102 (II)
Feast [II]
“Yes,” Valor said, briefly turning his attention away from Shiv’s cooking. “Let us see how this skill manifests. Activate it. Reach out with your mana and learn what the core might offer us.”
Adam looked uneasy, but did as Valor asked. Uva soon found herself torn between the trembling mana core and the massive cooking operation Shiv had going.
"Stop heating the cauldron for the tentacle," Shiv called out. “It’s enough. Let the water boil and cool. We’re going to pour the cauldrons over when they’re all the same temperature in a bit.”
The Pyromancer killed her beam and let out a breath. “This better taste heavenly, Shiv. I can’t believe I let Ikki talk me into this.”
“It might taste more than just heavenly,” Shiv replied. “It might just let you grow back an arm or a leg.” Not that she was missing either, but it did seem to raise her expectations.
He administered additional adjustments for the Mendules and the river weeds. More ingredients were added. Temperatures were adjusted. As he worked, focus consumed him. So much focus, he didn’t notice the mana core growing brighter and brighter behind him. Finally, as the three cauldrons achieve a uniform temperature, he poured the Mendules and river weeds in with the leviathan tentacle.
From there, the mixture was complete, and Shiv began to stir. And he stirred using the very bone of the massive tentacle. He peeled away the flesh, now well-cooked, and then he split them apart, cutting them with laceration spells until they were minced into drifting pieces. Afterward, he shaped the bone to have its head be longer, flatter, and he used it to churn the waters fast.
A bubbling, gleaming whirlpool began to develop, colors of greenish bioluminescence and glittering blue mingling with chunks of pale red flesh. As it turned longer and longer, the soup got brighter, and there came crackles of bioelectricity between each of the pieces.
Shiv felt it, then, the same pulses of signalled regeneration rushing between each piece of meat. Somehow, he was replicating the effect in the tentacle without having kept it attached to the leviathan’s body.
Uva blinked. Adam blinked. Ikki leaned forward, almost tipping her head over into the cauldron. She drew in a lungful of air using her nostrils, sniffling wildly, and then her eyes began to roll.
"Whoa," Ikki breathed, "that's got a lot of kick to it. Sister Uva, come over here, take a whiff."
Uva stared at the younger Umbral. She looked reluctant, but then Shiv muttered something to her that completely changed her expression. "That's okay, Ikki. Some of us are brave. Some of us, however, are... Well, they would call themselves cautious. But I would call them chicken—”
But Uva stomped right past him, glaring at him from the corner of her eyes. A telepathic message hit him then. “You will regret ever teasing me this way.” Her mind was alight with a vicious implication, and Shiv did his best not to cough in front of everyone.
“Sure I will,” Shiv replied.
“I will drive an apology from your lips.”
“You might get me to do more than just apologize if you try.”
She narrowed her eyes, but before anything else could be exchanged, a light flashed over them, bathing the world in azure brightness.
The mana core pulsed, and it did so with a flaring, coronal radiance of azure blue. The power the mana core unleashed was similar, in a way, to Adam's The Righteous Dawn Prevails Skill. The color was the same as well. But rather than empowering everyone, increasing their souls' integrity and temporarily raising their skill levels while they were in his presence, it wrapped them in a layer of cerulean brightness. Now, everyone present was shrouded in their own azure corona.
But rather than burn, Shiv felt it blend into
his very being. The Deathless stared on in astonishment as two of his skills were bridged together.[Temporary] Skill Fusion: The Chef Unwavering (Master) - Woundeater (Master) > The Flesh Delectable (Heroic)
Shiv blinked, and everyone else around him let out brief gasps as well.
"What in the hells did I just do?" Adam breathed.
"I think... I think your Unique core is showing its hand."
Shiv regarded his newly fused Biomancy and cooking with astonishment. They didn’t feel truly fused, but with the azure glow binding them, using one pulled on the other. All of a sudden, his body came alight with the pristine glow of The Chef Unwavering. But the glow also pulsated with Biomancy, as did everything and everyone else that could potentially be cooked and eaten.
From them extended attributes and traits, icons indicating bonuses Shiv might get from consuming them after proper preparation. In fact, he felt as if he could consume and make anything into an ingredient if he just channeled his Biomancy into them. Including his own flesh. The sheer strangeness of his new Skill Fusion broke Shiv out of his trance.
