Skill testing, skill testing. Dun nun nun nun nunnnn.

I literally don’t know what song that tune is from and now it's stuck in my head! Send help. I’ll keep thinking it till I figure it out.

My first plan for skill testing is to see if I can push some synergy between Wings and Clothes.

I stare down at my reflection in the evening light and picture my body covered in an incredibly fluffy down coat with extra feathers. No animals were harmed in the creation of this feather frock!

It takes less time to get in the right headspace – I already know it works after all – and after a few minutes I have a featherfull material.

It's so soft. Softer than I was even imagining!

Now to harvest! I grab scissors from my water work area, then try and slice a strip off the arm.

Immediately my plans fall apart and continues to fall into an abyss of uselessness.

The strip removed from the whole begins to break and dissolve in my hands as if it were suddenly formed from sugar and it was just dunked in water. Attempting to remove the entire coat has the whole thing similarly vanish into nothing like ash in the wind.

Very annoying. Skill testing bowowow. Dun are my Dun dun.

My next idea is to create temporary wings for myself (I don’t trust the skill being strong enough to lift me up yet, but other than some feathery arms that can make me a tiny bit lighter while flapped I have nothing.

I think I know why I can’t just conjure wings wholesale? It’s something that’s unconfirmed – my feather skill does not give me a lot of feedback at all even with my higher level…but I’m pretty sure I know the reason.

As a skill, the act of placing a single feather is important. I can’t feel a resource or visible movement of magic or mana or anything…but from what I can tell, every single feather has a single point of my skill’s feather mana in it.

The act of creating and placing feathers bit by bit is integral to the skill. Like…there’s a single drop of my skill in each and every individual feather – a nearly invisible and weak point of power that grows stronger the more points are near it. Spending more time and effort makes the ‘drop’ larger…and sheer quantity and the strange sort of synergy that each feather has with each other means it's more effective to spent my effort making more feathers than improving the ones I have. The mana feathers don’t seem to do much on their own but they help boost all the other feathers by a significant amount – creating wings that can lift buckets of cement and heavy boards of wood.

In comparison. Well, making a sheet of feathers with custom clothing creation is sort of like the entire sheet being turned into a single feather? If I use clothing creation to make one feather appear at a time instead of them all appearing at once I get a better result… but it's still awful. Some key internal of clothing creation invalidates a key part of wings from working.

Sadge.

F in chat for not being able to cheat the creation this way. This is the combo I had the most expectations for.

I try to glue bits of clothing together – easy to do but with little real purpose – and try to make a pearl of the mana that makes up the skill. That is incredibly hard to do and yet simply results in the clothing compressing and focusing in on a single point. It does sort of help the skill if I want to give myself a bow or hair tie…but beyond that it just rips the partially forming garments apart.

I try using that compressed bit of clothing to help make more clothing but unlike the way mana feathers seem to boost wings…temporary mana cloth doesn’t seem to help temporary mana clothing. Maybe if I make an entire outfit out of the compressed clothing instead of trying to boost it?

I try breathing deeply while creating my clothing – a single deep phantom breath…and several minutes pass in a blink. My clothing doesn’t seem to be affected by the skill use – Theres no magic meditation to give me super detailed clothing or anything I just tossed my final skill experiment for nothing.

I’d make a pair of clothes into one of your bodies as a test…but it seems mean to give you a temporary body just to take it away right after. It might help the clothes stop breaking when I take them off but it doesn’t seem useful

Time to set up a barbeque? Oh hey Len, you’re volunteering as a test subject? The other way around? Sure…a red paint job? I can do that.

I concentrate and imagine a bucket’s clothes. The vibe of a classy firetruck. The sheer class that such an important vehicle lives by accentuating how important Len’s watering is.

Nothing happens.

I frown.

Come on now. Does paint count as skin? No, it's very clearly clothes. Buckets are people too! Justice for non conventional bodies! Justice for bucket!!!

I start arguing with my skill as I stare into Len’s googlie eyes and focus on firetrucks and Christmas and how tasty strawberries would be right about now. Dun nun nun nuuuuuhhhhh nun.

Finally after days of effort, my skill begins to take effect – strips of colour flashing across Len’s body.

Bit by bit our watering king gets a new style and I can feel my skill improve in a qualitative sort of shift.

Glad I could help out. If you like the colour we can try and make it permanent! Now where was I?

Oh yes!

Food.

Preparing my second fire, I focus on stacking stones gluing them into three rough walls on the beach.

Once they are about 50-60cm tall I take my last metal sticks and glue them across in an incredibly jank grill.

I’ve learned to embrace the jank. It’s the only way to stay sane and not start obsessively leveling everything.

To the side about a meter away from my grill, I glue a single board onto some scrap wood for a rough table – I don’t want to put any of my meat on the sand. I head off to my inventory where all the supplies have been kept fresh and make three quick trips to fill my table. Meat. Knife. Spices – There are not enough spices.

