"Okay, for the very first time, it's we actually have loot, so let's take a look at who gets what!" Alice said with more excitement than she actually felt. Albeit they had loot, it wasn't actually anything too amazing. Rather, they were the results of the few experiments Alice had managed to run with her upgraded Soul-binding.
She looked down at the small pile of objects in the middle of the room, each of which was covered in an aura-like black haze. Finally, she chose which one to deal with first, taking it into her hand. Quickly, she relayed its stats to the rest of the group.
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Item: Soulbound bone
Mana: 0/4
Magic power: 6
Durability Lv 3
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"That's a bone," Carl deadpanned.
"Very perceptive! But it's also magical and very durable bone! So... does anyone want it? Really? No one?" Alice finally put the bone down to the side, picking up the next object.
"Ehm..."
"Yes, Carl?" Alice gave the man the word.
"That's also a bone... Why are there so many bones?"
"Because this bone is even cooler than the last!"
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Item: Soulbound Monkey bone
Mana: 1/5
Magic power: 8
Durability Lv 4
Restoration Lv 12
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Well, Alice herself knew that these bones were mostly useless. However, they had served their purpose for an experiment. The very first test had been to bind a Monkey's soul to a stick. In the second test, she had bound a Monkey's soul to a bone. And in the last of the three tests, she had bound a Monkey's soul to a bone from its own corpse.
In a way, it had made sense considering she was still a Necromancer, no matter how weird her Skillset was turning out. The results spoke for themselves. With each iteration, the stats had gone up by a bit, and the level of Durability increased by one. Most significant, however, was what happened with the last. The addition of a very high-level Skill called Restoration.
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Restoration Lv 12
Active
Consume 12 Mana per minute to restore this object from damage.
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"Not only is it even harder to break, but compared to the other one, it can be broken in half without the enchantments disappearing! More importantly, as long as there is Mana inside of it, it can repair itself pretty darn quickly."
"That's cool and all, but what do we need those for?" the man didn't stop asking.
"I don't know? Get creative!" Alice retorted.
"Okay, fine. Then what would you use it for?" he finally asked.
"Moving on!" Alice deftly evaded the question.
Meanwhile, Max was thinking about the moral implications and hygiene of using bones as splints. Considering how physically strong people were starting to become, they had to think of new solutions to old problems.
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Item: Soulbound Knife
Mana: 0/3
Magic power: 5
Durability Lv 2
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"This beauty, I would like to give to Ava! I mean, it's her knife in the first place, after all. But I think we should all get a weapon like that. If my ax, the first one, I mean, had been enchanted like that, I highly doubt it would have broken."
"How durable are we talking about here?" Harry was the one to ask.
"Well, this is just a cheap knife. And with Durability at just level two, I had to hit the edge of the curbstone with quite considerable strength and several times to even nick the blade," Ava explained.
"Hmm... What do you think would happen to firearms?"
"Honestly, no idea. We would have to test it. Though I don't think there would be any issues with the firearm itself, but if the bullets are affected, the hammer might not be strong enough to trigger the primer anymore," Alice made a guess.
"Hmm... We will have to test that. Also, do you know how to put that Restoration Skill on an object and how exactly it works?" the old man continued asking.
"Not absolutely sure, to be honest, but I think the object needs to contain pieces from the soul's original body. And the way it works is actually pretty interesting. The broken-off piece actually dissolves before regrowing. Sadly, that means that there might be ways to 'seal' pieces and block the Skill, and it's also impossible to use it to magically create materials by breaking them off and letting them regrow.
Why, what were you thinking about?" Alice finished with a question, realizing that Harry had a specific idea when asking.
"Guns with regenerating ammunition," he stated his idea.
"We would have to try, but it might be possible. The biggest problem would probably be to get the monster material into the gun and only the binding the soul, of course, before the soul dissipates."
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Item: Soulbound Monkey bone shiv
Mana: 1/5
Magic power: 8
Durability Lv 4
Restoration Lv 12
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"Yes, Carl?"
"It's ANOTHER bone."
"Yes, but this bone is particularly pointy and sharp. And while not quite as durable as a metal blade, you will never have to worry about sharpening it since it has Restoration."
"Then you should use it yourself. God knows you need more than the rest of us," the man said, eliciting different forms of affirmation from the rest of the group.
"As you may have noticed, I'm currently a bit short-handed," Alice tried to downplay the situation with a joke, "and I need at least one hand free for punching, else this weapon would be about as shortlived as my second ax."
"You know," Ava commented, "That might not actually be the case. As far as I can tell, your Bone armor doesn't seem to be affected by your Necrotic burst."
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
"Isn't that just because it's a product of my own Skill?"
