Chapter 584: Hotter (1/2)
Two days had passed since Inferno placed the Thermocules in Lana. Darsi, Vooni, and Rico stayed to continue helping while Nix and Pon headed back to prepare for the next Regional Lord.
Nix was sitting comfortably on the Turtle House couch while Shae napped with her feet on his lap. The Inferno Leader stared at the Necro-Crafting Interface. After raising his craft level to 100/500, his Salvage ability started yielding better items from the bone quills. He decided to leave the quills until the level was maxed out; they were primal bones, after all. The thought made Nix frown slightly; the enormous stack of quills outside of the Turtle House far surpassed anything he imagined. According to Leva, that was only a small fraction.
[Bone Manipulation]
1) Identify
2) Living Project
3) Non-Living Project
4) Salvage
”Non-Living.”
[Please choose your project.]
”Lake Otter.”
3) Non-Living Project
a) Bone Growth: Enables the growth of existing bones, requires a source.
b) Bone Grafting: Enables the grafting of two or more kinds of bones, requires a source.
Nix studied the Lake Otter puppet that took up a good portion of the living room floor. When Nix was first cast into Northern Titania, he encountered obscenely large otters in the Lake surrounding Bachoni. At the time, he had no use for otters that grew up to four or five meters in length, but with Khione looming in the weeks ahead, he decided to expand his range of puppets.
On the shore of Lake Bachoni was a Trading Post ran by an older man named Hoot. Nix had done some trading with him before leaving the area. Both the Trading post and Bachoni could be accessed through the Turtle House's Auction hub. Apparently, the otters bred like crazy; every few years, the town would hire Titans to come in and clear out the shallower parts of the Lake. This meant that pelts, bones, teeth, and claws were available by the tens of thousands. He purchased enough supplies to make one Emperor puppet but unexpectedly, a rare [critical crafting] had created two.
[Emperor Clandestine Lake Otter] [Bone Fragment: Ced'Far][Claw: Yandro][Jawbone: Neptiphago]
”Yandro and Neptiphago? Are those both dragons?”
Nix smiled at the drowsy Salamander. ”They were. I can salvage components from them. Check out the stats these three add.”
[Clandestine Lake Otter: Emperor] [Bone Fragment: Ced'Far][Claw: Yandro][Jawbone: Neptiphago]
[Ced'Far: Bone Fragment]
Increased Amor by seventy-five percent.
Increased Strength by fifty percent.
[Yandro: Claw]
Slashing V: Claw attacks have a high chance of inflicting [Bleed] on their target.
Hamstrung: When attacking the legs, [Hamstrung] has a fifty percent chance of inflicting [Slow] on their target.
[Neptiphago: Jawbone]
Heal V: Instantly casts a single target heal that recovers half of the target's health. The cooldown is five minutes.
Graft these components onto the Clandestine Lake Otter?
”Yes.”
Clandestine Lake Otter (S) was created.
Shae pursed her lips slightly. ”It shrunk slightly. Is that normal?”
Nix shrugged. ”Maybe. Necro-crafting is new to me, so I'm slowly figuring it out.” The Inferno Leader stood up and walked around the puppet. The snout of the creature had rounded slightly and now sported some very impressive-looking teeth. The webbed feet were tipped with curved talons that would make walking impossible. ”Shit... Did I wreck a damn Emperor puppet?”
”What's the matter?”
Nix knelt next to the puppet and held up one of the enormous paws so that she could see. ”These would be fine in the water but definitely won't be okay on land.”
Shae stretched her body slightly before moving to a sitting position. ”It's one of your (S) puppets, so you can't afford to cast it aside. Maybe combine it with something you already have.”
Nix nodded in agreement; the issue was that he used up a good portion of his Emperor puppets in the last few days. He made four ravager puppets, using them to enhance Rabi, Sasi, Semmi, and Wind's armor.
”Orions have retractable claws; it may work for this.”
Nix considered the possibility for a moment before discarding it. ”I wanted something that could function equally well on land or water. I'm worried about what adding a feline would do to its water abilities.”
”What if you combined it with two puppets. Another water creature and then the Orion? Shouldn't the water abilities manifest with two of the three parts being aquatic-based?”
”In theory...” Nix would do it if he could be sure. Unfortunately, the mutator interface didn't predict the result. ”I do have a few Sea Hunters left.”
Several months earlier, while rescuing Wilo in Elementia, Nix had made hundreds of animations to save the elementals that Hierophant had captured. The end product was the [Sea Hunter] and the [Air Rhaptor]. The Sea Hunter resembled a leopard seal with heavy armor and teeth straight out of a nightmare.
[Sea Hunter][Clandestine Lake Otter (S)][Orion]
Nix studied the queue. ”I don't want the result to be too large. Going to miniaturize this; .75 should be fine.”
”Using the .25 would be too small?”
Nix nodded. ”I noticed that mutating objects usually increase in size.”
[Sea Hunter][Clandestine Lake Otter (S)][Orion][Applied Miniaturization Text: .75]
[Critical Crafting]
Hotter (SS) created.
*Blink, Blink*