Most of his allies had their own skills, and right now, The Flesh Delectable told him that he could temporarily gain some of their abilities if he just ate them using his biology magic. Like how he could get a much improved version of Psychomancy from eating Uva, for instance.
Shiv could put up with so many things. He was willing to eat a lot. Potential Biomantic cannibalism was a step too far for him. He didn’t want to eat his friends. And that earned him a nod of approval from Uva. “Good. It’s frankly surprising that you didn’t even consider eating any of us for more power.”
Shiv stared at her. "Uva, I'm not actually a monster."
Valor and Adam made eye contact before they looked at him, but said nothing.
"Yes, I know that," Uva said, though she sounded like she didn't fully believe it.
Shiv frowned, his enthusiasm dying down slightly. "Why would you say it that way?"
"Nothing. Just continue on using your new skill to deal with the food," she mumbled. She shot a brief look at Valor, and that made Shiv do the same.
The old Pathbearer let out a breath. "I will explain things to you later. That's what I told you earlier. The matter related to your mind.”
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“Oh,” Shiv said. He didn’t much like the sound of that.
Tearing his mind away from the conversation, Shiv focused on his Leviathan Tentacle Soup. He felt it was rapidly approaching completion. More importantly, he read the benefits it could grant him if he absorbed it with his Biomancy right now. Perfect regeneration. Hyper-enhanced immunology. Shiv blinked. Biological rejuvenation restores organs to a pristine state. Absolute focus as well… Godsdamn…
Woundeater 85 > 86
The Chef Unwavering 55 > 57
He started as both his Biomancy and his cooking skills leveled. However the mana core’s Unique skill worked, it fused skills together, but it didn't truly change their separation within a Pathbearer, so it seemed like a sort of external soul bridge that connected the most recently used skills.
"Can Hu," Shiv declared, "I need a bowl. Time for a sampling.”
Immediately, a small, round metal object hovered next to him. Shiv picked it up, offered Can Hu his thanks, and dipped it into the great mixture. As he brought the bowl before his face, staring at chunks of minced tentacle floating on the surface, partially glossed by glistening weeds and lit by half-melted Mendules, Shiv prepared himself and sampled his newest dish.
Immediately, electricity flowed through him. It pulsed under his skin, traveled through his marrow, and ignited his blood with a rush of freshness and relief, the likes of which he had never felt before. Shiv let out a shuddering gasp, and Uva stumbled back. She looked at the Weaveress Biomancer, calling out to her, and as the Weaveress came rushing, Shiv simply shook his head and choked out, "I'm fine!"
"Shiv! Shiv, are you all right? Do you have a sickness? Is the Leviathan gonna kill you like I said?" Uva cried.
"No!" Shiv shouted. "It's just… good. I can feel a rush of regeneration crackling through me.”
His heart felt like it was stronger, immensely so. His lungs filled with more air. Shiv’s stomach felt expansive, iron-cast, like it could eat raw garbage for a month and remain unaffected by the toxins and waste. His muscles also trembled with power, and more importantly, there was the rushing relaxation that consumed him. Everything was perfect. Everything was relief.
And then Shiv felt his externally fused skills detach from each other with a pop. Woundeater became Woundeater again. The Chef Unwavering was The Chef Unwavering, but the levels they gained were retained. And the food he made with them still remained pristine and magnificent, even if he couldn't see the exact details they offered anymore.
Shiv's hands were shaking. Soup, he realized, began to splash down his arms. He stared at the others, and he waved to them. "Get... Take a sip. Have... have… have a bite." He let out a breath and tried to wrestle himself under control. "Just try it. Trust me."
Adam's gaze met Uva's, and they both hesitated.
Ikki did not. She called out to Can Hu, and soon she was scooping up a bowl full of tentacle broth in her own bowl.
"Ikki!" Uva said, looking slightly worried.
Before she could do anything, however, Ikki poured the broth into her mouth. Her eyes immediately shot wide, her pupils dilated, and her muscles began to tremble. Ikki bent over and shuddered violently. Uva reached out, trying to stabilize the young umbral. But that wasn't necessary, for Ikki started stomping on the ground and shaking her hands, her body language overflowing with excitement. She immediately leaped down and scooped up another bowlful of soup.
Soon she was drinking greedily, hungrily, ravenously—practically a starved wolf lapping at fresh meat. She was barely even chewing the bits of meat. "It's so good! It's electric! What did you put in this thing?"
