"What's pretty awesome?" Sofia demanded. "What happeo you? That thing flew into your chest."

  "I don't even know," Natalie said holy. "The shard bined with me? But turned into Lust in the process?" She decided to expily, rather than make guesses. "I got a notification saying that 'a fragment of Greed has been subsumed by Lust'."

  "O-Oh," Sofia said. That clearly hadn't been the response she'd been expeg. How could it have been? "Did that do something?"

  "It raised my al Energy. By a lot."

  Her team paused at that annou.

  "Wait," Jordan said. "As in, your skill resource?"

  "Yeah. And by a lot, I mean a lot." She looked inward at the resource. It had more than doubled. And she'd been saving up for a while, wanting to cim the upgrade on [Harvest].

  "How much?"

  "I afford the ier of [Harvest], that's for sure," Natalie said. "And probably something else. Maybe two something elses." With [Harvest] having been a persistent focus of hers, most of her other skills were lower-tier and thus cheaper to upgrade—some much cheaper.

  "Oh, wow," Liz said. "Is that a thing now, then? You have another way to earn al Energy?"

  "I guess so." She g the corpse of the goblin. With his golden veins having vanished, he just looked like a bigger, deadlier goblin than normal—but not nearly the same intimidating monster as before. "Though I'm doubting there's going to be a sistent way to find god-imbued monsters," she said dryly.

  "Yeah, probably not," Liz said with a single, incredulous ugh. She looked as bewildered as the rest of them.

  Well. Besides Ana. "It's iing that power spawning from the Passions be verted like that," she ented. "Is that going to have any sequences? Or implications? Greed merging with Lust?"

  Jordan seemed armed by the possibility. To be fair, Natalie was too—if maybe less so. It didn't feel like anything had happeo her; she retty sure Lust had just id cim to the energy. Not 'merged' somehow, affeg her or her css.

  Ana hummed. "We'll o watch her. Monitor your thought processes," she told Natalie. "See if you feel," she paused, "greedier, in the following days."

  "Feel greedier," Natalie repeated ftly.

  Ana shrugged. "We're operating in unknowory, here."

  Maliterrupted their versation by pounding a fist into her palm. She looked excited. "You get extra energy for killing those things? There's probably more at their base. Sihat one definitely wasn't the boss. Not the main boss, at least." The wolfgirl grinned, shifting from foot to foot. Her tail swished happily behind her. "And it was a good fight. This is way less b than I thought it would be." She looked around the forest. "So, which dire do you think they are? I bet their base is close, if they attacked us with such a rge party."

  "Let's take it a little easy," Jordan told the wolfgirl. "We've got a few things to hash out first." She looked at Natalie. "What're you gonna upgrade? No point sitting on that big of a stash, right?"

  "[Harvest], obviously," she said after a sed's deliberation. "And I wonder if I upgrade [Empower] whether the increased effect will carry over to Ana? After seeing how good [Divine Invigoration] is even at its current [Empowerment], I'm pretty tempted."

  If only she could upgrade [Divine Invigoration] itself, but it was an ability that had e pre-maxed-out. Which was fair … it was way to even straight out of the box.

  Jordan g Ana. "Speaking of, what the hell kind of buff was that? You were tearing up half the battlefield by yourself."

  Some people might have pree that praise, but not Ana. She gave one suod. "Yes. I was."

  Natalie s the uated rea. "I'm pretty sure that's proof I should bring [Empower] up a rank." She frowned, a bout of indecisiveness hitting her. "Then again, taking [Juggernaut] and [Bigger Is Better] a tier up would be oo. So would [Smite]."

  She wavered, before nodding to herself. [Juggernaut] would be the selfish upgrade, and while she did want the bonus in strength, having [Empower] to emergency-boost any other ability robably the smarter idea. Doubly so if it automatically applied to Ana's current [Divine Invigoration], though whether it would in the air.

  Well, whatever. [Juggernaut] and [Bigger Is Better] would e . Natalie was already arguably the stro oeam, so she would rather spread their strength out.

  ***

  [al Harvest] - PASSIVE. PROGRESSION 4. MAXED. Extract al energy through {sexual intercourse} with an aroused target. Harvested energy be expehrough [Empower] and [Advance]. SCALES WITH LEVEL.

  ***

  "O-Oh," Natalie said, caught by surprise. "That maxed [Harvest] out."

  "Really?"

  "Guess so." She tilted her head. "Now, it scales based on my level." After a sed, she ughed. "I guess that makes sense. You know how it has a ditional? Based on what you o do to get the max energy from it? There's not that many pces to upgrade from 'sexual intercourse.'" She paused. "At least, not something I'd want to be doing every single enter."

  Jordan snorted. She sidered for a sed longer. "You won't have to focus your points there, anymore. That's ve."

  " actually worry about real skills," Natalie agreed. She leased by that.

  She upgraded [Empower], .

  ***

  [Empower] - ACTIVE. PROGRESSION 3. Amplify the potency of any ACTIVE or AURA skill by {2.5x}. Expend al Energy equal to mana cost.

  ***

  She whistled in appreciation. "Went up from two times to two and a half times." Like always, it came with a signifit increase.

  "Unbelievable," Sofia muttered. "Just how strong are your skills going to get?"

  "It's not maxed out yet, so at least another one up. Maybe three times will be the cap?" Then again, maybe not.

  Sofia shook her head in incredulity.

  Natalie checked in on her al Energy reserves. She still had a small reserve left—not enough to upgrade a skill, but enough to employ [Empower] if necessary. Which was where she typically wao be.

  "I felt the increase, by the way," Ana said. "I definitely went up in Furor. So it seems the improved effect of [Empower] carried over automatically."

  That was good. "So your spells are going to be even stronger?"

  "That is the implication," Ana replied coolly.

  The team sidered that.

  "Jeez," Liz said.

  "Anyway," Malice said loudly, having grown increasingly impatient as they discussed everything. "As fasating as all this talking is, there's moo kill, probably not that far from us. Have you all fotten that?"

  Natalie rolled her eyes. She asked the team: "Are we tinuing forward?"

  "My health is low," Jordan said.

  "As is mine," Sofia said. "Not dangerously so, but noticeable."

  "I took several hits too," Natalie agreed. "So did Malice." Hard ones; she'd seen them. She'd been the oo throw herself nearly suicidally at the goblin as fast and often as she could. The wolfgirl was fav her right leg. An arrow had goraight through her shoulder. Not to mention the bunches of smaller blows.

  "I'm fine," Maliiffed. "Barely scratched."

  "I think it might be time to recoup," Liz chimed in. "If this were a normal goblin base ing up, I'd say go for it. But if that thing wasn't their boss…" she g the dead [Raid Leader], "then what's waiting for us might be kind of tough. We'll want to e at it topped off and ready. Plus we should report to the Baron."

  "We thiheir numbers as we wao," Jordan said. "And Malice is right—we're probably close to their base if they attacked us with such a rge raiding party. A one of their heavier hitters after us. So tomorrow's search won't st long. It's around here somewhere."

  Natalie nodded. Holy, she was itg to just go at it despite their current dition. In fact, if she had been the one on dangerously low HP, she might have insisted. But Jordan was. And Natalie wasn't going to risk her, obviously.

  "We'll e back first thing in the m, then," Natalie said.