Rick wondered whether or not his [Edibility Intuition] was bugged or not as he was snacking on all sorts of things in his basket. He had [Beast's Digestion] and [Robust Stomach]... and was wondering what wasn't edible to him... probably outright poisons like one particularly magical looking glowing mushroom triggered his [Edibility Intuition] But considering he was trying to eat grasses, leaves, twigs, and other random things that were on the ground. They weren't very tasty, and his teeth weren't exactly designed to eat bark... but his instincts weren't telling him to spit any of the stuff out.
"You know... We do have plenty of rations." Joseph mentioned
"I know, I'm experimenting with my [survivalist] skills a bit... I think I'm gaining some xp from this?" Rick thought
"What skills if I may ask?" Joseph wondered
"[Robust Stomach] and [Beast's Digestion]... I've also got [Edibility Intuition], and it only went off for... I've got it here somewhere..." Rick went into his bag of holding and took out the mushroom that looked radioactive thanks to the magic it had.
Joseph and Rina just stared at it and they both gave each other a glance before Rina said "Yeah... that's probably inedible..."
The [Mage] of sorts took their head out of their book for a second and said "...May I see that?" Rick handed it over, the [Mage] looked at it and muttered "I should be able to make use of this.", put it in their bag of holding, and that was the end of that interaction.
Still camping Rick went through his skill list again and wanted to test his [Strength: United in One] skill. So he asked Rina for an arm wrestling competition. They graced their arms on the wagon since there wasn't a table, and then Rick activated his skill and Rina's arm came down... and then Rick crumpled to the ground clutching his arm which had shattered several bones and muscles.
"GOD DAMNIT!!! F*** S*** [CURE F*CKING WOUNDS]!!!" he did his cure wounds a few times before his arm felt merely sore.
Joseph came over and asked "Why's Rick on the ground?"
Rina said "He challenged me to an arm wrestling competition... used a skill and won, but broke his arm."
Joseph sighed "Yeah... using a skill can be double edged sometimes."
Rick was panting a bit and said "Well... aside from that little side-effect, the skill worked like I thought."
Rina asked "And how did you think it would work?"
"[Strength: United in One], in reference to my Flock I believe. I think it let's me combine the Strength of my whole flock into one person. Since Rina's part of it using her strength and a bunch of other people would let me win. I think I could even use it on Rina to give her an edge."
Rina sighed "That's nice, but also not as useful as you think."
"Why?" Rick asked
Joseph mentioned "If you use it on her she just gets the strength of you and all the other villagers added onto hers. That's not nothing, but at her level every bit of strength doesn't count and it's more about the magnitudes of strength. Using it on anyone else will be dangerous because of the amount of strength their bodies can realistically use. Unless you can determine how much strength that skill gives there's not much you can use it for right now."
"Not unless I'd want a screwed up body..." Rick muttered and then a shudder went down his spine as he thought a combination [Force Submissiveness] into [Strength: United in One] if he wanted effectively a suicide bomber... add in [Conscript into the Flock]... He told himself he wouldn't go down that path, even if the option was available. Add in [I AM the Flock]... It'd be real easy for Rick to be a hive mind of sorts. Maybe not focused but he was a cult leader who could force people into his cult and control the actions of individuals... Rina was keeping him honest since she was part of the flock but strong enough to resist him if it ever became truly necessary. In a sense it was already a bit too late. He had the hive mind power, but he didn't want to be some omnipotent god seeing over everything... or work for one. If he had any aspects [horny] was one, [life] and [control] were others... Maybe eventually Rick would become some holy spirit of sorts, but if he could give his Flock the [survivalist] aspects. There'd be no real need to worry about most necessities if the worst came to pass. Rick was also at an awkward time trying to get his [survivalist] up enough to maybe influence his [priest] class before it hit 40 who knows what would happen if he gained another powerful skill that led him to some depraved hive mind cult?