Logan wiped a sheen of sweat off his brow. He had been hard at work, hobbling back and forth with a pouch of rotten wood on his shoulders made from his tattered pants. He had been constructing a brace for his leg piece by piece. The first order of business had to be getting him back on his feet, at least figuratively.

Logan didn’t like his odds of getting out of here without some ability to walk. Tumor agreed, giving some unsavory percentages on its predictions for that line of actions succeeding.

Logan didn’t need anything fancy. It wasn’t the time or place for an advanced cybernetics prosthetic which could enable him to do superhuman ninja kicks.

Logan simply needed to brace his ankle and knee, so they wouldn’t buckle. If the brace could keep his leg stiff and undamaged, he could hobble around fast enough. As long as he didn’t have to run from monsters…

That would bring him to the next order of business, which would be removing parts of the tracks. They were made of the same black metal Logan had seen the First Folk armor themselves with in the vision. It must have been an exquisite material. Tumor had requested Logan to stop and take a better look at it, but it wasn’t the time. The tentacled monster was still working on the rubble. The eerie groans made Logan rather motivated.

Logan sat down and leaned against the giant Numa crystal. It felt faintly warm against his naked back in the damp and dark cave. Then he made the last of the wooden beams according to Tumor’s designs.

[Attribute Level Up!]

[Durability: 10]

After that he leaned on the ground, placing the other frame piece under his leg, and pressing the other against the other side of his thigh. Between the pieces, he placed a smaller piece. There were little sockets on both of the brace-pieces, between which the connecting piece locked into. Logan pressed the pieces together hard. If Logan’s senses came back, the brace would squeeze the leg uncomfortably, bordering on painful. but for now there was barely any feeling left in it.

“Connect these three pieces solidly together.”

Logan felt the crystal formation behind him pulse with warmth and he slowly let go of the brace-pieces. That was good. This puzzle piece was coming along. Logan looked down along his leg, and he realized something he didn’t like.

“Tumor,” Logan said dryly. “How the hell am I going to reach to finish this thing?”

*

It took some planning, and arguing, but they ended up scrapping the whole damn brace thing. That was because Logan realized something. They didn’t need to follow the rules when they had magic. Not always at least.

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That’s why Logan made one of the pieces of wood into a sharp knife and cut the pant leg from his tattered pants. He shuffled his limp leg into it and leaned against the Numa Crystal.

“Make this cloth hard and unyielding as metal. Iron will do.”

Logan grinned. He now had a cast. He would still need to revert the enchantment back, so he could reach his ankle and secure it with the rest of the cloth left from his pants. But with that done he would actually stand a chance!

*

The cut pieces of pale gray tentacles sizzled on the heat-enchanted rock. The smell was pretty awful, but not as bad as his hands that had handled the raw pieces. Logan wished he had salt. Or butter. Or literally anything else to eat.

But this was his lot.

He bit into a piece. It tasted inky, fishy and chewy. So in a word, terrible. Gagging and holding his breath, Logan forced the pieces down one by one. Food in this world was scarce to begin with, and who knew when Logan would get his next chance at a meal.

The one silver lining was that there was a lot of food. The two tentacles had enough meat for a sushi buffet. A really gross one, and one lacking wasabi acutely, but Logan got his fill and some. It was the first time for a long time since he had eaten himself completely full. He had to save some of it to be eaten a few hours later. Logan wasn’t looking forward to that.

Having eaten and gotten up after some acrobatics and grunting with the crutches, Logan clonked himself to the mining cart. Tentatively, he tried pushing it along the tracks. It creaked and resisted, but with some elbow grease, Logan got it to budge.

The loud creak angered the groans from behind the rubble, as if the monster on the other side knew what Logan was up to. Logan shrugged. As far as it concerned the tentacle-monster, Logan was up to no good.

While the S-tier crystal was awesome (it still had 99% charge left after everything), the room had a distinct problem. There was nothing in it. There were barely materials for Logan to use. He could do something with the wood and stone that was there, but it was prudent to see where the track lead for now. If there were valuable materials ahead, Logan could use the mining cart to get them back easily to the giant crystal.

And so Logan pushed himself upon the cart and got it to move. After the grime and crust of ancient age started to dislodge itself from the cart’s wheels, they rolled fairly smoothly, even under Logan’s one-legged, discordant pushes.

After some sweaty and hard work at pushing, Logan came to the other side of a tunnel. He crouched carefully behind the cart and listened and tried to see. It was mostly quiet. A flutter of a bat was heard somewhere. It told Logan the room was large. Water was idly dripping down from some stalagmite. It wasn’t like Logan was going to get any more discomfortable, being almost naked and cold.

Drawing in a deep breath, he entered the room, pushing the cart. After a couple of yards the cart stopped on its tracks. Logan saw he had arrived at an intersection. In the middle of the intersection was a brazier standing on a metal leg. Logan tried lifting it up. It budged!

Yes! That’s metal acquired. It feels like the black metal. But the hell do I know what metal feels like. But it has this heft.

Logan eagerly lifted the thing and placed it in the cart. Then he leaned against it and thought.

“Tumor,” Logan said. “Strategy time. What should we craft?”

[Perhaps a basic weapon, such as a spear. Or armor?]

“No!” Logan said and sighed. “Think bigger.”

[Bigger… Bigger like—]

[Reconfiguring Neural Matrix… 99% Completion]

[Reconfiguring Neural Matrix… 100% Completion]

Suddenly Logan felt like a switch flick in his brain. For the faintest moment he black out. A current ran through his spine to the top of his head. Something had shifted.

“Tumor?

No answer. Logan couldn’t sense anything. Panic was rising up. “TUMOR?!”

[How big are we talking, Logan?]