"I am starting the molting process," I said. Vel stepped back from our hug and took my hand in hers. "It should take about a minute until I start to feel it and ten minutes until the changes start to become visible."

"Can I cast diagnostic spells?" Ailuin asked.

"Of course," I nodded.

It took about two minutes for the itch to appear this time. It was still incredibly uncomfortable but I was prepared for it this time.

"By Gaia this itches!" I complained.

I spread it among my mental partitions and tasked one of my constructs to maintain a pain numbing spell on me in addition to several diagnostic spells of my own. The process was both fascinating and disturbing. It involved a large quantity of ambient mana as well. Underneath the surface, I could see the new exoskeleton form grow and push against the old one. It was supernaturally fast, in nature, a process like this would have taken days or even weeks but the large infusion of mana and help from the system reduced it to hours.

A thin film of mucus separated both layers to prevent them from bonding together. Over a period of twenty minutes, the itch had spread all over my body and the new exoskeleton was fully formed. I felt the pressure as it wanted to expand.

"Now for the lengthy part," I said, "removing the old exoskeleton. I am going to relieve the pressure."

I summoned a void scalpel and made a careful incision on top of my thorax. The edges split apart almost instantly and the pressure lessened.

"Last time, I had to wriggle myself out of it when it cracked open under the pressure. That took forever and was dangerous."

"You want to cut it apart this time?" Ailuin asked.

"That's the plan. My Void Scalpel is accurate enough to cut only the outer exoskeleton without damaging anything. I can split the thorax, abdomen, legs, and front open. Then it should be easier to simply … peel everything off."

"The theory is sound …" The healer said. "The first cut was clean, if you're confident then let's follow your plan."

I summoned a catalyst and continued to cut. The first part we took care of was the abdomen, I split it lengthwise once at the top. Vel and Ailuin then gently pulled it apart while I separated it from the rest at the joint. I managed to lift myself up enough for them to slide it away. In total, the operation took twenty minutes.

"It worked pretty well," Vel smiled.

"It was the largest part too. Now, the thorax and legs. Let's start with one."

Ailuin nodded. I started by separating one leg at the joint then lengthwise as well. Then, Vel started to open and pull the useless exoskeleton away. The dry carapace wanted to close back up and it put pressure on the new one. To avoid any accidents we ended up cutting each segment of the limb individually. The last one came off like a sock.

The first leg had taken around fifteen minutes but the next few shrunk the time considerably with each of them. Ailuin and Vel were also able to take care of one leg each at the same time. While this happened, I took care of my pedipalps and fangs by myself. When all of them were freed, I lifted myself and removed the remainder around my thorax.

I shook myself a little.

"Feels great," I exclaimed. "Finally free!"

"You have got a teardrop shaped gem on your back," Vel pointed out.

"I do! It's part of the evolution, the Emerald Arachne, evolved from the Quartz Arachne, specialized in Nature Magic. Increases the power of my spells."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Interesting," Ailuin said. "I am glad everything went well."

"Me too," Vel said. I took her hand in mine and pulled her closer. "Now, I think my girlfriend needs to rest for a while."

"Our work here is done it seems," Ailuin smiled. "Thank you for letting me help. Even for a seasoned healer like me, this was a once in a lifetime experience."

"Let's go, Esta." He shepherded his apprentice towards the door. The poor girl had stayed mute during the whole procedure and had turned a bit pale. I hoped we hadn't traumatized her too much.

Vel and I climbed back into our web and I settled in for a nap. This molt hadn’t been as exhausting as the last but my instincts still wanted me to sleep it off. And so I did, with my cute girlfriend leaning against my side, reading a book.

----------------------------------------

For lunch, Vel was kind enough to get us take-away from the kitchen. She brought back four bowls, one for her with a green salad interspersed with cuts of red meat, and three for me. The first one was a bowl of broth with big vegetable chunks and a big piece of white meat, the second was the same salad as her, and the third was thin slices of cooked meat layered on steaming rice.

The last one was a local specialty. The meat was from the local centipede population and tasted delicious. A strange mix between chicken and salmon.

"You must be pretty hungry," Vel said with a grin, "so I got you some extras."

"You're the best." I took the bowls with Psychokinesis.

We snuggled in the web and I took my time to savor the meal.

Our time to leave the village was approaching. I was tempted to wait for all of my molts to be done before we went to the guild but I didn't want to force Darrel and his group to wait for too long. I needed at least two days between them to fully recover which meant we'd need to stay at least one more week. I was starting to feel a bit restless as well.

I was also a lot more confident about molting after the last try. As long as I had somewhere to safely hole up for a few hours, Vel and I could handle it by ourselves. Another possibility was to return to Asril for the next molt, I had no doubt we'd be welcomed with open arms.

Before we left, however, there was one last thing I wanted to do. My newly acquired skill, Language Mastery, gave me the perfect opportunity to examine the system inside the Ritual Bracer and figure it out.

"I have a plan for this afternoon," I said to Vel. "Something not too strenuous while I let my carapace harden."

"Go on …"

"Figure out the Ritual Bracer," I pointed at my wrist. "Now that I have a language acquisition skill, it should be easier."

"From the Oracle, right?" She asked between bites.

"Exactly. What do you think?"

"It's worth a try," she nodded. "I'm pretty curious as to what it can do."

"Me too." I said as I finished my bowl of soup.

----------------------------------------

After we were finished, I floated our empty dishes away. Then, Vel snuggled into my lap and I brought the bracer in front of us. The interface appeared once again. Since I didn't know which language it was, I couldn't use the Read Language spell yet. It simply fizzled.

Instead, I focused on the text and symbols on the screen. I couldn't decipher the former but some of the icons were recognizable as they pictured stylized versions of real objects. I couldn't understand all of them, or even a majority of them for that matter, as their cultural meaning had been lost to time long before the temple ruins had started to decay. But a few had survived the test of time and were still used.

The symbol for house, a square with a door adorned by a keystone, looked like the one still used on maps. When I pressed it with my finger, the screen jiggled slightly. I assumed it meant that I was already on the home screen.

"That was strange," Vel said.

"I think it means we're already where it leads." I said. "The wiggle probably means 'this cannot be done right now' or something similar."

"Let's see … what does this one do?"

Next, I pressed one of the other buttons around it, one with multiple circles stacked on top of each other. The central part dissolved and a stacked wheel with multiple screens appeared in its place. I dragged my finger and the screens moved as well.

"It feels a lot like a smartphone from back home. A multi-function device you could carry in your pocket."

I pushed one of the screens up and it stayed there. I pushed another and it slid next to it. I pulled down and the screen vanished. When I pressed the stack button again, the two screens I had pushed remained.

"So I can have more than one open at the same time. Good to know."

"What are they?"

"Programs, I assume. How to explain … They are like system screens but for the different things that can be done in the bracer. The one on the left looks like it has to do with taking notes. It has a lot of text. The right, no idea for now."

"I see. I think. You could have one of those programs with a map for example?"

"Yes, exactly," I nodded.

I tapped the next icon below the stack, a hexagon with half a dozen dots inside, and a keyboard appeared below the main screen. At least it looked a lot like a keyboard. There were several hexagons, two bigger ones in the center with four others on the sides, with characters arranged in a grid inside. I could fairly easily match the symbols there with the ones on the rest of the interface.

I had an alphabet to work with.