Chapter 137 Spectral Equipment

“… You’re still wearing the greaves and vambraces… even after I re-summoned you?” Jay glared at Sweeper with his eyes bulging.

He was simply too intrigued to leave his room now.

Immediately he de-summoned Sweeper; its skeletal body collapsed with a clink on Jay’s wooden floor.

Jay got on his hands and knees, digging through the bone pile; he was looking over the bones with expectation, but he didn’t find any of the armour he made for it.

“So… where the hell did it go?” he furrowed his brow in confusion as he resummoned the skeleton again.

There it was again – all the armour Jay made for it, including its new helmet too.

“Give me your helmet.” Jay commanded, holding out his hand.

Of course, Sweeper dropped it on the floor.

Jay shook his head and de-summoned Sweeper once more, ignoring the helmet on the ground.

Even though Sweeper was summoned, the helmet was still there; Jay re-summoned Sweeper again.

This time, it came back with all its other armour except the helmet.

“So… is the armour being stored somewhere or turning back to bones…?”.

It was Jay’s last test – but he was low on mana; too low to summon Sweeper again.

Of course, Jay didn’t want to wait to find out tonight or tomorrow, and with a sigh, he put all his other plans on hold and sat cross-legged on his bed, beginning to meditate.

It was a skill he had not used for a while, not since he was in the Stink-rat Marsh dungeon, but as he started, it was like muscle memory.

Once again, he felt energised as the ambient mana flowed into his body.

MP: 7/68

MP:12/68

MP: 17/68

Jay took a break, checking his mana gains.

“Wow, five every ten minutes, looks like I’m much faster now too” he smiled. Last time it was only three every ten minutes.

Since Jay was now level 10, had practised with Viladore, and had gained a better feel for ambient mana it was flowing into his body more freely; he could easily pull it in and make it his own.

Jay kept going until he had 30 mana, which would be enough to raise his level three skeleton twice.

He only planned to raise it once more though, as the second time would be for an emergency. It didn’t hurt to be cautious.

“Ok, let’s see…” Jay unsummoned Sweeper, and it clinked onto the floor once more.

Next, he pulled out some of the bones from its corpse – he guessed the approximate amount of what he used to craft the armour and pulled them out.

“Ok, here it goes.” Jay held his hand out as his necrotic, sickly-green, glowing mana made the bones float and clink around once more.

Before his eyes, Sweeper formed once more with its glowing green eyes staring back at him.

Jay immediately looked over its arms and legs – no armour.

“Huh…” Jay pursed his lips for a moment.

Jay suddenly thought of another test – could Sweeper remake the armour using its [Bone Eater] skill?

“Well… sorry to keep you waiting Anya, but this is more important to me” he thought with a shrug. Jay really didn’t need her, she was just a helpful benefit to clearing dungeons in his eyes.

Pulling out some bones from his gauntlet, he waved them at Sweeper.

“Here you go, you hungry boy?” Jay treated Sweeper like a dog.

Unfortunately, it didn’t respond.

“Huh, I guess not.” Jay clicked his fingers and unsummoned it once more.

“Okay, final test – will the armour come back?”

Since he removed the bones, the armour didn’t return – would adding more somehow bring the armour back?

Jay took out some completely different bones from his gauntlet, adding them to the skeleton pile – in fact, he went the extra mile and added enough bones to make a pile up to his hip.

Trenly looked up as he heard all the strange noises coming from upstairs; it sounded like Jay was throwing handfuls of rocks around the room like a psychopath.

After making a concerned look for a moment, he shrugged and got back to work. It wasn’t his business after all.

“Arise” Jay said as he summoned Sweeper once more.

A grin appeared on Jay’s face as it sprung up back to life.

“No fucking way…” he shook his head with a bright smile.

The armour had reappeared.

Jay gave Sweeper its helmet back now too, he was finally smiling with pride at Sweeper.

After all the unsummoning and re-summoning, he ended up with only one reasonable conclusion.

“While the armour is on them, it effectively becomes a part of them…? That must be why it can be resummoned with the armour if there’s enough bone mass – and also why it gives them health?” he nodded.

Slowly Jay began to realise what this means.

“I only need to make armour for them once and they’ll have it forever?” he smiled.

“If they fall in battle, I can just resummon them and they’ll come back with full armour…” he began chuckling…

“Hm, but what if the armour breaks?” he looked up in thought,

“Well, I will just have to test it. Hopefully it comes back when I resummon them, similar to how their bodies come back fully repaired every time…”

“It’s a shame that the bone eater skill doesn’t work to recover the armour though. Well… technically it didn’t have any armour to fix, since I took it off it.”

“I wonder – if the armour is broken, will [bone eater] allow repairs? It won’t allow armour creation obviously… but repairs?” Jay gazed at his skeleton – it was still watching him as it waited for orders.

Jay stared back at it for a minute before sighing.

“I can’t wait to test it…” he mischievously smiled, tempted to attack his skeleton before deciding against it – it would be a waste of time.

Jay held out his gauntlet, unsummoned Sweeper and collected the small mountain of bones before sitting on his bed again.

He meditated on the bed once more, bringing his mana up to his preferred minimum of 14.

Nearly two hours had passed since Anya left, so Jay decided to simply head to the guild.

He decided to pick Anya up and then check on his helminth.

Jay could’ve easily just checked on the helminth before going to meet her, but he figured Anya would rather come than sit around the guild.

***So, we made it to #3. Do you know what that means?

Well, let me be the first to say congratulations – you get a mass release of 5 chapters… during my exam weeks. Lol.

It turns out, the book above mine left the 90-180 days scale, what great timing.

I’m thinking of *trying* to release them next week on Monday (life is busy at the moment); Monday’s suck so let’s make them a little better ????

I’ll make a new challenge for you all once the mass release is done; I don’t want to get burnt out by doing another challenge this instant.***