There were a few things that drove Reid to an immediate, somewhat irrational level of anger.

People trying to harm his friends.

Phone calls on speakerphone in cramped public places.

God.

Damn.

Lizards.

Sure, yes, fine, he was still very much aware that salamanders weren't lizards, so he had no reason to hate actual lizards that much. But those facts ignored something more important, and that was the simple truth that lizard monsters were the worst.

The atrocities scrambling through the snow in the distance were narrow things, short as a dog, but as long as a traincar. The creature's tails were the same length as the rest of their bodies. Each was covered in pronounced scales, alternating white and grey on their bodies, and a faded, ice-like blue hue for their tail. One screeched, revealing short simple teeth and a tongue so blue, it didn't seem natural. A mixture of yellow, orange, and reddish eyes glared at him from a heavily slanted face.

They moved on short legs that ended with long fingers and short claws. Their fingers were splayed nearly completely as they distributed their weight and carried themselves smoothly over the snow. Reid looked down to where his boots had crunched through the thin layer of crust. He lifted a leg up and out of the crust, then forward. It cracked immediately and sunk in again. His movement was somewhat lessened by the environment, while the lizards didn't seem to care.

"Oh, you stupid, snowshoe-footed bastards."

Reid powered up a shrapnel brock and whipped it forward at the lead creature. A pulse of light ran from its head to tail, then back. The beast opened its maw and its blue tongue thrust forward, quickly followed by a wave of ice that spread out in a cone. Ice met bone, and brock shattered hard. Heavy pieces of ice fell away, and a few bits of shrapnel managed to slam into the skink's scales. It bled an unnatural blue that matched the color of its tongue.

His hand glowed as he frowned and recalled his projectile, then charged and threw a slug.

Three of the beasts slowed and pulsed, magic ice erupting forth from their maws to meet the projectile. So, maybe not stupid. They'd changed their response based on the fact that the prior one left them open to the shattering of the projectile, even though it had only damaged a single beast. Solid, innate teamwork was not on the list of traits he wanted to fight against in these things. The slug slammed into the ice and tore through the gathered defense - until the fourth and final skink pulsed with its whole body at once. The ice before the beasts sprouted and grew like a popcorn kernel, then exploded out in chunks and shards. The sudden change in density and force threw off the slug's trajectory and sapped its momentum. It fell uselessly into the snow.

Reid cataloged the information. He had seen their skills listed as Glacial Flow and Ice Burst. Simple enough - glacial flow was the breath attack, and ice burst was the popcorn-explosion he'd just seen.

He cracked his neck. Requiem moved to his right hand. He took his shield in the left. If ranged attacks didn't work, he had other options.

Reid charged forward, shield raised, to meet his foes. Two lizards arced to flank his sides as the center beasts slowed. One pulsed and launched a breath attack, while the other stood by in wait. Clever little shits.

His breath fogged the air. Reid was tempted to push straight forward with his shield, but he hadn't watched these creatures fight yet. He wasn't sure how capable they were in close range, and that meant he didn't want to expose his flanks to the encircling foes. There was also a question of how well his shield would actually hold up against the attack. Fire, tested. Ice - not so much.

The happy compromise, in his mind, was to attack sideways. He shifted his body and sprinted through the crunching snow to reach the skink that tried to flank him to the right. It hissed and waggled its blue tongue, but didn't slow.

A frigid, forceful impact slammed into bonewall and pushed Reid hard enough to make him stumble sideways - but he didn't lose his momentum. He let his hand slip to the bottom of Requiem's grip, then brought his mace up and around for an overhead strike.

The skink in front of him whip-snapped its tail into the snow and it shot forward, maw open and aimed for his chest.

Adrenaline pulsed through him. He felt a warm heat deep within - where his metaspaces and conduits worked in harmony. Fine threads of power bloomed into existence throughout his arm, into his torso, and even to his legs. It reinforced and empowered him, and the arm holding Requiem let off a faint, yellow-orange glow as his weapon whipped forward. The feeling was sublime - force and momentum and power and toughness rolled together into something greater than the sum of its parts. It elevated him and the simple swing of his arm - an attack supported by bone weapons that had proven themselves extremely hard to destroy.