I wish there was a barbeque sauce equivalent – honestly I wish there were more food variety in general.

It's fine. We can make do.

Gathering most of my worst wood – all the stuff that’s too knotted or small or broken to use in crafting – I place it in a neat pile then take a quick trip through the woods for small sticks.

This should do it.

Firing up my stove, I sit back and watch the flames slowly climb. Mesmerizing mesmerizing flames.

I wonder…I wonder what would happen if I try to collect mana from the fire? Something to do while I wait for the fire to grow strong enough to cook on.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Slowly raising my hands I scooch closer and begin making grasping motions as if trying to pull invisible spider webs out of the air.

I pull and squeeze and pull and squeeze – feeling the environmental mana begin to build even as the fire dims slightly in front of me – flickering and spluttering in a weird manner.

Considering I was waiting for the fire to build some coals this…is not ideal. I slow my gathering staring both at the warm flicker beginning to form in my hands and the beautiful flames struggling to survive in front of me.

I am a cruel tyrant.

Poor defensless flames.

Staring down at the partial wisp in my hand I slowly reach around my faded clothes looking for some scraps that might complement it.

These scraps I’m nearly positive are related…they are sun or light or something? I wasn’t able to make a pearl so I can’t confirm the name in the system but they are bright and yellowish feeling. This one is also similar…kind of sparky feeling.

Pushing the scraps of mana into my blob I watch it grow slightly the mana types mixing and strengthening in concentration even if they weaken in focus.

I then push the mana towards the fire blowing slightly to try and shove it back into the flames.

For freedom!

Phantom breath activates. Of course it does, my time skips forward slightly the flames in front of me roaring into a pillar of dancing glory before dimming as I realize time has passed and my vision catches back up to reality.

Its time.

I’m finally able to break away from the hypnotic flicker and move to my meal. Immediately ya girl starts looking over each of my mystery meat slabs poking them with the greatest of scientific utensils available.

My finger.

I say mystery meat not because it’s a shapless ground gunk but because I literally don’t recognize the shapes.

This right here looks kind of like a slightly rubbery ring? Giant meat doughnut? It kind of looks like calamari but pink and the size of a steering wheel.

This chunk is perfectly cubed and has what I can only describe as marbled bone…cool looking but not something I nessisarily want in my food.

This chunk is a perfectly normal shaped chicken wing but the most vibrant red I’ve ever seen – I wonder if its spicy?

This chunk is white and filled with pockets of air – it almost looks like swiss cheese. If it weren’t for the thick bone in the center of it I’d have wondered if it were even meat its texture looks so strange.

Finally there’s something that has actual recognizable shape to my appetites detriment. It’s a skinless body the size of my hands and looks like a cross between a lizard and a pig. A slit along its bottom has removed all the insides and cleaned it out but…If I can admit something to you I’m not looking forward to trying this. I don’t like being able to see the face on whatever I’m eating – If I had visually seen it while scrolling the fun names in the market I would have given it a pass.

Esh.

Don’t waste food. I have to at least try it…maybe I can eat around the head?

Anyways, I rub all my offerings with a splash of mystery neutral oil and a generous pinch of salt.

A few chops from maxie and I have some sharpish sticks I can stab through each hunk of meat – we are going for a kabob I just decided.

Rubbing all of them with a second helping of oil I stick them all on a regular stick and array them in order along my grill – now black from my earlier experiment.

Immediately one of the slabs starts melting. The one that was hardest to stick on a stick – yep. That’s right the marbled slab.

The marbled bone slab seems to almost liquify before my very eyes – gloopy meat dripping out of the bone that looks almost like a whitish coral reef.

I need a pot! Ahh!

Bucket. Bucket I need a bucket.

Len…are you really offering?

Sorry you have sand and gunk in you…I really appreciate the offer but I want a clean one.

I rush back to my inventory stumbling in the dark as I try and find the annoying sign.

Behind me a steady hiss is ringing out as sliver of meat after sliver of meat slides out of the crevasse and drops into the fire.

There! The sign!

Swiping the top makes the dim glow from the screen brighter and I immediately grab one of my unused buckets snatching it as its partially forming and running back to my meal.

Come on, Come on!

It's so hot I need to grab a second stick to lift the marble block up and drop it into my clean bucket!

I could probably have searched for a proper cooking pot on the market but I felt like I didn’t have time. Sorry! I’m such a mess.

…this bucket does not look appetizing.

Don’t waste food.

But can that even be considered food?

Ugg. Fine. I’ll try it.

It takes a while for the meat to start looking done – I’m basing everything off look right now – and my boundless energy starts to dim. It's past my bedtime.

Pulling off the two bits that look the most done I place them on my cutting board and cut off a teansy tiny sliver of each.

First is the tire sized calamari. Its still slightly rubbery to cut and I close my eyes to try and avoid thinking about how adventurous I’m being.

Tell me when it's in my mouth.

