It took Adam several additional hours to get the conduit's connection so that it could reach throughout Hammond, not disperse, and could directly touch or affect the energy there. With a satisfied exhale, Adam returned to his body.

The process was like combining different amounts of spices to get a taste right or melding different metals by percentage to find the best alloy. Once it kind of worked, Adam just had to find different ways to combine the three types of energy -- his, Hammond's, and the neutral – until he found a method that did all of what he wanted.

The next question became, now that he had the method and possibility, what did he want to use it for?

He didn't need these connections to watch memories. Energy transferring had also worked properly without this level of intrusiveness and control. Adam feared doing more harm than good if he really experimented.

That left two more things to try. The first was to do a new look through Hammond's soul with a second [Soul Vision] to find anything he might have missed. Hopefully there wasn't any unexpected item left behind by the [System]. The [System Conduit] was more than enough of a discovery for Adam's lifetime.

The second thing to try was more dangerous than the first, but also something Adam felt more comfortable with trying. He knew he could fix it should things go catastrophically wrong. Mostly because it had gone wrong within himself, and he managed to fix it there. That was working with Hammond's class and skills.

The reason Adam wasn't as concerned with making a mistake within Hammond was that if things were left as is, then Hammond would always be stuck at level one with only a few weak skills. Without a status menu, or the [System] to help Hammond build the skills and classes, Hammond's only hope of progress was Adam figuring out how to do it. There were currently four low level skills with the man, and even if Adam accidentally destroyed them, they wouldn't be much of a combat loss.

Hammond had explained that he had gotten as high as level 15 several times, but instead of letting him evolve, the Juungii always drained his energy. It left him with the skills from those levels, though it didn't let him select new skills when hitting a milestone for a consecutive time.

Adam knew how to destroy skills, since he had shattered the [Stun] skill to create enough energy to patch up a hole. In Hammond it would be even easier to fix things, since Adam could push more of his own energy into Hammond so he didn't run out, and with such a low tier and level, the structures that made up his class were thin and weak. It wouldn't take much energy to patch things up.

Yet, Adam wanted to make sure there was enough energy for his attempts. And so, both Hammond and Adam had another meal and then went to rooms for some rest before their next assistants arrived.

***

"You would not believe how scrappy these little guys are," complained Lucas from just outside the prison Rift's barrier.

Both Adam and Hammond stood in the entrance, looking at Lucas, Brittney, and Randall. Each of them carried what looked like a rolled-up carpet with a koala head sticking out. At least, until Adam saw the face of the 'koalas.'

They looked like nightmares. The white and grey fur on their faces surrounded huge pure black eyes that stared at everything at once, like they were trying to absorb your very life. Little spikes came from their cheeks and chins. The mouth seemed more dexterous than other animals but also had needle-like teeth.

"What the hell?!" shouted Hammond in surprise as he backed away. Adam agreed with the sentiment, though his river kicking up from seeing invaders caused hate to replace the fear and revulsion that looking at the Kuantans inspired.

Adam fiddled with the Rift menu for the prison to set up cells for them. Then he nodded to Lucas, while pushing Hammond back inside so he wouldn't be in the way.

"C'mon in."

"Are you kidding me, Adam?" asked Lucas with a scowl. "Do you know how hard it was to capture these little psychos? Thank goodness for magic healing and their claws being too short to cut all the way through my arm. The only thing we could find to wrap them with was Rift reinforced leather that was from some tests before we were under attack."

"Ok," said Adam with a frown, "bring them inside. I have cells prepared."

Lucas angrily stepped forward to get in Adam's face before he realized he was approaching the prison barrier and then hurriedly backed up.

"Adam, these are Rift reinforced leathers," said Lucas forcefully.

"Riiight," responded Adam slowly. "We'll put the little buggers in the cells."

Then a deep voice spoke. It was soothing and would have made Adam feel at peace if he wasn't looking at the unpleasant invader.

