Ch177-Upgrades People Upgrades (1/2)

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Ch177-Upgrades People Upgrades

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As Sylver waited for Spring to get started, he continued inspecting one of the three ribs he had gotten from “Sylver.”

It had the color of dark metal and the texture of very fine sandpaper. Going by the curve, and the general feel of them, the skeleton was in his very early 20s, possibly even younger.

More importantly, Sylver could feel the metallic bones actively sucking up the ambient mana in the air, and only the sheer level of control Sylver had over his mana prevented it from being sucked up by the rib.

The only part that wasn’t sucking any mana up, was the base, where the rib would have been attached to the person’s spine, that part was leaking mana. Sylver shoved his pinkie against the small opening and found that the faster he pulled mana out through the hole, the faster the rib started to absorb the ambient mana.

Sylver found himself on the ground, after he had attempted to yank out all the mana trapped inside the bone’s “marrow,” and had his mana yanked out of the hand he was using to hold the rib.

“I’m starting to feel something!” Spring shouted, from within the foam-filled tank in which he was currently floating in.

Sylver didn’t need to turn around to see what was going on with him, on account of his nearly 360 degrees’ worth of “sight,” but he turned around to face Spring anyway, just to be polite.

“I feel hot! Am I supposed to feel hot?” Spring asked as Sylver smirked at the understandably nervous shade.

“Hot hot, hot hot, or hot hot?” Sylver asked without blinking or grinning.

Spring patted down his body, which was becoming more and more translucent by the second.

“What?” he asked, as he tried to formulate an answer, but realized he didn’t fully understand the question.

“I’m just fucking with you. Everything is fine Spring, you’re in the good hands of a somewhat competent necromancer. You’re going to feel a light burning inside your throat, and it will travel down through you until it reaches the bottom of your pelvis, but then it’ll pass. Can’t say if it’s going to hurt or not, but it shouldn’t be too bad,” Sylver explained, as he stood up from his stool, and walked over to the giant glass cylinder.

“Are you going to do this to Fen too?” Spring asked.

Sylver shook his head.

“Wouldn’t work. I’m sharing my flesh with you. The only reason you’re going to be more than a shade draped in my skin, is that your body is synchronized enough with mine for it to connect and function properly,” Sylver explained, as Spring felt the aforementioned heat concentrate in his throat, and had the sudden urge to start scratching at it.

“You’re going to want to be very gentle with it, despite how it will look and feel, it’s barely an inch in thickness,” Sylver explained, as he looked around for something to sit on, but sat on his own solidified shadow instead.

Spring quietly paced around in his confined and bubbled-filled space, before he suddenly grabbed for his head, and glanced up at Sylver’s.

“Is my hair going to be white too?” Spring asked.

“Most likely, yes,” Sylver answered.

Apart from rewarding Spring for being so useful since his creation, Sylver wanted to use this as an opportunity to see if his black eyes were a physical trait.

Spring ran his hands through his head and then started to rub it as if that would help the scratchy feeling slowly moving from the top of his skull downwards.

“Why is it white? And why haven’t you fixed it?” Spring asked, as Sylver moved his hand up towards his own hair and pushed some of the loose strands out of his face.

“Souls grow in layers… in a certain sense of the word. I did this a very long time ago. I’d need to cut through more layers of my soul than I’m comfortable with… I mean, I could, but it’s purely cosmetic, it doesn’t hurt or hinder me, not worth the risk of cutting myself open just for that. No one seems to mind it so far, or at least the whole “black-eyed albino” thing takes their attention away from the hair,” Sylver explained, as Spring’s eyes widened in something akin to horror.

“Your skin was quite tanned when you were alive… You’ll lose some color, but it is real skin, the more time you spend in the sun, the more color will return,” Sylver explained, and although Spring did his best to hide his relief, the fact that Sylver could feel the emotions Spring could feel, meant there was no point to it. 

“Am I that hideous?” Sylver asked, and already didn’t like the direction this conversation was heading.

