“I know.” Martin delicately pulled over two of his men and whispered something to them. The men nodded and climbed into the ship.

Once the wounded were taken care of, the remaining people started moving cautiously between the piles of dead Warped, making sure they were really dead. Then the messages started pouring in.

Extracted 0.02 Tec

Extracted 0.009 Tec

Extracted 0.1 Tec

…

“Wow, there’s a lot of those,” Lana said after several seconds as the messages kept coming in by the dozens.

“Yeah,” Diamond looked at the people as they somberly moved from one dead Warped to another, extracting their Tec. The two men Martin had sent came out of the ship, carrying Noah’s charred body with them. The shelter leader’s eyes hardened. “I’m afraid that we can’t just give you half the piTec, like before.”

“Diamond’s right,” Martin said, standing straighter, his wounds looking better already. “The option of using them to instantly level up from zero is an important step in our civilization’s survival. With this many dead Warped, we should have enough piTec to level up every person still in the shelters. We can’t pass up an opportunity like that.”

“We understand,” Nori said.

“However,” the Justicar continued with a grin. “As you guys pretty much single-handedly took out the Broodmother, I think it’s only fair you claim it for yourself. Don’t you agree, Diamond?”

“I suppose,” the beefy leader replied.

Nori nodded. “Then let’s do this.” She bent down, pressed her hands to the body and concentrated, consciously specifying her crewmates as the only recipients.

Tec extraction commencing.

Intense flashes of light ran along the Broodmother’s body, hitting the three companions in huge waves. some even streaming into the ship.

Temporarily blinded, Nori had to blink away the spots before she could read her messages.

Extracted 40 Tec (+2 Levels)

piTec: 86,000

“Holy moly,” Lana said. “I just gained sixty Tec and leveled up to seven.”

Nori winced. “I got forty”.

Bulco patted her shoulder. “No point crying over it. For better or for worse, we both made our choices. What I don’t get is how come we got so much piTec? Didn’t that freakishly tall merchant say it has to be less than a thousand?”

“We got a few thousand off the dead pilot too,” Nori reminded him. “Maybe the Broodmother carried extra piTec, outside of her body, for some reason.”

The Engineer’s eyebrows nearly reached his forehead. “I’m not gonna go down that road. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have attribute points to assign.”

“What about the corpse?” Lana asked. “Alzigo mentioned a Broodmother should drop something called an essence core.”

“Right.” Bulco drew out a long combat knife from his belt and eyed the giant monster with a professional look. Then he glanced at Lana and a mischievous grin spread over his face. He offered her the weapon. “Would you like to do the honors?”