'Sigh…' Ed didn't mind the system taking that itty snack and decided to quickly move on to find an explanation for the new problem.
The first possibility was that the consciousness was too large for the bone but Ed felt that this answer was extremely unlikely. Based on his personal experience, when the consciousness was too large the body would begin to breakdown almost immediately.
The only outlier was Trench who often experienced bouts of pain and confusion. Ed only had to shave off a little bit more off of his consciousness for him to get back into working order, however.
'Apart from that, I can't see many issues…' It was possible that the bone and the goblin consciousness were simply not compatible but Ed had never experienced rejection when transferring one consciousness into another.
After thinking in this direction Ed realized that he couldn't list it off quite yet.
'The memories' Before transferring consciousnesses into different bodies Ed would usually erase their memories. Not once had he failed to do so except with Vorgarag…
'Although for him I placed him right back into an orc body' That likely meant that there was either no rejection or that it was simply lessened to an unnoticeable point. It was a hidden danger, Ed would have to remember to revisit that point.
'Let's start again then' Since he had pinpointed a potential fix it was time to put it into practice. Ed shuffled back to the spirit room this time with many different consciousnesses and began to do his chisel work.
Some of the consciousnesses were emptied of all of their memories and others were only emptied halfway. It was all for the sake of the experiment.
They were each then inserted into bones of similar sizes. As Ed wasn't the system there was no way for him to guarantee they were all the same size, he could only hope that the results wouldn't be affected.
He continued to insert consciousnesses of skeletons and goblins alike until the forge room had a line of white bones simply sitting there sparkling. There were many but not enough for Ed to run out of bone shards, he had made sure to save a couple for a successful attempt.
'Although my arm might be ripe and ready for harvest right about now' Ed wasn't an expert so smithing each of those bones took quite some time. So much time that if it weren't for the fact that he had started with the ones with fewer memories they would have probably exploded before he was ready.
'This sort of confirms my theory on its own' The bones were aligned in a neat order yet none of them disappeared into a dazzling show of lights.
While there was still time for them to do so, the fact that they hadn't exploded at random was already enough to affirm these thoughts. Any outliers could be chalked up to the inaccurate measurements he took like how much memory he had deleted from them as well as the size of the bones. Ed couldn't ascertain either of them.
Ed could just invent the Ed metric system but he was no scholar. He was sure to still mess that up somehow.
'System, do you have any way for me to get smarter?' While Ed didn't remember failing any classes he didn't remember acing them either.
[No]
'...I'm not sure how to take that' Was his phrasing off or was he beyond redemption?
After that short exchange, the pure white forge room was somehow even lighter as the bones all started to blow up in the order he had created them. It was like many sparklers were going off one beat slower than the next.
'Damn…' But there was nothing to celebrate as not a single one of the bones he had cleaned out had remained in the end. In fact, even new faint spirit bones that he made from some other skeleton wisps had blown into lights.
[Offerings received]
The only one having a good time was the system but Ed could only complain inwardly while thinking of a new solution.
'Do, Do I really need to remove a part of myself?' If the issue was rejection then there was only one way to avoid it, to use himself.
The main issue with that was however that the recent attack his consciousness had suffered had made him extremely reluctant to hurt himself. That reminded Ed to check up on his health.
'Status!' Ed yelled inwardly causing the display to appear without any hint of lag. That was the benefit of not running on a wireless connection.
[Name: Edw#&!]
Type: Level 7 Consciousness.
Health: 601/800
Bodies: Skeleton, Orc
~Skills~
[Transmission lvl. 5 (-2)] -Show info-
[Mental Fortitude lvl. 7] -Show info-
[Assessment lvl. 2] -Show info-
[Assimilation lvl. 7] -Show info-
[Thought Manifestation lvl. 1(-1)] -Show info-
[Language lvl. 1] -Show info-
[???] -Show info-
[Eloquence lvl. 4] -Show info-
[Sixth Sense lvl. 1(-1)] -Show info-
[Body Recollection lvl. 2] -Show Info-
A quick glance told Ed that not much had changed. He had recovered 100 points of health which was all things considered rather fast. He could only assume that the rate of healing increased exponentially or that his mind had grown since he last suffered from such a blow.
