Sylver Seeker

The surgery went through without a hitch.

That wasn’t to say there weren’t any side effects, but your hand randomly curling into a fist now and then, wasn’t the end of the world.

So he didn’t need to deal with the pain Sylver numbed his whole left arm, but making the limp limb move around using a coating of darkness was significantly easier now that he had [Deadly Darkness] to help him with it.

While he was at it, Sylver touched up his left foot too, there wasn’t anything physically wrong with it, it just looked ugly at the moment. The stitches hadn’t gotten infected, mostly because Sylver couldn’t get an infection if he tried, but the scars stood out like a sore thumb against his pale skin, not to mention the whole thing looked like it was covered in freckles from all the holes SAM’ worms had made in it.

Luckily for Sylver, he now had a way to alter his primal energy field, on a micro-scale.

With his ears, it was quite easy to tell them to stop healing once he had gotten the bleeding under control, but altering his skin was significantly trickier.

Nonetheless, Sylver had managed it without any serious mistakes.

The skin on his left leg was a slightly darker shade of pale than his right leg, but Sylver doubted anyone would be able to notice.

Afterward, he spent some time touching up the rest of his body, burning away the grey stubble that had started to grow in, cutting and blunting his nails, shaving what little hair had managed to bypass the spell on his head, and then making sure none of the other scars were particularly revolting to look at.

Once that was done, Sylver sterilized his robe, sent his daggers off to be maintained and sharpened, along with his [Accursed Shard Spewer], that he had looted off the assassin sent to kill him. Once that was done, Sylver put his robe back on, redid the connection to his nervous system, and then very carefully armored up everything but his head using [Necrotic Mutilation].

With all the small details that Sylver usually left to Spring to handle out of the way, he now had 5 days’ worth of time to kill. Someone from the Flowers was supposed to talk to him, but with the investigation over his head, Sylver wasn’t going to hold his breath. Frankly speaking, he didn’t care.

Sure, it did bug him that the humans’ called themselves high elves, and the system agreed with them, but Sylver wouldn’t have been half the man he was if he hadn’t learned to focus on what was important and ignored everything else.

And what was important was making sure he didn’t get kicked out from the Garden during those 5 days, and that he stayed here long enough to find the book that will give him Edmund’s location.

Although Sylver didn’t get the feeling Kass was going to tell him the book was stored somewhere easy to get access to, but if the Dark Year worked the way Sylver imagined, all he would need to do was wait for it. Given that he was very much alive, he wouldn’t exactly become immortal during it, but his shades would be.

Not to mention Sylver could always negotiate with the dark elves to help him, assuming their goal is in fact to conquer the city.

Poppy mentioned a prophecy too…

Sylver flexed his left hand again and nudged the blood vessel back into place. His skin was still somewhat loosely attached to the flesh and bone underneath, only a thin layer of stitches stopped the whole thing from slipping off like a glove.

Sleeping was an option.

Although if Sylver slept for 5 days, that would be closer to hibernation. Grant was still sleeping off a hangover, on account of not being able to speed up his metabolism as Sylver had. He did find it a little strange that [Poison Immunity] didn’t seem to regard alcohol as a poison, but it could be that it only triggered at fatal levels of poison?

Not that it mattered, Sylver was undead, he was immune to poison on that basis alone.

“Immune” wasn’t the right word, but even if his blood turned into slurry, his heart stopped, throat swelled up and cut off his air supply, or was some sort of hallucinogen, Sylver could always just stop using his body’s senses.

“Sylver” wasn’t in his brain, or his head, he was in his soul. His body was an extension of his soul, as were his mana channels. Technically speaking, he was the needle, but Sylver hadn’t attempted to possess anyone since he came here.

The ritual he used to make Spring’s body his, wouldn’t be classified as a possession, given that Spring was inherently an extension of Sylver anyway.

Not to mention, even Sylver couldn’t get the needle out of his body, even if he wanted to. There were certainly ways to get it out, like if Sylver removed his natural mana field, and had a mage with space manipulation magic pull the needle out of him.

But why would he do that? To what? Possess someone else? Even if their conductivity would be infinitely superior, the body would become unusable in less than an hour. And during that hour it would likely fry Sylver’s weak soul, and make it impossible for him to get back into his old body.

After Sylver had finished cooking up and eating most of the available meat in the fridge, he decided to see if there was anything in his [Swamp Lord] perk list that would let him get through the crowd of women outside.

There were 12 perks to choose from.

8 of them either increased Sylver’s ability to manipulate earth, water, or a specific plant.

The other 3 offered a 10% HP regeneration increase when touching a living and rooted plant, a 10% dexterity increase when underwater, and a 15% strength increase when buried underground.

