Hardcore OP-ness

Chapter 10: It's a Hardcore World

Forming bonds with animals, by feeding them mana-cores, was a fairly common practice. Typically, it would require a 'Beast Tamer' class first, and if the person's companion died, they wouldn't be able to sacrifice their own health to revive it.

Michael was a 'Player' and not an 'NPC,' so he was given a myriad of completely overpowered and unreasonable abilities to make his experience more entertaining. It wouldn't be a very fun game, if the 'Companions' he made could be permanently killed.

Rather than 'permadeath,' 'Hardcore' difficulty referred to the way that damage was calculated. On 'Easy,' all base stats would be dramatically increased: not just for the 'Players,' but also the 'NPCs.' The 'Game' was balanced, but he was the only one actually playing it; everyone else, was struggling to stay alive.

Obviously, there was a symbiotic relationship between a 'Beast Tamer' and their 'Companions.' The humanoid gained experience as long as they were within a few hundred meters when any of the kills were made, but the magical-beast was usually able to consume many more mana-cores than they would on their own.

There was one quirk though, which was affected by the bond: 'Evolution.' To rank-up, the mana-core has to be given to them by their partner, from something that their partner personally killed; otherwise, they would only gain increased stats.

However, the changes to their body, rather than following their 'natural' path, would be influenced by the traits and attributes of whatever the mana-core had been taken from. Depending on the Beast Tamer's Luck, there was also a possibility of failure: though the chance was typically very small.

Essentially, the 'Luck' stat would determine how powerful the evolution would be, and the higher the rank, the more dangerous the evolution would become. Michael had no idea about any of that nonsense, and simply removed his level-two corpse out of his inventory; after leaving it on the riverbank, he looked at the little fox and said "What are you waiting for? Eat it." while pointing at the deathly pale face.

Since it was from the time that he died of a bacterial infection, he was almost certain that Inari would become ill, but he wasn't worried about it. She already died once, and all it cost him was a bit of excruciating pain; there was also the high probability that she would gain a disease resistance passive, so he didn't think too deeply about it.

After realizing that the vixen didn't understand, he picked up a relatively heavy stone off the ground and used it to bash open 'his' lifeless head. He stored the body almost immediately after it died, so there was very little decomposition in the areas that weren't infected; after literally digging through his own brain, he pulled out a rank-F mana-core.

Michael tossed the tiny bead in-front of Inari and told her "There, eat it, okay?" before storing the corpse back inside of his inventory. She hesitated for a moment, but eventually scooped it up with her little pink tongue, and swallowed it. He impatiently waited for a few seconds, but then asked "Nothing happened? Maybe it's some kind of countermeasure to prevent players from farming their own mana-cores?"

After a minute, there was a notification that read: "Inari's stats have increased after digesting a level-two, rank-F human's mana-core: Aura +.5, Strength +1.5." Her outer appearance didn't change, but there was a significant stat-boost.

The vixen didn't receive any visible illnesses, and her health wasn't dropping, so he figured that she wasn't infected with anything. Michael immediately pulled out the crow-sized 'Vicious Sparrow' from bag-slot three and tossed it in front of the excited fox.

Without him even saying anything, Inari began tearing open the bird's head and quickly devoured the level-two, rank-F, mana-core. There was an instantaneous transformation, as her body grew to the size of an adult red-fox, but maintained the same proportions: Her age was still 'child.'