'I suppose I can afford to lose a small part of me' Plus, he had always been curious about what exactly that felt like. The dungeon for example split itself into tiny portions and Ed couldn't say it was suffering from harmful side effects. In fact, it seemed to somehow be thriving.
Ed understood that he wasn't a dungeon or the dungeon but who was to say he couldn't do the same? Wasn't there a lot of imitation out in nature? If animals knew to do so and succeeded then why couldn't he?
'If I can somehow get these wisps back I might be able to learn about the outside world' That meant that an adventurer who picked up his drop would later return which didn't seem all that likely.
Of course, that in itself was assuming that Ed's knowledge on consciousnesses was complete. He couldn't guarantee that a wisp of himself on a piece of bone would be able to hear or see its surroundings. At most Ed assumed it would be able to vaguely sense its surroundings.
'Enough speculation' It was better to simply put it to the test.
Ed was about to grab a chisel but then realized that it wasn't a really good idea. There was a chance he would destroy his own memories.
'System, how do I split off a portion of my self without hurting myself?' Ed decided to ask the only expert in the house.
[Enter the forge]
'Are you serious?' Ed asked with a hint of unwillingness as he remembered the shriek like writhing that the consciousnesses performed whenever dumped into the forge.
[Jump into the forge]
'You didn't have to rephrase it, I get it…' Ed thought as he prepared himself mentally. Inadvertently that was also physical preparation considering that he was made up of thoughts at the current moment.
After another second, Ed floated straight towards the ethereal white flame which flickered with cold heat.
'AaAaaAaAaaaAh!' He was instantly thrown into a state of confusion and pain. The flames seemed to be a weird mix of hot and cold that melted his body but solidified it simultaneously. Perhaps that was the secret behind how it turned the wisps of light that were consciousness into floating liquid blobs.
Eventually, the pain lessened. It was actually a result of Ed losing consciousness, well, losing lucidity. He had essentially fallen into a deeper sleep.
While in the process of becoming a liquid blob himself, Ed received a new message from the system.
[Starting Process]
The process had formally started, and though Ed was unable to witness it, he was still able to feel it. The reason was simple.
[You've been dealt damage. -5hp]
Ed's hp took a hit immediately jolting him out of the stupor he was in. Surprisingly however that was only an instinctual reaction as Ed soon after became calm again and continued his snooze. With the system as the head surgeon, there was no way for things to go awry.
When Ed awoke he was already outside of the forge sitting on the smooth white ground. Though somewhat confused Ed didn't miss the sight of another piece of himself that sat on the ground beside him.
'It's so small' Ed quickly looked at a notification for a missed message and found how much damage he had suffered from the matter.
'This is 5hp worth of me huh' The size of the separated consciousness was very small. It was comparable to that of the skeletons.
[Ed's fragmented wisp]
A piece of the entity Ed containing small memories as well as a hint of sentience.
'Interesting' Ed was captivated by the short description. The main reason being sentience.
'Is it possible for me to split myself and have one Ed as an orc and another as a skeleton?' That would be a sure way to make sure work was done on both sides but there was also a high chance that Ed would miss certain things due to missing certain memories. His skills might also become split leaving him in a bad situation.
'Could the skills even level up while separated?' If they could it was, in theory, possible for Ed to have a skill surpass lvl. 9 by leveling them up with different bodies then merging them back together.
'I guess there might be a use to declining an advancement now' Ed wasn't sure if the strategy could work but if it did Ed would become beyond broken.
Still, he had to focus on the task at hand. Ed decided to take his wisp out for a walk.
'There is still a chance it blows up inside of the bone' Ed couldn't risk losing 5hp with every failure. While that sounded small and it did account for less than 1% of his max hp, Ed's skills might still be affected.. It was best for him to get the best use out of the current wisp before sacrificing it.