Scorching Ascension - [Progression Litrpg Apocalypse]

Ethan grimaced at the pain coming off his broken right arm and upped the flames as his eyes moved from on option to the next. He just had to finish picking his reward and then he'd be able to go and get it healed.

Shardpurse is a way to hold the fragments outside of the Arcanum. Maybe it's so they could be used as currency? Or is this the solution so one could pool all of their fragments in a single spot?

Whichever it was, Ethan didn't hate the option. He also didn't feel like it was a necessity. It was a nice convenient item. Could he do without it for a while? Absolutely. As for the soulbound term, he had no clue what it exactly meant, but he probably was not picking this one so the answer to that question could wait.

Ethan moved on to the second option; the robes. It was a way for him to not be reduced to his underwear before the day was out. A useful and functional choice, but clothes also felt like a luxury right now. The token would be sort of wasted if he ended up just getting something cosmetic out of it, so with a heavy heart, he moved on to the next option.

Maybe I could borrow a t-shirt from whoever tries to start trouble, he thought.

The third item was the dimensional pouch, and Ethan couldn't help but think it might be the most valuable. If not the pouch, then it would have to be the dagger, though he did have a couple of concerns about that last one as he re-read the description.

Harvester's dagger: A low-grade dagger that improves the odds for the formations of a spellcore or primagems.

What happens if I get spellcores I don't want? I wouldn't want to discard them as they might be worth something. The dimensional pouch would allow me to save them up for later, instead of assimilating them. And what about these primagems? Are they something I can use right away? Because otherwise, if I need to carry them around, they might not fit in my pocket. I might lose them. Which is another point to the pouch.

Ethan hummed. Both options were tempting, but considering he'd already seen a trait to increase the chances of spellcore drops, the dagger might not be so rare. Then again, the dagger could allow him to hold-off on the trait for a bit more and just one good spellcore drop would make the dagger worth it.

Glancing at the dimensional pouch, he had another thought: Without the dagger or the looting trait, he might not even have anything to store anyway. So did he really need the pouch so badly?

Not really, he thought. Glancing down at the last option, he wondered what these primagems were. Of course he wasn't going to pick it from this selection, especially considering the dagger could help him collect them. As for what they were, he just needed to ask Ember when he headed back up. That and how to recover essence faster.

He hoped the Ignisra had answers.

Ethan adjusted his seating position, and grimaced at the pulsing pain coming from his arm. The flames were keeping most of it at bay, but the bone needed to be set.

To recap, it was between the dagger and the pouch. Unfortunately, both were supposedly "low-grade" so that didn't help sway his choice, but he still leaned toward the dagger. It would be dumb to pass on it, even if it might create some clutter if he ended up forced to assimilate everything he acquired. He hoped it would be possible to get rid of some spells if he never intended to use them or if he ran out of space in his soul somehow. A quick look through his spell list didn't offer him an option for such, so he might be stuck with every spell he assimilated.

I could find some other way of carrying my stuff. Someone's bound to have a backpack they're willing to exchange for something.

He was going with the dagger. Still, he wondered. How was it supposed to work?

He assumed he had to stab his targets to trigger the effect, which didn't mesh super well with his fighting style… but it was one inconvenience he could live with, at least until he would get the looting trait. He wasn't sure if just one hit with the dagger was enough, or if he had to land the killing blow with it, but that would be something to test. For now, the possibility of acquiring more resources to power up was too much to dismiss, so he selected the Harvester's Dagger.

A white glow of light materialized in front of him, and out of the light, a small sheathed dagger came tumbling down.

Ethan grabbed it with his left hand, then took a second to examine it after unsheathing it with his thumb. The dagger was sleek, with a straight double-edged blade that had odd symbols engraved along its length. The blade came to a fine point, and it had a simple yet elegant wooden handle.

At least there's a belt loop on the side.

Ethan got up and painstakingly set the dagger and its sheath in place on his hip, then, gritting his teeth, he made his way back up.

***

Ethan stepped over the edge and into the blue light of the upper forest once more, and came face-to-face with a loaded crossbow. A blue, glowing bolt stared him right in the eye for a moment before the weapon was pointed away.

"Oh! Sorry," Liz said as she lowered her weapon before dismissing it. She was panting, and a quick look around told him they were all catching their breaths.

They were also soaked.

"Stupid lizards," said Gerald after a bit as he flicked water off of his short black and gray hair. "There's more and more of them."

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

A few yards behind the group, Ethan made out a couple of dead water monitors. Much smaller than the ones he just had to deal with, but it still made him frown, because past them he could see a handful of other dead lizards, some of which had their tails missing.

I didn't think there were that many of them…

When he'd gotten down to the mushroom forest after passing the first camp, it had taken him hours to meet any of the reptiles. Sure, he'd been a bit stealthy and stayed on the sides, but he felt he should have seen at least a one or two if they had been this common. Were they coming from somewhere?

