Carter had switched back to his System Ghost Skin and was safe and sound in his own building. The place was much more crowded now with all the maids and workers.
Kaito was a good butler. No. The best. Carter investigated about him thoroughly before he hired him
"Two months… It has been almost two months since I came here. Thanks to the Skin System, I can easily assimilate to the people of this world without exposing my identity as an outsider. That's an edge that other Primers could never have."
Carter didn't just farm Terrors all the time. He spent his resources to research and fund many archaeologists and scientists to learn more about this world.
Eldritch Knight wasn't an entirely fabrication. There was a long line of warriors before. They wielded weapons and armor to fight Terrors. Before Invokers, they were truly the protector of this world.
But something happened. Something bad that caused all of them to die.
And now, all that Carter could find out was traces of them in abandoned burial sites.
He stood up and looked over the relics that his archeologists had found. There were many ancient ordinary looking weapons.
But Carter knew they were Terror-infused weapons once. Weapons similar to the Prisoner.
They were only ancient garbage now. But they proved his theory.
The Skin System didn't just create skin from nothing. It fed on the world.
'What really are you, Skin System?'
The System always answered him. But never to the questions of its origins. Carter didn't trust it entirely. He always kept his guard even to it.
Because he knew one very simple truth.
'Everything has a price.'
But he was too weak to find out its origins at the moment. To learn more, he could only continue to become stronger.
'Show me my shards.'
[Total Skin Shards]
- 58 Minor Terror Skin Shards (Awaken)
- 39 Medium Terror Skin Shards (Awaken)
- 42 Major Terror Skin Shards (Awaken)
- 2 Minor Cyber Slave Skin Shards (Mortal)
- 733 Minor Human Skin Shards (Mortal)
- 466 Medium Human Skin Shards (Mortal)
- 159 Major Human Skin Shards (Mortal)
Carter robbed countless cemeteries in the last few weeks. He turned a total of 1,341 human remains into Human Shards.
'These should be more than enough for me to get myself two Elite Skins. One Terror and One Human. If there are no other conditions to reach Elite.'
Awaken to Mortal was one giant gap. A canyon between two continents. But the gap between Elite and Awaken was even larger. It was the gap between the sky and the ground.
Carter had a hunch that it might not be easy to receive a Elite Skin. But he had to try.
'Let's start.'
First, he fused all the Terror Shards.
[-50 Minor Terror Shards (Awaken)]
[x3 Terror Wolf Acquired]
[x2 Terror Bat Acquired]
'Bat and Wolf are the most common types for Minor Terrors as always…' Carter thought to himself.
[-30 Medium Terror Shards (Awaken)]
[+1 Terror Walker]
[+1 Terror Creeper]
[+1 Terror Climber]
'Three of the previous skins that I already had. Nothing new.'
[-40 Major Terror Shards (Awaken)]
[+1 Terror Witch]
[+1 Terror Charger]
[+1 Terror Pighead]
[+1 Terror Transformer]
Major Shards yielded much newer skins for Carter. Two of them were new. Only two were repeated skins.
'This Pighead… Would it be the Butcher I killed?"
Carter didn't equip the Pighead because its sheer size would completely destroy his house. He checked its details.
[Terror Pighead]
[Rank]: Awaken
[Star Level]: 9
[Ability]: Terror Form (Awaken); Enlarged (Awaken); Sized Strength (Awaken).
- Terror Form (Awaken): Living beings are naturally afraid of you. You can transform into a shadow and crawl through tiniest cracks. You will die if you touch sunlight.
- Enlarged (Awaken): Your body is twice as large as normal.
- Sized Strength (Awaken): The bigger you are, the stronger and more durable you will be.
[Skill]: Level 5 Terror Fight (Awaken); Level 9 Physical Fortitude (Awaken).
[Item]: None
'No wonder I feel the Pighead was so much weaker. It had no tricks on its own and was simply a thick meatbag. But this meatbag would have rendered most Invokers useless.'
Carter acquired a lot of Terror Skins but he didn't have enough identical copies to make a Elite Rank Terror.
He couldn't do anything but sighed in defeat.
'All those work for nothing. But oh well. Let's fuse some of the identical skin together to shorten my already long list of skins.'
Carter noticed he had three copies of Wolf and four copies of Bat, which would allow him to raise both of them into Medium Star Level.
The actor turned on Skin Fusion. The window of the colorful Vortex appeared again. Terror Wolf and Terror Bat were the only available options.
Carter picked Terror Bat first.
"Hmm?" He froze.
As soon as he put one copy of Terror Bat into the vortex. A new skin appeared to be available as an option to fuse with Terror Bat.
'What is this?'
Carter checked and found out that it was Dracula. The joked skin that he made out of boredom.
'How can Dracula show up as an option for Terror Bat's fusion, System?'
The Skin System replied immediately.
[Certain skins with enough compatibility or neutrality can be used as filler materials]
'Compatibility and Neutrality?' Carter rubbed his chin in deep thoughts. 'Human does have the potential to be everything while having no strict alignment to anything. I see…'
Carter stopped fusion Terror Bat and instead created two Minor Human Skins.
[-20 Minor Human Shards (Mortal)]
[Human No.1 Acquired]
[Human No.2 Acquired]
'I want to see if this does work…'
Carter pulled up the Skin Fusion again. He put the Terror Bat in. As before, the two human skins and Dracula appeared.
He put the two human skins in the Fusion Vortex. It immediately spat out the second one.
'What the…'
[WARNING]
[Filler skins can only be one]
'Hah! I thought I found a bug. But no. It's just a feature of the system.'
Carter was trying to see if he could use Human Skins as fillers to raise Terror Skin's Level. But it only allowed one filler per fusion.
'Well. I can't be too greedy.'
The actor pulled the human skins out. He put two Terror Bat Skins inside and put Dracula with it.
Dracula had Charisma, Perception, and Athleticism. All three were very low in levels. Its secondary ability was Fast Metabolism, a common ability among Human Skins and wasn't that valuable at all.
Carter had fun creating it but it served no purpose to him. It was simply too trash of a skin to keep.
Then he commanded the System to fuse the two Terror Bats and Dracula, expecting to see a Mutated Bat like what happened with the Mutated Wolf.
He was wrong.