Trash: Chapter 181 (Patreon)

Chapter 181

One Badged Forward, Two Slots Back

“Oh,” was all Lelia said, looking somewhat confused by the fact that everyone had suck a visceral reaction. Which I couldn’t blame them, by now the team had only heard the horror stories about what we saw in the abandoned SySTEM factory. If they had seen the real slime that was composed of dead and desiccated animals that had found their way into the open stairwell over time, they would have likely acted worse.

Honestly, just thinking about the liquid made me queasy, as I remember my own muddy boots going into it, along with blood and viscera from the downed professors who were on hand to watch the moment, along with the ROW officers who were some of the first taken down. The entire thing felt like having a fly’s eye view of the inner working of a Venus flytrap after said flytrap devoured half a dozen flies. What she effectively said, was that the juices that piled up at the bottom were originally dangerous, but then one quick application of my Healing Flames* and suddenly the water was purified.

“That’s a shame, as I have two vials worth of the material,” Lelia declared, pulling out two water flasks that allegedly contained this purified water. Water capable of creating magical stalactites, and stalagmites. Water that I am assuming would cause kidney stones if consumed in enough quantity, then she just casually places those very containers on the table.

Suddenly everyone who looked disgusted a moment ago suddenly had a hungry gleam in their eyes. I am no exception, as I see the vial for what it represents, more than what it is. Especially considering that those flasks are filled with the excreted remains of dead and dying creatures.

There seems to be a moment of hesitation as no one wants to drink the liquid, despite its alleged benefits. The fact that Lelia might not be telling the truth doesn’t even cross my mind, as I just know that it would be too much, as I got all of my Class Skills upgraded to the Legendary level, I got my Strategy* skill badged, and now I hold in my hands a crystal that will give a new and completely unknown power, taking up the exact spot where my Strategy* skill once sat. With everything going on, I take the giant glowing skill crystal and infuse mana into it.

Nothing happens.

“Everything okay?” Luna asks, clearly seeing the distress in my face as this should be easy. I mean, I just used four crystals already, using this same method, meaning this should be relatively straightforward.

“Yeah, I think,” I reply trying not to let my growing amount of tension seep out that is building inside of me. Yet, I try it again, this time pausing for a second, before focusing my mind and then applying my mana directly to the fragment.

Again, nothing happens.

“What?” Junior asks, which says something if he recognizes that there is something going wrong.

“What’s happening?” Lucia now asks, turning her attention to me as well. While I just have a wildly glowing crystal in my hand, one that will not melt under direct contact with my mana. Not for the first time, I wonder about these crystals, how they work, how they melt, and most importantly how do I get this stupid thing to activate?

“Oh no,” Lelia says. As she speaks, I can see that her eyes are glowing in that muddied golden color that lets me know her magical sight is activated.

“Oh no, what?” I ask, trying to keep myself calm, despite the rising tension within me.

“It’s a magic crystal,” Lelia replies.

“We can see that, I mean they all are, right?” Junior asks, his mouth moving faster than his mind can process what is being given to him.

“No, she means that the crystal requires a magical affinity to use, one that Catarine doesn’t have,” Lucia responded, looking at Lelia for confirmation. Lelia hearing the response just nods, and then quickly glances at everyone around the table, then stops on Luna.

“You!” Lelia responds while pointing directly at Luna.

“Me?” Luna asks confusedly, thrown off by the sudden intensity that Lelia has in her gaze.

“Yes, you are the only one who can bond with both aspects of the crystal,” Lelia says to Luna, while pointing at the crystal in my hand. For a moment, I am devastated, as I really wanted this crystal to work, but I also know it can’t go unused. That is why with a slightly longer pause than expected, I take the stone and offer it to Luna.

“I can’t,” Luna responds, clearly having seen my reaction and thinking that it would devastate me to not have it, it would, but not as much as not using it would mean.

“Please take it,” I reply.

“No, it’s yours,” Luna responds, a look of sadness and want fighting for dominance in her eyes. I can tell she wants the crystal, and having just had a Skill badged, like everyone else, she like everyone else at this table has an open Free Slot to take this crystal, what is effectively a once in a lifetime moment. One that she is letting slip through her fingers.

“Take it,” I insist while waving the crystal. I can see that Luna is about to protest one more time, but that’s when Marcus, makes the most unlikely of entries. The same Marcus who was kicked out of here at the start of our little power up process, comes back to view our once stacked table now empty, with only one larger crystal remaining in my hand, as I point it towards Luna. Then on the table where a stack of crystals of varying shapes and sizes once stood, only sit two oddly conspicuous metal flasks. Marcus sees all of this, and then just gulps, as I could tell part of him really wanted to know who got what from the stash, but there is no way to know. Still he is a professional, which means he easily avoids the elephant in the room, and instead proceeds to tell us why he barged in here.

“Just so you know, the ROW officers and professors are coming down the street now, meaning whatever you are doing needs to be done quickly,” Marcus states.

“Thank you,” I reply, and with that Marcus who clearly wants to stay, just nods his head and proceeds to leave. Once he is gone, I turn back to Luna and silently glare at her. It is that same glare that every female has, and every female knows exactly what it means when you use that exact glare on another female. It is the look of “so help me god, if you do not do the obvious thing, I am going to enact violence to make you do the obvious.”

