He pulled his fists back and looked at his knuckles, shiny with debris and splinters, his ash-gray eyes narrowing as his brow furrowed. This kind of endurance should put me at around Rank 2, right?
Just as he finished testing his body after getting his new passive skill, the sound of sizzling from the bone fire reached him. The smell followed: deep and earthy, like roasted beef marrow mixed with chestnut, filling the whole area. Lucian immediately stopped what he was doing.
"Finally." He sat on the ground, looked at the dark, dense, almost brick-red bone marrow, then opened his mouth and took the first bite. He closed his eyes, feeling the thick, paste-like, slightly grainy texture, its bold, earthy, mineral-heavy taste coating his tongue.
At the same time, another familiar transparent screen flashed before his eyes:
[Digesting Function is triggered!]
Ingested: Cragback Tusker Marrow (Rank 1)
Miasma neutralized. Kairogenetic markers detected.
[New Trait Engraved: Iron Blood (Tier 1)]
Still chewing, Lucian smiled. Another passive skill, as expected. His attention fixed on the new skill's details, along with the notification that his Phantom Starvation had dropped to 30%.
[IRON BLOOD (TIER 1)]
TYPE: PASSIVE / PERMANENT
EFFECT:
- Red blood cell density and hemoglobin concentration increased by 20%.
- Naturally accelerates clotting of wounds, minor cuts stop bleeding in seconds.
- Lowers physical exhaustion rate: prolonged running, fighting, or manual labor causes fatigue 15% slower.
- Once per day, if Lucian suffers blood loss, his body subconsciously narrows blood vessels to the wound, reducing total blood lost by 15%.
This… Lucian hesitated for a moment. The excitement wasn't as strong as when he'd gotten his last passive skill.
Well, it's not that bad.
Compared to Dense Bone Frame, this one worked more on the inside, more like a support skill, something to do with producing more blood, going by the description.
But a skill was a skill, and he got it for free, so he had no right to complain.
Besides, the new passive skill seemed to make his skin look faintly warmer and healthier.
RUSTLE!
Just as Lucian sat on the ground chewing the bone marrow, a heavy thud shook the dirt behind him. He turned his head.
"Uh? You're that cripple, aren't you?" Untamed wolf-gray hair, shoulder-length, with messy bangs framing her face. Amber-gold eyes like a hunting hawk, gawking openly at his mouth, at the half-eaten marrow bone.
"What the hell did you put in that meat, and why does it smell so good?" She was as tall as him, wearing a worn, faded aegis uniform blazer with slightly frayed silver trim, the top button of her white shirt missing.
Looking at this girl's face, her stare, and especially her weapon, a massive two-handed great cleaver wrapped in coarse brown canvas straps slung across her back, a name came to Lucian's mind.
Karin Blake.
Another heroine from Arthur's party in the Dawn of the Sword original novel. In the story he had binged, she hadn't just lost a hand. She'd lost her whole arm, her dominant sword arm, while protecting Arthur.
His gaze softened, and he sighed, shaking his head. As far as he could remember, she ended up permanently capped at Rank 3.
She even kept blaming herself for failing Arthur.
As for why she was here, Lucian wasn't surprised. She was out hunting, too starving and too broke to buy cafeteria food.
"You're too loud." He ignored her hawk-like stare and held out the half-eaten bone marrow toward her. "Eat."
Karin blinked and looked at the leftover bone marrow he'd been chewing, now being offered to her. Wasn't this a bit much, handing a stranger your leftovers?
But her stomach let out a long, rumbling growl, and the smell of the meat was right there, so she couldn't exactly say no, even as the corner of her eye twitched.
"Tch." She took it and started chewing, words coming out muffled around the food. "...You're a weird one, Croft. Giving your leftovers to some stranger in the woods. Bet your noble tutors would faint if they saw this."
Lucian's mouth twitched. She was eating his food and bad-mouthing him at the same time?
Then the taste hit her.
The moment she chewed it, the miasma she expected was nowhere. Instead, mana flooded her exhausted veins and instantly restored her depleted stamina.
Her amber-gold eyes went wide and unblinking, fixed on Lucian. Wasn't this the leftover meat from the canteen, the kind that should've been packed with Ash-Vein toxin?
The only explanation was the man sitting in front of her. She looked at him. Maybe, just maybe, he was some kind of high-tier alchemist.
Then an idea flashed through her mind. She stood up abruptly, some liquid splashing onto the ground around her, the marrow bone still in one hand, and looked down at him.
"Oi, Croft." She swallowed the last bite, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and fixed him with a sharp, narrowed stare.
"I've eaten beast meat from the academy trash bins before. Made me sick for a whole day. But this..." She gestured at the bone. "...this is too clean!"
She leaned forward, her amber eyes boring into him. How could she not be curious? She was broke. Obviously she'd done the same thing Lucian had done, digging through the leftovers.
But now, knowing this man could turn the same discarded meat into something that rivaled the expensive cafeteria food, wasn't that something? If she could get that secret, how much money could she save? She could even sell it and put the canteen out of business!
"You got some kind of technique? An alchemist trick? How the hell did you purify this?"
"No. Just salt," Lucian said, not particularly interested. He started wiping the leftover grease from his hands with a handkerchief.
Then a heavy wooden cleaver appeared in his face, pointed at him. Karin, obviously, looked far from convinced. "Just salt? Impossible."
Her lips curled, brow furrowed, watching him prepare to leave. "One exchange. You block, you dodge, whatever. If I win, you tell me the secret. If you win, I'll walk away."
Lucian looked at her, one eyebrow raised. What kind of idiot are you? No, actually, from the moment she showed up, the whole reason he'd given her food and was now getting to his feet was simple.
To avoid too much interaction. A deep talk with her? Waste of time. Entertaining her? She was the type who learned by doing the same thing over and over, pure muscle memory.
The goal in picking this spot had been to find somewhere quiet to roast the meat without drawing attention, though it was always going to happen that she'd find him here. This was her hunting ground.
In short, she was just a meatheaded heroine.
Lucian clicked his tongue. There was nothing to gain from accepting, so without bothering to answer, he turned and walked away.
Until:
SWOOSH!