All three were useful, under specific circumstances, but Sylver had his eye on the perk that would be extremely useful in the long run.

[Perk: Seed Store]-Recreate plant matter the user has previously had physical contact with.*Mana cost of plant matter dependent on complexity, rarity, and environmental conditions.*Mana cost of plant matter can be decreased if similar plant matter is present.

The reason the perk interested Sylver was that there was a chance it would allow him to recreate plant matter he had had physical contact with in the past.

He doubted it, going by the way the system generally functioned, Sylver assumed he would only be able to recreate whatever he has had physical contact with after he had gained the perk.

But if it let him create an Elder sapling, from when he handled one back in the dungeon where he found Bruno and Faust, it would be a massive advantage. If Sylver could get the sapling to stabilize and could bind it to himself, he should be able to force it to make him into a high elf.

Hypothetically.

It hadn’t worked when Sylver tried it in the past, but he’s a lot older and a lot wiser than he had been back then. Not to mention, he was fairly certain he could convince Lola to do it for him…

Probably not…

But it would be a powerful bargaining chip whenever I had to deal with elves in the future.

Actually, it would be a great bargaining chip for just about anyone. Everyone wants to be immortal, I just summon an Eldar sapling, force it to grow into its adult stage, and then bind whoever wants to live forever to it.

Even if I fuck it up, that’s still an easy 200 to 300 years of immortality.

I could probably push it into the 500-year range, with some practice.

Although [Expert Water Manipulation] or [Expert Earth Manipulation]is tempting. Certainly, while I’m in a realm that seems to be mostly water, and I could always use a good defensive skill when dodging isn’t an option.

On the other hand, [Seed Store]would pair perfectly with [Morbid Mushroom]and [Primal Override]. I would be able to create whatever I wanted, and then call it up whenever I wanted.

It would certainly be easier than trying to manipulate mushroom cells in the middle of a fight… I could fling acid whenever I wanted to, and I could grow medicinal herbs if I need to heal someone.

And it would mean I wouldn’t need to search around for a root to grow vines, as long as I have enough moisture around me, I could probably grow whatever I need in the palm of my hand.

Sylver got up from the couch he had laid down on and walked over to the plastic box in which he kept a couple of mushrooms he had planned to experiment on. He could have stored them away in [Bound Bones] but the perk considered some mushrooms too “alive” to be stored away. Not to mention Iris was likely watching him.

Sylver had had this issue before with flowers, so it seemed that the system had a very loose definition of “living creature.”

At the end of the day, Eldar sapling or not, [Seed Store] was the best choice from what Sylver had available.

And obviously, once he did touch an Eldar tree, he would be able to summon one for himself. Not to mention, hypothetically, Sylver could use this perk to grow extinct plants. He would find a powdered root, find a big enough piece of it, revive it, and then thanks to [Seed Store] Sylver would be able to always carry the powder around with him, without having to carry it around in one of his bones.

More importantly, it would make transporting plants that are extremely volatile or have a very short lifespan, very easy. Otherwise, Sylver would either have to constantly use up mana to keep them alive, or he’d have to carry them around in special containers, on the off chance he might need them.

Sylver reread through all the 11 other perks one last time.

[Perk: Seed Store]-Recreate plant matter the user has previously had physical contact with.*Mana cost of plant matter dependent on complexity, rarity, and environmental conditions.*Mana cost of plant matter can be decreased if similar plant matter is present.

Truth be told, Sylver didn’t think he’d be able to recreate an Eldar sapling, and sadly, he turned out to be right.

On the other hand, once Sylver stuck his hand into his box full of mushrooms, he was able to make one grow on the tip of his finger, without having to use a spore. The amount he could summon was barely the size of a matchstick head, but with the use of [Morbid Mushroom], he easily had the grey-blue mushroom cannibalize everything inside the plastic box to grow more of itself.

After Sylver had changed the grey-blue mushroom into the slightly deadlier green-yellow variant, he found that there was a price for the conversation, even though the two mushrooms were basically the same, apart from tiny primal energy field changes.

Using 3 kilograms of mushroom, Sylver was only able to create 1.5 kilograms of another mushroom.

As Sylver felt Grant stirring awake, he brought all the various spores hanging in the air and had them touch his hand for a second, before he converted them all into a harmless white cap.

“Morning!” Grant said, as he just barely managed not to fall down the stairs, and then slumped down onto one of the chairs in the kitchen.

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?” Sylver asked, as Grant repeatedly brushed his hair out of his face, and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

“You can’t imagine how well I slept. Did any of the Flowers come yet? What’d they tell you?” Grant asked, as Sylver put some leaves into a cup, and poured boiling hot water into it before he handed it to Grant.

