I checked the shopping list of materials that I needed to bring back to Doc.

92000 Earth Element

7000 Water Element

2500 Air Element

1500 Fire Element

10000 Blood Element

I groaned at the sight of it. It was, by all accounts, a shitload of stuff that would probably take multiple trips back and forth to the workshop. Not only did it include resources, but there was also a long-ass list of crafted materials that I needed to make, presumably with the elements listed. Stuff like tiny motors, hinges, and hydraulics, and even some questionable magic shit that I'm not even sure I had the recipe for.

First thing's first. I double-checked what I had currently stored.

0 Earth Element

1000 Water Element

2000 Air Element

0 Fire Element

2217 Blood Element

A whole bunch of nothing. What little I had from the spider cave was probably used by Doc, so I didn't complain.

I took a deep breath, looked around the endlessly stretching plains and meadows, and went to work.

The first, and probably easiest, was the water element. From my experience, it wasn't something that I needed often, but since liquid-type recipes called for it, it had its uses. Instead of trying to drink all the oil from lanterns or squeezing the juices out of wherever I just headed to the nearby creek and dunked my head in for a bit.

+1L Fresh Water

+1L Fresh Water

+3L Fresh Water

+2L Fresh Water

+1L Fresh Water

Hummmmm.

+3,200 Water Element

+320 XP

Wow, that was shit. Normally with that much of a load, I would have received a nice little windfall of XP, but this was just pocket change. Now that I considered it, I never really had the chance to explore my XP gain from different materials, as most usually gave the 5XP per gram flat rate.

Then, I had the idea.

I crawled over with my skeleton limbs and thunked my trash can head into the dirt. Once I felt snug, I used my skeleton hands to scoop dirt and grass and mulch into my mouth.

+0.5kg Dirt

+0.02kg Grass

+1.8kg Dirt

Hmmmmm.

+835 Earth Element

+19 Water Element

+74 Air Element

+93 XP

That would explain it. For some dipshit reason, or smart reason, probably, simply scooping up super common resources resulted in less XP. It made sense. If an ordinary recycler in a city found that it could power-level just by eating dirt and other shit, it would just do that rather than its intended function--eating trash. I remembered reading about special XP rules from that Recycler Quick Start Guide, but the info was just so dry, I gave up. It didn't matter. Scooping up dirt just wouldn't be a good source of leveling.

Unless I really, really needed the materials. Which I did. I looked again to see just how much water element I got out of all that water, and the exchange rate was honestly paltry. Only 40% of the material recycled? That's a ton of waste. I only had level two efficiency, but if I could bump it up higher, then it might be worth eating dirt.

I had a class point to invest--one from eating the entirety of the snake-casting bounty hunter--but for now, I decided just stockpile them until needed. My skeleton arms and legs felt terribly rusty--as nice as it was to have actual limbs--but I would need to invest greatly in their mobility and strength trees if I found myself fighting another creepy pervert bounty hunter.

For the time being, I went ahead and scooped up as much dirt as I could carry.

+63000 Earth Element

+4000 Water Element

+1200 Air Element

+790 XP

I tilted and stumbled when I stood, but I held steady and trudged my way back to the workshop where I vomited all my gotten goods on the floor. Doc stared in disgust at the mulchy, expanding foam of raw elements, and I said, "Here you go." He said nothing and stood, walked over to the corner, picked up a broom and dustpan, and started sweeping. I left for the next load.

Air element was a tricky one. I wouldn't be able to just huff in a load of fresh air to take it--I tried--and it was also nearly useless, so it was never a problem. When I scanned my recipes for examples, I saw that it was mostly represented by various gases that went by scientific names. Hydrogen and stuff like that. Normally, I would obtain a bit here and there from other things, but if I needed to stockpile it, I needed to figure out how to get a shitload on-demand.

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"Cassandra."

"Yes?"

"What are good sources of Air Element?" I asked.

"Water," she said.

"What?"

"Water," she said again.

"But wouldn't that be--"

"Your efficiency skill tree includes a Transmutation skill that will enable you to change elements from one to another at a 50% loss."

Shit, that was another reason I needed to drop points into that. It just shot up on my to-do list.

