Explaining things can be hard, in fact there are many people who have become famous because they can explain things in an easy manner.

Sometimes the secret to explaining things is to just do it, and keep doing it even if your subject doesn’t really comprehend it. I tell, write, to Merlin about another universe, my universe, he nods his head, something I have shown to him through the memory sharing.

He nods his head and both tells and writes to me that he understands, but really, this guy has never even seen the sky. He has knowledge of it but doesn’t quite grasp it like I do, I think. So I just keep explaining stuff to him. All the while testing and doing other things.

For example Stinger’s new body, I could not have made something like that before, but one of my many skills from the quest completion was {Bone Recreation and Shaping} which does what it says, my creation of bone is now much faster and superior and I can also shape them better. Another skill also helped {Corpse Crafting}, which helps me in crafting corpse and corpse related things. I have found it is quite useful for separating body parts.

Stinger now has an actual body which gives her more weight and mass. Right now she is testing it, seeing how it affects her movement. The entire body is a mixture of bone plates and extra flexible bones only possible because they are undead magical bones. It isn’t quite like flesh or muscle but it does the job well enough, and also lets the undead have more mana, since mana is stored in the bones.

Stinger is the last skeleton that fights without weapons, she got lots of interesting abilities from it though.

{Last Stand}

Boosts all aspects and prevents the user from fleeing from battle.

{Battle Frenzy}

The user gets stronger the longer they stay in battle.

{Power Strike}

A stronger than normal strike.

{Vibrating Strikes}

Attacks create a vibration on the target getting stronger with each hit

{Aftershock}

Attacks create a weaker after shock.

{Combo}

Quick Successive hits that get stronger the longer the combo.

{Twofold fist}

While punching, create a second copy of your fist to deliver a strike.

{Hard Knuckles} to {Undead Fist}

All attacks absorb the opponent's life energy, transforming it into necrotic energy.

.{Palm Shield}

Intercepting attacks with an open palm or sole greatly reduces their power.

I will probably create more body fighting skeletons, after upgrading all my old ones. I quickly send another memory to Merlin, doing so is really not as easy as I initially thought. But with him so close it’s a lot easier, it sometimes feels like I am reeling a fish and having to slap someone in the face with it at the same time. It’s more like shooting a memory than just showing it. I create a steel studded leather caestus for Stinger, This is possible with my other new skills, {Leather Recreation and Manipulation} and {Metal Recreation and Manipulation}.

Unlike bone, creating them from mana is quite costly, especially steel. I am running some tests to create a more necrotic aligned steel, thus making it easier to recreate it with necrotic mana. Thankfully there are quite a bit of iron ores around me, not really any other metal of note weirdly enough.

I tell Kaiman to go back down with Stinger, who will have a field test of her new body. Right now her body is featureless, later though I may be able to make differences on them, or the skeletons themselves could.

They pass by Gorger, who waves them goodbye, Stinger ignores him because she does not quite get waving, Kaiman waves with his new tail. Kaiman, Gorger and Bob all gained new bodies, well Kaiman got his through {Bone Tithe}, he looks quite different though, and will continue to change probably, he wants to bulk up. He also got a new skill.

{Claws of Affliction}

When hit by these claws all afflictions get stronger, the target has their resistances to afflictions lowered.

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Gorger’s only change was his hands getting mouths, mouths with concentric rows of teeth, this is from his {Beast Maw}. The mouths are quite strong and can vomit just like his other mouths.

Bob has changed the most though, his body is larger now, but sleeker, his skin is a light gray that becomes white in his hands and feet. He also became an initiate at a cult.

Barrow Court Cult

A cult of those that have gained vampirism through illegal methods.

Quite interesting that this implies that there are legal ways to become a vampire, initially he didn’t get much from his vampire class, [Strigoi] but as soon as he started to drink he got more stuff, I am pretty sure that the class levels faster the more diverse his meals are.

I stare at the pits full of zombies and {Analyze} one of the newly created ones.

Zombie LV1

Yeah. That’s another thing I have learned to do, creating monsters with only one class, which is something that I did not know I could do, But seeing the lizards with three or two classes showed me that I could do it. All crabs seem to have only two classes so I wonder if they only can have two.

Another of my inventions are the new floating skulls. After the last battle both sides, the crabs and lizards are a lot more careful of my little drones, they tend to be shot on sight with groups of enemies all protecting the shooters. So I decided to create my land hybrids, they are skulls with oversized hands that let them walk around like a spider. They can use said hands to float too, thus they can both fly and walk making them not so easy to snipe. Another one was my fast drones, these have airplane wings on their sides and are made to be very fast, thus dodging and retreating from the enemy. I am still in the process of creating more though, they are quite cheap to make, well not that cheap when I am putting wings of quartz on them but cheap enough.

Two skulls arrive and I get to work. I make two wings that I have made float and then create

a large skull in the middle, this skull is not a human skull, it is a lot longer, in fact it looks more like a horse skull with a hole in it’s back and a cyclopean eye, this is obviously done on purpose, this will be the pilot skull.

I also created a retractable snapping mechanism under it, inspired by the pistol shrimp of the crab dungeon, it's just like a normal pistol shrimp but works with mana instead of just water, together with a few engravings on the inside it could shoot quite well, not as strong as an actual gun for now though.

