I knocked on the door to the study lightly but heard no response. After a short while, I opened the door to see Safi curled up on the floor in the middle of the room resting. Since she used up even slightly more mana while awake and moving she had fallen into the habit of resting whenever possible to conserve the ambient mana. I silently tip toed around her to my temporary lodging. The structure of the abode was set in a simple cross shape with the center being a large circular chamber. If the entrance was the bottom of the cross, then it would lead directly into a large circular work area with a high vaulted ceiling and blue glow stones placed in the rafters to give off stable light. This is where the alchemist would actually concoct and it had storage for ingredients lining its walls. To the right was door leading to the personal bedroom of the alchemist, which also served as the library. It almost looked like the 'bedroom' portion of it was added on though. It basically functioned as a library with a bed in it for convenience.

That was where Safi was currently allowing me to stay since it was too small for her to comfortably lay down and she had already read the majority of books in there. Straight ahead of the entrance from the workshop was what Safi called the 'core' of the abode, which was where she assumed the barrier and all the magic tools were being maintained and powered from. I say assumed because it was impossible for either of us to enter as it was enchanted against intruders in the first place. The magic tools that Safi uses are the ones the alchemist had left out when he had been struck down by the dragon curse from her eggshell, he hadn't been expecting to suddenly die after all.

To the left of the workshop was the door to the storage for the primary ingredients, or the most important ingredients to different alchemical formulas. I had only been given a brief explanation, but there were primary and secondary ingredients in Alchemy. Primary ingredients provided the effects to what was being created, while secondary ingredients balanced and stabilized the final product. The workshop storage handled all the secondary ingredients since they were by nature far easier to store and used in higher quantities, while the left storage room was for the more precious and difficult to handle primary ingredients. Incidentally, there were very few of the non poisonous ones left, since Safi had eaten many of them to stave off mana deprivation.

Also, something I had been unaware of before Safi had explained it when I asked why her MP was filled but she was still suffering mana deprivation was the difference between MP and the mana needed to survive. MP was basically just a baseline to how much of your mana was available to be used outside of normal body consumption. Mana was always running through all living beings and enhancing their body, and providing support. For dragons it was even their energy source and basically their main fuel, with food being secondary. MP however is not the measure of this mana being used by the body all the time. The Water Wolf and Stone Howler Monkeys I had fought had a great amount of mana in their bodies but low amounts of MP after all. MP was the measurement of how much of that mana could be used for external actions such as spells or skills. Essentially two different containers of the same resource. Dragons were meant to have notoriously high MP values, but neither of the 'containers' in Safi's body had the nutrients to grow so it was severely stunted.

"Ah fuuuuuuuuck." I winced and recoiled as my retribution for walking around an unfamiliar environment while stuck in thought hit me in an especially painful way. To put it simply, I had stubbed my toe on the door frame like an absolute dumbass. I hobbled into the room and flopped onto the bed with my eyes shut, determined to rest after that fight.

While I had the time, I decided to start distributing my 35 free stat points into my magic and mental stats since I still saw no hope of increasing them through Self-Modification. I eventually decided to add 15 to Capacity and Intelligence each, and adding 5 to my Charisma. And no I wasn't getting confidence issues because an overgrown monkey had a higher Charisma score than me. Totally not. This was for proper research! Or some such. Anywhos, I also decided to go through another round of modifications now that I was in a safe space and had more food to spare for it. Also, my current stats where pretty shitty overall compared to what I had been fighting.

I manifested the skill and rubbed my chin as I considered what to change first. Maybe muscles again? Or the stone skin I had wanted in the first place? Nah, I think I'll build up to those two, both sound pretty harrowing after my first experience after all. After hemming and hawing for an embarrassing amount of time I settled on an order of changes. Nose, ears, bones, muscles, and finally skin. The nose was first, and I was basically just exchanging the internal hardware with that of the Water Wolf, with no outside changes. It did hamper the performance slightly, but I didn't want to lose too many human features on my face at least, that was a point I wouldn't compromise on for now. I was quite lucky for that as well, I don't think I could have handled any more sensitivity than it already gave me, after the change I was rolling around in agony from the over stimulation from all the new smells that assaulted me like a punch in the face. It took a full hour for my brain to fully adjust to the new hardware update, which was not a fun period. Unfortunately, the worst was to come I believed. I then decided to grow a pair of wolf ears on my head for better hearing as well. The structure for the changes was too complicated for my inexperienced ass to fit into a human ear, so I just decided to add them on like a typical fantasy beast man. I'm sure most people would be more welcoming to a wolf girl instead though...

