But the main issue with undertaking that at that very moment was the fact that the dungeon was still watching. It always stuck around Ed whenever it summoned him to a new floor so Ed would have to wait a bit.
The first step however didn't need to wait. Ed could cut off his own arm right then and there! The skill would do the rest of the work on its own.
'Wait.. how is a skeleton supposed to sleep?' Wasn't he already in eternal rest? Unless…
Ed proceeded to quickly yank off his own arm. The arm which was cast aside landed simply on the ground but the skeletons who were watching from the side were for some reason terrified.
What monster would be born from Ed's arm they wondered! Perhaps overestimating his skills.
When nothing happened however the skeletons couldn't help but feel a mix of disappointment and relief. While they were all a part of the same undead family, they were also competitors. They had to go against the other for Ed's attention if they wanted to grow stronger.
That also meant that Ed's action of naming skeletons was actually rather significant to them. Any of the skeletons with names had become the center of their particular group of skeletons, as those chosen by their lord they were more likely to gain some strength.
While the skeletons knew nothing about the power of connections things were naturally heading in that direction. Wouldn't Ed notice them if they stood next to the skeletons he frequented? He had to!
Ed was oblivious to any of these happenings as somewhere deep inside he had never actually considered the skeletons to be living things. It was cruel but given the fact that they could hardly communicate and that they were literally dead, to Ed, they were akin to sentient puppets.
As for Ed's shoulder, where his arm was once located, there seemed to be no changes even after waiting a little while longer.
'Hm… I wonder why…' After some pondering, he realized that he had actually never taken any damage from dislocating his arm. In fact, he could still feel a subtle connection to the dislodged limb.
He could only assume that skeletons possessed an innate ability to separate their parts without taking any damage. It was a neat ability but Ed couldn't say there was any merit to having it.
He could only be certain that it was not beneficial to have it trigger at the current moment as he needed the body recollection skill to come into play.
'Let's just check my status first' He was quite curious, he hadn't checked it for his skeletal body in a good while.
[Name: Edw#&!]
Type: Skeleton
Health: 900/900
Mana: 260/2601
Strength: 7 (+1)1
Agility: 3 (+3)1
Constitution: 8
Dexterity: 5
~Skills:~
[Adept Throwing lvl. 5] -Show info-
[Swordsmanship lvl. 0] -Show info-
[Hoarding lvl. 7] -Show info-
[Mental Fortitude lvl. 7] -Show info-
[Transmission Lvl. 4 (-3)] -Show info-
[Explosion Resistance lvl. 0] -Show info-
[Assessment lvl. 2] -Show info-
[Assimilation lvl. 7] -Show info-
[Thought Manifestation lvl. 1(-1)] -Show info-
[Language lvl. 1] -Show info-
[Mana Manipulation lvl. 6] -Show info-
[???] -Show info-
[Eloquence lvl. 4] -Show info-
[Sixth Sense lvl. 1] -Show info-
[Crystallize lvl. 8] -Show info-
[Requiem lvl. 1] -Show info-
[Body Recollection lvl. 1] -Show info-
After looking over his entire status window and taking in all of the changes, Ed could only say that things were looking rather well.
'I'm glad to see the attributes I gain from equipment also being included in the window' He wasn't sure if it was new or not but it was always good to have a better way to visualize or quantify one's skills, he had no complaints either way.
The main point for bringing his status however had been to get a good glimpse at his health which was rather high after amassing a total of 8 constitution points. This mattered since Ed needed to somehow break the link between him and his arm, just enough to trigger the body recollection skill into activation. Doing so would take a certain amount of calculated force though.
After thinking of different ways to hurt himself, Ed decided not to get too fancy.
'Brutus, come here' He would just need to have one of his skeletons provide him a helping hand. Not literally though, he was already trying to get rid of an arm why would he need a hand?
Being called up, Brutus, wearing the dark demonic armor, headed over with glee. Brutus's armor was in a sorry state and even the horns it once possessed had been cut short. Yet, this hadn't taken away from the skeleton's violent brilliance. On the contrary, coupled with the way Brutus carried himself, the weathered armor was truly shining for the first time.
'Attack my arm with your mace' Ed wanted Brutus to crush the arm into tiny pieces. That sounded rather reckless but as Ed didn't plan on staying in his skeleton body for more than was necessary he couldn't really care much for the arm.
