The mental connection with his Spirit Feet had been severed. The last lingering words that traveled through the broken connection were, "I'm sorry master..."

It could only mean one thing: they were dead. Alwin was furious, even more furious than he had been about his and Gus' predicament—namely how lucky Gus was and how he wasn't. At least now, whenever he directed his fury to whatever human was leaf tail gagged and helplessly dragged to be executed was somewhat justifiable, rather than a tamper tantrum.

He had to tell Uchronia about the fate of the Spirit Feet and how their plan was going to be sped up, but more importantly, he had to tell the Spirit Hands.

Through the mental connection he had he whispered to the hands, "The feet... they're gone."

What came back was a mix of slurs, insults, and threats. At the end of their rage came a simple and sorrowful, "What sort of parent sends their child to their death."

Those words stung. It affected Alwin more than it should've. They were just Spirit Feet, they could be summoned again. They weren't really dead, were they? That didn't matter right now. It definitely wasn't him just procrastinating on the problem hoping that it would magically solve itself if he left it alone long enough. Nope. Definitely not that.

"Uchronia..."

"Yeah?"

"The feet are... gone"

"Crap." She paused to think, hopping around in circles. "What about your hands? Are they still up and running?"

"They are."

"When they're gone, tell me immediately. No dawdling or daydreaming, especially daydreaming. And Gus."

"Yea, Uchronia?" He had just finished absorbing the essence of another human and hopped off his body.

"I want you to try and use your new skills. But discreetly. Do that and you'll be one step closer to getting our lunches."

"You had me at lunches."

Gus proceeded to test out the new skills he'd learnt while taking the utmost care to ensure no human noticed. It was a tough challenge— considering that he had to voice out the name of the skill to use it and the fact that some of the skills were flashier than others—but not an impossible one.

During their downtime, Alwin and Uchronia, watched Gus perform the techniques while also keeping an ear out for any shouting so that they could ask Gus to immediately 'shut up' as Uchronia put it.

Lightning and Gus zipped about as he practiced the Lightning Legs technique. The fact that Gus had no legs, but he could pull off the technique still amazed Alwin—after the jealousy had subsided of course.

When Gus activated the Copper Body technique, he and Alwin exchanged confused glances. Gus's fur still looked as soft and fluffy as a teddy bear. They waited for the expected metallic sheen of copper but it never arrived. Instead, Gus still looked like a cuddly Furball, leaving them both wondering if he had somehow messed up the spell.

Uchronia hypothesized that Gus' layer of fur hid the transformation and that his actual body, not the furry exterior, had already hardened. Using her Spirit Hands she tried to part his fur, but no matter how much her fingers pulled and tugged the hairs apart, Gus' coat held firm, as if they had been turned into metal. Then it hit Alwin harder than one of Uchronia's slaps.

Gus had reddish-brown fur, and you know what else was reddish-brown? Copper. The skill had worked, but they just hadn't realized it. Gus' entire body, including his fur had hardened, as if they had been turned into copper. Once the mystery had been solved, Gus couldn't help but test out how hard he was. He hopped up to a tree and started pounding it. Tackling it non-stop, doing his best to penetrate the hard wooden exterior. Each time he collided with the tree he grunted in exertion, hoping to bring the tree down to its figurative knees.

With one final pound, Gus put in his all. He reached a crescendo, a peak, a high note, a climax. The tree stood tall as if it hadn't registered that someone was trying to enter it. Gus was too small and weak. All that he accomplished was a wasted one minute, and an additional three minutes to catch his breath. On the plus side, he wasn't hurt in the slightest. But Alwin suspected his pride had been bruised.

Strong Slash was another beast that they had to tackle. Whenever he activated the technique, nothing happened, and this wasn't just like when Gus was trying out Copper Body. Each time he attempted it, Gus described the feeling as a form of rejection. As if the mana had nowhere to go and simply refused to flow out of his Core.

It was pretty quick to figure out a solution. Gus wasn't blessed—thank Cor—with the means to slash at things naturally. Meaning he needed a sword to actually perform the technique. Thankfully, there was a generous donation of blades littered around the bush they took shelter in. Although, they weren't in perfect shape—nibble marks marred various parts of the sword. Some were on the handle, while some were on the blade itself— no thanks to a certain someone with an amazing ability.

Uchronia tossed, Gus a sword, that a human had just 'donated'. She gave him firm instructions to NOT eat it, to which he nodded, albeit with a frown and the widest eyes that were basically begging her to change her mind. Unfortunately for him, she held firm on her stance.

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As the name implied, Strong Slash enabled the user to slash strongly—how descriptive. (You may now perform Uchronia's special eye roll reserved for comments like this.) Gus held the blade in his mouth, instead of getting out a pair of Spirit Hands, for some reason. It was awkward to wield, and the weight threatened to topple him over, but still, he persevered.

The first human that they had seen performed Strong Slash, by performing a downward blow. Given the 'logistical' issues that plagued Gus—he could only hold the blade sideways in his mouth—his version of Strong Slash involved him swinging his head, which was also his whole body, as hard as he could. Now one might wonder why a simple sword slash could be classified as a technique. The key difference between a regular slash and this supposed 'Strong Slash' was mana. What a shocker, who could've guessed? It's not like there was a paragraph detailing that Gus had issues forcing his mana out of his Core whenever he attempted the skill.

