New equipment 4

Lyn groaned as she came to.

"Are you awake?" Reed's voice echoed in her ears, sounding distant, but loud.

Her eyes opened and she looked at the source of the sound.

"What... Happened?" She asked as she closed her eyes again and rubbed her forehead.

"I knocked you out, then went and did a little surgery on your mind."

"Hmm... Surgery?" Lyn did not understand what he had said immediately, but she did a moment, later, and shot up as if a rocket had pushed her up.

"Min-brain surgery??!!" She looked at Reed, who was leaning against a cabinet.

"Not brain surgery, I have almost no knowledge of that particular part of the human body, and I am not that much of an idiot to experiment on my one friend. No, what I did was different."

Reed came forward and offered a cup filled with a blue-colored liquid to her. She took it and drank it all in a single breath. She handed the cup back to him before speaking again.

"So, what did you do then?"

"I cut out some of your fear of failing, fear of pain, some of your anxiety, and encouraged your distrust towards strangers, your cautiousness, and almost completely eliminated your fear of insects and aggressive animals."

Reed spoke as if he was talking about completely regular happenings as if none of this was anything out of the ordinary, while Avalyn was in shock, unsure what she was supposed to say here.

Was she supposed to be angry? But it seemed like he had done all of this to help her. Should she thank him? But his actions of changing her emotions, weren't they super unethical? Should she treat the situation like he was? But that would encourage him to do this more often, what if he changed her feelings without informing her?

"Don't worry, I won't of any of that." Her mental rollercoaster was brought to an abrupt halt due to his words.

"...What..?" She was still fuzzy-headed, but it was clearing up rapidly.

"You haven't realized that there's something else in your mind, have you?"

Lyn jumped as Reed's voice echoed in her head, followed by bits and pieces of information about why this was happening.

It was his reward from the second event.

Mental web.

Reed had run what he wanted and what he needed through his head, and come to the realization that none of those were as urgent or as important as something like this.

In the end, how much a single person can do is limited, and unless he hired people, he would find it hard to find good teammates. Even then, people's hearts were complicated, and he couldn't waste time trying to find trustworthy people.

So he decided to obtain a skill that would help him with that.

The mental web skill gave him the ability to form connections between minds, no matter whether they connected with his mind or not.

With this connection, he could feel the other mind's location and emotional state whenever he wanted to and could talk with them telepathically. If his spirit was strong enough, then he could change the feelings and even memories of the connected minds.

He could also give connected minds levels of authority over the connections so that they could access and use the web without needing to go through him first.

He could even use this ability to attack any mind before connecting with them, which is why Lyn had been knocked out, because he wanted to change some of her emotions, and didn't want to deal with a fully active consciousness, it would only make things harder. And these weren't even all of what it could do.

Lyn rubbed her head again as the information integrated with her mind.

She looked at Reed with a complicated look on her face, as he looked back at her, blasting his feelings about this situation at her.

She sighed.

"At least tell me before you do this again." She said, knowing her companion, he would not hesitate to do this again if he thought that some of her emotions were affecting them negatively.

"I hope I don't need to do this again."

Unknown to Lyn, he had also increased her trust in him and lowered some of her ethical inhibitions.

A few moments later, they were both standing in the testing room again, and Reed was holding out a box filled with objects that Lyn recognized as grenades.

"They won't be very effective, but like I said before, you never know."

She kept her silence as Reed gave her boxes of smoke grenades, flash grenades, incendiaries, shrapnel, etc.

After that, he handed her a few small tools for convenience.

Flashlights, lighters, ropes, bandages, earplugs, ice picks, insect repellents.

Then came the more important things.

Potions that worked as anti-venom, for healing, mind refreshing, stamina boost, etc.

Sprays that applied disinfectants, that healed the area it was sprayed on, that worked for masking a person's smell, etc.

She also received more items like the mask, all serving different purposes.

A cloak that hid her scent, a domino mask that made her face impossible to recognize, a pair of boots that reduced her energy consumption when she was traveling, and a few more.

When he was done handing her items, she asked him a question.

"Can't you make something to increase my stats? You know, like some rare items you get in RPGs and the like."

Reed's response was straightforward. "What makes you think I haven't tried?"

He tossed a small metal plate at her. "This is what I got in response."

The plate had some words inscribed on it, and as Lyn looked at them, a voice boomed in her head.

"Not happening."

The voice filled her with a feeling of smallness.

"It looks like there are some things that I am simply not allowed to make, which does make sense."

Reed didn't need to explain that to her, she could understand what he meant.

"Hmm." She hummed as a response.

"Anyways..." Reed's voice made her look up again. "I will have the rest of your equipment ready after a week or so. Until then," He took back the plate and pointed at the door. "Get acquainted with them."

The door opened, and four people walked in, three men and a woman, all of them over the age of thirty, all of them bearing weapons and a shield on their person.

"Uhh... Hi...?" Lyn raised her hand and waved at them.