“You need to rest, child.” Ruth, the woman who had rescued me said. I had made her think I was her child. It was a great cover. Saved from the clutches of the Divine Empress and hiding out in the wilderness.

“Yes mother, go get some more crystals from around the city and come back tonight,” I told her while pushing in energy. She nodded and left. I was still working on slowly fixing my body from all the damage and the rush job I had done. We had made it to the nearest city last night, and it was called Heaven. I had used Ruth’s crystals to purchase a restoration, which hadn’t helped that much unfortunately.

My energy was incredibly messed up and I was barely holding myself together. Ruth would go, get some crystals and eventually return. By then, I would be more mobile and hopefully fixed up. I had her purchase a large tub and then capture several people and bring them to this building hidden in the maze that was the city.

I filled up a tub with blood from the people that had been captured. I got in the tub, and spread out my energy into the blood, lowering myself completely into the liquid with only a small breathing tube. The first thing I did was spread out my energy in the blood.

The first time I had done this was when I had been cursed by a level 5 monster. But the victory had been worth it, earning me my second meta-point while risking death and permanent damage. The system liked people being reckless and rushing off to triumph over adversity.

It wanted brave warriors. Ones who wouldn’t back down and would keep fighting. It was amusing in a way and I always wondered what things the system wanted people to fight. Everything in this place was part of the system. The ground, the cities, and even the monsters.

It was all part of the system. It had taken a lot of research and observation, but I suspected we might be in some kind of super creature. It was hard to say for sure. But one thing I did know was that everything about this place was completely and utterly fake.

Blood and liquids were interesting. Being a medium for energy was key. I quickly pushed out my energy, overwriting the remainders from the pitiful people who had been sacrificed. Their lives going to a good cause. The blood was now mine, but I needed to work quickly before it congealed.

I focused on infusing the blood with oxygen. A bit tricky, but raw body manipulation with energy was very powerful and very risky. I would almost never do this on myself, but this blood was external to me and I was desperate and needed to fix myself before my condition deteriorated any more.

I then dropped my Astral Projection. The blood around me, keeping enough pressure on my exposed flesh and blood, so it didn’t disperse. I felt my mind shudder as I focused my energy into a specific pattern and infused that energy directly back into my physical body.

That was what people didn’t understand. Their energy that they could use, was mostly separate from the energy of their body in another layer. That was how I found out about the layers and then seeing the creatures teleport about made me aware that one could enter them. Unfortunately without my Word of Power Shatter I wasn’t going to be using that trick any time soon.

It was one of my better ones and incredibly powerful. A shame, but resting had allowed me to focus and work out exactly what needed to be done. First thing, fix my body, so I don’t spontaneously die. My flesh snapped back into place. My organs moved and were held in their proper positions. The blood keeping everything suspended in place, making it far easier than trying to do this without a suspension medium.

“Astral Projection,” I used the skill again, forming up a body of energy. I took my time inspecting my work to make sure it was good enough. It was. I had been willing to repeat the skill another two times if it wasn’t. This would be for the long term, acting as a scaffold while my physical body rebuilt itself.

It was incredibly important that I don’t go through with this process again. If my Astral Projection failed any time in the near future, I would die. My physical body was barely hanging on as it was. Any more damage and it would not last in the slightest. If this place had video game mechanics, my health was at one.

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The slightest mistake would kill me. While I may have had many setbacks, I was not one to make casual mistakes. My body formed back up. I rose up from the tub. That had taken only five minutes, but it was a lot easier to do something like this while I was in a position to focus, rather than falling out of the sky, having to do a rush job.

I also didn’t include the pieces needed to fly. This skill would form my body in its entirety. I had done this the first time when Michael had come into my room. If I needed to fly, I could layer another Astral Projection on top. It was hard to do properly, slower, and required a lot of my concentration, but it was possible.

Taking deep breaths, I moved my limbs about, confirming all the connections were where they could be. There didn’t seem to be any issues, thankfully. I got fully out of the tub of blood and went over to a nearby table.

I began eating the cooked flesh of the people that had bled out. I needed truly physical matter. Not the crap that the system handed out from the store to restore my body as quickly as possible. At least it could be cooked and cut up into small pieces.

It took around seven years for all the pieces of a human body to be truly replaced, with new atoms. My goal was about half a year to a year. As I chewed and swallowed piece after piece of human flesh, I thought of what I had to do next.

It wouldn’t be pleasant, but micro-organisms were highly suppressed by energy. It was toxic. Or at least the system’s energy was toxic to them. That meant that gut bacteria could survive in a gut, but they didn’t last long outside the body. Once I was finished my meal, I went over to the pile of organs that had a gross smell to them.

This was going to be unpleasant but necessary. I grabbed a piece of intestine. And squeezed out some shit. I then quickly bent over and shoved that shit up my ass. If I was going to digest properly, I needed to get the gut bacteria up inside of me.

I went from intestine to intestine, taking shit from each one and shoving them up my ass. Thankfully the best people for this procedure and for eating were the ones without any stats which made them easy prey and few complications.

Once I was done shoving foreign shit up inside of my rectum, I washed off my hands to try and get rid of the smell. In a day or so, anything on them will have died off. But I didn’t like the smell of shit. I left the room, and then got changed into some proper clothes.

I was small, which was annoying, but I was a child technically. Well, more like a resonance clone. The stupid Envoy used this kind of process over and over again, melting his brain. It was probably amusing for the Divine Empress. Just doing it twice, had huge risks, and was at a close distance. I shuddered to think what parts I would lose attempting to come back at a distance.

Also, the risk was insane. A resonance type of attack could be performed at a distance with a clone. It was a shame that the energy of this body had been completely overwritten with mine and I couldn’t attack Michael at a distance. This was my clone body, not his.

Once I was changed, I quickly left the building and made my way to the plaza, easily remembering the route. I spent a few minutes picking out my target who was patrolling alone. “Can you help me?” I asked a guard.

“Oh, a child, sure. What do you need?”

“My mommy needs help. Can you carry her back to the plaza to get healed?” I asked him and he nodded. He followed me back into the city and I questioned him to get a better understanding of the nation and power Michael held.

I frowned as the guard explained everything in detail. This Clarissa was the real organizer behind everything. If I killed her, then it would all fall apart. But if I killed or replaced Michael like I had originally planned then I would take over everything. I was kicking myself for gloating, but I had been in a chatty mood thinking I had already won and being starved for company.

It had been a foolish mistake. Now I needed to think what I would do. I listened the guard ramble on about how crystals were moved about and other cities in this nation of Purgatory. What a stupid name. It was completely and utterly without any value. Once I took over it would become the United City States, or UCS once again. It was catchy.

Once the guard was done explaining and we were on a distant side street, I pushed a thread of energy into his body and made him collapse. I then began poking and prodding his head. “Imbue Life.” I carefully inspected what I had done. Interesting, very interesting.

It would take work, and wouldn’t last too long, but it was possible, even on people with some stats. I chuckled in my head thinking about how my skill in skill manipulation had increased during the years I had been trapped. I could easily work my way up the chain of command to get into position to take out Michael.

The best time would be when he was sleeping or alone so I could instantly disable him and replace him without anyone knowing. I could use a second Astral Projection over my first to impersonate him and in time I could slowly bring both appearances into alignment as my body grew.

There were long term issues with maintaining a skill and some minor risks. But compared to death, I was willing to live with them. That was when a ball of golden light appeared. The Avatar was back to chat. I wonder what she had to say now. Her last bit of advice had been quite helpful in taking out the Divine Empress. I wondered what she wanted now.