I connect a bone fin under it which acts as a magazine filling it with bone bullets.

I attach the wings to the skull and then tell the floating ones to enter the holes on the wings. I use the manipulation to create better bone plates on them, connecting them to the wings.

As soon as they connect I use my bone manipulation with an {Engrave} skill and create an array on it connecting the plates with the wings magically. I then create a thin layer of steel around the wings, the plates and the inside of the pilot skull. Inside of the pilot skull I fill the engravings with dark quartz and using Merlin exoskeleton bits I create a core inside of it the core of Merlin’s dark quartz looks a lot like a jet engine, together with the engravings they will be able to expel the air and mana around quite well making this skull pretty fast. The engravings created all over it and on the inside of the skull are basic Flow scripts, their purpose is to make whatever they are on more dynamic, be it aerodynamic , Hydrodynamic or manadynamic. Though I don’t envision it swimming anytime soon.

I tell the skulls to move and see that they can comfortably move in all directions and that the script holds them in their holes, when they move the wings and the whole bonecraft also moves with them. I then tell them to expel mana through their spine holes, they do it and see how this affects their mobility, both of these have {Dodge} and other skills, meaning they are professionals by most standards they quickly get the hang of moving with their added weight.

I ask Merlin to break his newly formed exoskeleton and control it with {Crystal Recreation and Manipulation}, his exoskeleton is pretty interesting, the longer it stays with him the stronger it becomes, meaning this new one is still quite fragile, but that’s okay. I then use it to create black lenses for the two skulls, the lenses are made from necrotic energy, meaning that the skulls will also make them stronger through using it, they get the hang of shooting the… well not quite rays yet, they lack the raw mana Merlin has, but they will get there. This does mean that their shots are somewhat limited per run.

I create scripts on their foreheads that make it so the skulls can slide the lenses off so they can pull in mana better. It is honestly quite an amusing sight, I quite enjoy my sunglasses skeletons.

Sadly for now there is only so much I can change on a skull all at once, I wanted to have three veteran fliers but I can’t change the flying skulls that much. So instead I fill the energy on the middle skull and create a new undead.

Bone Wing Skull

{Flying Support}

When close to another flying undead this skull flies better.

I tell the skulls to fly around the room, the two older ones quickly showing the younger one the ropes.I tell Merlin to start shooting them with his death rays for training.

Using the exoskeleton of Merlin I also completed another flying project.

This one is a skull of pure black quartz, around it are two concentric rings of the same material and then further there are larger bands of bone, again two concentric rings, but they are much larger. I ask and Merlin pops one of his arms off, they take a while to grow even with the mana of my heart room. Still his black bone is a much stronger material than the black quartz. I manipulate it and separate it.

I create an array through all the rings, filling it with quarts and connecting it to the rings around the skull. The skull itself is not hollow, but has more quartz inside of it, something which for now only Merlin and his skeletons have, other skeletons need the large hole to store their mana there, and simply filling with normal bone actually drops the energy a bit.

The rings are all connected, now I created fifteen skulls, five attached to the inner bone ring and ten to the outer one. All of them are different, Their teeth are all fused into a large unique fang, their face does not have eye sockets or a nasal hole, instead they have a singular large hole in their gabella, the inner ones having a rhombus shaped hole, and the outer ten having a circular hole.

All of them also have cores on them with lenses made from black bone and engravings all other the inside and outside of their skulls matching their face holes. Merlin is probably going to have to help them cast their spells and use their eyes.

I focus and start pumping necrotic energy into it, and soon see it takes more than I expected, a bit more than a simple zombie or skeleton.

Floating Ring of Skulls LV1

The skull rises, and with it the bone rings, I see that all skulls are alive and responsive, though they also all share a mind. I begin sending some memories and orders to it, trying to see how quickly I can train it.

One of my drones in the greenhouse pings me. I chain my vision to it and see….

A gigantic snake, rising from the dirt in the lizard territory, this thing is massive, being at least 50 to 60 meters long, instead of running to me I see it slither away further into lizard territory.

I get another ping and change my view point, this time on the crab’s side. There I see a large shark sized catfish fall from the sky dome and into the mud, as soon as it hits it however the mud transforms into water which is immediately electrified.

What is going on? I get another ping and see that this time it’s my own territory, a bear-like black dog appeared in it, it’s not moving and simply staring at the cave entrance of my greenhouse base.

Invasion Trial: Barghest and Imps

Waves of imps will appear inside your dungeon until the barghest is defeated, the barghest may only be challenged individually.

A sudden bright orange explosion happens in my room and a bunch of small horned things jump out of it laughing and immediately rushing to attack anything in sight. In less than a second more started happening all over my core room floor. My floating skulls quickly start flying up, one of them jumps to Gorger who immediately chomps it alive. The imps explode in a hail of fire surprisingly big for its size, Gorger then simply sucks in the fire like its spaghetti with his {Fire Sucking}.

For a brief second all imps stop dead in their tracks and stare at Gorger, he smiles and I feel the skill as it happens {Innate Spell: Prehensile Tongue}, one of his newer ones, Gorger open all five of his mouths and each one shoots out a long tongue and grasps the nearest imp before pulling them into the maws of the beast, the rest of the imps scatter and run away, with Gorger chasing them and Merlin shooting them.