"What about for now?" I asked.

"Consume grass," she said.

I deflated a bit. "I don't like the taste of grass."

"Analyzing."

I sighed. "Fine, whatever, I'm on it."

I went back to my spot near the creek. It looked like some asshole had done a great deal of amateur landscaping around it as if they used a huge machine to dig up long swaths of dirt, but it was just me. I was that asshole machine. I went back in and got another load.

+67100 Earth Element

+4300 Water Element

+1700 Air Element

+7,310 XP

I still needed more, but I was heavy again. I made a note to come back just in case I didn't get it with the Fire Element, which, by the way, I had no fucking idea where to get. Other than, you know, eating literal shit.

I dropped the load off back at the workshop, puked it up all over the metal table for it to drip on the now-clean floor, and walked past a pale and defeated Doc Jackelope on my way out.

But now the problem was where to get Fire Element.

"Cassandra."

"Yes?"

"Where can I get Fire Element?"

"Feces."

"That doesn't involve shit."

"Analyzing." She paused. "Perhaps the miners maintain a supply of mining explosives. It would be wise to use your speaking skill to ask for assistance."

I winced at the thought. Besides talking to the Doc, I wanted to save my first words for that asshole punmage. That and I was a bit shy to say anything to the villagers. My voice was manly, alpha, incredibly bassy, sure, but I had no idea what their expectations of me were. Did they think that I would have the gruff voice of a veteran? Maybe a high-pitched shrill of a goblin tongue-mage? But what about--

"Oh, pardon me," said a voice behind me.

I stepped aside. It was a buff man with his flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows. A real lumberjack buckaroo.

He nodded politely with a crow's feet smile as he tried to pass, and I said, "Hey."

He froze, and his eyes lit with shock. "D-did you just speak?"

"You guys got bombs?" I asked.

"What?"

"Bombs." I mimicked the shape with my spooky skelly hands. "Like little red tubes for mining."

"You can talk," he said in awe. "Fascinating." His face eased closer, eyes squinting at my trash can torso. "Is there... a little man inside there?"

I stepped back. "You got bombs or not?"

"No, sorry. Sorry, we don't have anything of the sort. Well, we had a supply once, but it went missing in the old iron mines, you see."

I groaned, audibly, a real electric, rattly, garbage can groan. He was likely talking about the dynamite sticks I found the other day. This was a defeat, but I wasn't the type of man to give up so easily, not with the promise of a war machine body just around the corner. There was only one thing left to do. "Where do you guys poop at?"

He shivered back. "Wait, what?"

"You know. Poop. Shit. Defecate. I need the location of your poop storage."

His eyes, dumbfounded and shocked and confused and even a little bit insulted, pulled from me, slid over to search for anyone nearby who could help him--no one could--and he looked back at me. "First, you ask for explosives, and now you ask for human shit." He shuddered. "I know that you are respected here for saving Tommy Jay, but I know not what mischief you may be into." He took a long, deep breath, staring at me with fear. "Very well. We use the outhouse on the other side of the village. It's tucked right beneath a pair of trees. You can't miss it."

"Thank you," I said, and I stomped robotically away.

Eating literal turds was not something I was looking forward to, and I needed some way to overcome it. "Cassandra."

"Yes?"

I rounded the corner of a house, and the little outhouse shack came into view. "Can I turn off my taste sensation?"

"No," she said, almost offended that I would ask.

I was almost there. My terrible, poopy fate approached. "Goddamnit. Is there nothing I could do to avoid this?"

"I am afraid not, Imsi," she said. "There is no other choice available."

I stood in front of the door, the little cut-out moon in the wood stared back at me, its menacing gaze beckoning me in. The stench wafted here. "Is this my punishment?"

"It is," she said.

"Wait, what?"

Footsteps raced up behind me. I looked. It was those two little rascals with the broken bow, and they carried a little miner's pouch. They were out of breath and a bit too excited to be here.

"Uh, Mr. Skeleton Can," said the kid, "I heard that you needed blasting sticks."

The other kid piped in. "Don't tell 'em, but we have saved a few for games later. Since you fixed our bow, you can have 'em."

