Bonepiler turned out to be an incredibly useful skill.

When I grabbed the part of the rib I had already snapped out, I felt the skill kicking in. A sort of sixth sense, if you like. Knowledge of how to use the skill came to me in a matter of seconds.

In short, what the skill does is ushering mana into a bone, then allows you to manipulate that bone's shape to a certain extent. It also lets me meld bones together, separating them, and so on. I don't know what its limits are, but at this rank.

The cost of mana is fairly decent. After poking and prodding with it, I managed to turn the rib part into something vaguely similar to a scimitar. I say 'similar' because what I did was actually making it flatter, then compress the wider part into a handle and make the outer side sharper. It's not the best weapon around, but I'd rather having this than fighting my brothers alone.

Flimsy bones are not made to withstand bludgeoning tails.

Using that bone scimitar, I cut the corpse of... I should call it something else than just 'brother'. We're all brothers and sisters inside Mother's womb, but that isn't entirely right. This was called an... Assault Cougar, I think? It's the feeling that I get when I see it.

Anyways. I cut the Assault Cougar's body, carving away the chunks of not-bones and leaving the very-much-bones neatly piled up in another bunch. Artistically, even.

Oh, that was the pun, wasn't it.

What should I do with these, I wonder? Armor won't help much. Slashing and piercing at me won't do any much harm anyways, and taking a blunt strike will crack my bones with or without armor. A shield... It's useless for the same reason.

Then, I should make more weapons.

I started by making a little dagger out of the smaller bones. It came out as more of a throwing knife in the end. Which, by the way, wasn't a bad weapon to have at hand. I decided to make four more of those, five in total, and make more if there was something left.

For the next part, I decided to try out and make a new, better sword. This time, I used the Assault Cougar's spine as the core and melded its bone legs on, transforming them into the blade's edge. Then I used part of the sternum to make an improvised guard, part of the ribs for the handle.

In the end I got a much sturdier, cool-looking sword. The cool part didn't matter much, but looking fearsome was always a part of handling dangerous things.

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Even so, it was all very rustic and the like because of the low rank of my skill.

Then started to feel weaker. Not tired, as that was something I was unable of. But heavier. Slower.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to look at my status once again. My vitals, this time. I didn't need to check on anything else.

Vitals: Health: 500/500 Will: 137/1000 Stamina: 500

Hmm. I had used too much will, no? Would pass some time before I gained it back.

Using the scimitar I took out parts of the Assault Cougar's skin, using pieces of shattered bones to put it together and make myself a makeshift weapon holder. It hung over my rib cage and it was strapped to my spine. The bone scimitar was tied on my side, the five knifes at the front and the sword strapped in my back.

With that, I was ready to go.

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A couple of hours' worth of more walking brought me to a split in the path. Two arc of the green stone narrow the tunnel and head out different directions. The one on the left seemed to go up, while the other appeared to go down.

This is where I make my choice: Do I go further inside? Or head out of Mother?

That isn't something I have to think much about. My desire to leave is much stronger than the link that I feel with Mother. I can't stay here, I have to leave.

And that means going up.

I took the left archway. It shot up and down in regular intervals, zigzagging left and right. In general it seemed to lean to the left and upward.

Another partition. This time three archways. The one on the middle went up again, the one on the right seemed to coil on itself downward.

The one on the left... was completely obscure. Devoid of any glowing crystal shards, the world seemed to end at the very start of the path...

Wait. Dark?

I am a skeleton, for God's sake! I don't even have eyes in the first place! If I can see, it's thanks to Undead Aura.

Which makes me wonder. The skill transforms mana into sensory information, nuh? Then, shouldn't I be able to turn dark into light?

I tried to do just that... But it didn't fix my problem.

I mean, it worked. But instead of making the tunnel brighter, the world turned into a negative filter picture, and what I previously perceived as darkness was now blinding light.

I turned it back to normal.

I guess that's a no-no for night vision, then.

I should go to the middle section, then...

Uh-oh. Looks like I can't do that.

Pieces of rocks and rubble blocked the path. I wasn't in condition to lift them up. Looks like the ceiling collapsed under its own weight here... No, this isn't a normal cave. It's Mother. Something must've forcibly done this, or it was She herself who did it.

Either way I can't go over there now.

That leaves the tunnel going down again as my last choice...

I guess I'll have to walk some more.

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Shit. Shit shit shit shit! I shouldn't have come here!

It's here. The thing that killed the Assault Cougar. It's here and it's about to notice I'm here, and once it does, I'm good as alive.

What am I supposed to do now?!