As Ed's palm reached out for the yellow block he couldn't help but wonder if this was the right choice.
'If this is part of the dungeon…' He probably wouldn't get out unscathed. But…
The sound of shattering glass resounded in the empty cryptic hall. Ed's palm which had struck the invisible barrier had phased through the barrier and formed a hole That was also when Ed felt some faint vibrations.
'A tremor?' He had yet to forget that random event. Was this occurrence a foreshock to a larger seismic event? As soon as this thought entered Ed's head however the rumbling ground quietened down and the yellow barrier immediately slid down like a guillotine.
[You've been dealt damage. -38 hp]
With a swoosh, Ed's arm was cleanly chopped in half without a hint of warning.
'Damn!' To make matters worse it had landed inside of the barrier! That meant that Ed's hand was sliced off for nothing as he couldn't even turn it into an alchemy material.
'System, is there an upgrade for this?' Ed didn't usually ask the system things when outside of it since it seldom answer but he really didn't want to end on the losing side of things.
[The dungeon is watching]
Unfortunately, even if there was, the dungeon's attention had been caught.
'Looks like I definitely shouldn't give this another try' On the other hand, if he ever wanted the dungeon's attention he now knew where to go.
'Well, it's not all loses' When the barrier shattered it hadn't simply disappeared into nothingness. The shards had actually been absorbed by his spirit insertion palm.
'Though It's weird that it shattered in the first place' Ed could only attribute it to the hole he made making the barrier itself unstable and the shards then being sucked in by the swirly cloud of spirit insertion.
Regardless of the reason however Ed now needed to upgrade the cannon fodder behind him.
'This consciousness wall had a danger rating of yellow, I wonder if it can be used' The only issue was finding an organism that would have its consciousness shaped like a flat plane.
Ed then glanced at his arm on the other side of the translucent yellow barrier and couldn't help but wonder if it would make for a good sword, a ghost blade even. Which speaking of, Ed's blade was still laying on the ground.
Though the sword had performed below what was expected Ed had perhaps simply expected too much of it. In the first place, the sword had somehow managed to at least affect the invisible barrier.
With some lingering thoughts of curiosity, Ed rounded up his skele-pals and returned to base camp. He had all along kept trying to access the system but unfortunately, it was to no avail.
'Hm? Did I gather too many?' As soon as Ed exited from the merging corridors the first thing he saw was white heads huddled and corralled by a wall of earth.
Ed believed that trench must have done this under Iron's order. Though Ed did wonder why the anti-skeletons didn't simply let the regular skeletons into the fortress.
'Let's ask' Before that however Ed made sure to add his 132 skeletons to the corral. For this, he obviously manipulated the earth and made more space. After that, he created a path up from the skeleton height wall to that of the fortress.
'Iron, Trench, please come on over' Ed's transmission swept throughout the entirety of the skeletons in the temple and other nearby areas. Just like how he could integrate command with transmission to increase the range, he could also use it to transmit over an entire area of skeletons.
Transmission required a clear line of sight or clear knowledge of where consciousness was in order to operate but the power of command was different. After acquiring their consciousness once, if they were in the area they were fair game.
Under the commanding transmission, Iron and Trench both showed up with haste.
'Why are you all keeping the skeletons outside?' Could it be that his anti-skeletons were classist?
Hearing the question, Iron stood aside and Trench was the one to answer the question.
STUPID UNCONTROLLED BREAK STUFF
The answer was concise and to the point. It also made Ed suspect that his temple had been messed with causing Trench to ruthlessly kick the skeletons to the curb.
'Oh, looks like I can access the system again' Ed hadn't forgotten to keep tabs on this matter. Even as he conversed his goal had only been to kill time. Immediately, Ed dismissed both Iron and Trench and returned to his throne where he reentered the system.
Upon reentry, Ed waited for the elegant and holy temple to rise and then quickly made his way to the spirit room. Once there, his eyes honed in on the shards.
