The Hunter gets the right eye, and the Host gets the left eye. If you wanna know what they do…”

  She didn’t tell him she could pull up new interfaces in his vision with her brain, but that was what she did. Two more interfaces popped up next to his face, making him flinch slightly.

  [Passive Mutation: Profane Eyes]

  [Brief Description: Both the Hunter and Host will develop essence-sensitive lenses over one of your eyes. When a Nightspawn is within your direct line of sight, half of your vision will be tinted red, and the other person will also see the tint no matter where there are]

  [Essence Arts: Purging Blood / Blood Covenant]

  [Purging Blood Brief Description: The Hunter can concentrate bioarcanic essence into their blood, making it extremely toxic to organic materials]

  [Blood Covenant Brief Description: The Host can transfer their blood to the Hunter, replenishing their Hunter’s blood supply]

  “With a single thought, you can pull up neural interfaces to see the brief descriptions of all your mutations in the future,” Maeve said plainly. “We can’t level up our passive mutation, but it’ll mutate once we get our class mutation. More on this later. Essence Art refers to our class-specific biomagic. Mine is ‘Purging Blood’, which lets me poison my blood, and yours is ‘Blood Covenant’, which lets you reverse your blood flow.”

  “... Come again?” he mumbled, still reading the words on the hazy interfaces. Maybe he just wasn't used to his nervous system being tampered with, but the words seemed swirly. Almost like they were living and trying to wriggle out of the boxes.

  I'm gonna need some drugs to… stabilize my head.

  Reading this shit is killing me.

  “The Hunter has the offensive-oriented mutations and biomagic, while the Host has the support-oriented mutations and magic,” Maeve explained. “With ‘Blood Covenant’, you can push your blood into me through our chain, which will essentially replenish my blood supply when I inevitably expend mine firing my blood-charged umbrella.”

  He frowned at that brief description, scrutinizing it even closer. He didn’t mind being the support in this professional relationship—in fact, anything that’d keep him off the frontline so Maeve could do her actual job as the Exorcist was fantastic—but now he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever get a cooler Art.

  If I remember correctly, Symbiotic Systems can ‘evolve’ or something.

  Maybe I’ll get something stronger when our class evolves?

  But while he indulged in the potential of his Arts for a little while longer, Maeve continued.

  “Below our Arts, there’s the numerical value of our ‘aura’ measured in BeS, which is our killing pressure created by essence passively leaking out of our skin. It’s also a measurement of how much biomagic stamina we have, since all Arts use essence as a resource,” she said. “If our opponent has a stronger aura than us, it means they have more essence than us. We’ll be paralyzed with fear—and vice versa—so the larger the difference in aura, the stronger the effects. Since we’re connected by this chain and we can’t get too far away from each other, though, our auras are almost always combined as one. Just add the two numbers together and you’ll have our real total aura value.”

  After that, she moved onto pointing at the bottom half of their status.

  “We each have our own store of ‘points’, which is the measurement of volatile bioarcanic essence in our bodies gained from eating Nightspawn meat—vBe for short—and with the help of our systems, we can stabilize volatile essence and allocate them to certain parts of our body to permanently enhance ourselves,” she explained. “To simplify, one ‘level’ in strength, speed, toughness, dexterity, and perception means you are equivalent to an average human in all of those attributes. Since I have two levels in strength and speed, I’m basically as strong and as fast as two average humans.”

  Gael furrowed his brows. “What's the cost like?”

  “If you want to increase your strength from level one to two, it’ll cost you one point. If you want to raise it from two to three, it’ll cost you eight points. To increase any of your attribute levels by one, the point cost will be that attribute’s current level cubed—so to go from level two to three, it’ll cost two times two times two, equalling eight points in total,” she explained. “Your aura will increase by one BeS for every point you get, so every time you eat Nightspawn meat, both your biomagic stamina and your killing pressure will become stronger passively.”

  “And the last few lines?” he said, pointing at the bottom two rows of text. “This is the… mutation tree?”

  She nodded curtly. “There are five tiers of class-specific mutations we can unlock. They’re like… active and passive biological abilities, and we have to unlock all mutations in each tier before moving onto the next.” Then she pointed at her half of the tier one mutation. “I’ve already unlocked ‘Scent Latch’ as my tier one core mutation, which enhances my sense of smell, but you’ll have to unlock your ‘Miasma Mantle’ before either of us can move onto our tier two mutations. The cost to unlock each mutation is—”

  “On the right. It’s fifteen points for mine. What’s that ‘level one’ thing next to your ‘Scent Latch’?”

  She paused for a moment to look at the interface again, then pulled up two more next to his face so he could take a look at the descriptions.

