I didn’t bother with a second trip up and down the stairs; I had better things to do. Vex had hinted that I would be out of this prison soon, so I was working on borrowed time. I had found a potential exploit. I was the kind of gamer that some people hated. I looted everything I could at the beginning of the game. If the devs made a two-copper spoon and left it in a drawer, I was stealing it, encumbrance be damned. I wasn’t so bad that I had ninety-nine of every potion or flask when I beat the big bad, well, that's cause I was the kinda bad that I had to use the potions before then. I would use power-up potions as soon as I found them. I was pretty sure that Mord had a machine full of them. They were my first priority. Well, second priority after pants, but at this point, pants were a given necessity above all else.

  I knew this was going to be a grind, so I was in the proper mindset when I got back to the recovery room. I did take one diversion to double-check Ink’s notes on the code in the walls, making sure he hadn’t lost any of the memory since. The damaged piece was almost fully healed, so I was only able to verify about half of the note. It was still a perfect copy, and I let Ink know I was proud of him. His content trill made me even happier.

  I could get two Obols per Rune Stone at the current quality I was comfortable producing. I could do about twenty stones before I lose focus on the grind. This wasn’t some MMO where I was on a crafting binge. I couldn’t absentmindedly click through this while I ate dinner. If I lost concentration, the stones would fall apart calmly or violently. The first twenty weren't bad. I lost concentration on the last two, and they ended up as dust. I tried to conjure another set of rocks, I could do two at once now, but failed at even that. I had real limits in this place, so with twenty stones in my inventory, including the two from last time, I left the recovery room.

  Mord was in full monologue mode when I got in, so I didn’t linger. I still remembered my promise to him. I would make some Mana Stone before I left. Part of why I was after what I thought were attribute flasks was to boost my mana pool to make the stone. I didn't feel that I could do it the same way I had last time because my runes didn't have the imperfections that the first one did. I tried it in my crafting session, and it wasn’t the same. Mord’s stone was either an imperfect copy he made or a rush job by someone way more skilled than I.

  I was in a rush when I hit the training room and entered my fighting stance—so much of a rush that I didn’t notice Mord had armed himself. I barely registered the ‘whrrrr’ of the staff as it swung at me. The ‘crack’ of my arm breaking; however, I'm pretty sure the entire planet heard.

  “Too distracted.” Young Mord spoke in a very dismissive tone. He even pointed to the door. I didn’t even try to argue. Not that his stance would even broach an argument. I held my pain in check as I went to the door.

  The cool rush of teleportation soothed the arm for a moment and allowed me to hit the vending room with at least a partially clear head. I wasn’t even in the room for a minute when the pain became distracting again. I took a breath and distanced myself from the pain. I noticed that the disconnect from the pain also dulled my other senses, but I was ok with that here, for the moment. I deposited the stones on the payment altar, receiving forty-five obols in return. The math was off, but I chalked it up to either a bulk credit or a slight variance in quality tipping into the range of three per for a few of the stones.

  The arm was pulling me away from what should be the joys of shopping, so I did what I declared were the bare necessities. Eight Obols and three platinum later, I had some clothes and one of the single-use flasks. I wasn’t disappointed, but I was miffed. I still had plenty to spend, but could not enjoy it.

  I skipped the second run on the stairs again.

  My arm healed quickly once I was back in the recovery room. I used this chance to observe the healing, though. It is a very disorienting sight to ‘see’ your own bones, let alone watch them healing. I started from a view that had the bones about normal size in front of me. The crack was clean and neat across both the radius and ulna, commenting on Mord’s precision with a staff. I eventually dove deeper to watch the osteocytes work as I watched them multiply and form a matrix way more complicated than that of the durability enchantment on the coins. A part of my mind toyed with trying to put durability on the bone, but something seemed off. Not that it couldn’t or shouldn’t be done, just that there was a better way. I had a crazy plan.

  Now, normally, self-destructive behavior should be avoided or at least require inpatient treatment, but in my case, it was similar to going to the gym. A little breaking down to build back up. For me, that meant destroying bone. Apparently, it is very hard to destroy a part of something that is also considered a whole. I guess I knew this from trying to etch runes into rocks, but trying to destroy a section of a finger bone threatened to destroy not only the whole bone but the whole skeleton. I didn’t have time to spend on regrowing a new skeleton, even if that was possible in this room, even if that was actually the plan. The plan involved my lesser-used Transmute skill, but to use it, I needed knowledge of bone.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  If trying to use my Blades, made of Divinium, whatever that was, to carve runes into a stone was awkward, trying to carve your own bone was way worse. I had forgotten to tell Ink the plan, and as I awkwardly hacked into my weak arm, I saw threads of purple ink bridge the gap and pull the wound closed.