[Spirit Shard]
|A shard of the consciousness of a powerful being.|1
They were no longer yellow in color mainly due to the fact that Ed's sixth sense wasn't activated but Ed didn't pay attention to that any longer and instead focused on wondering what exactly he could do with this information.
'It is definitely from the dungeon' what other powerful beings existed in there? The system? Ed didn't think the system was the type to boast.
'System, what can I do with these things?' Using them for living things was almost entirely out of the question. Based on Ed's knowledge of consciousnesses, these shards contained no memories or sentience. Or if they did the memories ingrained in them wouldn't be at all recent.
The natural spherical shape of a consciousness ensured that new memories are placed on the top. It was multiple layers of knowledge and history. The single film of consciousness would only be at most able to store the sights in its surrounding.
'That's interesting on its own but it's also not like I know how to access this' Assimilating the shards might be a good way to go about it but Ed wasn't sure it would be worth it. What would happen if, in the end, all he received was an image of the floor when it was first birthed? He would have to then wait 9 hours or so for his next assimilation from then ultimately wasting it.
[Detected 7 newly introduced consciousnesses... Do you want to offer them? Y/N]
'I guess that's what I can do with them, show me the price of spirit smith but in these shards' Since he could spend them as currency Ed would make sure to buy the most expensive things possible.
[Acquiring 'Spirit Smith' costs 1 shard. Offer? Y/N]
Ed's eyes shone after seeing the cost of 5 orc consciousness being lowered to one shard. While Ed wasn't sure how valuable the orc consciousness was he knew that four or five would put them at the same mental capacity as Iron.
'I hope the dungeon isn't too angry' Ed had the feeling that if he tried to take more shards the dungeon would have definitely taught him a thing or two. Luckily he knew not to be too cheeky.
'...although maybe it wouldn't mind if I get a couple of shards every week or so, right?' Ed was reluctant to do without these shards even though he had yet to even use them. The main reason was that they served him no purpose outside of upgrading things. The orc consciousness had various uses however and he was unlikely to acquire new ones in the future.
'Sigh, upgrade it!' Ed decided to get the spirit smith. He wanted to see what it was capable of.
[Taking offerings...]
'I have around 300 skeletons waiting to be upgraded' It was impossible for him to do this alone. The spirit smith was the way to go.
Soon after the last glowing message, one of the shards in the spirit room disappeared.
[Upgrade complete, 'spirit smith' on standby]
'Huh, I guess you don't need the shard for the upgrade itself' Ed knew this since any consciousness could be used but it was still interesting to learn that all of the upgrades were made using the system's powers.
Ed then exited the system, though he was eager to try his spirit smith out, he first needed to give it the correct materials.
'I think I'm running out of antimony' Ed had acquired some on his skeleton gathering trip but as he hadn't been searching for it the situation was more akin to picking up a couple of coins when going out for a walk.
Therefore, apart from gathering just the regular skeletons, Ed needed to get some other things. Like the crystals he made.
'Drench and Zephyr aren't the most optimal but as long as they fire spells from a distance they can still do some damage' Trying to apply a core to a regular powerless skeleton was bound to destroy its body. The situation was similar to having a consciousness that was too strong for one's body.
Having a weak soul inside of a strong body was more tolerant than the other way around but in extreme examples would still lead to bad results.
'If I remember the lich's teachings correctly that's also the reason why multiple cores don't tend to work out' If Ed had say... four cores each with 300 mana that would be 1200 mana. His own hp was just under 1000.
'Maybe I'm qualified for a second core at least' That particular example made him realize that while the lich and its body were weak, Ed's own was not.
'I must be the tankiest mage in this world' Ed thought with a chuckle as he walked into the horde of skeletons and started using area store on everything.
[Skeleton (Spliced in half)]
It led to some unsavory situations but Ed didn't have the time to gather them one by one. The usually unintelligent skeletons knew to fear this demon king which was reaping the lives of their brothers. They all started running away from Ed.
'Hey! Stay in place!' Ed immediately sent down a command which froze all of the fleeing skeletons. Though they couldn't really go anywhere anyway.
'It's for your own good' Ed made one final transmission before continuing his massac- his collecting.