"What happened to your arm?"

The voice shook him out of his musings, and Ethan glanced back at the mechanic. She was leaning a bit forward to get a better look through the flames, eyebrows knitted. Before he could respond, Audrey sucked the air between her teeth. She stepped around the tower shield she'd been leaning on and peered at his arm.

"That's broken," she said, then looked up at him, frowning. "Is it that bad down there?"

Ethan was a bit surprised at their concern. Even Gerald got close and asked him if he needed anything.

Their attention was both heartwarming and uncomfortable. Ethan glanced at the cave he came from and nodded. "It's intense, yes. Within seconds of me arriving I found a small group of Lizardlings. All above twenty. And this is from fighting two monitors who showed up right after. One of them was above forty and I had to take a gamble before more of them showed up. It's crawling with them down there."

Liz paled, while Gerald just cursed under his breath. Audrey stared into the tunnel, eyes distant, then took a deep breath before she looked back at Ethan. "Good to know. For the arm, Amelie can probably help. She's over there, bothering your cat."

Before Ethan could turn to find the elemental, and as Liz and Gerald stepped away to have a seat, Audrey spoke again, but this time, she kept her voice low.

"Is it… safe? The cat?"

It took Ethan a second to realize what she was talking about. He glanced back and saw Ember arching her back as Amelie tentatively scratched behind its ears for a short, peaceful moment, right before the cat snapped out of its enjoyment and swiped at the girl.

"I asked Ember to keep an eye on you guys. She agreed. I think she plays hard to get, but I don't think she'd hurt you guys. Well… not seriously," he added as Amelie pointed her metallic wand at her hand.

Probably got scratched.

Ethan turned back to the tall woman and found her biting her lower lip, a frown on her face as she watched her sister get back to hounding the Ignisra. She met his gaze and spoke up. "I appreciate you watching out for us, and please don't take this the wrong way, but I don't want my sister to get hurt. If you think the cat can be dangerous, please take it away. If it turns on us… I don't know if there's much we can do about it."

Ethan was quiet for a moment, then nodded as he glanced toward the cat. "I get it. It's a fair concern, but I don't think you need to worry about her."

When Audrey gave him a puzzled look, he clarified. "She's fully sapient. She could hold a full conversation if she wanted to. What I mean to say is that she's no savage beast. If she intended to harm you guys—or me, for that matter—she would have done so by now. She's just here to watch over you guys. In case something too dangerous showed up. That's it."

Audrey listened quietly, then sighed and nodded. "Thanks. Really," she said with a tired smile as she looked toward her sister. "Amelie can be a bit hot-headed. Just making sure she isn't pushing her luck too much."

With that, Audrey went back to the others, while Ethan stared at her back for a moment. Maybe it had been a bit irresponsible for him to leave such a powerful being with them. Then again, he mostly did it to keep them safe.

Well, hopefully Ember doesn't make a liar out of me, he thought, turning toward the healer and the cat before freezing at what he was seeing. A few yards away, right next to the campfire, Amelie was cradling a very annoyed but still surprisingly placid cat. The Ignisra' orange eyes met his own for a second before Ethan heard her voice in his mind."[Tell your pack-mate to unhand me.]"

Ethan began walking toward them, shaking his head. Who was the Ignisra fooling? She was level 52, for god's sake. Ethan was positive none of them could have caught her if she didn't want to be caught.

Was she actually dangerous?

He really didn't think so. The more he interacted with her, the more he was convinced she was of no danger to them. He'd seen her vaporize a level 30 Lizardling, sure. But no one had been seriously hurt so far, and Ember was most certainly pulling her punches, no matter how annoyed she appeared to be.

It seemed the cat didn't mind the attention all that much, no matter how much she claimed otherwise.

"Ember asks to be let go," he said, startling the young woman. She blinked, then smiled sheepishly.

Ethan gestured to his arm and turned off the flame to reveal his swollen and severely bruised arm. The cuts have closed up, but it was still broken and dislocated. "Also, do you mind taking a look at my arm? I can set the dislocations, but the break might take me a while to heal."

Amelie was still processing the first thing he had said, and her smile slowly turned to shock. "She? She speaks?! Why didn't you tell us before?" The woman completely ignored his limp arm as she stared at the cat who was trying to shimmy itself out of her grip, mouth open.

Ethan rubbed the back of his neck. "Yes. She's uh… like us."

"Why didn't you—ouch! Shit!"

The cat, out of patience, flared some flames out of its back, which both surprised the girl and burnt off some of her hair. She tapped out her smoking locks as the cat quickly climbed up a nearby tree, and when Amelie looked back up, Ethan noticed some of her left eyebrow was missing.

He kept his expression flat. No matter how funny she looked, he probably shouldn't smile, but this was yet another reminder. Ember could have done a lot more damage, but she didn't. Just like a cat.

Ethan coughed into his arm while smoke wafted off the young woman's hair. "So… Can you help me out?"