That was also a lot of over stimulation but not as bad as the nose, it was incredibly quiet here when Safi was asleep but not so quiet I started to hear my own blood and go insane. It only took half an hour to get used to these changes, either because it was slightly less overwhelming or my mind was getting more adaptable. I was personally hoping for the latter to be true so I could do without these mini torture sessions when swapping out or adding sensory parts honestly. Now onto one of the three big bad bosses, the bones. I decided to change my bone composition to that of the Stone Howler Monkey. Thought they weren't a dedicated tanking beast, they were still sturdier than my comparatively glass human bones after all. I first took out the two monkey corpses and used my claws to roughly gut them and get all the edible meat the light grey cores that shimmered in my hands. I also separated the bones I would be using as the supplementary materials for the modification. I had learned from the claws incident that having the original material on hand when modifying increased the speed of the change and provided almost all of the nutrients required. But I wanted to conduct another experiment with this as well. I placed both grey cores on top of the pile of bones and laid back down with them by the side of the bed. I then activated the skill and went limp as the process began. Sitting next to me, the bones along with the cores lightly shook.

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[External compatible materials detected, do you wish to restructure?]

It worked! I excitedly sent the yes mental message and then the bones and cores began to liquidate in an odd fashion as they melded together like to jellos being mixed together. Then I was suddenly hit by a premonition that stomped out all my previous excitement. How was the bone slurry over there supposed to get to my current bones? I watched in horror and trepidation as the ooze like substance spread out equally above me like a blanket and fell onto me with long and thin tendrils drilling into my skin all over my body, causing me to want to cry out in pain, but it only came out as a whimper since I basically had no working jaw to move or solid bones for my muscles to use to contract. I sat there as the world's most depressed noodle until my bones finally started hardening 45 minutes later. I fucking hated bones, fucking dammit. I can't wait until I find out how to dull my sense of pain, but for now I had to deal with being the saddest noodle in cooking history until then. When I looked with Bio Analyze I saw my bones were far sturdier, as well as having what looked like sparkling dust coating the surface of them. That was the ground down cores of the two monkeys added as materials for them. They had no elemental specialty but they conducted mana very well so I thought it might be useful, I'd have to test the full effects later though but for now it seemed to increase my Capacity by 3 which was very welcome. I had based this experiment on what had happened with my dagger and claws before, with the material being consumed to strengthen it.

Now for my least favorite bit, the muscles. Hopefully since this was just a modification and not a full overhaul like before it wouldn't be as bad.

10 minutes later, after having started the procedure, it was just as bad. Oh lord was it bad. I was once again an unmoving noodle of pain. I could barely think of anything else to distract me. Eventually, I was able to let out a sigh of relief as I gained motor function again and the pain drifted away like it didn't even exist. I took a short break to cook some of the meat of the smaller monkey that hadn't been used as materials for the modification to eat something. I added some salt and pepper from the small storage here and ate heartily. I wasn't particularly picky, but I wasn't expecting monkey meat to be so good, maybe it was just because it was the first seasoned meal I'd had.

After a sufficient mental break so I didn't lose all motivation from the constant pain, I moved onto the final thing on my plate, the stone skin those monkeys had. It was flexible like normal skin so I didn't think it would inhibit my movements, and it would massively increase my survivability. After my experience with the last 2 major operations, I was lying if I said I was looking forward to this, but I wanted to survive and get stronger so... I pressed yes to the option. Suddenly, the grey hide of the monkey next to me melted into its base materials and wrapped itself around me like a cream dyeing my skin a new color. The feeling? Like the most horrendous itch that could ever be fathomed. I used to laugh at the big ant when he had to deal with the itch, but now I knew I could never laugh at it again after feeling this. I was actually able to move this time, unlike with the last 2, so I was writhing and contorting myself into all kinds of odd shapes as anytime my skin rubbed against something it sent more waves of itching through me which led to more rolling around and then more itching like a never ending cycle. Eventually though, it did eventually end as I laid on the ground face down panting from all the mental gymnastics I'd been forced to perform the last few hours.

I carefully pushed myself up, taking a moment to ensure I wouldn't stumble or fall, before looking at the strange but familiar figure in the body length mirror here. A tall stature, slightly more muscular and lean looking, with skin the color of light grey river rocks, ten intimidating claws adorning the fingers. Black hair that parted in two areas that showed off black wolf ears on the top of the head. And the same piercing golden eyes that finished off the somewhat alien looking spectacle. Overall, I looked like the love child of a dark elf and wolf beast-kin, if either of those things even existed in this world.

[Name] Aura

[Class] Biomancer

[Subclass] None

[Race] Human(Half-Monster)

[Level] 11

[HP] 270/270 [MP] 330/330

[Vitality] 27 (+17)

[Capacity] 33 (+18)

[Strength] 30 (+15)

[Agility] 36 (+11)

[Intelligence] 27 (+15)

[Charisma] 10 (+5)

[Fortune] 2

[Stat Points] 0 (-35)

[Unique Skills] Unsteady Life, Abnormal Growth

[Class Skills] Bio Analyze 3, Flesh Reinforcement 2, Notepad, Self-Modification 3

[Skills] Analysis Eye 2, Storage 1, Dagger Combat 1, Unarmed Combat 1, Water Magic 2, Claw Combat 2, Life Magic 1