“Not hideous… You’re apparently attractive enough to bed 3 different women, but how much of that was due to your appearance? Leke, wanted you before you said a word, so that’s 1, I guess… Why was she so eager to get into bed with you?” Spring asked as Sylver leaned back into his [Deadly Darkness] made chair.

“She saw something in me? Maybe she liked the color of my mana or something. In the past, I’ve had mages fall head over heels for me because of it. Gold-colored mana is rare. Not as rare as Aether’s white mana, or Nyx’s grey mana, but it’s up there… Although, it’s not technically speaking gold,” Sylver said carefully, as Spring felt a weakness in his knees and sat down.

“It’s clear, I know. It just appears gold,” Spring said with a shrug.

“Essentially. The more concentrated it becomes, the less color it will have. I never actually looked into why mana changes color the way it does… I know Edmund’s got lighter when he ascended, but everyone else’s stayed the same color it was pre ascension… Mine too, come to think of it. It wasn’t exactly cloudy before, but even Nyx struggled to see it after I ascended,” Sylver mused, as Spring leaned over, and started coughing towards the seemingly boiling liquid.

“Could be something to do with purity… I should know this, why don’t I know this?” Sylver asked as Spring coughed up a small ball of something red, with white spots. It dissolved in the liquid he was in before either of them got a proper look at it.

Spring fell over onto his side and fully submerged in the liquid started to clutch at his heart.

“You know what I miss? I miss having a question and being able to send Helca off to find someone who knows the answer. No matter how stupid the question, there’s always either a mage who has spent the last 50 years studying whatever it is I asked, or a book written 4 centuries ago that has all the answers I could ever want,” Sylver said, mostly to himself, as Spring curled up into a ball, and stopped moving.

Sylver was about to continue his trip down memory lane but felt something land on the front of his robe. He looked down and saw that there were tears streaming down his face. He wiped them away with the sleeve of his robe and forced a sob back down his throat before he could further embarrass himself in front of his shade.

“The past is the past; I can’t change it. Record this date when you get the chance, this is essentially your second birthday… Or first, I don’t remember what day it was when I first resurrected you,” Sylver cautioned towards the unmoving shade.

It was now covered in a thin pink colored film that pulsated around his body, and gradually became tighter and tighter around him.

Sylver turned his head towards the sound of one of the secret doors opening, and saw Lola, Chrys, and Ria, standing there.

Upon seeing the glass tank with what appeared to be a skinless partially digested dead body inside, Lola placed her hands over Chrys’ eyes and glared at Sylver.

“You’re going to hurt Spring’s feelings if you do that. The poor man already has enough problems as it is, with his white hair and all that,” Sylver said with a gesture towards the unmoving body, as he stood up from his seat.

Lola continued trying to hold Chrys’ eyes closed.

“I’ve seen worse. And I was looking at it while we were walking here,” Chrys explained.

Lola paused in thought for a moment, before she released the girl’s eyes.

“Did you manage to convince the dark elves to give you a sample?” Lola asked, as Sylver reached into his robe, and produced two makeshift compasses.

Makeshift in the sense Sylver had taken two working compasses, and simply replaced the needles. Both were made out of polished copper, but one had a large “other” written on the back of it.

Sylver tossed the two towards Lola as she and Chrys walked down the staircase, and Lola caught it with her magic and floated the two of them into her hand.

“The spell I use to track through blood was originally used by a druidic cult. They had a species of dogs that they used to hunt, “Blood Hounds”, they called them. With just one drop of blood, these dogs could track you regardless of where you went,” Sylver explained, as Lola held up the second compass towards Sylver.

“Long story short, these dogs weren’t actually using smell, which should have been obvious since they were famous for being able to track monsters that didn’t have a scent. I dug up one of the dog’s corpses, spent way too long focusing on its nose, and then figured out that the mana channels on their tongue naturally formed into a spell framework,” Sylver explained, as Chrys walked away from Lola and pressed her face up against the glass vat, that was now starting to smoke from inside, and had covered the interior glass with steam.

“10 or so years of guesswork and testing, and a very lucky encounter with a witch that thought making my blood combustible would be enough to kill me, and voila!” Sylver exclaimed, and gestured at the two compasses in Lola’s hand.

