Chapter 12: High Stakes

Chapter 12: Chapter 12: High Stakes

The moment the Riftspawn went limp, Eric knelt beside the steaming carcass to carve out the mana stone embedded in its chest cavity.

Using the tip of his iron shortsword, he sliced through the rubbery alien cartilage shielding the ribcage. It was a foul, metallic chore, but in the untamed wilderness, leaving harvestable materials behind was an unforgivable waste.

Prying the sternum plates apart, his fingers closed around a jagged crystal lodged directly above the dead creature’s primary mana core.

Eric wrenched it free and wiped away the dark fluid with a clump of dry grass.

Held against the amber sky, the crystal flickered with a faint, cloudy crimson luminescence, an F-Rank Low-Grade Mana Stone. It was barely larger than a marble, but it radiated a subtle, rhythmic warmth.

Perched atop a nearby limestone slab, Coal stared at the glowing stone with unblinking hunger, his throat vibrating with a low, eager chirp.

"Not yet, buddy," Eric said with a strained chuckle, slipping the stone into his coat pocket. "Refining the mana out of this will put you into a deep sleep for hours. If you knock out now, our run is over. Let’s secure our perimeter, bag more game, and I’ll treat you to a proper feast tonight."

*Caaaw!*

Motivated by the promise of growth, Coal snapped his wings and launched back into the sky, resuming his high-altitude reconnaissance orbit.

Confirming no immediate threats were closing in, Eric tapped into his soul-bound storage.

With a thought, the Basic Gacha Ticket materialized in his right hand.

It was a sleek, midnight-blue card shimmering with liquid-silver runes that coiled and shifted across its surface like living mercury. The intricate spatial geometry was far beyond his current mortal senses to decipher.

*Use Gacha Ticket.*

*SHIIIING.*

The card dissolved into a shower of brilliant blue particles. In its place, a semi-translucent roulette wheel outlined in glowing crimson light expanded directly before his retinas.

│ INFINITY ROULETTE — BASIC TIER

│

│ [1] MANUALS

│ [2] POTIONS

│ [3] WEAPONS

│ [4] ARTIFACTS

│ [5] MISCELLANEOUS

The familiar thrill of late-night drop-rate gambling from his past life on Earth surged through his veins.

*Time to see if transmigrator luck actually holds up. Spin.*

The wheel blurred into motion, the selector clicking across the segments with a rapid mechanical hum.

*Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick...*

The needle gradually lost momentum, drifting past Weapons, dragging across Artifacts, rolling into Potions, and locking with a heavy shudder over the crimson flask icon.

*DING!*

│ [GACHA REWARD CONFIRMED]

│

│ Obtained: [High-Tier Mortal Grade Healing Potion x10]

│ Items deposited into [System Inventory].

Eric’s breath hitched.

*High-Tier Mortal Grade... ten vials?!*

In this world, alchemical supplies followed the same unforgiving hierarchy as cultivation arts. A Low-Tier Mortal salve barely closed shallow cuts and cost around a hundred credits. But High-Tier Mortal Grade Potions were elite military-grade concoctions capable of reattaching severed muscle, sealing compound fractures, and purging low-tier toxins within minutes.

On the open market, a single vial fetched thirty thousand credits minimum.

Ten vials was three hundred thousand credits in pure, liquid assets.

*Three hundred thousand...* Eric’s pulse raced. *That’s fifty percent of the syndicate’s debt cleared in a single pull.*

A sudden urge to turn around and sprint straight to the extraction portal pulled at him.

*Should I cash out right now?*

He paused, glancing at his bloodied blade and then out over the rolling grassland plains.

*No. Coal is scouting, my inventory is virtually empty, and the day is young. Leaving after one kill is amateur work. Let’s press the advantage.*

Right on cue, a sharp mental ping resonated through the soul link. Coal transmitted a directional vector: five hundred meters northwest, tucked inside an eroded gully.

"Good eyes, Coal. Let’s move."

Eric advanced at a low, controlled jog, keeping beneath the crest of the grassy knolls.

After four hundred meters, the terrain dipped into a sun-baked ravine littered with cracked animal skeletons. Lurking near an undercut bank was an aberrant monstrosity—a grotesque cross between an armored centipede and a skinned hound.

It stretched over two meters long, its pale muscle fibers writhing beneath a translucent layer of hardened mucus, supported by a dozen serrated chitin limbs.

Eric dropped behind a brush line.

