Borderlands: Unnatural selection

I left my "house" after that and hit the amber button at top of the archway which caused the portal to vanish before the sides of the archway folded and shifted until it was back in it's nice neat sphere form the size of a coconut. I caught the sphere as it went to fall and held it in my left hand while stuffing my gun under my jeans waist band since I didn't have a holster. I then walked over to the corpse and placed my right hand on it.

'Alright so how does this work exact... Woah!'

{Colossus

Life force: 12,811 units

Traits: [Thick skin-Common grade]- 500 units, [Hard bones-Common grade]-500 units, [Gigantism-Uncommon grade]- 1000 units, [Cryo weakness-Trash grade]- 50 units, [Rampant growth-Rare grade]- 5000 units, [Small brain-Trash grade]- 50 units, [Colossal strength-Legendary grade]- 100,000 units.}

'Da fuck? The worst traits are also acquirable!? Also what the dick is up with these prices, I get that the good shit cost more but this is ridiculous! A monster this powerful only lets me buy four of it's weaker traits and I might as well forget about it's best trait that feels like it cost ten times more lifeforce than this fucker gives me!' I complained mentally.

Some of these traits I definitely didn't want as I got a sort of feel for what they did. [Gigantism] and [Rampant growth] for example sounded good but the key detail about them was that their effects were permanent. As in If I took them I would get bigger and bigger until I was as big as or bigger than this fucker and unable to shrink down again without a trait that does the opposite. Don't know about anyone else but that sounds like a pain in the ass to me.-

[Thick skin] and [Hard bones] though were traits that while clearly not rare were good stuff as they improved my bodies defensive capabilities with no downsides. With that all figured out I sort of just started to pull the life force towards me. It was hard to explain but it sorta felt like extending your hand but like WAY past your actual reach and then grabbing the sun yet without any pain, just a lot of heat. That's probably not all that helpful but that was what it felt like to use [Hunt] to absorb lifeforce.-

Once the lifeforce actually started entering my body though it was a rush of pleasure not unlike an orgasm. It was frankly speaking close to addictive and once it was over I had an intense craving for more lifeforce, like an insatiable hunger demanding evermore. I shut that shit down like a health code violation at a small restaurant. Ain't no way in hell I was going to let MY power control ME like that. If I was going to use this power I would be doing so because I decided to, NOT because of some instinctual feeling that came as a side effect of it.-

With my powers properly brought under control I moved on to [Grafting] [Thick skin] and [Hard bones]. It was not like I actually took the traits from the corpse, not really. It was more as if I had copied them by transforming a portion of my lifeforce stores into them within my body. Despite that I could feel that the traits while still in the corpse were also sort of not at the same time, like a weird Schrodinger's cat type paradox. I'll experiment with that later to try and figure out what was going on.-

To my surprise however the moment I [grafted] those two traits the corpse actually started to turn gray and crack and crumble into a big ass pile of dust. 

*COUGH* *COUGH* *COUGH* "What the fuck man!?" I cursed as the cloud of corpse dust got sucked into my lungs and smothered me.

'My traits! I was going to come back later for the Legendary trait!' I felt like crying as I cruelly learned that lifeforce was a stabilizing force and without it the stress that grafting puts on the body is enough to make it disintegrate.

Needless to say I was PISSED at missing out on that most delicious of traits. Also something I discovered about [Grafting] traits was that until I actively wanted them to they remained inactive and not actually a part of myself, like a software update needing permission to download. I spent the next five minutes throwing a bit of a tantrum at the lost of a potential legendary trait. This mostly involved me kicking the corpse dust and cursing enough to make the saltiest sailor blush.

"Let it go, let it go, you've got shit to do." I said talking myself out of it at the end since otherwise I'd be here all day.

"Speaking of days what fucking time is it, It's been sunny for like four hours easy so if this place is anything like earth it's got to be like five or six. Is that a second bloody sun!?" I exclaimed after I actually looked up for the first time I got to this planet.

YUUUUP! two suns in the sky like big bright tits side by side out the chambers windows that I couldn't help but stare at dumbfounded. I knew it should theoretically be possible for a habitable planet to have two suns or more but to actually SEE it, well it's hard to accept.-

"Fuck it I don't care enough to fry my braincells trying to figure this shit out, if it works it works." I muttered shaking my head.

