Chapter 218: Spirit Bone

Right after throwing the pieces of his arm into the forge, the first thing Ed did was ruminate through his mind. He wanted to find some sort of hint. Ed needed some insight on what exactly a drop item was. 

Was it his entire being condensed into a single material upon death? A physical manifestation of his consciousness that carried magical powers? Or was it nothing but an item made by the dungeon on a whim?

'Let's see… the items should reflect my current body or the characteristics it possesses' Ed chose to start with this. Although he had only seen the white bone once and couldn't say this for certain, he doubted the drop would have changed from then to now.

If it did, things were a bit troublesome since it could affect his progress moving forward but Ed couldn't think of a reason for it to change. He could only cling to this starting point and hope it wasn't leading him astray.

'Hm… this would be so much easier if I could watch myself dying' Unfortunately, there weren't any cameras in the dungeon and he certainly hadn't encountered such a miraculous spell. This meant that Ed was still stuck at the starting line even after determining a potential direction.

After some more minutes of watching his jade white bone melt inside of the ethereal forge flames, Ed asked himself a new question.

'If I kill everything but my head will a drop item manifest?' Ed's plan to lure adventurers didn't need to have the items drop from the skeleton. At least Ed didn't think it was a definite necessity. While the dungeon could in theory eat any bone he creates it was best to think about such things after succeeding.

'Let's assume the answer is yes…' That would imply that a drop item wasn't something of the mind but rather of the body.

'If that's how it works I don't need to actually do much' The forge would take care of the whole process. He just had to sculpt multiple small bones.

Thus, as soon as the bones turned into liquid, Ed brought out one of the many chisels lying around the forge room. He also made sure to grab a hammer and to use a nearby anvil.

'I've never worked directly with the liquid materials' This would mark the first time Ed would try to change the shape of something without the system's help. He, therefore, started with the largest bone shard.

Why? Well, it was the largest so it also had the largest room for error. Ed wasn't keen on making mistakes but it was unavoidable, he needed to prepare himself accordingly.

The humanoid light form that he was lifted a chisel into the air and smacked it right down onto the liquid bone. The crisp sound of metal on metal reverberated throughout the space even though Ed had no ears.

'It's best not to find much logic in anything here' The system space was a weird mix of dream and reality. It happened in his sleep and most things seemed to work as he willed it. Yet, the dream was also bound by some rules and it could directly interact with reality.

Ed's thoughts continued to idle as he chiseled a masterpiece.

[Ed's bone (Material)]

A custom and large chiseled bone of the skeleton known as Ed. The edges are a bit rough.

In reality, it was still nothing more than his bone. There were also many times that he failed and had to combine some of the smaller pieces onto the larger one. Still! It's the effort that counts! Ed's bone was a masterpiece in his heart.

After receiving his first successful bone, Ed proceeded to simply exit the system. As the item was nothing more than his bone, Ed needed to make sure that the dungeon wouldn't eat it.

'The dungeon was rather slow when digesting the blood and bones from my experiment as an orc' Nonetheless that meant that the dungeon still consumed his parts after they were detached from his body and the same could happen to this bone.

Ed's drowsy vision stabilized and on the ground was a pristine white bone. The forge seemed to have further polished his remains not that it really mattered.

After making this keen observation Ed simply waited on his throne while watching Brutus and Iron spar right outside of the temple. Occasionally he would look at his arm which had regenerated to a certain degree but didn't seem to intend on regenerating further.

'If possible I need to create a skeleton using my own limbs' Due to the previously stated reasons he would most likely use it to upgrade the skeletons but there were no real guarantees in life.

Just as Brutus received his 30th L for the day, the bone in front of Ed began to dissipate.

'Sigh… dungeon why don't you just do me this favor?' Did it really have to eat everything that entered it? Did it not know to get indigestion?

Brutus who was defeated stood up once more and charged with his mace at Iron for the umpteenth time. Once Ed drifted back to sleep however Brutus immediately ran away. Iron was so far out of his level that all he was learning to do was to lose!

Ed who had returned to the system space was unaware of this as he was focused on what moves to make now that he was back at square one.

'I've either taken a wrong turn or there needs to be a special material that prevents the dungeon from eating things…' Ed was inclined to believe he had taken a wrong turn but the other option was still worth exploring.

As he tossed more shards into the forge, Ed continued to think about it and decided to take a more spiritual approach.

'Maybe if I…' Ed looked at his own body of light and back at his piece of bone. Since the drop item was created upon his death, which is when memories became fragmented on regular consciousnesses, it wasn't too much of a stretch to believe that those fragments were absorbed by the bone.

'All I have to do is give it a piece of myself' That would also automatically fix the second problem of the dungeon eating the item. Maybe If it had a piece of consciousness the dungeon would consider it living and leave it be.

'Let's start with a foreign consciousness though' It was his drop item so it was only natural to give it a piece of himself but there was no way he would be willing to risk fragmenting his own memories or even damaging his intelligence any further for the sake of attracting humans, the whole thing sounded rather stupid. Was he seeking death?

After a short trip to the spirit room, Ed brought in a skeleton consciousness. He didn't pick an orc consciousness instead since a fragmented piece of himself couldn't be that large and it was also unlikely that the small pieces of bone he would be creating could hold too large a load.

'I guess this might also help me figure out how to make golems' Ed had previously speculated that it had to do with the remains of something living. It just so happened he was such a thing and a powerful one at that.

Ed created a new <Ed's bone> and used spirit insertion to integrate into it the consciousness of a skeleton. It was the first time Ed had used a system sub-skill inside of the system space… but all things went smoothly.

Ed was able to observe the process through his sixth sense and after waiting a couple of seconds nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

[Faint Spirit Bone (Material)]

A chiseled bone housing a faint consciousness.

'Perfect!' Ed was instantly elated after reading the assessment. The weak spirit bone was obviously a material for alchemy and even though it was obviously not up to par with his own, it was a great start.

'I wonder if a stronger consciousness might make a different' Ed returned back into the spirit room and a casual glance around showed him that the orcs might be too large but the skeletons too small to make a difference.

[Zras (Wisp of Consciousness)]

That was when Ed caught sight of a perfect in between, it was a goblin!

'I guess I forgot about them' Ed also didn't remember killing any of them so he must have acquired them through either their natural deaths or after they were forced into the battle with the humans. They were mostly in charge of scouting though so Ed didn't see many of their consciousnesses lying around.

'I wonder where those goblins are usually kept anyway' Ed hadn't explored any of the settlements in enough detail before this and the sacred tribe hadn't ventured out of the orc thickets and into the orc plains to ever encounter goblins. There weren't any resident goblin tribes.

Ed didn't continue thinking about goblins afraid that he would be thought of as an accomplice of them and slain. He instead quickly returned to the forge room and continued making bones with what remained of his shattered arm.

[Goblin Spirit Bone (Material)]

A chiseled bone housing the consciousness of a goblin.

The end result was a goblin spirit bone which was also a material, Ed was sure he had gotten the hang of the whole drop item ordeal now. He had thought that the main component of a drop item had to be his remains alongside consciousness but in the end, it was actually both!

'It's a good thing I've-' Ed's thoughts were interrupted however as he saw the goblin spirit bone start to crack slowly before inevitably turning into a beautiful show of lights.

[Offering receive]

'...' To make matters worse the system even took the consciousness for itself after seeing it being set free in the form of cascading lights.