The flanges of his mace whistled through the cold air and smashed into the skink's skull in an explosion of scales, bone, and gore. The thing's body slammed into the thin crust and drenched the snow with blue blood.

You have defeated Arctic Skink, Spawn of Crinoptera - lvl 49. Experience awarded.

Reid blinked twice.

Bits of sharded bone were poking out of a gory mass where the skink's head had caved in. His shield was heavy, stuck with a thick coating of ice from the monster's attack. But their attack hadn't stopped him. The skinks weren't slow, or weak, or stupid. He could feel the danger they offered.

Reid was just more dangerous than they were.

He slammed his shield into the ground and wheeled to face the other flanking beast. His breath fogged the air.

He had been fighting beast lords. The turbo turtle. The guinea pig twins. The chameleons. The Magma Crab. Those were hard targets, and difficult fights. They pushed him to the outer limits of his ability. These lizards - the skinks - weren't beast lords.

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They were the fodder.

The creature before him slowed. A too-blue tongue shot forward, and an intimidating blast of ice followed. Reid rushed ahead even as he braced for impact. The magic slammed into his armor and exposed skin. It was cold - and the initial force threatened to stumble him - but it wasn't strong enough to stop him. Five steps carried him through the worst of the attack, and both hands wrapped around his mace as he charged fine power through his body and slammed his weapon down. He missed the skull - and hit the neck. The skink's half-severed head rolled to the side, and Reid grabbed it with a hand to tear it the rest of the way off. The notification came before he finished, and the skink's body fell into the snow twitching, a ragged wound spilling out steaming internals.

You have defeated Arctic Skink, Spawn of Crinoptera - lvl 48. Experience awarded.

Reid shook blood off his weapon, and turned back towards his shield. The final two skinks did a whole-body pulse, and the ice clinging to his armor expanded in a cold bloom, then exploded. The force sent him to the ground. He felt the cold seeping into his armor, and his shoulder and arm were flash-frozen. Cold tried to push itself deeper - to freeze his skin and the muscle underneath. Reid flexed - and at first failed to break through the ice. He pushed a small amount of mana through his arm, then flexed again. Ice cracked and fell away.

He could deal with that much, and potentially more. Reid got to his feet and made it to bonewall.

His shield was enveloped in a small mound of ice that he smashed with two good blows from Requiem.

Shield in hand again, Reid marched confidently through the snow towards the pair of lizards, eyes locked as they sized him up.

As he neared the beasts, the lizards vocalized at each other. Reid let out a roar in challenge, then stilled.

A light blue tail flicked in the snow, the skink it belonged to fleeing into the distance. Only one of the creatures was left in front of him.

Reid's jaw went slack and he lowered his shield and weapon to his sides.

Beasts weren't supposed to run away - they were beasts. They were all about hatred and rage and violence and a desire to kill. Or maybe Reid had found another incorrect assumption.

His thoughts were interrupted by a breath attack. Bonewall met a cone of ice, and Reid charged forwards through the hostile magic. Managing the cone head-on with a shield in front of him was monumentally easier than charging straight through with nothing protecting him. When he closed the gap, Reid used his shield again to finish things - a soft glow emanating from his arm as bonewall crushed the level 49 creature with three powerful slams.

You have defeated Arctic Skink, Spawn of Crinoptera - lvl 49. Experience awarded.

He let his eyes sweep over the field and confirm there were no more enemies nearby, then summoned and drank water. He was only lightly panting after the exertion of taking down three nearly-E-grade beasts. He used the corpse of the last lizard like a bench, and looked at the other two dead creatures. He considered them fodder, sure, but Reid still found himself impressed with what he had been able to do. The sublime feeling of empowerment charged his strikes and let him essentially one-hit-kill the first two creatures. The last only took three blows because he attacked it with his shield.