"Isn't that," Ava pointed at the shiv, "also a product of your own Skill?"
"Sure, but isn't that different?"
"Well, look at it from a different perspective. You are a necromancer, and bones and dead stuff are kind of your thing."
"Yeah, but the handle of my ax was also made from 'dead stuff'."
"Come, just try it," Ava urged her girlfriend.
"Fine," Alice answered, punching the ground lightly with the shiv in hand. Annoyed, she looked at the still perfectly intact weapon. "This is so fucking arbitrary..."
"Just accept it for what it is. There is still some stuff left, isn't there?"
"Fine, fine. Well, actually, there isn't a lot left. All in all, we have got our hands on four Magic crystals, three from Goliaths and one from the Troll. each of those can hold twenty-five Mana, although all of them have fifteen or less."
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Item: Soulbound Crystal
Mana: 15/28
Magic power: 25
Charging
Draining
Durability Lv 2
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"This one is the most interesting of them. It's different because I bound the soul of a Monkey to it, improving its original values. Sadly, I lost out on testing what happens if I bind the original soul to a Crystal since I still don't have the Mana and Magic power to bind Goliath souls."
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Charging
The Crystal can be charged with Mana.
However, some will be lost in the process.
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Draining
You can drain Mana from the Crystal to recharge your own.
However, doing so comes at a cost.
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"From what Michael told Debby, the Charging and Draining Skills are exactly the same as what they found out, but it now also has the Durability Skill. We will decide what to do with these later after we get more information from Homebase. But if it turns out that the 'cost' mentioned in the Draining Skill isn't something too problematic, we can use these to speed up the enchantment process since my Soul absorption is basically perfect for recharging these things," Alice finally finished.
"And that's my cue, I guess?" Debby asked.
"Yep. Please contact Michael now," Alice agreed.
"You know," she continued, addressing the rest of the group, "as convenient as her abilities are, it's a little annoying that Debby is the only one capable of contacting Michael. For all we know, she could tell us whatever she wants, and we would only find out once we get back."
"And why, the hell, would my wife do that?" Carl asked, rightfully offended.
"Don't know? World domination?" Alice joked, "Sorry, that came out wrong."
"Well," Ava helped her out, "I can kinda understand what you mean. It's like... If Michael is the CEO, and the council is the board, you would be the... Department head? Branch chief, and Harry your second in command. But the only way to contact headquarters would be through the secretary."
"I don't quite know how much of that you actually got right, but yeah, kinda like that. Having to leave all the communication with my supposed-to-be-superior to my supposed-to-be-subordinate just makes me a little uneasy."
"First of all, I can hear you. Second of all, world domination would be far too much work.
On a more serious note, they found out how the Magic crystals work. Charging works at fifty percent efficiency, meaning half the Mana gets lost on the way.
The 'cost' of draining the Crystal comes in two parts. First, no matter how much Mana you actually take, the Crystal gets destroyed in the process. Secondly, you get a Debuff called Overload. It reduces Mana regeneration from all sources by twenty percent for as many hours as you have drained Mana."
"Does the Debuff stack?" Ava was the first to ask.
"What do you mean?"
"If I were to drain a second Crystal while the Debuff is still active, does the Debuff get worse?" Ava clarified her question.
"Ah, yeah, apparently. The time gets added, and you get less and less Mana every time. Though they couldn't test it with more than three Crystals on the same person, so we don't know if there is a limit."
"Well, it's definitely good to know. I that case, we should probably get one fully charged Goliath Crystal for everyone. For emergencies.
Anyway, let's get to the important bits. What did the council decide on doing about Andy and his crew?" Alice finally asked.
Debby sighed, giving Alice a bad feeling.
"They would prefer if we could solve this peacefully. However, since they aren't present and haven't seen the situation for themselves, and with magic making everything a lot more complicated, it was decided that the decision lies with us. Or rather, with you and Harry."
Alice's expression fell. She had hoped more than anything else that the council would decide that they should immediately stop what they were doing. Decide that they should stop and find any other solution but premeditated murder.
In the first place, Alice had never signed up for this kind of thing. She had reluctantly accepted her role of leader because she had 'more experience' than everyone else, although the word 'more' referred to a few days' worths at best. Meanwhile, Ava, who had just as much experience as herself, had pushed the job onto her immediately, while Harry put himself into the role of advisor.
Alice took a deep breath, trying to calm down the whirlpool of thoughts that was building up in her head before it could drag her down into the depths.
"Okay, Harry, how do we look on the matter of enchantments?"