I activate my house again but instead of going inside I grabbed the bone spikes that had fallen out of the monster during the fight and thus not turned to dust just now and tossed them into the portal. I had hoped that they would have had that legendary trait but, alas! They did not. Instead it was just [Sturdy bones-Common grade]- 500 units, which I grabbed from one of them.-

Interestingly I discovered that [Hard bones] and [Sturdy bones] were compatible for fusion at a cost of about 1000 thousand units. It was a kinda steep price but I was curious and did it anyways just to see what would happen. Besides the sudden hollowness from so much lifeforce getting consumed I sort of "felt" the two traits blur I suppose is a good word for it. They blurred before melding into each other to form a new trait that was qualitatively better than both [Dense bones-Uncommon grade].-

The new uncommon grade trait felt heavier I suppose was a good way to describe it than the common grade [Thick skin] trait. Obviously a higher graded trait was worth more than a lower graded one but I wasn't quite sure where the distinction between each grade was. 

'Questions for later, now to get my loot from the vault back to my house.' I thought as I went through the vaults portal. 

I stuffed my arms with my guns still sitting in their chests and waddled my awkward self back through the portal and into my house. I dropped the guns before going back into the vault and trying to move one of those nice ass red chests but that shit easily weighed twice as much as I did wet and didn't budge.

'Ah well, can't win them all.' I thought giving up and after one final sweep declared this vault empty.

Leaving the vault I walked over to the pedestal and retrieved the key which depowered the archway closing the portal. I then walked into my house and got to work storing stuff in different rooms based on what it was. The key went into one room, Guns another and the bone spikes a third room.-

Once that was done I closed my house up and headed back out the cave that led to this chamber to collect the robots that I destroyed getting here. Just because I got super powers didn't mean I didn't still want an awesome laser blade! Something I discovered and was amazed by was that the robots lacked lifeforce but did have traits.

{Seraph slasher/Artillerist

[Corrosion resistance-Uncommon grade]- 1000 units, [Hive mind-Common grade]- 500 units, [Shock weakness-Trash grade]- 50 units, [Metal form(Eridian)-Rare grade]- 5000 units, [Energy projection-Epic grade]- 20,000 units}

'Oooh fuck! I hoped that the traits would be good but how the fuck am I supposed to pick which ones to take when more than one is so damn good!?' I thought in mental anguish over the choice laid before me.

The traits that were good were GREAT and the traits that were bad were equally sucktastic. [Corrosion resistance] was found on all three of the robots so wasn't really a problem as far as sacrificing one of the things was concerned but [Energy projection] was found only on the Artillerists parts and also like twice as much lifeforce as I currently had.-

The other three traits had heavy negative aspects to them according to my powers with one of them being a straight up debuff to myself. [Metal form(Eridian)] was the one trait that was possibly even lethal to me since metal tends to not be alive and well I sorta preferred to stay alive. Rather than risk it I stuffed the three robots in the room with the vault key for later when I saved up enough life force to get both the traits I wanted.-

'I suppose I should integrate the two traits I have waiting before I go looking for civilization huh?' I thought and gave said traits a mental nudge.

"SSSSSSSS!" I hissed in pain as my skin began the writhe and darken slightly while it felt like my bones were snapping and healing over and over again.

It certainly sounded like that was what was happening too as the cave echoed with a crackling sound not unlike a campfire but constant and fainter. This feeling only lasted a few seconds but every gods damn instant of it SUCKED! As if that suffering wasn't good enough I now felt sluggish and had trouble moving because my every bone now weighed more than before by a good bit and my muscles weren't strong enough to handle it without straining slightly.

'Note to self, get strength trait of some sort asap, also get to a safe location before integrating new traits.' I made a mental note for later as I dragged my now sluggish self forwards.

Leaving the cave after awhile, not sure how long exactly, I couldn't help but look around predatorily as there was just so much lifeforce and traits for me to possibly harvest. How could there not be in such a clearly thriving jungle/forest?-

I drew my pistol and confidently walked out of the cave and into the vibrant greenery not bothering to hide my desire to kill, to HUNT. It didn't take long for me to find a dark blue shelled insectoid creature that reminded me a bit of a stag beetle except the size of a cat and with a horn that had a razor sharp edge to it like a sword. [Slashbug] I identified it as and didn't hesitate to raise my pistol and pop a cap in the gaps between it's natural armor. It was still twitching when I laid my hand over it and my new green tattoos started to glow.-

{Slashbug

Lifeforce: 137 units

Traits: [Exoskeleton-Common grade]- 500 units, [Bladehorn-Uncommon grade]- 1000 units, [Fragile internals-Trash grade]- 50 units, [Multilimbed-Common grade]- 500 units.}

I wasn't a huge fan of the traits or the pitiful amount of lifeforce the kill gave me but I did like the shiny edge that the horn had and cut the head of the thing off and tossed it in my house. Still lifeforce was lifeforce so I harvested the corpse before continuing my hunt.