Reid wanted to believe he would have seen similar success even if he hadn't completed the conduits - but knew in his heart that just wasn't true. The strength brought to bear against these beasts was similar to if he'd been pushing himself hard before. In those fights - the guinea pigs, the turtle, even the lightning tamrid - he had required a serious amount of recovery time immediately following the bouts before he would have been ready for another battle. The guinea pigs, he was half dead. The turtle, he was half drowned. The tamrid, he had to rebuild and rest every muscle in his arm before he could use it properly again. That downtime was one of his biggest weaknesses, and he knew it. In the back of his mind, he worried about what kind of recovery he would need following the fight against Crinoptera.

This short fight against weak foes gave him a boost in confidence that he could finish the final beast lord without knocking himself out for weeks or months. It gave him more of an appreciation for the work he'd finished on himself, and all the edges that could give him.

Reid turned his attention to his other advantage - his stats.

He'd not done quite as much self-affixation as he should have following the level gain, and Hugo's success made it clear that he was getting too close to the limits of this grade to be lax or slow. So, he decided the best time to work on himself was right now. Out of the snow.

Reid used his mana to craft a simple, pyramid-like bone structure with no doors or windows. The only opening in the structure was a gap between the walls and a half-sphere at the peak, so fresh air could get into his simple shelter. He snacked on a few bites of meat, and dove into himself.

The sensation of improving himself was fresh and good - like the change in difficulty to ease when he'd gone from G to F grade. He felt a better understanding of where to improve himself, and when to stop. It wasn't any less painful, but pain was an old friend. His body - physical and metaphysical - connected and cooperated with him and within itself to make everything... better.

He quickly found gains, and days slipped past as Reid pushed himself towards the new limits.

#

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Constitution: 611 -> 630 Dexterity: 612 -> 630 Intelligence: 612 -> 626 Perception: 614 -> 629 Power: 612 -> 630 Control: 630

He was close to the goal - only a bit of organization within the library, and one point of metaphysical perception, and he would be maxed out once again. He pulled a meal from storage - which was quickly becoming something of a luxury. Given how quickly Reid was going through food, he had started to make some plans. He would need more storage rings, entirely filled with meals. Even his main one could sit at a healthy balance of 15% armor, equipment, medicine, and other junk, 20% water, and 65% food. It was an extremely logical and well-thought-out choice.

The magnificent mix of orange vegetables and a stringy, tender meat was interrupted by scratches and cracking against the sides of his bone shelter.

Reid brought up his map, only to see that there were three dozen indistinct blobs surrounding his pyramid-shaped shelter. Reid frowned and gave the wall a serious look. He didn't want to actually stop now. He was so close to finishing his work, and he didn't want to be interrupted by these stupid lizards. He tried closing his eyes and moving into his library metaspace. The scratching against the wall took hold of his focus. He couldn't work like this.

He pulled himself back to the real world, only to have the scratching stop. In the map, the blobs all retreated from the walls. It gave Reid a moment of hope they'd leave him alone.

Then he felt the air turning colder, and ice built and grew through his air vent at the top of the shelter. He managed to lift bonewall off the ground and put it between the ice and himself before the growing frozen mass exploded - for the first time. Shards shattered all around him, and Reid felt two ricocheted icicles dig into his exposed leg. He pulled them out, and healed the area while summoning his armor back from storage. More ice grew through the hole, and detonated. A layer of the fractured ice coated the ground and grew as the cycle of expansion and shattering continued.

Reid counted the enemies on the map as his armor appeared. He put Requiem on his back, and cracked his neck. Thirty-nine lizards, probably pulled here as reinforcements by the one he thought had run. He didn't want any of these assholes to get away this time.

He turned brock in his hand, charged a slug, and aimed for the peak of his structure - and the ice above it. His projectile smashed through and blasted an oversized hole in the magically made material.

Reid coursed mana through his legs, and jumped.

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