"You can… show people your status screen?" Malik wheezed out weakly.
"Yeah. I just figured out how to do it. It doesn't feel very comfortable, though. So if you keep thinking I'm lying to you, I swear I will ruin you, Malik Bariger. Don't try me."
Malik's head drooped a bit. He didn't seem to have the energy to respond.
"Hey! HEY! Don't die on me, you idiot."
Qiqi grit her teeth. She was barely standing herself. Though her Strength was high enough now to carry a grown man, her fatigue was too heavy.
Her body was fine, but her mind… it wasn't working properly, and that seemed to shut everything else down. There was no easy method for her to save Malik right now, and it felt for a moment like they would have done all of this just for one of them to die anyway.
'No, wait.'
Qiqi almost forgot that they had received another reward.
—
[Hidden Achievement Unlocked]
–
[First A Class Threat Felled]
–
[You have received: {A Class Rhino Horn Extract}]
—
When Qiqi saw the reward, her heart dropped again. She thought that they could get a reward that would help heal Malik, but this did none of that. It even seemed to be related to the rhino A Class Turned they had just killed.
That wasn't helpful at all.
No, she had to try no matter what. There was no other choice.
She didn't even know what this thing was supposed to do, but she broke the bottle open and emptied the shavings into Malik's mouth.
The two had toppled over, neither able to support their own weight anymore. Luckily, this made it easier for Qiqi to do what she needed to do.
BOOM!
The instant she emptied it, she was sent flying, a wild energy fluctuating from Malik.
Qiqi's heart sank further. Was it some sort of amplification treasure? If it was forcing an evolution in Malik's body, how would he fare if he had no stamina remaining at all? Let alone stamina—his body hardly had enough blood left in it.
"Hold on, dammit!"
Qiqi shrieked through the carnage, trying to get her voice to reach Malik.
She knew better than to try, but she couldn't help herself. Realizing that she would have no choice but to stand on the sidelines and hope for a positive outcome, she grit her teeth, pulling on her new Talent.
Reaching out toward the rhino Turned's corpse, she compelled its ability toward her.
She was just acting on instinct. She knew that she couldn't integrate an A Class with a new Talent at F- Mastery, no matter how high its Growth Potential. The only reason she had been able to control the A Class in the first place was because the formations around it forced it into a sleeping state she could take advantage of.
So, instead of trying to integrate with it, she was just trying to take a portion of its abilities, just a sliver, hoping that maybe she could transfer it to Malik instead of taking it for herself.
It was a completely ridiculous, fruitless attempt. It was something her Talent descriptions didn't even say was possible.
But Qiqi was intelligent. She saw through the similarity in her Talents and felt that they had actually synergized almost too well. In fact, their names were too close to one another as well.
Hollow Compulsion and Hollow Sense? What were the odds that the next two Abilities Hollow Compulsion would awaken would be Compulsion Amplify and Compulsion Nullify as well?
If that happened, then did it mean that she would be able not to just observe an ability from a distance, but actually take them? That way, she would only have to pay the cost of Charisma a single time. And, just maybe… if she was lucky…
The synergy between the two would be able to allow her to pass it on to another person.
Qiqi was more right than she knew.
—
[Talent {Hollow Compulsion} has shown great progress]
–
>[Hollow Compulsion: F-]
–
>[Hollow Compulsion: F+]
…
>[Hollow Compulsion: B-]
—
[Talent {Hollow Sense} has shown great progress]
–
>[Hollow Sense: C+]
–
>[Hollow Sense: B-]
...
>[Hollow Sense: B]
—
Qiqi didn't even know if this would work even if she did succeed. She was just hoping to make the transition period for Malik easier by giving his body something from the rhino. If he got something from the rhino, then maybe the evolution would be easier to handle.
She didn't even check to see what Talent she was transferring, she just ripped it out, hurriedly launching it at Malik and slapping it down onto his chest before her mind went black.
Her consciousness faded away in an instant.
Her Talent evolution had given her a small boost in Charisma again, but she burned through it instantly. She simply had nothing more to give.
Unconscious, she missed all of Malik's progress. He convulsed, veins of black coursing across his body as he became paler and paler.
But then, Malik seemed to hit a turning point.
He had been fighting all his life. It was ingrained into his very bones. He had a savage air to him that didn't pale even in the face of a woman who had been by his side for almost a decade. And it was that fight he held in the depths of his soul that kept him clawing back time and time again.
And then there came the change.
His lost arm wiggled, tendrils of flesh, tightly wound and compact like the husk of a rhino, began to form, twisting and manifesting around bones that practically shone like diamond.
Qiqi hadn't just pressed any random Talent into Malik's body. In her haste to help, she hadn't realized just how perfectly her Talents synergized.
Copy Sense, Amplify, and Nullify gave her the secondary and tertiary capabilities of comprehension. On top of that, she had been controlling the rhino for a very long time before it died, adding to her understanding of it.
The reason the rhino was A Class and not S Class was because its Talent was its limiting factor. It had a very powerful body, but it had almost too much rigidity and lacked any sort of elasticity.
The main Talent was actually its ability to eat the bones of other creatures to strengthen its own to something harder than diamond.
The horn shavings were supposed to reward whoever got them with the essence of the best bone the rhino Turned had ever processed. But obviously, without this Talent, the benefits would be great—but limited.
When they came together, however… it was like giving Malik a straight shot to forming a body as sturdy as an A Class' near instantly.
The issue? If the Talent was left as is, Malik would have Endurance that was off the charts, but lack the Strength to even control his own body.
But then Qiqi placed her hand on the scale. She Nullified the Talent's focus on bone, causing it to leak. As a result, the benefits to Malik's bones were just a little weaker, but the benefits to his tendons and ligaments skyrocketed.
Though his muscles would still be too weak to make full use of his body—and even tear if he wasn't careful enough… it was no longer to the point that he wouldn't be able to move properly.
And if he used his Mark Ability to control his movements…
Well, it could be said that two monsters were born on this day.