Luna, pauses for a second before reluctantly reaching out her hand to grab the shard.

With her eyes still glowing, Lelia reaches down and grabs one flask and hands it to me, before grabbing the second flask and holding it out to Lucia.

I look at her in confusion for only a moment, before I realize this is likely how we all stay relatively balanced. Well, everyone but Junior. I almost want to protest, but then I realize that the three of us, that is Luna, Lucia, and myself are all considered frontline fighters. While Lelia and Junior are both auxiliary members, that is the people that stay in the back and wait for danger to pass. While it might be somewhat demeaning, it does mean that Lucia and I have an extra skill slot would be invaluable to staying alive for a moment longer.

Reluctantly I reach out and hold the flask, as does Lucia. We have a moment where we all stare at each other, each of us seemingly having variations of the same thought, namely is this really what I want to be doing, right now?

Then we can all but hear the moment when intense knocking on the building’s front door echoes through the apartment complex, letting us know that Marcus was not lying when he said people were coming. Thinking about it, he was probably watching from the window that overlooks the street. Meaning he was outside the room, down the hall in the little parlor resting area, a sign that he did keep our wishes of having our privacy adhered to. At least, that is what we can assume from the only angle he had to view the street and thus warn us of this impending dilemma. I have these thoughts, then I dismiss them, as it is just Lelia and Luna’s eyes that captivate me and pull me back to the present, to this moment.

“On three,” Luna says, trying to psych herself up, as she still clearly feels guilty for taking the crystal that is unusable by anyone else in the team.

“Hello constable!” Marcus’s declares in a loud booming voice that seems to echo across the whole apartment, letting us know he is answering the frantic knocking at the door, and telling us that we don’t have time to dawdle.

“Three!” Lucia declares, then opens the flask and begins to drink the liquid. As she does she seems fine, but then I notice that she is grimacing a lot at the end.

“Blah, that is terrible,” Lucia sates, as she is already wiping away the residue of liquid from her lips, in order to get rid of the concoction as quickly as possible. Then she proceeds to add the best of advice, “that definitely needs to be taken with something.”

Remembering its origin story, of how it was formed from my Healing Flames* I do just that, taking a moment to focus the spark of life and holy energies together, compacting them until they create a brief but unmistakable flame on the top of the liquid. As I am doing this, everyone else just stares, well everyone else but Lucia who is already telling her sister, in all but blood, to not waste the moment.

“Go on, take it, she will drink that sludge, I promise!” Lucia says a note of challenge in her voice that she will not be the only one to suffer through the process of drinking that sludge.

“It worked?” I ask, still keeping the flames active, as they burn away the contaminants that are still in this mixture.

“Yeah, I got an extra Free Slot,” Lucia states. I am about to try to pause for more time to mentally prepare myself for what will happen next, when Marcus and the people he is talking to cut in, making it so we have to act immediately.

“Yes, Healing Candidate Bloom and her team are right this way,” Marcus shouts out, his voice again echoing as I can already hear him and multiple sets of booted feet enter the lobby and begin making their way through the entry area, up the staircase and towards us. Realizing we have only a few seconds, I lock gazes with Luna and all but demand she take the shard before these guards do.

I don’t have to speak, as in that stare we seem to be on the same wavelength, as if our thoughts can be shared. We both nod, and then begin acting. She is already pumping mana into the crystal that somehow dissolves its outer shell, a fact I couldn’t do with my own mana. Then I watch as the crystal melts the way a frozen icicle that is melted almost instantly. There is a faint purple tint to the melting liquid that lets me think it has something to do with spirit energy, which is not entirely out of place considering where we got the mixture from. Also, the fact that I couldn’t bond with it, would make sense if it was spirit based in nature, as I have a relatively small affinity with spirit energy, and it is all used by my bloodline powers.

Seeing her in action, I close my eyes and bring the still burning concoction to my lips and drink. Should I have stopped a flame before it touched my lips? Probably. Did I? No. Why, well I wanted to get every chance of lingering rot and corruption gone from this mixture of liquid that I am drinking. Either the most elaborate party hoax performed by Lelia and Lucia, two people who have never gotten along before now. Or something that can truly change my fate.

At the very least, drinking this liquid was enough to get Luna to get the glowing power that only she can use apparently.

Then as expected, I feel the deep rumbling activation of the system within me. A system that easily resonates with the liquid that I have pouring into me.

STEM system fluid identified.

STEM system fluid properties verified.

…

Activating additional Basic Skill Slot available.

I had expected that, as I could see my lines of data being updated almost instantly before my eyes.

Name: Catarine Bloom

Age: 16

Class: (Unique) Culmen Vitae* (6/6) (Maximum Potential 7)

Badges Completed: (8)

Basic Skills Utilized: (4/6)

Personal & Bloodline Skills (3/3)

Then a message I didn’t expect to see at all appeared, making me wonder if drinking the liquid while purifying it with my Healing Flames was the right idea.

Additional anomalies detected.

Analyzing…

And it was at that exact moment that Marcus led Lt. Keller and a number of high ranking ROW officers into our study room.

“Healer Candidate Bloom, these men would like to have a word with you,” Marcus said, letting me know that the easy part of the night was now over.