…

It's... not bad. I hate how true it is that everything tastes a tiny bit like chicken. Honestly I’d rate this pretty highly if not for the texture. 10/10 base flavor considering my lacking spices. 5/10 texture it’s enough to put me off slightly…5 might be a bit harsh. I think it’s a 8/10 portion.

Swiss cheese next? I take another small adventurous bite.

You know what? This…is also not that bad. I don’t know why I was expecting everything to be horrible but it’s pretty good.

Actually. I just had an idea. Be right back.

…

I return with a leftover cheese egg and slice it into goopy chunks.

I then lay it on top of the white meat that reminds me of cheese and place it back on the barbeque.

Everything else is starting to look done. I use a stick to pull the hot bucket off the corner of the grill and bring it down to the water to try and cool off.

Dunk. Dunk. Sizzle sizzle. There we go – I don’t know how I’m supposed to eat this if we are being honest. I’m definitely stalling. Give me a moment.

Grabbing a flat sliver of wood and using it as a scoupula, I pull out the most unappetizing morsel of goopy meat I’ve ever laid eyes on.

This is either going to be god tier or will make me vomit. There's no in between!

Closing my eyes I pull the portion towards my mouth my nose wrinkling slightly at the oily smell and take a bite.

…

You’re probably sick of me giving similar descriptions but…it’s not that bad. Honestly some of the best tasting meat I’ve ever had but the texture is worse than it sounds. Average out a 11/10 with a 1/10 and we get a 6/10.

I’ve never had natto before but it kind of reminds me of natto. Little hard chunks covered in slime. It kind of looks like slugs or leeches fried in blended meat juice.

Testing the red wing I found something dry and flavorless. I was expecting something spicy and got something…that I probably ruined because of my cooking method.

Nah that’s copium, this is just flavourless. The plain egg whites of wings. I try adding a bit more salt and… it's still flavourless.

I add a bit more.

Still nothing.

I end up adding a handful of salt and I can’t taste it. Weird.

Moving on to the cheese-covered cheese meat, I take a bite and melt.

It tastes unhealthy but oh so good. This is it. The best part of the meal.

I take another bite.

I’m definitely finishing this. Dairy makes everything better.

…

You probably noticed I’ve been putting off the whole body and you’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll try it next.

Taking my knife to the edge of the corpse – it’s hard to abstract away this meal as anything other than a dead animal – I grab and take a bite.

Its…very light? It tastes like a lighter bacon. I might have added a bit too much salt but that almost makes it more addicting? 9/10. Was expecting it to taste fishy or something – I’ve never eaten a lizard-shaped thing before.

Maybe it tastes like crocodile or something, and I’ve just never eaten the equivalent?

Continuing to sample all my slabs I slowly set aside all my least favorite versions and devour my cheese block and a massive amount of my bacon lizard. I also ate over half of my meat doughnut before getting full and shifting to cheese slab so my after taste was full of the good taste.

I’m full.

Stuffed.

Stoofed!

Probably the most stuffed since I started this new life – This is the first time I’ve overeaten.

I’m sorry you guys couldn’t try these. I’m going to see how I can give your bodies mouths and taste buds at some point. It's probably weird to just watch me eat all this food by myself. Theres a name for this isn’t there? M…

Anyways. Scraping apart the bacon absently I look through the bones trying to imagine I was a fairy that thought bones were cute.

Are any of these valid?

Do any of these scream cute?

I can’t do it. I can’t put myself into a fae’s shoes. The crown was one thing but this…its too hard to imagine.

I pick a random small backbone chunk and wash it off in the lake.

I fill my mostly uneaten bucket with the rest of my scraps and stare at my bucket. I could burn it?

I think…I think I’m going to burry it in my next garden bed. I need to plant more. I kind of forgot about it. Eeeesh.

Dragging the bucket to the bed in the dark I head to my inventory, try and trade my small bone and grab my shovel.

Anyone want to become a shovel? I don’t know how you’ll dig yourself…eh. I’ll just get to work.

Heading back to the bed I dig some of the soft compost style converted ground to the side and dump my meat. Scraping it back on I take a trip to the lake, wash my hands, dump some water on the remnants of the fire and then head to bed.

I step into our house and head to my bed for the first time with an intention of sleeping. Its way too dark – I find the night light stone I bought and shake it a bit to create a night light to see by. Earlier I did lay on the mattress for a moment to test how soft it was but this is the first time I’m testing it out for real. I’m nervous for no reason. Way too nervous for something mundane like this.

I’m almost scared of getting it dirty. I really need a shower.

Ahh!

Okay.

I jump into bed and bounce twice before sinking into the covers.

Did Dairy find his way to his new spot?

I sit up at the thought and – still holding my night light – peer over the edge.

He’s in the corner. His nest is much smaller – he’s only found two sticks to drag here…but he seems happy.

“Goodnight dairy”

Rustle rustle.

“Goodnight Len, Goodnight the fishyminer! Goodnight you.”