After collecting the 300+ skeletons into his storeroom, Ed's eyes could no longer recognize or spot the smart stacks of items. The bones were simply too many!
'The real pain will be moving all of these things' Ed had to move all of them to the holding box to get the spirit smith to work but that seemed currently impossible.
'...' Ed paused and waited for the system's miraculous solution but nothing of the sort happened.
With a sigh, Ed grabbed as many bones as his conscious body allowed him and carried them manually into the forge room. Once in there, he caught sight of a flame-like blue wisp. This wisp seemed to also notice its arrival as it turned to face him without saying any words.
'Is this thing sentient?' Ed wondered as he walked closer to the holding box inspecting it all the while.
[Spirit helpers only have memories related to their field]
Ed supposed that was a no. He however didn't mind it much and simply tossed all of the bones into the holding box.
'Can you get me a professional mover?' Ed asked not wanting to deal with the daunting pile of bones. But there was no response.
He instead turned to face the spirit smith which was now shining brightly as if anticipating something.
'How do I even use this thing?' Was he supposed to transmit what he wanted to it or was there a more intuitive way to go about it?
[Compatible materials detected, listing known possible combinations]
[Crystal Skeleton] - Fire, Water, Earth, Wind
Ed's thoughts were answered as a new window appeared. This one listed all of the possible combinations directly making Ed nod at the convenience. The thing that could possibly make it better past this point was to show how much material was spent or the strength of the crafted being in attributes.
'Well, the system knows how to suck me dry so it shouldn't be a problem to get those things in the future' Ed thought before shifting gears and transmitting his thoughts to the spirit.
'Make four of each type' Ed told it, the spirit smith which was previously just floating next to the holding box jumped right into action. It created arms similar to how Ed himself did and grabbed the required materials out of the holding box.
The process itself wasn't much different from how the system did it making Ed somewhat disappointed but he knew that the real boon was the autonomy. The system would have still needed to seek his approval for many things.
After doing that, Ed quickly left to gather more bones. And after only a couple of more trips, the holding box was full.
'That's troublesome' But Ed had already checked and verified that there weren't any upgrades for the holding box in the directory. Ed was left with no choice but to leave the bones next to the forge wasting space.
'I should try creating new skeletons type anyway' He had plenty of spare material and Ed actually already had a couple of ideas. Thinking of golems reminded him of giants and it all worked out in the end since his forge had received an upgrade to become larger.
'Let's see... Usually, the system only acknowledges and asks to combine the materials after they are already put to melt' This meant that Ed would need to place some types of bones into the furnace. The spirit smith had however already occupied all of the slots.
'Use only one forge space' Believe or not, skeletons were skinny. A giant one could easily fit there while still living room for the spirit smith to continue its crystal skeleton duty.
Ed waited for a while until finally receiving the message he hoped for.
[Compatible materials detected, combine? Y/N]
'Yes!' The gooey white that used to be all sorts of bones and limbs melted and began to merge onto one another. Quickly, a skeleton at least three times as tall as Ed was formed.
The system then pushed the giant skeleton out of the forge and Ed was able to bask in its plain glory, the giant was still made out of old bone after all.
Examining the giant skeleton for a bit, Ed couldn't help but praise its imposing size.
'The humans will definitely get quite a scare' He didn't have any golems but giant skeletons were definitely the best next thing. As for what consciousnesses to insert, Ed already had that covered.
He went into the storeroom and retrieved approximately fifteen skeleton consciousnesses. He returned to the forge room and threw them all into the forge to melt and merge. As to why he didn't remove their memories first…
Ed was simply curious as to what would happen. The white skeletons weren't nearly intelligent enough to have complicated thoughts so Ed imagined the result would not be anything negative.
'If there are no problems. I can leave everything to the spirit smith' All of the skeletons he had made thus far required him to chisel away at the memories of their consciousness. If he could skip the chiseling then it would be possible to have the spirit smith do everything. Which speaking of, Ed had yet to assess it.
[Spirit Smith]
| A mass of knowledge on smithing. It has plenty of room for growth |
The definition was nothing stellar but knowing it had room for growth both delighted and pained Ed's wallet.
'I suppose this means I might be able to have it chisel consciousness in the future' A smith's job wasn't just to forge.