  [T1 Core Mutation: Pheromonic Latch Lvl.1]

  [Brief Description: The Hunter has developed olfactory nerve centers that can faintly detect and recognize chemical trails, enhancing her sense of pheromonic smell by fifty percent of her perception level. Subsequent levels in this mutation will increase its efficiency. At max level, her sense of pheromonic smell will be double that of her perception level]

  [T1 Core Mutation: Miasma Mantle]

  [Brief Description: The Host will passively secrete a special pheromone that dampens his scent, making him harder to detect by creatures that rely on scent to track their prey. The base radius of this special pheromone is one meter away from his body. Subsequent levels in this mutation will increase its range. At max level, this pheromone will have a range of five meters, allowing the Host to hide other people as well]

  “Each mutation can also be levelled up from one to ten, and every subsequent level will improve its effect in some way,” she said, while his eyes were still fixated on the description of his own tier one mutation. “Furthermore, if the mutation has the prefix of ‘Basic’ in front of it—like my tier two mutations “‘Basic Claws’ and ‘Basic Chitin’—there’ll be a ‘Branch Mutation Selection’ every five levels, where I can further upgrade that mutation by picking from one of three branch mutations. They’re like… side upgrades that’ll strengthen a certain aspect and make them more specialized in certain tasks.”

  “And?”

  “And,” she didn't miss a beat, “after we unlock all of our tier three and tier five mutations respectively, we’ll get a ‘Class Mutation Selection’, which will let us upgrade our Standard Class first by picking between three Advanced Classes, and then from there, we’ll get to pick between three Specialized Classes. Each Class Mutation Selection will alter and strengthen our passive mutations and Arts, so my Purging Blood and your Blood Covenant will evolve and get new abilities.”

  He furrowed his brows at that. “So two people that start out with the exact same Standard Class may turn out to have vastly different mutations and Arts at higher levels.”

  “Correct.”

  “And how many points does it take to upgrade these mutations?”

  “The cost is the current level of that mutation cubed multiplied by its tier, so to level up a tier three mutation from level two to three—”

  “It’ll be two times two times two times three, so the cost ramps up incredibly quickly for both levelling up mutations and physical attributes. Because it takes more and more essence to mutate a body that is already mutated?” he muttered. “How’s it possible that this system lets us strengthen super specific parts of our bodies like this, though? What’s the bioarcanic engineering behind it?”

  “I... don't know,” she admitted. “It’s a lot of complicated bioarcanic engineering, so I don't really get all of it myself, but the gist is this: we eat Nightspawn meat, our system represents the volatile essence we consume in ‘points’, and then we stabilize-slash-spend those points to allocate the essence and permanently enhanced specific parts of our body. That’s all I know, and I think that’s all most Hunters do.”

  … Hah.

  So much information.

  Regrettably, he still didn’t really understand what the hell bioarcanic essence fundamentally was, and he had no clue how any bioarcanic constructs functioned with those weird glyphs and sigils, but…

  He looked down at his right hand and gripped it into a fist, testing his current strength.

  He certainly wasn’t strong enough to grip hard enough to break the bones in his own hand, but with a single point put into strength, he could have the power of two men.

  Two fucking men with a single ‘point’.

  You silver-tongued bastards up in Vharnveil, keeping these systems from us down here.

  How many lives can you save if you’d just give even a hundred of us in every ward a system so we can easily protect ourselves?

  A thrill buzzed up his arm, a live wire of possibilities snapping against his thoughts. This was the beginning. This was his golden ticket. The clinic wouldn’t stay a crumbling excuse for a hospital anymore. No more scrimping on supplies, no more breaking his back for scraps.

  To be the greatest doctor in Bharncair, he also had to become the strongest doctor in Bharncair, and his system would let him do just that.

  I mean, I already used to drug myself to temporarily enhance my muscular and nervous systems, but with this…

  I can go to whole new levels I couldn’t easily go to before.

  And if I can figure out how the hell these bioarcanic implants actually work—and how they’re made—maybe I can even start producing them myself. Start selling them to my neighbours.

  He turned back to the status interface hovering in the air before him, grinning from ear to ear. “I’m sure there's more to the system and bioarcanic essence than meets the eye, but I'll pretend you've given me the basics, so let's just move on for now. You have nineteen points, and I have thirteen. Is that seriously all we get from eating all the fleshy bits of the Myrmur?”

  Maeve stood at his side, arms crossed, her own gaze locked onto the interface. “It was only an F-Rank Wretch-Class,” she said. “Weakest of the weak. If it were ranked anything higher, we’d be looking at more points. Maybe double, maybe triple, depending on the rank.”

  “Alright, then.” He squinted at his interface, lips twisting. “Thirteen points, thirteen points… Can I just hoard them? Keep them in reserve?”

