In less than an hour, the whole skeleton was converted. The head was particularly intimidating as the system took some creative liberties and made the teeth razor sharp. The skeleton was now like some sort of bone devil. If it had glowing red eyes it would be the icing on the cake.
Ed didn't leave right away however as all the bones weren't solid quite yet. It would be quite regrettable if he were to take them out early and find the skeleton's body start to melt and drip onto the ground. Only inside of the system space could it retain its shape.
After waiting another couple of minutes, Ed grabbed each piece and prepared to depart. He was really looking forward to it.
As soon as his senses returned, the first thing he heard was the clattering of bones. The only difference was that there was a hint of metal hitting metal. Naturally, the culprits were the new and improved bones which inevitably fell to the ground around him.
Ed quickly propped himself off the wall and floor and organized the bones into a skeleton. He called over Kenny Jr. and used him for comparison. Assembling a skeleton was akin to solving a jigsaw puzzle and Ed didn't have the time to solve one as complicated as the human body.
'I think I remember solving a jigsaw puzzle with a friend once. How many pieces was it?' Ed's reminiscence was cut short as his memories didn't allow him to remember who the friend was or even what the puzzle was about.
This soured his mood as he was previously anxiously awaiting the results of his experiment.
'I guess it's great I even know what a jigsaw is' He decided to look at things positively before tossing the matter aside.
'Let's insert the largest custom wisp then' Ed thought as he admired his handy work.
The largest wisp was number 16 which had killed the first trial skeleton.
'Well, technically it's still alive since I have its consciousness' Ed corrected himself as he ducked down to insert the spirit.
He activated his sixth sense for the hell of it and placed his hand on the ominous gray skull. The spirit insertion started up and the cloud vortex appeared. It inserted Sixteen into the skull and then disappeared.
This meant that the process was done. Ed only had to wait for a response now.
'This reaction is definitely more delayed' Ed thought as a couple of seconds passed without a response. For the others, the reaction was almost instantaneous. At the very least there would be some twitching.
Then, the skull shivered. The other limbs and pieces followed after as they started to vibrate. The vibration moved them closer together before starting to assemble. The feet were joined, then the legs, the torso, and finally, the head.
It all went right into place without any hint of a mistake. The skeleton was now upright and confused. It glanced around as if entirely lost. This could only mean one thing, success!
'Sixteen is observing its surroundings with confusion since it has no memories' Ed noted. The dumber ones were different as they were only confused when being ordered. They didn't have that intrinsic curiosity.
Ed decided to transmit his thoughts rather than a command due to this.
'I am Ed. I am your champion, please follow my instructions' Ed transmitted these thoughts to Sixteen who shifted his gaze towards him, the pristine and majestic white skeleton.
It looked as if it were sizing him up before it knelt.
'I don't see why it would know to do that' Ed thought with curiosity as he considered if it was a unique trait of the undead.
'Now that I think about it, there are different inherent skills for skeletons and orcs' Ed didn't experience these things as a skeleton perhaps due to his position at the top of the food chain but the orc body was different.
Ignoring the inherent strength it possessed, it came with a unique skill, instinct. Ed had returned to the crypts on two different occasions.
Both occasions were rather intense with the first one being in relatively close quarters. And even though skills could be easily relearned from body to body, he never learned it as a skeleton.
'Maybe the reason why I am not as affected as a skeleton is that it has to do with emotions. I am naturally in control of my emotions as I am only possessing the body.' It felt like this was a logical conclusion.
The skeleton's were emotionally unstable when sensing the living. They also had an inherent fear of stronger undead and perhaps those with a certain degree of intellect turned that fear into loyalty instead.
'Unless… is mental fortitude a unique skeleton skill?' Ed pondered on this but felt it was unlikely. If it were a unique skill it shouldn't carry over to everything, right?
'Plus, mental fortitude makes me more impervious to emotions… Well, maybe it's because skeletons are naturally emotionless and coldblooded in the actual sense of it.' Ed thought, concluding the matter. Whether it was or not, wasn't something that mattered at the moment.
Sixteen stood up soon after kneeling probably awaiting some sort of orders.
'If it is indeed that higher intellect undead turn fear into loyalty it would explain why the lower numbers behave as if possessing life but don't necessarily show any reverence' They still followed instructions due to the respect the position of dungeon champion instilled but if it wasn't for that they might fear him like they feared the lich.
Ed subconsciously gazed in the direction of the boss room before refocusing his thoughts.
'It should be time to mass-produce them' He didn't have the leisure to wait. Luckily the dungeon seemed to have become rather preoccupied following the quake. He didn't know how long that would last so conjectures could be made at a later date.
But before that, he would need to give Sixteen a proper name. He was quite moved by it having knelt.
'Your name shall be... Pioneer' Ed thought about it carefully only to realize that he sucked at naming things. It didn't help that his memories of most names were missing. Hell, his own name was missing!
He thus named it Pioneer. It was a word before anything and it meant first to settle. It was apt.
Pioneer, while not a really good name, was enough to please Sixteen. Well, Pioneer now. He once more displayed his loyalty by kneeling solemnly.
'Wait, it's not like it has any option other than solemn…' Actually, he would go as far as saying that it might even be at the level of angry. Its spiky teeth did not inspire confidence. Luckily he didn't need to be afraid of betrayal otherwise he would never leave his safety to Pioneer.
'I guess that's a bit judgemental' Ed lessened his mental stress with some more distracting thoughts before calling forth the army.
The skeletons all lined up neatly in front of him forming rows. Ed would modify all of them and give them new bodies. The only time he could do this was now since if the dungeon caught sight of him doing this it was likely to punish him.
Ed started to collect their consciousnesses and their bones by rows. It made for a total of 63 skeletons. He had counted in the process since it was one of the few ways to keep himself focused when performing such a monotonous task.
Now all he needed to do was process them with the system. Of course, this is on the premise he has enough antimony.
'I should, right?' There were multiple crates and they weren't that small so the number was likely to surpass 63.
Ed quickly entered the system space where he had to do a lot of manual labor. The moment he got a complete skeleton and a sufficient amount of ores he would put them in the holding box. The slowest part of the process was the sorting.
'I'll have to be more careful with how I use the storeroom' Using it as a storeroom instead of a dump was bound to help with this issue in the future.
Ed also originally planned to upgrade the forge again but since the sorting took quite a bit, there was no need. By the time he brought in a new full skeleton, the parts would already be near completion. He would only move then to cool down on a separate work table to make space for others.
Overall, it was all rather tiring.
[Assimilation is off cooldown]
He even had to leave to assimilate something.
In the end, he chose the grass rope as his dexterity was falling behind in comparison to his other stats. He earned two dexterity just like last time.
The main goal of doing this was to anticipate any sort of swordplay. Now that he had the adventurer's gear there was nothing stopping him from learning swordsmanship and becoming some sort of skeleton knight.
'Magic is still better though' The swordsmanship would only be a sort of added insurance. Plus, depending on the sword's material it could also be used as a wand anyway. There were no downsides.
Everything was moving smoothly.