Putting that aside, Ed waited over ten minutes to finally have the giant skeleton in a solid-state. At that point, Ed took the large parts into the storeroom one by one. Before exiting and materializing each part behind the temple. He was hoping that doing this would help him save some time.
[One Skeleton Consciousness. Y/N]
For the ones that were too large, however, Ed would have to directly drag them out of the system first then move them with the earth element. His skeleton body couldn't compare to his orc one in strength leading to this inevitable result.
After a lot of back and forth, the giant skeleton was assembled and laying on the ground. All of the small inconveniences became nothing to worry about after Ed began to admire his craft.
'I'm excited' It was hard to believe but he was actually looking forward to seeing the giant skeletons in battle. There was something noble about commanding a large army that also contained large soldiers.
The towering figures stepping forward into the chaos of the battlefield taking shots like nothing. The creature's grim skull turning emotionlessly to stare into the hearts of their next targets.
As a grand scene of war and conquest played out inside of his head, Ed walked on over to the skeleton head and inserted the consciousness he had already prepared.
Immediately, nothing happened. But Ed knew that these things took time, so he waited.
He waited.
And waited...
But nothing continued to happen. This made Ed feel skeptical of the validity of his automated giant skeleton idea. Perhaps removing the memories was still for the best.
'Well, let's check first' Ed's vision changed as he activated his sixth sense and peered into the giant hollow skull.
The dark space was lit with the blue consciousness created from the amalgamation of 15 skeletons. All things considered, it didn't look all that big.
'Maybe that's the issue…' Ed continued to peer in more closely until his entire head was inside of the skull of his would-be subordinate. Seeing this, the anti-skeletons couldn't help but have mixed feelings of either concern or curiosity.
'Ah, what's this?' After seeing the tree's consciousness Ed learned that there were somethings that simply required a closer look. This turned out to be one of them.
Ed was able to see faint transparent films of blue that stretched out of the consciousness. This film seemed to be heading towards things like the joints, neck, etc.
'Is that how a skeleton works?' Ed always found it rather magical how they managed to assemble themselves. He assumed there was some spirituality at play but he hadn't imagined it was something like this.
'Why do I feel like it ruins the magic?' Nevertheless, Ed only cared about the fact that he discovered the root of the issue. The skeleton's consciousness couldn't form a connection to its limbs.
It reminded Ed of his own connection with his limbs.
'My arm seemed to remain connected for quite the fair distance, I suppose it might have to do with the strength of the consciousness' Ed could deduce this much due to the fact that if a weak consciousness stretched itself too thin it would dissolve itself.
'Hm? Is that how having a body stronger than your soul works against you?' It was a chance discovery or at least a chance hypothesis. It certainly seemed plausible.
While not sure if such knowledge would serve him a purpose, Ed reabsorbed the consciousness and returned to the forge room with it. He also brought along 15 more skeleton consciousnesses making for a total of thirty skeleton consciousnesses for one single skeleton.
Ed waited for the things to melt and combine once more before quickly returning to the spirit room with the larger consciousness. He dropped it off there and exited the system.
As he prepared to insert the consciousness into the skeleton again he began to wonder about the cost to price ratio.
'This thing is rather expensive' It made Ed apprehensive he didn't have high hopes for its combat ability at the current moment.
'If I can at least change the material things might work better but just like this…' Ed didn't think it would work out at all. It was to the point where if humans came at that exact time he would likely refrain from sending it into combat.
[A large group of trespassers has entered your floor]
Suddenly, a glowing message appeared. It was a familiar message that Ed did not want to see. More importantly, the timing was ill-fated.
'You weren't supposed to that' Ed thought while pointing at the glowing message in his mind. How could he bear to send the giant skeleton in its current state? He needed to upgrade it!
But for that, he needed the forge, and with the humans being on that exact same floor chances of the dungeon allowing him access to the system were slim.
'I better start thinking' The word large made Ed feel threatened, he would need a good strategy as well as able scouts.
'Luckily I can still materialize some of the crystal skeletons' The only problem would be giving them an empty consciousness, Ed didn't have any.
'Will I have to use the orcs without wiping them first?' It was impossible otherwise but Ed was reluctant to touch one of his remaining bottom lines.