"Stupid native!" insulted the Kuatan with a smug look on its evil face. "As soon as we pass that Rift threshold, the Rift reinforced material will disappear, and we will be free to wreak havoc as we choose. I will start by gutting the one who carried me, slurping out his…"

As the invader was talking, Adam slowly reached out and palmed the furry head. Then he lifted the Kuantan so that the abnormally large black eyes were level with Adam's. Adam's skin was turning red, and the Kuantan began to choke from the heat that wafted off Adam.

"Do you know who I am?" asked Adam.

The choking little creature tried to nod but found it pointless as he was held up by Adam.

"You are the one in the bounty. The aberration," answered the Kuantan hesitantly. Then with more bravado, "if I kill you upon release then I'll gain…

Once more Adam interrupted him.

"You won't be able to kill me," said Adam menacingly as steam began to rise from where Adam held the invader, as its fur began to shrivel. The Kuantan tried to squirm but was held firmly in place by the leather and Adam. "Full disclosure, I do plan to kill you three. The only question is how long that will take and how many limbs you'll be missing as you wait. Understand?"

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

The Kuantan's large black eyes suddenly grew smaller, as if sinking into the head. The entire appearance of the creature changed from it, but Adam could feel the trembling from the thing's fear.

"Fine then, one at a time," said Adam.

He turned, while holding the Kuantan and walked into prison Rift. The leather faded from reality, and Adam felt the Kuantan tense. Before any of the claws could rise, Adam's other hand placed a knife at the invader's throat. The Kuatan relaxed in submission.

"Wish I was that good with animals," said Randall absentmindedly.

The two remaining Kuantans looked at him in shock that a native would call them an animal.

***

"Are you ready?" asked Adam.

Although most of his focus was inside his connection with Hammond, he spoke from his physical body. Brittney and Lucas held one of the Kuatan steady while Hammond was ready to stab it with a spear.

"All good, here," confirmed Lucas.

"Then Hammond, go for it," ordered Adam.

The man stabbed with the spear. His aim was for the heart, but as soon as the spearhead slipped through the fur and touched the skin, it slid across it. Only a shallow cut was left, and that was only thanks to the sturdiness of the spear.

Brittney held back a sigh, but jumped in.

"Randall, please give Hammond a little help."

"Aw, man, can you believe we were ever this weak?" mocked Randall as he put his palm on the end of the spear and easily pushed it into the Kuantan. He jiggled the spear a bit until the little monster hung limp.

Kuantan "Devious Piercer [38]" slain. 12,449 shared XP gained.

Hammond gasped from the large influx of energy, but Adam ignored the sounds. He was watched from inside Hammond's soul as the energy rushed in and flooded him. It felt like it came from all directions. Unfortunately, there was no discernable original point. Adam had been hoping to find the energy connections with Hammond's body, to learn how to boost stats.

"Oh well," muttered Adam to himself. "Time to give skills a try."

After traveling to Hammond's class, he inspected the skills once more. Hammond had originally selected the Warrior class, so that was what his skills were related to. Each time Adam looked at them he was frustrated that he couldn't discern the shapes of the skills well enough. Instead, they felt blurry or distorted. It was like he was looking at a painting that had faded and the colors had run.

Only protector type skills looked clear to Adam.

The first thoughts Adam had when thinking about what skills to shape for Hammond were to use his berserker skills. Unfortunately, those were memories, so he had never seen what they looked like in energy form. That immediately put a halt to that possibility, even if he could have seen the skills from the Grand Berserker Class clearly.

That pretty much left Adam with trying to recreate some of the simple protector skills that he had. Adam knew them quite well, had spent a lot of time inspecting them, and their structure and the way they connected seemed very simple.

It was almost like breathing, the way Adam drew in energy from Hammond's recent kill and cycled it through the area. He pulled it in to make sure it was as dense as possible so he wouldn't run out.

Then Adam sculpted. He used [Soul Shaping] to create a cube. The energy went where he wanted, as Adam had gained a lot of experience in working with it. While completely different than what he was doing, Adam imagined himself as a mason, working with cement or hardened clay.

The cube was elongated. The edges were rounded and smoothed. Several notched were added at the top and a circular protrusion from the bottom. One side was pulled out in a pyramid shape while the other had a second layer of energy that was rounded and extended beyond the sides.

