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Energy Eater - Chapter 119 - A new System User
🕑 Added 2025-05-18 04:12:59 +0000 UTCWe waited near the house, taking a moment to rest and eat. People seemed to be upset with us for not rushing after the spiders right away, but I explained that the Witch was really tired. The best excuse I could give was that Riley had spent most of the night working on some potion and we interrupted her sleep. This was why we had to give her time to rest before we could continue doing what we were doing.
In the meantime, Astrid and Michael would be watching over the perimeter of the village. Just as a way to make sure that no other spiders were approaching. If they were, they would quickly take care of them. More than that, it would also be a chance for them to retrieve the bodies of the spiders so the Witch could attempt figuring out the type of poison that they used. That explanation seemed to be enough for people to accept our delay.
But even then, it didn't take as long as I was imagining it would. In about 3 hours, Riley rose from her chair with her eyes half closed. She yawned and stretched herself before waking up properly. At the moment our eyes met, I could feel her dark brown irises stare into in my soul.
"Okay, that was quick," I frowned.
"Was it?" The Witch tilted her head.
"It took me like 10 hours."
"Oh, and how long has it been since I started sleeping?"
"About three," I replied.
Riley nodded. "I see. I also don't know why that happened." She paused for a moment, looking to the side. A telltale sign of talking with the System.
"Oh, okay. I suppose that makes sense. Although there's a lot I still want to ask."
"A head's up. You don't need to speak out loud when you're talking to the System. If you just ask a mental question with the intention of asking the System, it will answer. And what exactly did the System just tell you?"
"Apparently, since I live in a place that was filled with particles which, from my understanding, are pieces of the System, it was easier for the System to make the necessary changes. Because parts of me were already changed, or at least prepared for a change."
"I don't really know, but I think I got it. Either way, sorry to ask you to work as soon as you wake up but here." I reached out and touched her shoulder, passing along the image of the spider that we had compiled.
"Holy shit, this is nightmare fuel," Riley gasped.
"It's not like we have a choice about what we are fighting against. Do you know if you can figure out the type of poison?"
Riley paused and started moving her hand. I quite quickly questioned the System, only to learn that it was possible to even rotate the images that we created. The motion with her arm would fit that.
"It's still very hard to tell if the type of poison they're using is the same as the spider that could have been the starting point from those creatures," Riley explained.
"What if you could know exactly the poison that they create?"
Riley stopped and stared at me. "Then that would be really easy. But how am I supposed to do that?"
"One thing that the System can do is give you the power of monsters. All you have to do to get them is to either be near them, or consume their meat."
"Are you telling me I should eat spiders?"
"It's probably going to be the quickest way to get the skill."
I quickly gave a rundown to Riley about skills and the basics of the System. In addition, I also shared with her what I felt were the most important skills for her right now. {Memory Bank}, and {Quick Tier 1 Evolution}. I still wasn't sure if I should give her {Body Regeneration} since that one wouldn't affect how well she was able to create the antidote for the venom. But, once she started leveling up and getting more Memory slots, I would be ok sharing that one. Especially considering the fact that to level up, we might need to take her with us to hunt the spiders down. But, this wasn't the type of thing that could be done in just a split second so, I wanted to be relatively close for the next couple of hours until she received the skills. With {Memory Bank} being the first one she got.
Riley nodded and said, "Okay that might be helpful."
She then paused and looked to the side before grabbing a couple of plants. Then, the Witch put them all between the two hands and started to squeeze. After a moment, she pulled back, revealing a small pill instead of all the plants that she had used.
"Call your friend here. We need to see if this is going to do something with the poison. She has the System, right?"
I frowned at the question, but figured that the Witch was going to learn the truth sooner or later. "She does. But don't say anything about that since the rest of the village doesn't know about it."
"You didn't give it to the village?"
I shook my head. "No, I didn't. Not only there are some specific rules about how often I can do that, I also don't like the idea of giving it to just anyone." I stared the Witch down for a moment. "Honestly, if it wasn't because of the situation, I don't know if I would have given you the System either. Not right away."
Riley paused during that before giving me an approving nod. "That's good. I think I understand why you're hesitant about sharing this kind of thing and honestly, I agree. Not everyone should have this kind of power."
That line caught me a bit off guard. When I mentioned my hesitation in sharing the System with others, both Michael and Astrid asked why. Questioned if I truly had a reason to hoard this ability. But Riley seemed to understand right away. Without me having to explain that. That both made me a bit more comfortable with the fact that I gave the System to her, while also worried me a bit more.
Astrid had gone to the forest, so it took close to two hours for her to come back. Once she arrived, the Witch quickly gave her the medicine and, after glancing at me for a moment for confirmation, the Frosted Lumberjack ate the pill. When she finished swallowing, Astrid growled "Bitter."
But Riley didn't even care about that. She just asked, "Do you feel anything? Is there any effect?"
Astrid was still being infected by the poison. But now, to a lesser degree. When we had found Riley, the Frosted Lumberjack requested the System to contain the poison where it was, instead of letting it spread. It seemed to be working but in order to do so Astrid had to be constantly using {Body Regeneration} to replenish the cells that were being destroyed by the toxin.
Astrid kept staring at her arm for a moment until she nodded. "Yes, weaker."
