New Abilities

Sirus sat in a small room within the HNN office building, waiting for his interviewer to come in. And soon enough, she arrived.

"Hello, Sirus; I am Lillian Hurst, here to conduct your interview! I like your application and your adaptation of your ability. Being able to hold the camera yourself instead of a cameraman will be a boon. Most people think an ability alone is sufficient, but no! We're shorthanded, so unless you have some strange issue, you're hired. Any questions?"

"Don't you need to know more about me?"

"We're reporters; we find stuff out on our own! Something you will do now too!"

"What about a camera?"

"We'll provide something for you; do a good job, and you'll get a nicer one!"

"Of course, I'll come back tomorrow!"

"No need! This is a freelance job; just send us the live link to your feed whenever you find a pit!"

"Will do!"

Sirus picked up a camera and case, then headed off to the house, excited to be in the front lines of hero work.

The moment he woke up the next day, his need for a press certificate was realized. Now that he had a license, he could publicly use his abilities, but this wasn't the main reason he wanted it.

Sirus ran and jumped across rooftops, reinforcing his muscles with mana, quickly reaching his destination, the District 13 Monster Harvesting Plant. The monster corpses were an extremely vital resource, comprising up to 40% of the profits of a pit, depending on their rarity.

Harvesting was a massive operation, and since so many monsters appeared in New England, many facilities appeared to process them.

Sirus had run to the nearest one and found the manager to propose an idea.

"Hello! My name is Sirus Navarro with HNN; I wanted to do a piece on monster harvesting. I know they're many already, but I wanted to look specifically at how harvesters have improved over time and display their skills!"

"Oh, really? None of you guys have come by here in a while! Welcome, I am Randy Quade! I would be proud to show off our craft! Blacksmiths and alchemists get too much credit; most all of us here aren't even awakened, but here we are doing this work! Do you know how hard it is to cut into an Androsphynx?"

"Of course not; it sounds very tough, though! But that's why I'm here; what could blacksmiths and alchemists do without the materials you guys give them!"

"I know, right? Anyways, this is the main production line! See that guy over there, names Michael, he'll be able to tell you what's what!"

"Thank you very much!"

'Nothing like a little bit of flattery to grease the wheels! And there seems to be a bounty here! I haven't seen an ability glow red before!'

Sirus walked over to Michael, who was carefully cutting out the organs of a Werewolf and placing them into jars.

"Excuse me, sir? I am a reporter writing a piece on the importance of harvesters and how they've improved over time; Randy sent me over to talk to you!"

"How nice; I would be happy to! Initially, we would just cut apart the monsters and take out what seemed easily usable, like scale armor or bone spears. Then we worked with specialized awakeners to find the true gems within monster corpses, and over the years, we've perfected the art! The same parts of similar species can have wildly different prices. Take this Werewolf; I pulled its teeth out, which can be made into a C-rank necklace that boosts physical traits. The other parts aren't as valuable but are still worth harvesting. Body fluids like bile are used in toxic gasses, blood is used for potions, and bones are ground into fertilizer; it's all used."

"Thank you so much for all that info! If you don't mind, I've been recording this on my phone to save it as notes for later. But, if you really don't mind, could I get a closer look at the Werewolf?"

"Oh, I don't mind the recording, but I'm curious why you want to get closer."

"Oh, I just want to see the precision of the cuts! I'm an E-rank awakener, but I don't have much combat experience, so I don't often see monsters so close."

"I see!"

[Conditions met: Acquire Elite Werewolf's ability?

[Yes / No]

[Yes]

[Ether Extracted: Skill]

[Skill: D-Rank: Manaheart

Mana Core: Increases mana pool by 25% and mana recovery by 100%

Overcharge: Increases efficiency of body and weapons through mana by 25%

Note: Not compatible with a pacemaker.]

'This is perfect; it's like body strengthening but for mana! It'll work with any ability I get in the future!'

[Apply stats?]

[Yes / No]

[No]

'Getting stronger hurts so much; I'll wait until I'm alone.'

"Excuse me, Sirus? Are you good? You've been staring off into the distance for a while."

"Yeah, I'm fine! What are those creatures over there?"

"The tentacle things? I'm surprised you're interested; most newbies hate how slimy they are. They're called Aboleths. Mind control and spirit-related abilities. Be careful looking them up; people are weird."

"That's why I'm interested in them!"

"..."

"Not the weird part, the fact that people are disgusted by them! The reports about them are minimal since few people want to approach them! Mind if I take pictures?"

"I'm not one to judge; whatever suits your fancy."

"It isn't that!"

"I didn't say you did. But that's the basic gist! The guys working on the Diderius will be able to show you more hands-on work."

"I'll check it out!"

'These Aboleths are the only monsters in this center that still have an ability that has already been processed. It's funny hearing that guy talk about how impressive their harvesting is, given they're missing out on enough ether for a D-rank ability. It is a bit sad that I didn't get a C-rank ability from the Werewolves, given their rank.'

[Conditions met: Acquire Aboleth's ability?

[Yes / No]

[Yes]

[Ether Extracted: Skill]

[Skill: D-Rank: Spiritual Connection

Spirit Medium: The Host can communicate and form contracts with spirits and fairies.

Spiritual Dominance: The host can telepathically communicate and influence those one rank lower than the level of Spiritual Dominance.

Note: Whatever you're thinking, it's a bad idea.]

'Another D-rank! I wonder what it means by influence, though. Is it like how advertisers influence customers or mind control?'

Regardless of what he thought, Sirus stayed at the plant for a few hours after that point to keep up appearances, eventually going home and writing the start of the article.

'Wow, writing is more annoying than I remember. This is boring, and I hate it. Might as well do my actual job instead of this.'

Sirus abandoned his project relatively quickly and decided to get the attribute boost from the two D-rank abilities.

[Stats:

Strength: 16

Agility: 18

Stamina: 16

Constitution: 20

Perception: 33

Mana: 35]

While receiving the new stats, Sirus felt gasoline pumped into his veins, then lit ablaze. The light burned his eyes, and sounds burst his eardrums.

At least, that was what the feeling was. But that didn't compare with how good he felt after regaining awareness.

'This is amazing growth; I feel goddamn amazing!'

Sirus walked over to his utensil drawer, grabbed a fork, and squeezed it in one hand. The metal had indents from where his fingers were as if it was clay. Wanting to play with it more, Sirus held the fork between his palms, rolling it into a ball.

'Shit, this is great! Wait, was I able to do this before? My strength is pretty much the same as before. I guess I just didn't test my strength much before. My attributes seem only comparatively strong in mana and perception. It's like Bofuri, but I don't have the plot armor that a 12-year-old girl has.'

After playing with himself for a while, Sirus left actually to do his job and started sprinting across rooftops again. Soon after it became 5 o'clock, Sirus found a pit. An enormous mound of mud and hardened dirt was sitting in the middle of an intersection, growing so large as to start pushing against the buildings on the corner. As Sirus approached, he saw something that made him quite excited.

[Miasma Pit Detected: D-Rank Slime Sanctuary]

'A perfect place to grow and test my skills!'