Ed continued to watch the blood clot do its thing before finally coming up with a plausible hypothesis.
'If it's not a body part then it's a skill!' There was no other explanation!
The only problem was that Ed had never seen a skill called sight or even touch on himself as consciousness or just on either of his bodies.
'Hmmm… It could just be that it's hidden at level 0' This was something that often came up and always gave Ed a headache. Hidden skills.
It wasn't that the skills were all-powerful or anything but more that they were innate or elementary. Enough so that the system didn't consider them an actual skill. There was for example, not a walking skill. But walking was something that was learned, no?
With that logic, a skill like that had to appear in his status window yet there was nothing. If there was, Ed would have advanced his walking to speed walking by now. The dungeon was not small and his hour-long trips weren't for nothing.
'I'm getting sidetracked' The main issue was now figuring out what conditions made for these skills to be hidden and if they could be learned by a bloody blob.
'Let's see…' Ed started to review the skills on both of his bodies and instantly noticed a striking peculiarity.
'There are body skills and mind skills' His skeleton body had swordsmanship and his orc body axemanship. Neither of these carried over on their own and had to instead be relearned. As to why that mattered the reason was simply the nature of the blood clot.
'It's just a consciousness' The body itself came with zero skills whatsoever. This implied that skills like sight and touch came inherent with the body of the creature. Another piece of supporting evidence for this was that wiping the memories of the orcs didn't turn his anti-skeletons blind.
'This is troublesome' But that it hadn't was on its own a mystery. For creatures with eyes the sight skill should have been inherent but what business did a skeleton have with such a skill? If it was some sort of spiritual vision things would make sense but…
'Doesn't that make my earlier separation stupid?' If he were to adopt this idea then it was suggesting that some mental skills were native to the body. That was going against himself.
'It's possible that I separated things wrong then' Ed quickly revised things making a new distinction. There were body skills, mental skills, and consciousness skills.
Ed wasn't sold on the naming convention for the three just yet but it did alleviate his problem. Now the only issue was figuring out how to make the blob learn what would be a mental skill.
'Maybe spiritual body skills might be better…' Ed muttered before heading over to pick up the blob of bloody gelatin. Spiritual implied it was of the mind but the body made it dependent on the creature's physical form. The only issue with this name was that it sounded like something out of a novel.
Ed tossed the naming out of his mind and simply absorbed the consciousness of the blood clot. When in doubt, system it out.
Immediately after placing the clotted blood into a container, Ed jumped right back into the system space.
'System, did I tell you you look dashing today?' Ed asked as soon as he entered. There was no reply. Getting no response, Ed decided to be more direct.
'Anything on passing innate skills onto a blob?' The notion sounded ridiculous but it was nothing for the almighty system!!!
[Facilities are incomplete]
'Incomplete…' Ed was disappointed since it meant that he couldn't access the thing he needed now right now but at least he would be able to count on it in the future. Still, perhaps the optimist he didn't know existed in him didn't want to give up just yet.
'Show me the upgrades' Ed prompted the system while biting his non-existent lip. He had no facial features after all.
[Storage++ - Added 250sqft to storeroom size]
[Large Area store - Store an area of 15sqft directly into storeroom]
[Ethereal Spark - Materialize a small forge flame. The flame's strength depends on the forge's current strength.]
[Increase Hold Size - Added 10sqft Enlarges holding box size]
[Unable to show further upgrades]
Ed quickly read through each upgrade and he didn't know whether to laugh in sadness or cry of happiness.
'This isn't what I need at all…' Nonetheless, those upgrades were quite nice. The increased size for the holding box wasn't a priority but given that he had already faced troubles in regards to it he was more than happy to see it.
As for the Ethereal Spark, it was simply a giant blessing. The timing was a bit ill-fated given he was pressed for time but the upgrade itself would be unimaginably helpful.
'Since it depends on the forge's strength then it must be a real-world version of it' That meant he would be able to melt all sorts of materials as if they were nothing but cheap plastic. Making great equipment with a flame such as that would be a piece of cake even for the likes of Ed.
'Since it's come to this… Show me the prices!' Ed screamed in the hallway of the system space.
[Acquiring 'Ethereal Spark'' costs 6 orc consciousness. Offer? Y/N]
[Acquiring 'Increase Hold Size' costs 1 goblin consciousness. Offer? Y/N]
'Th- This… Do you have no shame?' How could it put the outrageous price of 6 orc consciousness next to that of a single goblin consciousness without a shred of hesitation? It made Ed feel like he was being robbed!
'If you had some civility you'd give me a discount' Without a second thought, Ed escaped from the ultimate scamming system by waking up from the bad dream that was its space.
As the system regained more of its former strength it seemed to become more and more demanding. While the upgrade was amazing Ed wasn't willing to kill 6 orcs for it. Well… at least not now…
***
As for the other Ed, he was having a much better time without the scamming system on him.
'Damn, where is the system when you need it!?!' Well, apparently not. W had been searching the place madly for clues but with the darkness of the night and the thick canopy of the trees, it was hard.
W had to rely solely on the assessment skill to try and find any traces but the only problem with that was…
[Searching through offline database... ]
[Dirt]
{ Dirt. <Disclaimer: Offline information is limited> }
Every single time he scanned something, W was subject to mocking. Every single assessment would have a stupid reminder that he didn't have his system with him.
'I should have thought something like this might happen' The assessment skill relied entirely on the system. If he had a choice to go back in time he would have warned himself that advancing his deduction skill wasn't necessarily the way to go.
'Sigh… I wonder if it's even possible to advance in other directions…' W thought before kicking a bunch of leaves in front of him.
'Hm?' As the leaves fluttered softly and blocked parts of his vision they created a direct view of something.
Usually when encountering the unknown one would feel fear but this wasn't the case for W. No, in fact, the thing he caught a glimpse of was not unknown at all.
[Goblin (Frightened)]
{ A goblin. It seems frightened. <Disclaimer: Offline…> }
To make sure he knew what it was W even performed a simple assessment. Even if the description was useless he was still able to confirm the species.
Yet, W still didn't make any sudden movements. He saw the settling leaves and even turned away from the goblin. The reason was simply that the goblin still thought he hadn't seen it. If he made sudden movements it might start to run away.
'But I need to know why it's here' Goblins were scarce in the orc plains which was odd since based on the things he read in the sacred tribe cathedral they were the original inhabitants of the entire fourth floor.
That was until it merged with the other floors which contained the orcs and boss room. This was what drove them out of a would-be position of power.
For these nearly extinct creatures that had obviously gone into hiding to risk being exposed, something had to be up. It was either searching for food in the middle of the night or searching for something that it left behind.
W walked away and acted as if he saw nothing. He got very far away until he could only see a green blob that was supposed to be the goblin. Rebub's eyes weren't anything spectacular, he could hardly make out anything. But he had to settle for this.
The goblin looked around frantically before feeling relieved, the coast was clear. It walked some many steps around the area W had been searching at and dug into the ground.
It then pulled out something.
[Piece of bone]
Rebub's eyesight sucked but the assessment didn't fail. W now had an inkling as to what exactly happened to his body.
'This goblin took it' W was not happy about this since he had already wasted a lot of time and he now had no choice but to follow this goblin.. That was the only way to find the rest of his own pieces after all.