"Mendules. Also, some kind of bioluminescent weed that really fills your body with relaxation. It lined the river beds outside the gate."
The Weaveress Biomancer stared at him. "Wait, you applied gliskeg to the mixture?"
"That was what it was? Gliskeg?"
"Yes. It's usually used as a muscle relaxant and a skin-rejuvenating substance for saunas,” the Weaveress explained. “The effects are not usually this extreme…”
"Well, it seems it triggered something when mixed in with the tentacle. Bioelectricity keeps jumping between them,” Shiv muttered. And there was another angle he could study. Bioelectricity. It seemed capable of signalling things to bodies, but it was also still electricity as well…
The Weaveress hesitated for a moment before she also asked for a bowl and tested the mixture with a more refined spoonful. Her reaction was even more extreme than even Ikki's. She stumbled backward, her wasp stinger trailing against the ground, digging a deep gouge in the earth. Soon, she fell onto her back and spread her limbs out wide. The humanoid fingers on the ends of her long, exoskeleton-covered arms spasmed, and she sucked in a deep breath. "My lungs! My lungs—They feel better than ever before! Ah, my skin! I think... I think my palp eczema is gone!"
Soon, there was an onrush of Umbral Sisters and Weaveress making a beeline for the tentacle broth. As they savored and slurped up what Shiv had to offer, he felt a feeling of pride wash through him, and that manifested as a large, shit-eating grin he directed at Adam and Uva.
"So? You guys going to try it, or…?"
Adam stared, his expression quivering. “I'm going to give it a few more seconds. Just in case one of them drops dead.” He paused. “Well, that's most likely to happen just from being near you. Struck down by the System.”
Shiv wanted to rebut that, but then he paused and gave an awkward grunt. "Yeah, that's probably likely."
After another five seconds had passed, and no one had died, Adam sighed, asked for a bowl, and set out to enjoy his own meal. Finally, it was just Uva.
She stared at the tentacle, stared at the Court Leviathan, and pouted at Shiv. "You're really going to do this to me?"
"Do what? Make you a meal? I do that all the time."
"No, not that. You're really going to make me eat a piece of a First Blood Court Leviathan. It almost feels like sacrilege. It does feel unnatural. These things spew plagues and unleash monsters.”
“And now it’s just filling our stomachs. You can think of it as an insult to the vampires. I know I do. Besides, Courtney's not a Court Leviathan anymore. She's my petnow."
"Yes, your pet that you chopped a limb off of. That you then cooked and ate."
"It's an ethical and renewable source of meat," Shiv smiled, "just like the Jealousy."
She frowned at him. "You have a disturbing knack for kidnapping large, regenerating creatures. If I had to count, that's twice now. That's two more large monsters than most people would have kidnapped in their life."
"I don't like thinking of it as a kidnapping."
"What would you like to think of it as?"
"It's more like a virtuous repossession. I'm a Pathbearer. It's just part of adventuring."
Uva rolled her eyes, but he knew he had her when an exasperated smile took over her face. "Fine. But if I get sick—
“I will nurse you back to health. Whatever it takes," Shiv said.
She stared at him. She stared at the tentacle soup again. Off by the side, Adam let out a loud moan. “How? One day he's gonna be cooking me literal shit, and I'll be thanking him for it…
Shiv smirked. Uva shook her head. "He might just be right.”
“It’ll be the best piece of shit either of you will ever eat. I’ll eat it first, of course.”
As Uva rolled her eyes once again, she placed the first piece of tentacle meat in her mouth. Her eyes briefly rolled, but she tried to hide it. Uva tried to keep her reactions restrained, but her mind was still connected to his, and he felt more than a little of what she felt.
"That good, huh?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Do not start."
"Oh, we haven't started yet, dear Sister. But I will bring this up from time to time, about how you doubted me. That really hurt my feelings, you know?"
“Yes, yes, dear brute, I apologize.”
“I suppose you'll have to make it up to me later."
"I will?" Uva replied. "Did you not insinuate I was... What was it? A chicken-shit?"
Ah, Shiv thought. Right.
"Well," he said, "I guess we will have to make it up to each other later. But for now..." He stared at the cauldron and smirked. “For now, let’s slap a handle and lid on this thing and bring it up. We got survivors to feed."