  Maeve nodded. “Points are just volatile bioarcanic essence in your body—‘vBe’ for short—and they don’t decay. They can't leave your body once you've consumed them, but remember: every decision you make with them is final. Once a point is spent on increasing an attribute level or unlocking a new mutation, that volatile bioarcanic essence is stabilized into a permanent enhancement. You can't take the point back. Mutations cannot un-mutate.”

  “Cool. And how do I allocate the points?"

  "It's a neural interface. Despite what it looks like, the bloodshackle-type system is connected to your internal biological circuitry right now, so all you have to do is think about it and—"

  "Cool. Put a point into speed and toughness, system."

  An interface popped up next to his head right after that.

  [Speed: 1 → 2]

  [Toughness: 1 → 2]

  [Points: 13 vBe → 11 vBe]

  … And he’d be lying if he said it didn’t hurt. It was like someone suddenly shoved a dagger through the back of his spine and his world flashed green, white, and black. His muscles tightened. His skin hardened. Supposedly, his enhanced attribute levels meant he was now twice as fast and tough as the average man in Bharncair, but damned if that wasn't the least he needed to keep up with the Exorcist from now on. More speed for faster reflexes would always prove useful in Bharncair, and more toughness meant he could take more of a beating from his enemies, his failed experiments, and Cara. And maybe it'd also accelerate his blood replenishing so he could use his Art more often and keep the Exorcist topped up enough to use her blood-firing umbrella.

  "I'm spending two points now, but I ain't touching the rest until we’re knee-deep in a problem and need a way out. If points are this precious, I’m playing the long game,” he declared. “That goes for you, too. Unless you really need an extra boost in power, don’t spend any of your points on your physical attributes.”

  She dipped her head. “I know. But don’t tell me what to do with my points. You mind your half of the system, and I’ll mind mine.”

  “Fine by me.”

  Gael waved the interface away as he turned to face Cara, who was sitting slumped and entirely bored on her stool, having watched the two of them stare at empty air for the past few minutes.

  “You know, what happens if I get bored of watching you two flirt over invisible numbers and decide to cut off one of your legs?” Cara said idly. “If I cut off your leg and sever your contact with the system, do you die?”

  Maeve didn’t bother hiding her annoyance at the use of ‘flirt’, though she did answer, “You won’t die immediately, no, but the system is the vital organ that also synchronizes various essence-enhanced biological functions across your body. Remove the system, and while you’ll retain all of your permanently enhanced strength, mutations, and Art, you’ll find it nearly impossible to control your essence-enhanced body without the system helping you sync up your eleven organ systems.”

  “Is that all? Because Gael did say there are people who can control their essence-enhanced bodies even without—”

  “Those are mostly Afflicted below 300 BeS. We’re still around 100 BeS, but past 300, nobody can easily afford to lose the thing stabilizing the essence in their body. It’s a cruel and slow death sentence. You’ll survive with enhanced strength, but you’ll most likely be unable to control it. You’ll tear your own muscles apart when you walk, you’ll break every door you push through, and sooner or later, late-stage Carapathy will turn you into a flesh-hungry monster, indiscriminately attacking everyone in sight until you’re put down like a bug.”

  Cara blinked.

  Gael blinked, too.

  “... Okay,” Cara said, shrugging simply. “Duly noted. Not gonna try to break you guys apart.”

  Maeve blinked half a second later herself, as if finally realizing the ramble she just went on. “I mean, as you said, it is possible to live with Carapathy even without the system, but more often than not, people who have systems go past 300 BeS, and after you’ve grown used to having it stabilize essence in your body for you all the time, you can’t easily start doing it yoursel—”

  “We’ll head out to that old baron’s manor by nightfall,” Gael said, putting them back on track with a solid clap of his hands. “We’ll spend a few hours scouting the area, and once we’re ready, we’ll make our move at midnight. No screw-ups. We do this clean and quiet, and… how much are you thinking, Cara? How much are we stealing?”

  “Let’s start small,” Cara said, grunting as she slapped her knees and hopped off her stool. “Ten thousand Marks. Not so much the baron will notice it missing, but not so little it’ll be a complete waste of our time. We pull this off, we’ll at least have enough Marks to stave off the next two months.” Then she winked at Maeve all coyly. “So don’t break up with my little brother over monetary troubles, okay? I don’t wanna be the one to put him down.”

  Maeve grumbled, still looking slightly abashed.

  “I’m not going to… break up with him now,” she muttered.

  “Well, I sure hope he’s gonna be fine,” Gael said cheerily, wiggling his head left and right as he hopped off his stool with a cheery grin. “Now let’s go rob a fucking bank.”