Once I was sure Tear had gone to bed, I walked out of my room via the tower door, closed it, and stepped off the ledge, flaring my wings at the last moment so as to land softly on the ground. The Stardust Dragon raised its head, but seeing it was only me, lowered it again.

I looked around, spotted a suitable tree nearby, and jumped up onto one of its lower branches, about 5 meters off the ground. Once there I fully removed my armour, storing it away into my inventory, then removed my wings for the first time since I reincarnated. The wings growing from my back disappeared, a slightly strange feeling, but nothing else happened.

I equipped a 'Lucky Horseshoe', an item that would, like the wings, negate fall damage. I had told Tear that I would make sure she wouldn't fall to her death in my tower, and I didn't want to have to wall off the shaft on each floor as it would slow my movement around the tower down considerably, so I wanted to test if there was another option before doing anything.

With my teeth gritted and eyes closed, I steeled myself and jumped off the branch. After about a second, one eye creaked open cautiously. Below my feet was a glowing star-shaped board; I was standing on it and hovering mid-air.

“Oh right, the Celestial Starboard too.”

I unequipped it… and rapidly completed my descent to the ground. Frantic flailing had me land on my feet with a thud; my knees didn't break or even buckle, not even my breath left me. What did have me gasping involuntarily however was the sudden loss of all knowledge of flight vanishing from my brain.

Panicked, I reequipped my wings and sighed in relief as it flooded back. Not having my wings left me with an uncomfortable gap. The feeling was all too similar to how it felt when my exoskeleton was disconnected and I couldn’t use my legs. I deequiped them again, grimacing at the feeling, and looked up at the branch I’d jumped from.

It was only a little surprising to me that the impact from the fall had been so negligible, as I had expected something like that what with all the times I hit the ground wearing my wings. I leapt back into the tree with a boost from my Terraspark Boots, which contained Rocket Boots, landing on a branch 15 meters off the ground. I stepped off it with much the same result, a result repeated as I tested a variety of landing positions, including a full face-plant, so I decided to go bigger.

Five minutes later I walked out onto the ledge of my room and looked down into the darkness.

“Urrgh,” I groaned, momentarily regretting deciding to scale up all the way to here in one go, then stepped off. Halfway down, a great dark shape suddenly loomed out of the night, smacking into me sending me careening through the air. I smashed into the ground and lay there, winded and gasping for breath, a burning pain in my ribs, as the Stardust Dragon uncoiled from round the tower and snapped the unseen monster out of the air.

Six of the twenty golden hearts had blanked out from the top right of my vision; I had lost nearly 150 healthpoints. It was the first time I had taken any damage since I had reincarnated, and boy did it hurt. Not as bad as reattaching spinal nerves to an exoskeletal interface though. There’s not much that can top that… especially since it had to be redone regularly. My attention flicked to the other side, to the little square icon of pixelated cracks in an x-ray ribcage - Debuff: broken ribs.

“I suppose I should say 'as expected of the edge of the Beast Forest'” I chuckled painfully, “that kinda damage could one-shot a new player.” I didn't stop to think that almost every weapon on my hotbar could easily throw out three times that in a single second.

A moment later, a golden glow suffused me, brilliant sparks of gold light appearing just above my chest, sinking into my heart and diffusing around my body. I was briefly confused, then realised it was the effect of the 'Shiny Stone' accessory which massively increased health regen as long as I was remaining completely still. Suddenly I realised that I couldn't let this chance pass and pulled a Lesser Health Potion into my inventory from my world storage, intending to remove it from there and drink it. Instead, I consumed it directly from my inventory, which I had no idea I could do. It instantly restored fifty of my health points; I could feel my broken ribs knitting together. The regeneration from the Shiny Stone healed the remainder in another few seconds and I got up and stretched.

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For just having broken several ribs, that rate of healing wasn't too bad. I could have healed faster but I didn't want to waste my higher grade potions on something that would be healed quickly anyway. At least I had managed to confirm that the Lucky Horseshoe effect worked, and that the Healing Potions did in fact heal injuries. Though there was still a phantom pain in my ribs, but it was on the level of a mild itch. I groaned: that monster had disrupted the test, now I had to do it again.