"Five done. I would suggest we continue hunting at a lighter pace for the rest of the day. That way, I should be able to get another level early tomorrow. If I make one enchantment early in the morning, then one after leveling up, and one more with a Magic Crystal, we could use one more Crystal to top me back up. Even if it's not at maximum potential, I would suggest not waiting much longer than that if Andy's group is growing stronger as fast as we think they are."
"Yes, you are probably right," Alice agreed. Meanwhile, her mind was churning, searching for alternatives. Quickly, however, she gave up. She wasn't some kind of genius schemer who could come up with some elaborate trick to solve the problem. Rather, don't even mention genius. She wasn't a schemer at all.
All she could do was to take the approach that was most likely to solve the problem. And currently, that was assassinating Andy. The only thing she could do was to take a gamble once again and hope to get some kind of Skill that would conveniently solve all her problems.
__________
Two days later:
"Okay, everyone is clear on the plan?" Alice asked into the group. It had grown, now that Nathan and Jake had joined up with them.
"What do you even need us for? I mean, you get as close as possible and shoot him. That's basically all your plan amounts to, doesn't it?" Jake asked confusedly.
"Well, normally, I would say that with a plan this simple, there is very little that can go wrong," Harry explained. "In this situation, however, basically everything can go wrong, so having a way to quickly extricate ourselves from basically any situation will be most valuable."
"I see. But wouldn't it be bad if I'm with you during that time? If I get that close, Andy would know and immediately send people out," Nathan argued.
"Well, you can just teleport in and get us out when we need it, can't you?" Ava commented.
"Sorry, but the back-and-forth that I used to get you the first time is too risky. It takes some time to activate, and I can't fully control who I'm taking back with me. If things go wrong, we could bring one of the Generals right back with us. On the other hand, I don't have the Mana to sustain two long-range teleports in quick succession."
"In that case, I wanted to give you this thing here either way," Alice said, pushing a bracelet into the man's hand.
Albeit her gamble hadn't resulted in a Skill that solved the main problem, it did turn out to be pretty convenient.
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Bone molding Lv 1
Costs Mana.
Control and form the bones of the dead.
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Even down to its description, the Skill was almost identical to the Flesh grafting Skill. The only difference being, of course, for bones. Previously Alice might have thought differently, the Skill little less than a way to 'heal' her from broken bones while undead.
But with the upgrade to her Soul-binding Skill, Bone molding became quickly one of her most useful Skills. For example, it had allowed her to create the bracelets, the first thing worthy of being called a magical artifact.
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Item: Soulbound Monkey bone crystal bracelet
Mana: 31/31
Magic power: 29
Charging
Draining
Durability Lv 4
Restoration Lv 7
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It was a simple bracelet with the ivory color typical for bones. The only adornment, of course, was the red, marble-sized magic crystal of a Goliath, the little black haze of the soul swirling around it. Alice had secured it on the bracelet by molding the bone directly around it, her Skill having made the job rather easy.
"You see how it says thirty-one of thirty-one Mana? You can absorb that by using the Draining Skill of the bracelet. Although, you will get a Debuff that reduces your Mana regeneration for a while after. What's even cooler about this thing, however, is that you can use it indefinitely. Normally, the Crystal would break after the first use, but with the Durability Skill, it won't break completely, and with the Restoration Skill, it will repair the damage afterward.
Though, the Restoration takes some Mana and time," Alice explained proudly. She had no doubt that this was just the beginning. Once she figured out how to give more than just Durability and Restoration to objects, the combination of bone and Magic crystal would, no doubt, become the base for her future creation of magical artifacts.
Of course, the one Alice was giving to Nathan wasn't their only one. Rather, every one of the team already had one that was fully charged. Alice herself was wearing hers over her left arm, the stump having grown out quite a bit already after she had put another twenty-five souls towards it, causing her Bodyreformation Stat to go up by quite a bit in the process as well.
"Is this... Bone?" he didn't sound too excited, comparing the bracelet's color to that of Alice's bone armor.
"Well, yes. It even says that in its name," Alice retorted. It was another convenient thing they had found out. While just like the enchantments Harry put on guns, others couldn't see the effects of the souls Alice bound to objects, that changed as soon as a Magic crystal was integrated into the objects.
"Okay, Ava, Carl, Daniel, and Max, you four, please stay here on stand by. Nathan, Jake, are you two going to help? Don't worry, you can keep the bracelet either way."
"Let's help them," Jake silently tried to convince his partner.
"Argh... Fine. We will help. It's not like we are going to be in any great danger. I will be honest. I don't like that your plan A is to resort to assassination, but it's not like I have a better idea," Nathan finally conceded.
"I know what you mean. Still, thank you. Debby, please keep Nathan updated on our location at all times. Daniel, until we get back, you are in charge here, okay?"
"Sure," he answered lightly.
"Then, let's get going."