Alwin, the curious slime that he was, wanted to see the difference between a regular slash and a Strong Slash. The differences were astounding, to Alwin at least. A regular slash was pretty useless, especially in Gus' case. When he swung his whole body and sword against the tree that he had attempted to penetrate earlier, the sword bounced off as if wood was somehow stronger than iron—or whatever metal the blade was made of. Alwin wasn't a metal expert. The vibrations traveled up the sword and into Gus causing him to bounce and shiver as if he was caught in a snowstorm without his pants. But when he executed Strong Slash, a thin layer of mana—reddish-brown in Gus' case—coated the sword. This time the blade managed to dig into the wood, sending splinters flying everywhere. The cut wasn't deep, about half a sword's length at most—the short side, not the long side—but the results were quite clear. It was night and day, fire and water, summer and winter, fun and boring, plus a million other things to signify a drastic difference that Alwin couldn't bother to come up with to keep the gag up.

That left one last new skill that Gus had picked up: Fur Quills. When activated Gus' fur stood up at attention—a bit like when he used Static Pounce except without the crackles of electricity. It seemed useless. Maybe he could ward off the humans by doing his best porcupine impression?

Then Gus sneezed. His furred quills shot out in all directions. Alwin and Uchronia dove to the ground, avoiding the incoming projectiles. The quills were stuck everywhere. In the ground. In the bushes. In that tree that Gus wanted to penetrate with his body. And last but not least, in Alwin and Uchronia. It took all Uchronia's willpower to not scream in pain as a layer of fur quills coated her body. Unfortunately, Alwin didn't have as much willpower as Uchronia. He let out a yell of pain, that was immediately muffled by Uchronia's tail.

Her face was red with rage, and she couldn't tell who to be angry with. Gus for attacking them or Alwin for nearly launching a sonic beacon—his screams—that the humans could hone in on. That rage was promptly quelled as a storm of humans came charging their way. The trio held their breath, even Alwin, who wanted nothing more than to scream in pain, but the fear of getting caught supplemented his lack of willpower enabling him to suppress the urge to let it rip.

Thankfully, it was just the routine attacking, roaring, and stomps of humans chasing after the decoy—gauntlet-wearing Spirit Hands carrying an empty chest piece. The sound of their thundering footsteps receded slowly before fading into the distance. The three let out a breath and Alwin finally continued his screams into Uchronia's leaf tail.

They spent the next couple of minutes picking out quills from their bodies, but not before Uchronia gave him a verbal whooping. Yelling and shouting at him as loud as she dared to—in this case, it was whisper volume—but the tone and choice of words indicated to both of them that if she could scold as loud as she could she'd be screaming her ears off. After all of the quills were successfully extracted, they chowed down on a Small Healing Pill to get rid of any damage that had been inflicted on them. Too bad it did nothing for the emotional damage of being shot at by a friend and then being scolded by another friend for wanting to scream in pain. It was a natural response, but too bad for Alwin, Uchronia didn't see it that way. Apparently, in her eyes, Gus' actions were an accident and could be excused, but he should've controlled his screams or at the very least try to minimize the sound he'd make by covering his mouth. When Alwin tried to defend himself, saying that it was a spur-of-the-moment thing and that he had nothing to use. She retaliated by claiming that he could've dug his face into one of their bags.

Gus continued to practice his new array of skills, taking note to not accidentally shoot out any more quills. Every once in a while he'd take a break to absorb the essence of whatever human fell into their trap, then immediately go back to testing out his new skills. Surprisingly enough, he gained no new skills, but his current skills did get an upgrade. If only Alwin could get new skills and have their masteries increased with such ease.

Other than jealousy there was one other emotion that Alwin was feeling: boredom. But how could he be bored when his life and the villagers' lives were hanging in the balance? It was simple. Alwin was a simple-minded fool. Sure, the beginning of this plan filled him with anxiety and doubt, but after the sixth round of humans storming past them, his fears began to fade and his anxieties morphed into boredom. Of course, when there's boredom comes everyone's favorite: daydreaming.

And that's what Alwin was doing. Fantasizing about how if he was the one with the Devour skill he'd be in Gus' shoes enjoying all the free skills and upgrades. He'd be zipping around with Lightning Legs, chopping trees with Strong Slash, hardening himself and his fur with Copper Body, and shooting out said fur with Fur Quills. Wait, a minute. An imaginary lightbulb had appeared above his head and it was shining brightly.

He could combine the skills together! Harden his fur with Copper Body, then shoot them out. It was a genius idea, only possible for a genius like him. Too bad he wasn't the one with those skills, but that didn't mean he had to be a jerk and not tell Gus about his amazing idea.

"Hey, Gus. I have an idea."

"What is it?" The lightning around his body faded, as he stopped using Lightning Legs.

"Its—"

The thundering footsteps put a stop to his impartation of knowledge as they dove for cover in the bushes. Uchronia was already preparing the incantation for Slow as they waited for the humans to pass by. The thunderous roar of footsteps ceased and it wasn't because the humans were far away enough that they couldn't be heard. It was far worse.

"Finally caught that stupid monster. The young masters will be pleased."

This was bad.

Alwin ruffled himself through the bushes, trying to get a vantage point that wasn't covered by leaves. In the hands of Gu Jia, were his Spirit Hands still clutching the leather armor. Their final words through that mental connection of theirs were, "Good luck master."

Gu Jia skewered them using Rib Spire Stab. Fourteen bones that extended out from his bone ribcage armor pierced the gauntlets and the leather chest piece. The mist of particles dispersed in the air as the Spirit Hands vanished, their job completed.

Crap.