Several times Adam had to dissipate a part of the energy and then reform it, being conscious of any imperfections. Truthfully, Adam made dozens of attempts when working with the energy to get it how he wanted, even having to start from scratch a handful of times.

Everything Adam saw was energy, and his mind always put images to it. Those images were an odd translation of reality, causing Adam to revise what he was actually doing to aim for the results he wanted instead of focusing as much on the shape.

Eventually, he had a shape for the energy block that he felt could function as the [Solid Arm] skill. The next step was connecting it to the existing skills.

When Adam floated the skill over to where Hammond's other skills were linked, he was surprised to find that there was no way to connect them. If anything, Adam felt discomfort as he looked at the skill he had crafted next to the established skills. The discomfort was different than one being clear and the other indistinct in Adam's view.

"What should I do?" mumbled Adam from his body.

"Everything ok?" asked Brittney.

"Nothing too significant," admitted Adam. "I created a skill but I'm not sure how to connect it. I just need to spend more time figure this out."

"That's fine, we're eating. Brittney ate yours too," said Randall, to Brittney's complaint for tattling. "You've already been doing your whacked out stuff for two hours."

"Don't worry about us," suggested Lucas. "Take your time and figure out what you need to."

Adam nodded and then sent his focus back to the skill.

"Why won't they fit together?" wondered Adam.

He tried placing [Solid Arm] near the topmost strength skill. The skill was turned, rotated, stacked, pressed in from the side…Adam did everything he could remember doing when trying to put puzzle pieces together. Yet, no matter what he did it felt like there was a resisting magnetism to them. The skills didn't want to be close.

"Maybe it's because one is strength based and the other is vitality," pondered Adam. "But it's possible to change class paths during evolutions. There must be a way for them to fit."

Adam tried pushing the skill against ones lower down in Hammond's class. He tried every conceivable angle, and even tried reshaping [Solid Arm], although that forced him to fix it as he could tell it lost its ability from the changes.

Taking a deep, metaphorical breath, Adam hovered there looking at the skills. All the existing skills connected to each other. Even though their shapes were all over the place and he couldn't see the edges of the established ones, he could sense a lack of resonance between them.

After an amount of time that Adam couldn't estimate, he shrugged. Then he reached out and pulled on the protruding circle at the bottom of [Strong Arm]. The circle shape changed as he massaged and shifted the energy while feeling the skill resistance. Repeatedly, he changed the shape until it felt like the skills stopped pushing each other away. Once he felt that, he concentrated on those changes until he felt the slightest pull on [Strong Arm].

Slowly he moved it to Hammond's closest skill. Like magnetics, he felt the draw of two specific points from the skills. It required little of Adam's effort as they practically guided him.

Once they clicked together, there was a shudder in the class space. Adam's body heard Hammond grunt and then gasp.

Returning most of his focus to his body, Adam asked, "do you feel ok?"

Hammond frowned and closed his eyes as he concentrated.

"Yes, sir. I think I'm fine. It was just a rather jarring sensation, not like when I got my previous skills. Did you make one?"

Adam frowned at being compared to the [System]. He knew his efforts were beginner amateur by comparison, but he was doing his best.

"Yes, it's a defensive skill called [Solid Arm]. It makes your arms…more solid. Like the name says. Can you give it a try while I watch it activate?"

"Yes, sir."

Hammond waited until Adam gave him the go ahead. Then he called on the skill.

"[Solid Arm]!" announced Hammond. Nothing happened.

"Adam, did it activate?" asked Brittney.

Adam imagined his soul body frowning.

"No." He thought for a minute. "Maybe the function of the skill changed a little when I reshaped it. Try to activate it in different ways."

From there, Hammond kept announcing different names for the skill, trying to find something to trigger it.

"[Power Arm], [Shield Arm], [Solid Fingers], [Flat Palm]…" used Hammond with no activation.

"Try using fist instead of arm," suggested Lucas. Hammond tried but it also didn't work.

"Maybe we need more defensive adjectives since Adam built it out of a tanking class," added Brittney.

After fifteen minutes with no change, Randall summed up the situation for Adam.

"Adam, your thingy didn't work."

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