The next time went without incident and I smacked into the ground, again not even needing to bend my knees. The Lucky Horseshoe seemed to dampen the G-forces that I should have felt, which would have turned my brain to pulp inside my skull, leaving only enough to let me notice I'd hit the ground. It also seemed to dampen the G-forces regardless of how I impacted with the ground, as evidence by my low angle crash when I first flew, which was really convenient.

I reequipped my armour and wings (and Starboard), then returned into the tower, my head buzzing with ideas.

Tear came down the stairs to the dining hall to find me still nursing my ribs. The pain had faded even further and I reckoned that it would only be another hour or so before it disappeared completely.

“Good morning Tear,” I greeted her mildly grumpily.

“Morning Lyte,” she said, slightly warily. “Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?”

“I was testing and making this all night” I said, dumping the Lucky Horseshoe on the table. I had spent the entire night unable to sleep and had used the time refining it down into a small pendant, which still held the same effect. The efficiency of the kinetic energy conversion and distribution effect was reduced due to it having been miniaturised, so impacts at high velocity caused it to heat up to the degree that the Horseshoe I’d been working with to start with had actually melted. To solve that problem, I’d set the centimetre-across Horseshoe into the metal produced by mixing a Frost Core from an Ice Golem with adamantite. In the game it had only been used in the Frost Armour and Cool Whip, but now? I could see a lot of uses for a metal that would absorb or emit heat to remain at a temperature set during the forging process. I think I’ll call it Frost Metal.

“What is it?” she picking up the teardrop shaped pendant by its chain of tiny titanium links and turning it to look at the mini golden horseshoe set flush into its cyan surface.

“Put it on, eat breakfast, and then we'll test to see,” I said shortly, stifling a yawn and pushing a plate of bacon, sausages, and eggs towards her.

She sat and wolfed (catted?) it down, then sat there looking at her empty plate. She looked so dejected with her flopped over ears that it completely blew away my bad mood and I had to stifle a laugh.

“You can have some more you know,” I chuckled, indicating the sizeable piles on the plates between us.

Her face lit up and she pounced on them, stuffing food into her mouth with her hands. I smacked her lightly over the head with a 'classy cane' I had pulled from my world storage. “Use the cutlery and eat slowly, dear girl, we are civilised here,” I said with a posh accent, twirling my cane, tipping my black top hat and adjusting my monocle (made from a single lens) all at the same time, proceeding to knock off the hat with the cane.

She burst out laughing, but did resume using her cutlery, though she still ate incredibly quickly.

After quite a large breakfast on her part (I wondered how a person so small could pack away so much food), we headed down to the bottom of the tower.

“Huh, when did you do that?” asked Tear, looking down through the glass floor at the short marble wall I had built across the spring. It sank several meters into the water and split the entire room in half from the teleporter to the tower wall on the other side. Two short walls extended out from it in a T-shape just before the teleporter, so that someone just entering couldn't see either side.

“Well, you didn't want to share a bath with me, so I did it this morning,” I said.

“What about looking down from up here?” she asked.

“This is ten meters above the anyone who might be in there, and the glass is two meters thick so it distorts the light quite a bit, I don't think it's a problem,” I answered. “Anyway, let's get to testing the Horseshoe Necklace, as I've decided to call it.”

“Oh, and what does it do?”

“It negates the damage taken from falls,” I said nonchalantly.

“That's amazing! I'd heard of artefacts that could do that but I'd never expected to see one!” Tear exclaimed, then froze and went slightly pale. “Don't tell me we are testing it the way I think we're testing it,” she pleaded, beginning to back away.

I simply smiled ominously.

Five minutes later, a very grumpy catgirl was sitting glowering at me from the other side of the room.

“What's the problem?” I asked, “we now know you're immune to fall damage.”

“Which is great and all, but did you have to throw me off progressively greater heights, including off the top of the tower, twice, to test it?” she spat back.

I sighed, shook my head, and wandered upstairs to the library. The youngsters these days didn't understand anything about rigorous testing. I was also pleased that my equipment could be given to other people and work for them. With the way the robe I gave Tear resized itself to fit her, so I had been fairly confident the Horseshoe would work too. I wouldn't just throw her off a potentially injury-inducing height without knowing if she could survive it.