Spore Halo:
- Pollen
- Symbiosis
- Athlete’s Foot
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He glanced through the new abilities he’d been given with his E-Class Rank 5 upgrade. He now had access to another first-level Proto-Spore Culture. He’d chosen Ghoul’s Snare.
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Ghoul’s Snare (Type, Trap): This is a type of curling purple-black fungus that grows on the ground. When touched, it activates, curling around feet and entangling enemies while dealing acid damage over time. Rarity: C-Class; Elemental Affinity: Corrosivus, Umbra
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Along with the new fungal culture, he’d also gained total Disease Immunity as part of his Passive Fungal Form and, even better, he’d managed to unlock a new Spore Halo ability, Athlete’s Foot.
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Athlete’s Foot: Release a burst of spores that causes irritating itching between the toes. Although not lethal at this level, Athlete’s Foot can be quite painful if left untreated and takes ages to clear up. So inconvenient!
Available at: E-Class, Rank 5+
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Going up three ranks in two weeks was no easy task. From here on out, his improvement would slow, though he was determined not to let it stop. He was still contemplating his level-two spore culture, but he didn’t have to decide on anything right away. Right now, it was a tossup between the Waddler and the Gem-Studded Puffballs, but he didn’t want to rush things and he still had some time.
Inga read on, and so he blinked away his character sheet and quietly began to cultivate. Reinforcing his eyes, he watched a thin golden-red miasma of Ignis Apothos drift across the floor from the fireplace. As a fungaloid, he had a natural affinity with Morta and Toxicus—cultivating those elements was like drinking pure water on a hot summer day. Ignis Apothos, however, was the hardest elemental affinity for him to cultivate by a country mile. That also made it the best to practice with. He breathed in a thin line of the churning power and drew it into his swirling core. The pain hit like a taser to the sternum, and his skin smoked and smoldered in places as that fiery energy burned through his meridians like a wildfire.
Logan was ready for it. He staunched the incoming flow and sent a pulse of his own power surging out along his internal pathways, putting out those fires and instantly reinforcing the skin and healing the burns. He was getting pretty good at directing the Apothos through the meridians in his body. He could heal the minor injuries, yet still needed Zed and Ned, the rosebush doctors, for when he lost limbs, which happened all too frequently.
From there, he contained the rest of the unincorporated Ignis Affinity through sheer force of will, directing it to circle his core in elaborate loops and swirls. His core looked almost like Saturn, with its many rings. If you cultivated pure Apothos or Apothos that was already elementally aligned with your nature, it could be incorporated and used immediately. This Ignis Affinity, though, he needed to strip down and purify. Ever so slowly, Logan peeled away fine strands of the golden energy, manhandling it into his center, where the Ignis would be chipped away by bits and pieces, then expelled as he breathed out.
“You really are getting much better at this.” Inga closed her book.
Logan opened his eyes, keeping the purification process running quietly in the back of his head.
“Sorry about being absent,” Inga said after a beat. “I got lost in that last chapter. Professor Nekhbet can spin such a wondrous tale.”
Logan adjusted the book so he could see the spine. “The Butter Knives of Eritreus? Am I reading that right?”
The moth woman got defensive and clutched the book close to her chest like a treasured prize. “It’s more than about spreading butter, Logan. It’s a memoir about his travels to Eritreus. Bart captures what it feels like to dine in the cafes and bistros of Haven’s Door on a spring morning or a winter night, having quiet conversations on any number of interesting topics.”
“Bart?” Logan wondered.
Inga’s antennae pulled in close. “Professor Nekhbet. I shouldn’t have referred to him as Bart.”
Logan had no idea what she saw in Professor Bartholomew Nekhbet. He taught their The History of the Soul Tree class, which was supremely boring. Grass growing, paint drying, solitary confinement levels of boring. Marko had completely given up on trying to stay awake through Nekhbet’s droning lectures. Logan had thought the subject matter would be interesting—talking about the fundamental reality of all creation—and yet, Professor Nekhbet talked in a monotone voice and had spent the first two weeks going over the anatomy of the Tallwood pines, the most common trees of the Xiru Forest.
The idea that he’d written a book about butter knives wasn’t a stretch.
Nekhbet had nattered on endlessly about roots, sap, heartwood, and branches, giving them every mind-numbing detail, none of which seemed relevant or useful in any way that Logan could understand. However, Inga sat enraptured, hanging on every word as though he were some sage prophet of old, dispensing ancient wisdom from on high. He was no Charlton Heston, though. Nekhbet was a paunchy birdman monster with a big vulture head. A bright red waddle hung from his yellow beak. Maybe it was a bird woman thing since Inga’s original race, the Okitori, were big owlish creatures?
No idea. Logan seriously didn’t even know where to start with that whole situation.
“Sounds interesting,” he said, shooting for genuine and missing. “I imagine we’ll get to Eritreus at some point. Rockheart has talked about going there on a field trip to see a real dungeon core in action.” Eritreus was the most Apothos-rich world in the multiverse, and the birthplace of Chadrigoth, who wouldn’t let them forget it.
“I enjoy Rockheart’s trap class far more than that terrible calisthenics torture.” Inga winced. “Sorry to bring it up. I would stay off the grass as much as you can.”
Logan shrugged. “The murder grass is terrible, but things are fine. And on the bright side, I think the doomhounds are finally starting to lose their taste for me. Last time, they tore me apart, sure, but then they kept running. A part of me was offended. We’ll change subjects. Which do you like better? Traps, Pits, and Pendulums or our crafting class?”
Inga cupped her tea in both hands. “I don’t care much for either, really. I’m far more interested in the more theoretical aspects of dungeons. And Professor Crucible can be distant. He doesn’t have Professor Nekhbet’s warmth and charm.”
Logan held his tongue. She was wrong about Nekhbet. She wasn’t about Ronnalg Crucible. He was a big ogre, eight feet tall, with a lustrous moustache and a permanent frown. He mostly grunted, sighed, and grumbled at the students as they used their Apothos to create simple items. They’d been working on a single wooden chair for a few days now. Objects had to be created carefully, based on blueprints, and then brought into reality through a complex process called Exogenous Apothos Manifestation. It was far more complicated than Endogenous Apothos Manifestation, which was the process they used to manipulate dungeon spaces—creating rooms, spawning monsters, and engineering traps that would never leave the dungeon core’s sphere of influence.
Exogenous Apothos Manifestations were crafted enchanted items that could be removed from a dungeon space by dungeoneers. Creating such items was no easy task, and Crucible threw annoyed sighs at them when they couldn’t understand the basics.