A door then opened in the office. It was Khal who had been away for a good day or two. He saw the pacing Aden Flamewood suddenly come to a stop after noticing his presence.
"Ah!? Erm, Hello Mr. Flamewood! Hahaha didn't expect to still-" Khal was caught off guard by Aden's presence. He was actually somewhat intoxicated and had completely ignored his subordinates' words. Seeing the count sobered him up instantly. Regardless, he was cut off by the count before he could continue speaking.
"Khal! Where- No, any news?!" Aden was originally going to inquire about Khal's whereabouts but quickly realized he didn't care. He instead pressed for any new developments.
Khal was instantly put in an awkward spot but as to not lose any face, he decided to tell him something he might or might not know.
"Yes! The royal family will be sending their knights to clear the dungeon soon… enough." Khal's words weren't confidential. The news had even spread to foreign nations in the form of rumors causing great upset.
Still, Khal hadn't seen any of the rumors reach Arbor town. At least not through anything but official means like the Union.
"Th-That's true? How soon, do you know?" Aden's tones seemed to have calmed down slightly as he asked for a time. He was already informed by his servant, Carlton, of the expedition.
He had even been slightly worried that the royal family would take his alchemy materials. He was a noble and couldn't be pushed aside so easily but the royal family would likely take a large cut of profits if the situation came to pass.
He found his worry to be unfounded once he realized they wouldn't be taking action too soon. He could still benefit greatly from the matter as long as he took the initiative. Unfortunately taking the initiative seemed to have backfired.
"The time… erm…. 20 days…?" Khal himself didn't know what he was jabbering about anymore. Still, 20 days was a somewhat accurate measurement. The royal family had said within the month.
"20 days!?!" Aden suddenly felt that the Royal family couldn't come any sooner! It wasn't soon enough at all!
He began to pace anxiously once more. Khal didn't stop him and only crept past him to go to his desk. Aden seemed deep in thought the whole time.
Suddenly his eyes shined with realization.
"That's it!" He even exclaimed loudly without noticing. Aden then basically ran out of the office forgetting about etiquette or upholding his reputation. He had bolted out of the office as if he had come up with the world's greatest idea.
Khal was left utterly confused and stunned. At the same time... he was glad that headache Flamewood had left his office. He eyed a bottle of booze from Samuel's collection, he planned to celebrate the occasion.
What he didn't know though, was that Aden's plan would cause him infinitely more pain.
***
Ed had laid down his weapon and leaned against a wall in preparation for what likely came next.
'System space…' Ed thought about the space and activated the system link skill.
His upright posture turned slouchy as he slid down the dungeon wall he leaned on. His consciousness was sent to dreamland as he felt himself enter the system space. When he regained his thinking, he was inside the great blankness.
'Perfect' He only activated the skill to verify its return so he couldn't help but feel cheery. Maybe it was some leftover happiness from leveling up swordsmanship. Nevertheless, he needed to return for his materials. Namely the anti-skeletons.
Ed triggered the white temple cutscene and quickly left his own mind. He knew the holy white building would be awaiting his return so he started it in advance.
Once outside, Ed found himself essentially sitting against the wall. He got up and rapidly made his way over to the many crystals. He planned on taking a lot of them back with him.
Once he gathered the four elements, he called over the anti-skeletons and gathered them too. Some were caught off guard by Ed's sudden killing and froze on the spot while others seemed to have accepted their fate. The smarter ones knew that nothing would happen though as Kenny Jr. had returned from a similar situation.
After collecting the anti-skeletons, Ed returned to the system space and made his way to the storeroom.
There were piles of anti-skeleton limbs. He grabbed a handful from all the piles and even caught sight of his own bones in there. He had found his missing limbs scattered around the corridor from the explosion before.
He collected the many materials and threw them into the holding box inside of the forge room.
A prompt appeared.
[Compatible materials detected, start the combination process? Y/N]
Ed agreed and the process started itself. The anti-skeletons had their bones float and assemble in the furnace by the quarter. The crystals that Ed placed in the box also floated into the white flame and started to attach themselves to the sets.
'Good' Ed thought inwardly as he watched the process happen rather rapidly.
He still left the system space while that happened though. There was another matter worth testing so he needed more materials.
He went over to the armor pile and grabbed the newly acquired loot as well as some of the older ones. He was going to turn some of them into materials.
Ed wanted to know how many materials could be combined into a set of bones. Was it possible to infinitely combine them as long as the materials were compatible? And if that was true, what would be the end result?
If he wanted to ensure he wouldn't fall into a disadvantageous situation due to numbers, he needed to strengthen his group. He had no way to know how many people as strong as Samuel and Bayard existed in the world outside. If there were many, or all of them ever assembled to go after him, he would be completely hopeless.
Ed sent the armor to the storeroom and quickly returned to the system space to retrieve them.
'Do I need to turn them into scrap metal first though?' Ed wondered as he entered the storeroom from the forge. The reason he asked himself this was due to the forge retaining an object's shape.
'The system might be responsible for that…' He threw the matter to the back of his mind. The system would know what he wanted. Otherwise, the skeleton bones would have fused with the antimony instead of the other way around, no?
As Ed entered the room a new thought appeared.
'Would that still count as a body available for habitation?' He had actually always been rather curious as to why the skeleton bones could receive a consciousness even though they weren't alive. Or what mattered was that they once lived? A human figure?
But that seemed rather unlikely. The boars were living and had a consciousness. Were the two things mutually exclusive?
Fusing the skeleton bones with a set of armor for example might make for a good test. Although doing so would still leave the question of whether it was the human figure or the skeletons being previously alive.
'Well, I guess I can already just try that' He could use spirit insertion on the floor as well for good measure.
It would make for a fun trap house to have the walls, floor, and ceiling come alive. But such a thing would rely on him finding out what gave each thing the right to housing a consciousness.
'And I thought I could return to the orc plains already…' Things to do were piling up just as he planned to return as soon as possible. Luckily such tests were a piece of cake to perform.
Ed grabbed the multiple sets of armors with his many arms of lights and exited the room. When he returned to the forge the anti-skeletons already had already been turned into liches and were ready to be assembled.
The system kept on pumping out more as the process was automatic meaning that there were already eight waiting for him.
Ed pushed them aside and used one of the open furnaces to toss in a WindStone Chestplate. It floated above the white flames to slowly liquefy.
Ed then went into the holding box and tossed in a skeleton torso to undergo the same process. He then waited eagerly for the result while the anti-skeletons continued to receive cores on the side,
Ed waited for a good while before he was finally met with a prompt.
[Compatible materials detected, combine? Y/N]
'If you can read my mind I am not sure why go through all this hassle, yes!' Ed needed to agree anyway though.
The armor and torso which had clearly been liquefied started the combination process. Unlike with the chunks of antimony, the skeleton torso seemed to first phase into the armor. It made Ed worry slightly that the skeleton was simply having the armor stuck to it.
'Is that how death knights are made?' It wouldn't be too far fetched for that to be the case. But, it would be a disappointing end.
As the seconds slowly passed, Ed couldn't help but feel really curious!