"Weaker or gone?"
"Weaker," Astrid confirmed.
Riley pulled the notebook from her house and was about to write something before she paused and looked in a random direction. After a moment, she put the notebook back in her pockets without saying another word.
"Okay. I might have some ideas about what to do. And I can keep trying over and over again until we find the right solution. That is an option. But it would be easier if we had the body of a spider so I can study the poison. Did you find anything?"
I turned to Astrid, and she gave me a nod. "Michael did."
"Perfect." I stood up and the three of us walked out looking for the Improvised Archer.
On the south of the village, Michael had followed some tracks that led to what seemed to be a cave. And that cave had some spider webs around it. It was much too small for all the giant spiders to walk inside. But it was also something that shouldn't be there according to the villages. Which meant that there was a chance that a smaller version of the spider was there.
"And even if it's not there, as long as I can get my hands on some of the poison, I should be able to come up with an anti-venom. Especially now," Riley said with a big smile.
"Okay then, let's go," I told my companions and Michael started guiding us towards the cave.
It was about half an hour away from the village itself, which gave us enough time to have a conversation with the Witch. After all, there were a lot of things that she was doing that were raising some red flags in my mind.
"Witch," I spoke up, "You didn't seem all that surprised when you saw that I could make fire with my hands. Not just that, you even said 'I have it too.' As in, you already knew this type of thing was possible. Care to explain?"
Riley shrugged as we continued to walk. "What's there to explain? You got everything right."
"How could you know?" Michael asked. "How could you know that this type of thing was possible?"
"I just did," Riley replied.
But Astrid was the one who spoke up, even though all three of us wanted to say something. "Not right. We shared. You should too."
I thought about translating that one, but I didn't think it would be as impactful coming from me. And I didn't really need to do that. After all, Riley just stared at the Frosted Lumberjack for a moment before sighing.
"Okay, you're right. You did give me this power, and it's only fair that I shared a little that I know about it. I have a mentor. She's a very powerful witch, and she taught me everything she knows about potions and how to make medicine and things like that but, every year around this time she needs to leave to take care of an experiment that she is working on. And that's why she's not here. But she can do some pretty impossible things. And she gives off a very similar feeling to the three of you. But stronger."
"A feeling?" I asked.
"Yeah, it's hard to explain, but it's almost like there is a cloud of dust between us. I don't really know how to explain any better. But I can tell that there's something different about you four. By four I mean you three plus my teacher. She also had already showed me some pretty impossible things. Like making a plant grow in front of my eyes. And promised me that she was going to teach me those powers. But she didn't know how. It was something that she was born with and she needed to figure out a way to pass on to me. So I was just waiting for her to get it."
"Don't you think she's going to be upset if you got it from someone else?"
Riley shrugged. "Maybe, but she herself doesn't know how to do that. If I got the powers from someone else, at least I have them. Even if she wasn't the one to give me. And maybe I can just follow her footsteps even if I got the powers from you, not from her."
"Well, that's as good an answer as any. Oh, before I forget, come on here, let me add you to our party."
"Party? Why are we going to have a party right now?" the Witch frowned. We were not running through the forest, but we were moving fast and Riley didn't seem to have any problems keeping up.
"Right, no. I mean our group. That way, when we kill something, you can get the particles that we would get."
"And why would I want that?"
"I told you about leveling up? So that's a way to speed up the process. And the more levels you have, the stronger the skills you can get. Once you reach level 10, you can get a new class that's going to be made for you. And when you do that, maybe you can get some even more powerful skills. Considering that the spiders were already on this new class, at tier one. We are there too, by the way. I figured that anything that you're going to make that you don't have to use plants or something, it's going to need to be at least a tier one to have a fighting chance against them."
"I see, but that means you three are going to be getting stronger at the slower pace, right? Are you sure you want to do that?"
"We already had that conversation and we're fine. After talking, we figured that we're going to need you and an ability to deal with poison to save the people from the village. We are already wasting a lot of time and the last thing we needed was for us to be letting people die just because we want to get stronger faster. Besides, our Frosted Lumberjack is already on the same level of the spiders. Which, by the way, probably have the System too."
"What?" Michael and Riley stopped their tracks. Astrid just smiled, already being aware of the possibility since we dealt with we loosely dealt with them once we met Rex.
I just smiled back at them and said, "Yep, we humans aren't the first intelligence beings to get the System. The Spiders got it before us. I don't know how far before, but they got it."
"So we're fighting spiders that can actually go and use the System like properly use the System?" Michael's eyes were wide.
"I don't know about properly but yes, they should be able to be using the System. It is possible that they are not as intelligent as people and struggle with some of the minutia of it. But, keep in mind that if we let one or a group of them eat or survive, there likely to come back stronger."
"Great," the Improvised Archer rolled his eyes before pointing forward. "That's the cave."
We all looked and saw the entrance of the cave in the distance. Wasn't that far away and even from here we could already tell that there was a very big spider web either inside it or around it. Covering not just the entrance of the cave but even some of the trees nearby.
"Okay that tree wasn't covered when I first looked at the spot. Whatever it's in there made that web in the last couple of hours." The Improvised Archer explained.
"Perfect, that means that they're really is a spider inside," I said with a smile. "Let's kill it and maybe figure out how to deal with that poison."