Just from touching them, Sylver could now feel that he could create tea leaves using [Seed Store]. Apparently, a plant didn’t need to be fully alive for a copy to be stored away.

Which meant that Sylver would soon have 24/7 access to any and all types of barks, roots, leaves, berries, and whatever else he could get his hands on.

It cost him 3,900 MP just to make one tea leaf, but Sylver wasn’t in a rush. By the time Grant had sobered up enough, and his tea had cooled down enough to drink, Sylver had a cup of tea made entirely using [Seed Store], and water he condensed out of the moisture in the air and then heated up using magic.

Taste-wise Sylver couldn’t taste a difference, which was a good thing. Except he didn’t like the flavor of the tea Grant preferred, so he quietly poured it down the drain, and made himself a cup of the type he liked using a small bag, and water from a kettle.

“Why did you bet on me winning?” Sylver asked as he sat down.

“I just thought “what would Tod do?” and finishing in first place in the Gold Giers Trials, seemed like exactly the kind of thing you would do. I missed most of what happened after you asked to turn the difficulty to 100, I uh…” Grant lost all the enthusiasm in his voice, and stopped looking at Sylver and instead stared down into his half-empty cup.

Sylver’s best guess was that this had something to do with the bullet hole in the ceiling, in Grant's bedroom.

“It warms my heart that you had so much confidence in me,” Sylver said and did his best to steer the conversation back into a less depressing topic.

“Never doubted you for a second,” Grant lied.

Sylver chuckled a little at the joke and decided to move along.

“So what’s next?” Sylver asked the mustached man, who in turn snorted in his drink.

“What do you mean?” Grant asked.

“I mean, what are you going to be doing today? Or tomorrow? Or a week from now?” Sylver asked, and saw the man’s eyes all but glaze over.

“You’re leaving,” Grant said uncertainly, and with narrowed eyes.

“Not at this very moment... But I will at some point. 20 million cuts, they’re for you. Think of it as a bonus for a job well done,” Sylver said. Grant’s own money earned him a little over 1 million cuts, the rest was from Sylver.

“What job? Teaching you how to use an Iris? Building that magic bullet machine? Helping you make that tracker?” Grant asked.

Sylver had expected him to be a bit more emotional about the whole thing but Grant was… oddly relaxed.

“For that, and more. The Deadmen… Do you want them?” Sylver asked.

“To do what?”

“I don’t know. There isn’t much point in me holding on to them,” Sylver explained.

“If I say no, what are you going to do to them?” Grant asked.

“Sell them off to the slave market, most likely. I’ll let a few go, but it’s only like… 4 people?” Sylver said as Grant nodded along.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like it if you gave them to me… and can you undo the curse that stops them from getting healed?” Grant asked.

A part of Sylver was preparing to give a whole speech about how it’s a bad idea to trust them, that Grant will get himself killed, that the only thing keeping them in check is fear and pain.

But instead, Sylver decided to let Grant make his own mistakes. And learn what lessons there are to be learned from making such mistakes, and if he’s lucky, he’ll actually live long enough to see the consequences of his actions.

Sylver asked Spring to remind him to visit Grant before he left to see how everything turned out.

There wasn’t much to say really. Sylver was leaving, and that was that.

Given the chance, Sylver would come down to visit and see how the engineer was doing, but Grant interpreted the situation to mean Sylver would be busy being a Flower, while Sylver knew the reason was that he was going to be leaving this realm at some point in the near future.

Oddly enough, Sylver didn’t even feel bad about leaving the man. He was… if not happy, at least as close as he was going to get without effort on his part.

*

*

*

After showing Grant how to undo the curse Sylver had placed on the Deadmen, Sylver still had a lot of free time on his hands.

And there were still people waiting outside his door. As was a guard, so anything violent wasn’t an option. Sylver spent a while just wandering around the house until he remembered he still had a couple of skill rank-ups to sort out.

[Physical Endurance (III) rank up available!]Choose 1 from the following:

Physical Endurance (IV)-Decrease the pain from physical attacks by 30%.-For every 10% of HP lost, increase Strength by 1%.-When HP is full, Stamina Regeneration increased by 30%. -Absorb 5% of MP when hit with a spell.-[Requirements not met]-[Requirements not met] …

Working backward, decreasing pain is out, it’s useless…

Increasing strength? Too small of an increase, no point…

A 30% Stamina Regeneration increase could be fantastic, but is it better than recovering 5% of the MP of any spell that hits me? What if I pick that and the next option is 10%? Or 20%? What if it goes all the way up to 100%?