“What does the second one point to?” Lola asked, as Spring mumbled something, but was impossible to hear, on account of the bloody foam leaking out of his mouth. 

“No idea. If you had waited, I would have explained that the spell I use whittles down whatever I’m trying to track into unique pieces, and then aligns itself with the person, or item, with the largest collection of these unique pieces. It’s why I can track blood relatives, and Edmund’s mana signature, although there are multiple ways to track mana signatures, but mine has a significantly longer range, and-”

“Is it a second Eldar tree?” Lola interrupted and practically shoved the second compass into Sylver’s face.

“I don’t know. I adjusted the spell to be 1 level less specific, and it pointed at the high-elves Eldar tree, and when I made the spell ignore it, it pointed at something else. But I do have to warn you… It might not be pointing at an Eldar tree,” Sylver explained and could see Lola stop herself from furrowing her eyebrows at him.

“The seedlings the dark elves have are not from… shall we say, a healthy specimen… It’s an extremely potent plant, to the point I can’t even summon a sample of it using my [Seed Storage] perk. I’m not going to describe what I saw to you, because if I threw up, you’re most definitely going to,” Sylver said and got to watch as Lola’s face went blank, then became angry again, and finally calmed down.

She put the second compass away in her pocket and turned herself around in a circle until she was facing the same direction the first compass was pointing to.

“West southwest… Assuming it isn’t an island in the Warst Ocean, it’s just a bit south of Silia… There’s a mountain range with an alleged dragon’s nest, a large enough cave could work as an excellent hiding spot…” Lola mumbled to no one in particular as she already started mentally organizing who to send down there to search.

“A constructive plate boundary is likely to have a lot of mana saturated soil, it would make sense for an Eldar tree to sprout there,” Sylver offered but could tell by Lola’s nonreaction that she was too deep in her thoughts. 

Sylver turned away from her and brought his attention back onto Spring, who was now shivering hard enough to make the glass vat he was in vibrate.

“She’s very indecisive,” Chrys said, as Sylver walked over to her, to get a better look at Spring.

“She’s adaptable, there’s a difference… But a little bit, yeah,” Sylver said, as he had a sudden realization. A piece of his robe tore itself away from him, and floated up in the air, before it fell onto Spring, and wrapped itself around his lower half.

“We’re going to be good friends one day,” Chrys whispered towards Sylver.

“You and I, or Lola?” Sylver asked. He crouched down so Chrys didn’t need to look up at him.

“Lola. I don’t know if I’ll ever be friends with you. But I know Lola is going to trust me with her son one day,” Chrys explained.

Sylver chose to say nothing, and instead watched as Spring slowly stopped shivering.

Like a chicken breaking out of its egg, assuming the egg was stretchy, and clear, and had veins in it, Spring moved his arms around to break out of it. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get a good enough grip to rip it open, and his nails were nowhere near sharp enough to cut it up.

Sylver, Chrys, and Ria watched as the shade’s body gradually became blurrier and blurrier within the amniotic sac-like bag he was in until the blackness that was his body disappeared entirely.

Sylver just stood there and waited.

Truth be told, he expected the system to give him a notification of some sort.

Instead, Sylver nearly flinched when a screaming nude man burst out of the bag and had to catch Chrys as she jumped away from the glass, and nearly fell over.

Spring continued screaming for a good 10 seconds before his face contorted in confusion, and he gradually stopped screaming.

“Huh…” he said, as he adjusted the piece of cloth wrapped around his nether regions. 

Sylver could feel his attempts to move through the shadows, and it took the shade 11 entire fails to liquefy into the shadow on the floor before he gave up.

“How are your eyes? Any ringing in the ears? Can you taste anything?” Sylver asked, as Spring touched his eyes, poked his wide-open bloodshot eyeballs, shoved a finger way too deep into his ear, and then pulled his tongue out, to the point it was nearly 20 centimeters long.

Sylver looked to his right, to see Chrys had to turn away to stop herself from throwing up and turned again to see that Lola had done much the same.