'With area store, I can still pick up the tiny pieces' He could always just use the weird quirks of his mind forge to melt it all together later. Plus, until he figured out what exactly made his drop item so desirable Ed couldn't say that breaking it into tiny pieces would ruin it.
Brutus, though confused, wouldn't miss a chance to act out with violent disregard. It gripped its mace with what appeared to be excitement and basically skipped on over to the area where Ed threw his arm.
Starting with an overhead swing, Brutus mace came crashing down on the resplendent white arm of Ed.
[You've been dealt a critical hit. -10 hp]
With Ed's strong constitution however even while being susceptible to blunt force the attack had only dented the white arm. Luckily, Brutus could keep on striking.
[You've been dealt a critical hit. -9 hp]
[You've been dealt a critical hit. -11 hp]
Not every strike was the same causing the damage to be varying by small amounts but that also didn't matter as long as Ed's desired end result came into being. Which it did.
'My arm has been entirely shattered into pieces!' Ed thought with glee as he looked down at the milky fragments scattered here and there. The first thing Ed did when faced with this sight was to approach them and store them in his mind.
The shards, scattered as they might have been, were easily cleaned up and gathered just like that. Ed, with his arm now in a different plane of existence, watched his shoulder with dazzling eye sockets. One could feel the expectation in them.
But as nearly a minute passed with no results, Ed was forced to consider whether or not he had been wrong in the end.
'Did I shatter my arm for nothing?' The condition was sleep and he was in a state of eternal rest, no?
Ed could only sigh inwardly as he considered what exactly it was that the body recollection skill considered 'sleep.' Was it possible that it was his consciousness that needed rest?
He had already thought about that before but the problem was how he was supposed to put his consciousness to sleep. When linked with a fleshy body the brain and consciousness could work together but the skeleton body didn't have a brain in the household to take charge.
Ed could only think of one thing that might be able to satisfy the condition of 'sleep.'
'I need to enter the system space' It was the only way for him to have a pleasant nap. The system space, though essentially located in his own mind, helped provide him with rest. Everything in there was like a very vivid lucid dream.
Unfortunately, his previous status check had already confirmed that the dungeon was keeping tabs on the floor and very well possibly hm.
'Sigh… in the end, I have nothing better to do than to take a better look at the zombie again' The human zombie that still wore the golden age armor set was standing in its spot dumbly. Though Ed's sixth sense skill could see that the amount of fading going on had diminished significantly.
'Looks like your time will be over soon' Ed thought curiously as he took the moment to observe both the zombie and the armor it wore. The reason for inspecting the armor was to get a better feel for the craftsmanship that went into it.
'This armor is rather unique' It was functionally and aesthetically unique. The pure gold color made it seem rather extravagant and the effect of boosting all types of magic was similarly extravagant.
'An armor that does everything will also perform mediocrely at all of those things' Think of magic as a material thing, say that the amount of magic imparted into an armor was… 10. Each type of magic would take away one point if they wanted to be boosted from this 10.
Dividing it among the four basic elements alone would leave one with 2.5, 2.5, 2.5, 2.5. Which paled in comparison to say a single 10 for water-focused armor or even a dual armor with a 5 wind, 5 fire.
The number 10 was perhaps too small since ultimately that number would rely on the material used for the armor but it was definitely ideal to shed light on the issue.
Anyway, all of these variables led Ed into believing that the armor had to have been created by an extravagant person or under the custom orders of a foolish individual.
Ed's level two craftsmanship, which he didn't even have with the current body, had taught him that each material had a limit and effect and that meshing all of these things together took effort. In a way, it was similar to alchemy.
'The person who made this armor is still worthy of praise' With so many unstable elements they were able to craft the golden age armor set.
Ed spent the next couple of minutes trying to gain insight from this master's work but as the necessary skill wasn't on that particular body Ed was having a tough time.
'It looks like I can't really relearn skills granted by the dungeon' Or at least it was stupidly hard. Regardless, Ed still needed to continue scanning the armor while also trying to get access into the system space.
Eventually, the zombie died. It just so happened that at that moment the dungeon had shifted its gaze and Ed was once more free to conduct experiments on his own body.