The first kid nudged him, maybe annoyed he wasn't the one to explain, but it didn't matter. To me, they were my saviors, my little heroes who saved me from a poopy hell. A horrendous stench of a fate. A mulchy, soupy, shitty mouthful of suffering.

I knelt down and offered my hand. "Thank you, young heroes."

They brightened with joy, and the kid handed me the pouch. It was heavy! Inside, some dozens of little red tubes.

Hmmmmm-click, click.

+2 Recurve Bows (Light)

I reached into my mouth and handed them over. Their eyes widened further, and they did that neat little 'whoa' thing kids like to do when they see something awesome. I was now the coolest dude on the block.

"Th-thanks, Mr. Skello!"

"No," I said. "Thank you."

They took off with their new toys, and I hoped the tension wasn't too heavy to pull for them.

I took the sack of dynamite and chucked it in.

+31 Dynamite Sticks

Hmmmmm.

+2009 Fire Element

+22 Earth Element

+200 Air Element

+11,160 XP

Finally. I still wanted the XP to level up my efficiency tree to get to transmutation, which would really simplify all this garbage, but it would need to wait. Once I had my new body, I'd be free to pursue such things, but I had priorities now.

"Cassandra, do I have enough materials for all the recipes?"

"Analyzing," she said. "You have enough materials for 95.5% of all required recipes."

"Seriously?" I deflated and pulled out my shopping list of materials. "What could I have possibly missed?"

"The recipe for a Mecha Core requires a Cosmic Shard. As it stands, we currently have zero Cosmic Shards."

"Do I even have a recipe for a Mecha whats-it?"

"Yes. It was provided in the Mech Framework."

"Well, do I have a recipe for the, uh, shard?"

"No."

"Then why the fuck--"

"It is considered a resource and not a crafted item. You will need to find it."

I groaned. "I've never even heard of it. Where the hell can I find one of these?"

"Analyzing... I currently lack the data necessary to--"

"Forget it." I started off to Doc's cabin. This was something he would need to explain. Something I would force him to if need be. Maybe he even had one lying around somewhere. That would be easy.

I walked through the village center, waved and nodded as well as I could at the passerby, and back over to the cabin. It was quiet, as usual. Dimly lit, as usual. And I found him back at his workshop, fiddling with another sandwich. As usual.

"Cosmic shard," I said.

He paused, hands frozen in the middle of a lettuce-folding activity, and he turned to me. "Ah, yes. Of course. You will need at least a single Cosmic Shard for the Mecha Core."

I shrugged.

"Ah. I see." He gently removed the lettuce from the sandwich and set it aside. After snapping off his gloves, he yanked open a nearby desk drawer, rifled around through it, slammed it shut, and slid open the next. "I should have a--oh, where is it--a scanning device for any local shards, you see." He slammed shut the drawer and started on the nearby wall locker. "While they are quite rare," he said, "their locations can be quite predictable. Specifically in the craters of meteors and meteorites, however ancient as they may be."

"Is there a place nearby?" I asked.

"Ah, yes," he said. "There's an ancient mine a couple days West of here. I believe that--oh! Found it!" He spun around and presented a small gadget. It looked like a small stick with a metal bowl on one end. "Here," he said, handing it to me.

I looked it over. "What is this?"

"A scanning device," he explained. "Consume this, and you should be able to find the nearest source of a Cosmic Shard. It hasn't worked in ages, but because this is an enchanted item, your body should be able to reproduce its effect."

I stuck it in my mouth.

+1 Cosmic Essence Scanner

Hmmmmm.

+15 Earth Element

+3 Fire Element

Ability unlocked: Cosmic Scanning

Interesting. I unlocked the ability of a machine. Could this be applied to--

"Imsi," said Cassandra. "I'm detecting a signal roughly 200 kilometers West North-West of here."

"Good," I said. "When I returned, I expect to have everything ready."

"Of course, Redrim," he said.

I stepped out the doorway, paused, turned back to him--he rolled his eyes--and I puked all my materials on his floor. It sprayed and splattered everywhere. The foam of it glowed and expanded, and he was already getting the broom and dustpan.

"Bravo, Redrim. Bravo."