“Alright, stand still,” Sylver ordered the mildly amused shade.

“This is so weird. I feel it but I don’t feel it,” Spring said, as he went to reach down the front of his makeshift loincloth, but stopped himself before his hand reached its destination.

“Is this the next stage for a named shade?” Lola asked.

“What? No, I just realized that there are times where I need to hide the fact that I’m a necromancer with an army of shades in my shadow. But I still need someone to help me out with-”

“He had to clean one dish, and made me put doing this at the top of his to-do list!” Spring interrupted.

Lola, Chrys, and Ria looked at the ancient lich necromancer, and all three raised their eyebrows for entirely different reasons. Sylver shrugged his shoulders and carried on as if Spring hadn’t said anything.

“I realized I needed someone to help me out, and decided making Spring a body to wear would be easier and more reliable than trying to bind a zombie to me. With this, if I don’t need him to appear alive, I just store the skin away, and he’s comfortably and conveniently back in my shadow,” Sylver explained.

He used [Deadly Darkness] to gently pick Spring up underneath his armpits, and pulled the shade up, and placed him down onto the stone floor. Spring looked around the room, as if he was seeing it for the first time, and then proceeded to scratch his stomach, and shoved his entire finger into his belly button.

“I made your pain receptors barely functional, but if you do anything like that again, I’m going to turn them up to 11,” Sylver cautioned, as he slapped Spring’s hand away from his belly button.

“I’m so stretchy though. Does this feel like real skin to you?” Spring asked as he held out his other hand towards Lola, Chrys, and Ria.

Sylver pinched Spring’s side, and then pinched him again, and watched as a bruise started to form. Lola on the other hand felt up his forearm, while Chrys tried to stick her finger into Spring’s belly button.

“I just watched him do it,” Chrys complained, at the fact that she couldn’t force her finger further than 1 knuckle.

“That’s because he’s a very strong idiot, and if he was a regular person, he would be blind, deaf, and bleeding out of his stomach. It’s stretchy so that it doesn’t get damaged as easily. I don’t understand why I haven’t been given anything for this?” Sylver questioned, as Spring stepped back, and away from the two women.

“How do I get out?” Spring asked. 

His head became enlarged for a moment, like a balloon, before it snapped back into place.

Spring’s skin was darker than Sylver’s was, but still pale enough that he looked like he spent the majority of his time indoors. His hair was white, on his head, on his chest, arms, and presumably down below too.

Most surprising though was the fact that his eyes were a pale green, the color Sylver’s eyes were when he was alive. His face…

He looked similar enough to Ciege, that Sylver would have believed he was a cousin or an uncle. But there was an unmistakable similarity in Spring’s nose and chin that belonged to Sylver.

“So it isn’t because of something physical… Or not genetic, at the very least…” Sylver thought out loud, as Spring stared at his finger, and raised it towards his nostril. He stopped himself and made a mental note to wait for Sylver to be occupied before attempting any other experimentation.

“Can he hold a piece of silver or lead while like this?” Lola asked.

It took Sylver a moment to finish his thought and focus on the present.

“Purely cosmetic. If he wears a glove, and it's thick enough, possibly. I know how it looks, but this is literally the equivalent of covering him in paint. Except he can see, hear, taste, smell, and feel things. Although be careful with food, you’re never going to feel “full” so don’t eat too much while out in public,” Sylver cautioned, as Chrys’ face lit up.

“Come, I’ll ask Maul to make us pancakes,” Chrys ordered, as she grabbed the shade by the hand, and tried to pull him with her. Ria slithered up Spring’s arm, and jumped from his shoulder onto Sylver’s, and disappeared into his robe, as she wrapped herself around his bicep.

“Go, it’s your birthday, enjoy yourself. I’ll join you after Lola and I talk for a bit,” Sylver said.

Spring looked concerned for a moment, almost afraid, but he nonetheless followed behind Chrys and disappeared into one of the secret passages.

“Put something on! Get Ging to bring you one of my shirts and pants!” Sylver shouted after a moment’s thought.

“They won’t fit you anyway anymore!” Spring shouted back.