Chapter 18: How Manifest Merge Works

They had finished gathering the herbs and started a fire to boil it. Vault took a bowl out of his inventory and was gonna start mashing up some of the herbs, but Harmony stopped him.

She held up a hand with two fingers. “My skill Manifest Merge says that it can fuse two items in my inventory. I want to see what this will do.”

Vault had a few concerns about the outcome of her experiment, but he was also very curious about her ability. Although it was limited to just two items in her inventory, it still sounded pretty useful when trying to create something new.

He gestured for her to go ahead. Harmony kept her arms at her side and pointed both hands, open palm, towards the sky. She began to chant. “I take two Salud medicinal herbs and break them down.”

Both plants appeared floating a few inches over her palms. They shattered into particles of light that swirled around into sort of mini tornadoes that floated up into the sky. One of the particle tornadoes was golden just like her eye and the other was red like her other eye. She pointed both of her arms off to the side and the particles swirled around her whole body.

She moved both arms in different directions to sort of form a circle coming together as she swung them. As she did, the particles gathered together towards the center where she closed her hands over them. A small yellow energy beam shot out from one side of her joined hands. It was the same side of her face that had the yellow eye. The exact same thing happened, but with a red laser on the same side with the red eye.

She grit her teeth as if she was trying to contain the energy in the center. “ Manifest Merge!”

The flashy effects faded away and she opened her hands. She received a system notification about the end results.

“Merged Salud Medicinal Herb. Results of two salud medicinal herbs merging together in order to create a new one. Its healing effects are stronger than just one, but the fusion will last only 5 minutes.”

Vault frowned at her creation. “The end result is impressive, but that time limit… I guess it makes sense, since it's still a low ranking skill. Of course there's some sort of drawback.”

Harmony gave the herb to Vault. “Now it's your turn. Try using your reinforcement upgrade skill on it.”

He smiled. “Stacking an upgrade on top of a fusion? I like the way you think.”

He took out a torch and Harmony dropped the fused herb on the floor. He activated his skill Reinforcement Upgrade and jabbed the torch down on the herb. Sparks shot up from the collision and he pulled the torch away.

A new system notification had appeared before him.

“Reinforced Merged Salud Medicinal Herb. The result of two medicinal herbs being fused together along with being upgraded. It's healing effects are stronger than before and now has a residual regenerative effect. One point of HP will be regenerated for 5 seconds. The fusion state will last 10 minutes.”

Alone their abilities were not much, but together the end result was much better. Maybe this is why Altem suggested that they work on both their crafting and manifest merge skills. They were able to bring out the best in each other this way.

Kind of reminded Harmony of that first passive skill she got when she came to this world. “Being able to bring the best out in each other.”

Vault began boiling the plant in the bowl over a fire. “I feel like we really do. We can probably find some more combinations for our abilities over time.”

She nodded. “We should also try experimenting with some new ideas for fighting. I mean what I just did with the deer there, made things a lot easier.”

Vault stirred the pot a little bit. “Seeing you on the enemy side almost made it seem like you were the bad guy there.”

Harmony sat down across from the pot. “Wouldn't be the first time I had to play the bad guy. Kind of reminds me of what I was doing before I came to this world. I was trying to help this guy I knew with his running.”

Vault looked up from the pot. “What do you mean? What did you do?”

Harmony scratched her cheek a little while feeling a bit embarrassed. “I made him wear a heavy backpack and chased him every day while pretending to be a bully.”

Vault gave her a very judgmental look. “Why?!”

Harmony's gestures became more frantic. “I thought if I could just keep making him run a lot then he would improve…! He said his dream was to join the track team…! so I wanted to do what I could to help…! It seemed like a good idea at the time…! I still feel kind of bad about it!”

A guilty look formed on her face. “I felt like we kind of made up there at the end when I explained everything to him. We were walking home and then that truck… Part of me feels like if I hadn't been trying to chase him that day…Or maybe…If he still hated me…We didn't walk home together… He wouldn't have gotten dragged into this too.”

She clenched her fists. “I don't even know where he is. I just hope he's not having as hard a time as we are…If we do run into him…I'd like to do what I can to help him.”

Vault gave her a sympathetic look. “Were you two close?”

She shrugged. “I technically bullied him for a while, so I can't say we were like friends or anything…Sometimes I can’t help wanting to help…I just wanted to do something for him… Now, I just want to make things right, you know?”

He gave her a comforting smile. “I'll help you find that guy. If he joins our party, we are definitely going to need a bigger cave.”

She smiled at the thought. “Maybe if we're lucky, and we beat all the golems. We can move into that dungeon that's housing them. That place looks huge. It's like the mansion version of a house. Meanwhile, I'd say ours is more like a studio apartment.”

They both laughed at the idea. They were suddenly interrupted by a red bear tackling Harmony into the healing spring. She let out a yelp as it pinned her down under water.

Black smoke exploded from the collision as she flailed about trying to reach the surface for air. A turn timer appeared over her head. She now had three turns before she drowned and perished.