*Appraisal.*

│ Race: Fleshcrawler

│ Rank: E

│ Stage: Mortal

*Rank E,* Eric analyzed, his brow furrowing. *A full rank above the Riftspawn. Muscle density, reaction speed, and armor are on an entirely different level.*

Before Eric could signal a tactical reposition, the Fleshcrawler’s sensory antennae whipped toward his brush. Its mandibles clicked in a rhythmic rattle as half a dozen crimson compound eyes locked directly onto his silhouette.

*SKRRRRAAAAK!*

The abomination surged forward, its scythe-like limbs blurring as it charged across the dry riverbed with blinding, unnatural speed.

"Move!"

There was no time to disengage. Eric planted his boots into the hard dirt and raised his buckler.

"Coal! Flank its blind spot!"

Coal dropped from the sky like a dark spear, his talons extended toward the monster’s rear carapace.

*CLACK!*

The talons struck the slippery hide, but the Fleshcrawler’s dense musculature absorbed the force with ease. Ignoring the bird entirely, the monster tore up the embankment, its front scythes snapping forward like twin guillotines aimed squarely at Eric’s neck.

Eric threw himself to the left.

*CRACK!*

The right scythe smashed into the dirt where Eric had stood a millisecond prior, carving a deep furrow into the earth.

Using the creature’s forward momentum against it, Eric stepped in close and drove his shortsword with both hands straight into the soft joint between its neck and torso.

*SQUELCH.*

The iron blade sank four inches deep into the writhing meat. The Fleshcrawler shrieked, thrashing in wild agony.

Before Eric could wrench the blade free to dodge, the monster’s heavy armored tail whipped around in a violent, blind reflex.

*BANG!*

Eric barely hauled his round buckler across his chest before the tail struck like a hydraulic ram.

The impact pulverized the wooden core of the shield instantly. The steel boss crushed inward, smashing directly into Eric’s left forearm.

*CRACK.*

A sharp, sickening snap echoed through the ravine.

"AAAGH!"

Blinding white agony detonated behind Eric’s eyes. The kinetic shock launched him three meters backward, tumbling through the dirt as his shattered left arm flopped uselessly against his torso.

*SKRAAA!*

Dripping caustic slime from its mandibles, the wounded Fleshcrawler wheeled around to slaughter the immobilized human.

*CAAAAW!*

Above them, Coal went berserk.

Sensing the agonizing surge of pain through their shared bond, the crow’s eyes flared with a pitch-black sheen. Channeling every ounce of his Level 3 Shadow mana into his bone beak, Coal dive-bombed straight down, slamming his skull with terminal velocity into the hilt of the shortsword still lodged in the monster’s neck.

*STOMP!*

Coal’s momentum drove the entire iron blade down through the central nerve column until the crossguard slammed against bone.

The Fleshcrawler’s limbs locked rigid. Its body convulsed violently, gouging deep trenches into the earth, before collapsing into the dirt, completely motionless.

Silence settled over the gully, broken only by Eric’s ragged, shallow gasps.

"Haaah... haaah..."

Eric sat slumped against the dirt wall of the ravine, his right hand gripping his trembling left shoulder. His left forearm was bent at a grotesque angle beneath his torn sleeve, the skin bruising black and purple. Cold sweat drenched his collar.

*A High-Tier Healing Potion...*

With a trembling thought, he viewed his inventory, where ten glowing crimson vials rested in suspended time. A single sip would knit the bone and heal the tissue in minutes.

*No,* Eric gritted his teeth, jaw clenching until his molars groaned. *Thirty thousand credits for a broken bone? That’s thirty thousand credits that goes directly toward buying Emily and the kids their freedom. A municipal clinic in the outer ward can set a clean fracture and cast it for five hundred credits. I can take the pain.*

Enduring the throbbing agony, Eric forced himself upright. Using his functional right hand, he carved open the Fleshcrawler’s upper thorax.

Lodged deep within the gray muscle was a vibrant, walnut-sized crystal—an **E-Rank Low-Grade Mana Stone**, pulsing with twice the density of the previous core.

Eric transferred the bloody stone and his sword into his inventory, then used a strip of his torn undershirt to bind his broken arm firmly against his chest.

"Good kill, Coal..." Eric rasped, his breath shaky. "Let’s head back. We’re going to the clinic."

Coal descended softly onto his uninjured right shoulder, letting out a low, protective trill as Eric began the slow, agonizing walk back toward the rift portal.