Endzone: Simulated Apocalypse

After making sure no unwanted mutants had found their way into the building, Cyanide returned to the basement, where loud chatter could be heard. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was Doctor Finch fuming at Kirika. Something about permanent markers…? Ah, whatever, he didn't care anyway.

What he was curious about, on the other hand, was all the new abilities he had unlocked now that he was level 25. Back before entering that forest, two notifications had popped up in front of him. The first one said 'Cooking: Unlocked' and the second one was 'Weapon Arts: Unlocked'.

Any normal person would've considered the latter option more interesting, but Cyanide thought the former to be more intriguing. Cooking, in a world like this? It couldn't just mean normal food preparation and the like. There had to be certain benefits to it that couldn't be obtainable back on Earth.

Letting Kirika and Doctor Finch argue to their content, Cyanide silently slipped into the shower and cleaned his body. Then, after seeing as how Doctor Finch was now busy treating Kirika's wound despite the argument (and yelling something about not being this kind of doctor), Cyanide decided to simply head into his own room and shut the door.

There, he sat down on his bed, and Luna's holographic figure appeared in front of him.

"So… which do you want to hear first about, Cyanide?" Luna asked, already knowing what this was about.

"… To clarify, Weapon Arts are essentially the same as Soul Arts, just for weapons, correct?" Cyanide asked, voicing his assumption, and Luna nodded to confirm.

"That's right. Weapon Arts function very similarly to Soul Arts, but each type of weapon has their own Weapon Arts tied to them. They are also based on the user's soul affinities, of course, but other than that, you could essentially call them a subbranch of Soul Arts that are just separately unlocked from the main line."

Cyanide rubbed his chin in thought. "I see… and what are the ones that are available for my current weapons?"

"Well… you use both a gun and a knife, so there are more possibilities than the average," Luna said, then pulled up the Skills Shop. "Take a look. I already applied the filters."

Cyanide furrowed his brows as he browsed through the skill list for Weapon Arts suitable for guns and knives. What made these different from Soul Arts, however, was that there were some passive Weapon Arts as well, whereas all Soul Arts were active skills that required manual activation.

Because he had both the Death Affinity and Lightning Affinity now, there was quite a number of skills he could choose from. Unfortunately, like Soul Arts, many of the options were too powerful for him right now and cost quite a bit of SP which he didn't have, so he had to settle for some basic ones for now.

In the end, he settled on two with the 2 SP he had: [Vampiric Blade] of the Death Affinity which essentially gave his knife insane life steal for a short time period, allowing him to heal his HP for 25% of the amount of damage he dealt with that weapon, and the [Shock Ray] Weapon Art of the Lightning Affinity which allowed him to charge up a special laser-beam-like shot in his gun that did no damage, but instantly stunned any Stage One or Two enemy hit by it.

After making sure these skills didn't have any physical impact on the feel or handling of his weapons, Cyanide stowed them away and turned to Luna once more.

"And the second?"

"Right," Luna said, then switched the translucent screen before Cyanide into a different page, one labeled [COOKING] at the top.

"This is the cooking menu," Luna explained. "Cooking in Endzone, though, is not the same as in the real world... though I'm sure you've already figured that out. Almost all dishes provide HP, while some restore SF (Soulforce) as well. Others provide special, temporary powers, such as a boost in attack or defense for a given amount of time."

"So... they are similar to the elixirs the old man said he could make me with the right ingredients, huh?"

"Correct. The difference, however, is that some elixirs may provide permanent effects, and can be used offensively as well in the form of splash elixirs that can inflict debuffs on anyone within range. Also, in general, cooking ingredients are easier to find than potion-crafting ones. And according to the game files... players unlock something called 'Alchemy' at Level 50, which I would assume has some relation to elixirs, but the details aren't quite visible to me just yet."

"I see. So, how do you cook?" Cyanide asked, folding his arms. "There aren't any utensils in this place."

"Well, to put it in simplified terms, to cook here, you must first find a Recipe which drop from mutants much like Blueprints, then manually cook it."

Cyanide raised an eyebrow. "'Manually' cook? So there's an 'auto' cook feature as well?"

"Yes," Luna replied with a smile. "Once you've manually cooked a dish enough times, with the exact number varying depending on the dish, you can auto-cook it instantly from this menu, so long as you have enough ingredients."

"I see... and cooked dishes are simply stored in my inventory that can hold anything, correct?"

Luna nodded. "Correct. Just remember all dishes have a spoil timer, but that aside… you are catching on quickly to this new game-like world, Cyanide."

"Eighth rule of survival," Cyanide began, recalling the memories of his instructor teaching him these. "Adaptability is the foundation of survival."

"Mm..." Luna fell silent briefly at the mention of one of Anthrax's teachings, knowing this was a touchy subject for Cyanide, then ultimately decided to just change the topic.

"By the way... you haven't checked the new Companions tab yet, have you?"

Cyanide shook his head. "Show me."

Luna did as told, bringing up the Companions screen for Cyanide. There, a list of his confidants were listed, split into different columns: Oathsworn, Imprints, and Sentinels. Kirika was listed under Oathsworn, Doctor Finch and Silverfang were listed under Imprints, but the Sentinel tab was empty.

"What's this…?" Cyanide asked, turning to Luna.

"Hm… I can't seem to access the information about them just yet," Luna said. "I apologize, Cyanide, but… I am unable to bypass the restrictions set in place since I'm trapped in the shell of the A.R.S.A. that was here before me…"

"It's fine," Cyanide said, casting his gaze back towards the screen. "But this Sentinel thing… does interest me a little."

The name was quite intriguing, and suggested the idea of 'protection'. But protection from what?

That was the question.