Chapter 12: Stems, Grades, Ranks, & Four Basic Grim Cards

Chapter 12: Stems, Grades, Ranks, & Four Basic Grim Cards

The discovery of gion microbes and gioncores changed everything. Once humans understood how gioncores functioned, they began reverse-engineering the process. Researchers learned to extract gioncore stems from stabilized grimmons. With proper nourishment, these stems could be cultivated into viable gioncores inside the new host. Implanting these gioncore stems into grimlocks allowed them to safely condense and sustain a gioncore within their bodies, achieving what had once been lethal with a high success rate.

However, they soon discovered that the quality of the condensed gioncore varied among grimlocks. Those with higher-grade cores could sustain larger colonies of gionworms, allowing them to generate, store, and recover greater amounts of gion than those with lower-grade cores.

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