“As your life was mine to reap, your death is mine to harvest.”

Ability: [Blood Harvest] (Blood)

Spell (drain).

Cost: Low mana.

Cooldown: None.

Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)

Iron: Drain the remnant life force of a recently deceased body, replenishing health, stamina and mana. Only affects targets with blood.

Dark red light rose from within the creature. Jason’s aura sense told him it was the monster’s remnant life force made visible. It siphoned up into Jason’s hand, draining away from the dead monster. As it did, Jason felt the sting of healing flesh as his wounds closed over. His body was reinvigorated as his stamina and mana were replenished. As he consumed the red light, the flesh inside the shell withered, the shell itself growing brittle and crumbling. By the time the red light was fully devoured, the monster was little more than a withered husk.

Hiram had been looking askance at Jason as he recited sinister spells and drained the residual life force from the monster.

“Did you just say you were harvesting death?” Hiram asked.

“It’s just the incantation for a spell,” Jason said.

“You sound like an evil farmer.”

“You didn’t even see my evil trowel.”

Jason pulled a rag and a bottle of water from his inventory, cleaning his dagger before slipping it back into its sheath. He then tapped a finger on the gutted shell of the monster.

Would you like to loot [Shab]?

“You might want to stand back for this,” Jason said. “There’s going to be a smell.”

“Worse than the one that’s there already?” Hiram asked.

“Yeah. It’s worse.”

They backed off and Jason gave his mental assent to loot the body. What was left of the monster rapidly dissolved into rainbow-coloured smoke before vanishing.

Tragically, Jason had forgotten the monster fluids that had splattered onto him while he was underneath it. They too dissolved, the rainbow smoke coming from his nose and mouth where the fluids had splashed into them. He fell to the ground, heaving his breakfast onto the base of the tunnel.

“You alright?” Hiram asked.

Eventually Jason gave a coughing nod.

[Monster Core (Iron Rank)] has been added to your inventory.

[Shell-Skin Potion] has been added to your inventory.

10 [Iron Rank Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.

“Not worth it.”

Jason took a tin of healing unguent from his inventory and handed it over to Hiram.

“You know what that is?” Jason asked.

Hiram pulled the lid off the tin, sniffing at the contents. He nodded and immediately started rubbing ointment into his bloody arm.

“Boss!”

Griff called out from the other side of the fence.

“I came back when I couldn’t see or hear the waterfall. What happened?”