Probably not though…

It also doesn’t say that I’ll be protected from the spell. I’ll just be burning to death, and the spell burning me would be 5% weaker.

Stamina boost seems like the best option.

[Skill: Physical Endurance [E] (IV)]Skill level can be increased by enduring damage.I - Decrease the pain from physical attacks by 2%.II - Decrease the pain from physical attacks by 10%.III - Increase resistance against [Light] energy by 5%.IV-When HP is full, Stamina Regeneration increased by 30%.

Enduring damage?

Wasn’t it pain before?

Wait, was it? I’m sure it was… They’re messing with my skills and perks… Or they messed with them back then, and I only now noticed…

Can I do anything about this? Can I stop them from fucking around with the system they gave me?

Not yet.

So I’m not going to worry about it.

[Necrotic Mutilation (II) rank up available!]Choose 1 from the following:

Necrotic Mutilation (III)-Increase the range of [Dead Dominion] by 50% for [Necrotic Mutilation].-Increase the rate of conversion from 60% to 80%.-Increase strength and speed by 10%.-Decrease the cost of altering biological matter by 25%.-[Necrotic Mutilation] will function as if the user has physical contact when within 5 meters or less. -[Requirements not met]…

Huh…

They’re all actually pretty good… Increasing the rate of conversion would mean I would lose less mass when turning dead stuff into [Necrotic Mutilation]. The increase in range for [Dead Dominion] would bump it up to 168 meters… Only for [Necrotic Mutilation] but I could fight from far enough away not to be able to see my opponent…

But it just says the range is increased, it doesn’t mean I’ll be able to put a lot of force into it at such a distance…

Is an increase of 10% for strength and speed worth it? If it's stronger and faster, my armor will be able to react quicker and will block more hits.

The physical contact one is pointless, I can just have a tendril extended towards me. Rate of conversion would be nice, but I carry enough corpses in my bones that it isn’t really an issue.

So either I increase my range with [Dead Dominion] or make it 10% stronger and faster.

If I choose the [Dead Dominion]option, I could just rain it all around, and order it to attack anything that gets close to it… Maybe once I caught whoever I’m hunting, I can collect the ones that didn’t get triggered and have them attack the person, or monster, too.

Yeah… The 50% increase in range will be much more useful.

[Skill: Necrotic Mutilation [F] (III)]Skill level can be increased through use.I – Manipulate biological matter.II – Empower a creature or item using manipulated biological matter.III -Increase the range of [Dead Dominion] by 50% for [Necrotic Mutilation].*Quality dependent on biological material being used.*Quantity of [Flesh] increases power.*Quantity of [Bones] increases durability.*Quantity of [Blood] increases duration.

If Sylver hadn’t been stuck inside his frosted glass house, he would have turned some of his armor into a ball, and made it float as far away as he could, to check to see how much he could move it at the edge of his range.

Instead he-

Sylver felt such an intense pain in the back of his head, that he accidentally stabbed himself with his [Necrotic Mutilation] claws as he tried to stop it. Apart from the damage he had inflicted himself, there was nothing wrong with the back of his head.

Sylver’s headache came in a great wave, and he groaned as he got down onto his knees to catch his breath. The memories from the future moved around in his head, even as Sylver pushed them out and ignored them.

Before he had finished even starting to gather his bearings, Sylver heard a gun go off, and felt his teeth flying out of his mouth. But just as before, he hadn’t been shot, his body was simply playing out what it thought had already happened.

Grant was trying to say something, but all Sylver could hear was his ears ringing, mixed with his deafeningly loud heartbeat.

This repeated 6 more times before Grant finally understood what Sylver had been trying to say and brought his gun to him. With unsteady hands, Sylver pulled the magazine out of the pistol, and with shaking hands forced one of the lead-tipped bullets out of it.

The bullet tip made a fizzing sound as Sylver held it up against his forehead, but the relief was instantaneous.

“-come in,” Sylver heard Grant say and opened his eyes to look up at the white-faced man.

“What?” Sylver asked as he moved his arm out of the way to lay down on his back on the floor.

He followed Grant’s gaze and saw somebody standing outside their front door, with the previous crowd having completely disappeared.

“A Flower is asking for permission to come in,” Grant repeated, as Sylver pressed the bullet even harder against his forehead, and could tell right away it would leave a bruise.

The intensity was wrong, whoever was standing outside wasn’t the powerful clairvoyant Sylver was currently doing his best to ignore.

But going by the soul, whoever this was, could kill Sylver with a hand tied behind their back.

Grant didn’t catch Sylver’s pained babbling as he walked to the door, and opened it.

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