Ed, having gathered up to ten of the herbs, began marching his way towards Duma's settlement. Before that however…
[Name: Edw#&!]
Type: Orc
Health: 800/800
Vitality: 4
Strength: 3
Agility: 2
Constitution: 3
Dexterity: 1
Mana: 263
~Skills~
[Transmission lvl. 2] -Show info-
[Mental Fortitude lvl. 4] -Show info-
[Deduction lvl. 8] -Show info-
[Assimilation lvl. 5] -Show info-
[Thought Manifestation lvl. 0] -Show info-
[Language lvl. 1] -Show info-
[System Link lvl. 0] -Show info-
[Instinct lvl. 3] -Show info-
[Adept Throwing lvl. 0] -Show info-
[Mana Manipulation lvl. 6] -Show info-
[Axemanship lvl. 2] -Show info-
[Eloquence lvl. 1] -Show info-
Ed opened up his status window and kept an eye out for any significant changes.
'Great, the skill is available' Ed thought, noticing the absence of question marks.
He glanced around the desolate forest looking for a safe place to stay. Unfortunately, there were only trees, grass, and bushes. The suffocating silence however reassured Ed that there was nothing nearby so he decided to go for it anyway.
'I can't delay it too much, who knows if the dungeon will come back' Ed said to himself as he walked towards one of the tall trees. He sat next to its trunk after taking one last glance around. Seeing and hearing nothing he took the plunge.
[System link activated, connecting to host user]
Ed's eyes closed and his body became relaxed as he drifted off into what seemed to be sleep. His consciousness then found itself inside of the boundless white space for the third time.
The usual grand procedure of the rising temple occurred and Ed waited patiently for its completion. Once the rumbling earth calmed down, Ed knew that the glaringly white temple was ready for use.
He floated up the steps and then transformed his body to take human form. Now a small child, Ed ran through the long hallway until he caught a glimpse of the entrances to the storage room and the forge room.
He decisively entered the storage room, or at least he planned to but…
'Damn this thing can be really inconvenient' A cluster of green crystals was blocking the entrance. Ed sighed internally and pushed the objects aside.
'Now that I think about it I must be pretty strong in here' Ed was able to push everything aside without breaking a sweat.
Well… that part was to be expected since he didn't have a body. Nonetheless, Ed felt no resistance from the objects in the room which obviously wouldn't happen outside of the mind space.
'I think it might be possible to do lots of things in here with enough imagination' Maybe he could fight back against the dungeon? First he would need to find out how to attack inside of there though. Ed then shook his head and put the matter aside.
'Nevermind that, I should find Murbol's consciousness' Who knew what the dungeon might do if it found out he was plotting against it? Ed didn't want to take the risk. He also didn't have a clue where to start so it was best for him to focus on the immediate danger that the adventurers possessed.
With that thought in mind, Ed glanced around the messy room with narrowed eyes. The clutter of crystals was awakening his hoarding skill's instinct,'This place is a mess' He really wanted to clean it.
Ed however managed to ignore the tempting action of cleaning and proceeded to rack his brain on what the best way to find the consciousness was and decided on a minimally time-consuming option.
He chose to abandon his human body to float above everything in the room but just as his light body started to change shape, Ed realized something. Didn't he already mention he could do more with enough creativity? In that case...
'Can't I just float already?' All was doing in the end was changing his shape so why was it that he couldn't float? Is the form of a sphere more aerodynamic? That made no sense, this wasn't reality. Then there could only be one conclusion.
'Since it adheres to my thoughts and I thought about being human and walking on the ground that was what I ended up doing' It may seem incredibly obvious but the transition to the ground had gone so smoothly last time that he never noticed anything wrong.
Now possessing a plan of action, Ed focused intently on his own body. He pictured the weightlessness he felt whenever he entered a mind space in his wisp-like spherical form.
Ed started to slowly float above the ground, maybe he was lacking some sort of mental power that came with leveling his consciousness but the speed of his ascent wasn't anything to write home about.
Regardless it was more than enough, his elevated position allowed him to easily catch sight of two shimmers. One much bigger than the other, Ed decided to be safe and deduct them both anyways but after he checked one…
[Wisp of consciousness]
The remnants of a being's thoughts.
[Deduction has leveled up]
[Deduction has met the conditions to advance, Advance Deduction Skill? Y/N]
Ed would be lying if he said he hadn't been awaiting the advancement of his deduction skill, that being the case he didn't hesitate to say yes. What would happen if he said no anyways? Why was that even an option?
[Noted]
[<Deduction lvl. 9> has advanced to <Assesment lvl. 0>]
Ed was curious as to what the first message entailed but he was far more interested in the assessment skill. It made him think of some sort of higher being, maybe even a computer, and their diagnosis. So he prompted the system to show him its description.
[Assessment lvl. 0]
The system assesses items and things based on the surroundings, chance to reveal information from the system's own database. The chance increases with subsequent level-ups.
Exciting. How much more could he learn from this skill? Who knew what information he had missed by not having it? The chance was particularly enticing. Should he relive his skeleton days and scan literally everything from now on?
Ed calmed down and shook away the notion. In the first place scanning things that had been scanned before didn't provide much in terms of experience. It was best for him not to waste his time doing such a thing then.
He then got back on track and proceeded to scan what was obviously Murbol's consciousness. He also scanned the other wisp for comparison.
[Murbol's wisp of consciousness]
Murbol's thoughts and life.
[Wisp of consciousness]
The fusion of a being's thoughts.
The larger light in the room was indeed Murbol's consciousness. But apparently it was also her life…
'Did the chance trigger? Or are the skeleton's not alive? Why are they different?' Ed asked himself a variety of questions, they were things that he could only speculate about. He deeply lamented not having access to the so-called system database, if only he could just google things through it…
If the system really wanted to help him why was it going about it in such a roundabout way? Ed let out a sigh in rendition, Rome wasn't built in a day after all…
Wait… What's Rome?
Ed smacked his feature-less face, as he had to once more refocus his thoughts. He was forgetting the purpose of his visit here. The advancement of his skill was only a nice surprise, it wouldn't change what he needed to do right now.
Ed stop floating and fell back on the sleek white floor. He walked towards the skeleton's consciousness and easily grabbed hold of it.
Murbol's consciousness however was particularly difficult to grasp, it was quite lively.. And based on his assessment skill there was apparently a reason for it.
