Chapter 49: Flesh Core
Jimmy’s self-given mission did not go like he expected it to. He never expected to meet a kind, old human who’d show him layers upon layers of love, and come to think of it, he treated his experience like a fever dream. He had a hard time believing it.
However, despite its oddity, he still completed his mission. He got what he assumed to be a core.
Standing on top of a building, he poked the organ with his claw, but it did not result in anything. He couldn’t absorb it like he absorbed the cores from those Razor Squirrels.
"System, what am I looking at?" He asked, "Did I grab the right thing?"
[You must consume or absorb the item in order for me to give you more information.]
[Speaking of cores, you already completed a task related to them, along with two other tasks. Would you like to hear the new tasks I have lined up for you, or do you wish to complete the remaining task first?]
"What task is there left?" He squinted.
[Task 7: Explore the wilderness for 10 hours]
[Progress: 22%]
"I don’t have the energy to do all that right now," He said, "Let’s focus on the core."
Jimmy then started pecking at the organ. Internally, he knew this was a bad idea, as he feared the thing would explode, but he didn’t know what else to do. He had to take a sample of the material, and so he ripped off a tiny bit of meat from the live organ, and swallowed it.
That tiny piece made him feel like he was hit with a sledge hammer! His chest tightened, and he stumbled backwards a few steps before he fell over.
"Fah!" His beak tightened as he grunted, "Slima... slumstem... sissy?"
[Sample successfully analyzed.]
[The sample you consumed belongs to a Flesh Core. It’s common amongst humans.]
[Eating it is the best way to absorb whatever skills or even evolutions are stashed within the core.]
The system’s explanation barely passed through the barrier which was Jimmy’s head. The tiny piece of the core he swallowed had completely overwhelmed him. He barely knew where he was!
Twitching, shaking, and occasionally rolling across the roof, the core had a hold on him for five whole hours.
When its effects dimmed down, Jimmy woke up as exhausted as ever. The core had him tweaking, basically, and he was absolutely certain that he saw god at least thrice, so it would’ve been impossible for him to get knocked out, and sleep through the pain.
"Ah, ma hid," He grunted, as he stood up, "System, what did a git?"
[Pardon?]
"Did the core give me anything?" He asked, after he violently shook his head to snap out of his slurred speech. "God damn, I think I had a long conversation with some Scottish god. He was... influential."
[You’ve likely been hallucinating. Your brain-waves point towards it.]
[More to the point, the core had a great hold on you because it is too powerful for you. It’s dense in mana, and features many skills and evolution in regards to fireballs, and the element of fire in general.]
"So I can shoot fireballs now?" He said.
[No, you cannot. The fragment you ate was too big, and therefore too complex for you to absorb it properly.]
[I’d recommend you eat a fragment smaller than your prior one by a tenth, as you’ll have a much better chance at absorbing it.]
"Hell nah!" He exclaimed, "I went to hell and back when I ate that piece, and I didn’t get anything in return. I don’t want to go through that again."
[If you eat the recommended amount, odds are you won’t feel as much pain. You might not even hallucinate this time.]
"Tempting," He remarked, "I have to take a nap first. I’m long overdue for one."
Jimmy was in no condition to continue, so he fell asleep right there. He didn’t even bother to find a comfortable spot, as he was too tired to do so. The hot stone rooftop was good enough.
Since the Help Yourself skill was done healing him, specifically, it has had enough time to heal his burn wounds, the slumber he succumbed to was perhaps the most comfortable one he has had in a while. His body gave up on him, it was limp, and adaptive to sleeping positions that would have otherwise been uncomfortable.
On a further note, he had been so tired that he forgot to check on the only friend he had in this world. He did not see Virena, so at that moment, he completely forgot that she existed.
Virena was behind him, and she was also tweaking. She had been curious to see why Jimmy ate the core, so she swallowed a bite of it shortly after him.
She had never absorbed a core before, and since she did not bear any mana-based skills, the core stunned her as well. It overwhelmed her, except her hallucinations so far had been mostly sweet.
She saw the lost members of her sect. She recalled all the great memories she had with them. This slowly numbed the waves of pain she received from consuming the core, so the process didn’t weigh her down as much.
The core lost its grip on her an hour after Jimmy fell asleep. She stood up, and found relief from the fact that no one had attacked her and his friend while they had been both immobilized. They were safe, and in one piece.
"Poison wouldn’t have messed me up as much as that core did," She said, "At least I now know to never touch a core again."
Virena made up her mind, however, as she prompted her chained sickle on her arms properly, she noticed something odd.
A flicker of fire ran down the blade of her sickle.
Curious, she swung her sickle across the air, and was surprised to see a line of fire following it!
"Oh wow..." She held her breath.
Virena then tried to shoot a fireball out of her spiky hands, but it did not work. She quickly figured out that she could only project the elemental magic she absorbed, through her sickle!
"Works for me," She said, "This might be one of the best ways to set squirrels on fire. Maybe hornets too?"
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