Eden of the Eclipse

19 - These devs. . .they're evil

"Woohoo!" Lucy raised her arm and cheered as Worm leaned against the wall behind her, a light smile on that girl's face. Both were missing a limb, but she laughed it off and brought her singular hand forward.

"Goodjob! High five!" She said.

"Ah, mhmm, y-yes," Worm matched her stance and replied in kind, "Good job."

Lucy exhaled a breath and sat upon the floor. There was a glowing circle before them, but she decided to check their loot and her newly gained skills before they left. Anticipation building, she checked the recently unlocked skills first.

[Sword Mastery]
—when wielding a sword, physical strength increases by 10%.
<This is an upgradable skill>
{Activation Cost: 30 Souls
Requirement: None
Type: Passive
Consumption: None}

[Stacking Flow]
—for the next five seconds, each successive hit of your blade increases the next's strength by 5%. This stacks up to a final hit of 25% extra damage.
{Activation Cost: 30 Souls
Requirement: Sword
Type: Active
Consumption: 15 mana points}

[Armor Breaker]
—your next strike breaks the opponent's physical defense, decreasing it by 10% for 30 seconds.
{Activation Cost: 30 Souls
Requirement: None
Type: Active
Consumption: 15 mana points}

[Ethereal Blade]
—for the next 2 minutes, all of your attacks deal magical damage instead of physical. Scales based on your magic strength.
{Activation Cost: 30 Souls
Requirement: Sword
Type: Active
Consumption: 20 mana points}

3 were active skills and 1 was a passive, yet each were costly. Lucy's eyes widened at the sheer realization that she could only afford one of them with her measly 33 Souls. If she wanted to activate them all, she would have to kill 99 more monsters at her level.

"These developers are evil!" She almost wanted to cry.

"You can say that again. . ." Worm furrowed her brows, staring at her own Traveler's Book. She too had reached level 10 and unlocked some skills. "We even require Souls to upgrade our raw stats and revive without losing experience points or our strength."

"These developers are evil!"

Lucy sighed and purchased <Sword Mastery> then checked its next upgrade cost to see that it needed 60 Souls. With 3 as the amount she now had, she was broke.

"These developers are evil. . ."

"Mhmm mhmm. . ."

The two speechlessly moved their attention to the loot list. The first thing was. . .

"The heck is Goblin Spice. . .?" Lucy asked.

[Goblin Spice]
—a concoction of different spices that goblins like to sprinkle on boar meat. It's palatable even for human consumption.

". . .this was a boss drop?" She asked.

Worm shrugged. "From what I found. . .Eclipse's drops, at least for humanoid monsters, are based on what they either had on them or were currently using at the time of death. The commander happened to have it on his person at the time. Please, you can take it, I insist."

"Why thank you for your generosity." Lucy rolled her eyes and transferred it to her inventory.

Worm merely chuckled as they shifted to the other items.

[Goblin Commander's Longsword]
—an extremely high quality bronze sword that once belonged to a Goblin Commander.
+13 to physical strength.
+4 to speed.
+3 to physical defense.

[Goblin Commander's Leather Pants]
—a pair of leather pants that once belonged to a Goblin Commander. Are you going to put it on right away, or will you wash it first?
+10 to physical defense.
+5 to magic defense.