  “Its ok buddy, its all part of the plan.”

  angry trill

  “I know….I know…Its crazy and im sorry I forgot to tell you but ya got to let me work.” Ink didn't respond with a trill, most likely because I'd upset him, but the tendrils in the wound did retract. My blades were sharp and they made quick work if flaying the side of my arm open. If I didn't have the ability to retract from the pain, I would have never been able to do this. Even retracted, it really hurt and I ended up getting a much bigger piece of bone than I intended.

  Blade away, I focused through the full-frontal pain of regrowing another bone and the flesh knitting closed to activate my destruction skills. Ink’s help in reknitting the skin and muscle was extremely productive. Either he had hidden this ability until now, or it was new for us. Either way, it was bound to be useful in the future. Thankfully, despite my distractions, my skills were successful. I was able to learn bone on the first go.

  It took another few hours to heal completely. I used that time to make another ten or so rune stones. They were becoming easier and easier to do. These weren't as high quality as my first sets, mostly because I couldn’t hold them steady with my injured arm. They would still sell, I hoped. Now it was onto my crazy plan.

  I needed knowledge of both materials for transmute to work, and I had bone and half a dozen metals. One of those metals mattered. I didn’t need to shape-shift, nor was I selling my skeleton for profit. That left only four, one I couldn’t directly make yet: Cold Iron, Iron, Titanium, and Mithril. Of those, only one made sense despite its mana cost. I wasn't curious, and despite learning it from currency, Mithril had a specific sense to it. It was time to see if it was all it was cracked up to be.

  The pain was immeasurable. Transmute was not a pleasant skill to use on one’s own bones. I had started with one of the small bones in my hand and almost passed out as it began to change. I couldn't withdraw from the pain, I needed too much concentration, and I needed to see the bones to direct the change. By the time I had completed the bones in my left hand, all twenty-seven of them, I had found a good pace.

  I was worried that the tendons wouldn’t hold, but they seemed not to mind at all. I didn't replace all the bone with mithril either, just a reasonably thick layer of the outer cells. I managed both hands and both arms up to the shoulder before I felt like I was wasting time. The pace I was going at pretty much paired my pain tolerance with my mana regeneration. While I could theoretically do it to completion, I didn’t have the mental stamina.

  The first problem came when I got up to move. I had been doing all the replacing, bone by bone, and using my skills to observe the process. I didn’t try to move the pieces. They moved fine, but despite being a light metal, it was still metal, and I put several pounds of it on my skeleton while only removing a pound or so of bone. I was reminded of a certain superhero with an adamantium-clad skeleton bottoming out and an old farmer's chopper. I wondered if adamantium was a thing here.

  I took the time to do some calisthenics and body weight exercises. I adapted to the new weight quickly. The recovery room served as the regeneration power that the previously mentioned superhero had to compensate. Still, it added a several-hour delay to my day. I was curious to see how my combat techniques adapted to the change.

  Before I got to test them, I had another, and arguably more important, task to attend to. It was time to get dressed. I pulled out the set of clothes that I had purchased. They were sturdy and durable, made from some rough spun, and woven plant fiber. They came with a braided cord belt that had notches for belt loops. I wasn’t too concerned with color as I was sure Ink was more than adept enough to alter that simple facet of the clothing.

  “Alright, buddy,” I said, holding the clothes out. He gave an appreciative trill, and he started to devour the material. I let him go at it with abandon. He did leave me some scraps, though, just enough to learn the simple Hemp and Linen materials.

  I had watched and studied the clothing as Ink devoured it. I kept the image of the pants in my mind as I set my creation skills to work. I tucked the pants, the eventual belt, and the shirt into my inventory. They lacked the original color, as I hadn't paid attention to the dyes, but I wanted to ensure I had at least a set of backup clothes in case of an emergency. Ink instantly objected with a trill that sounded remarkably like a huff, and by leaving me naked. I caught a quick glimpse of the void as I summoned the clothes in place from my inventory. With practice, I could probably create them in place if I had to.

  “Bud, this is for times when I need to keep you secret. I haven’t forgotten how the others reacted to you. I’m pretty sure I could protect you, but I would rather not leave you to chance.” I guessed that he determined my motive reasonable as he pulled the clothes on my body back into my inventory, replacing them with his own. I did not know he could do that.

  “You can put stuff in my inventory?”

  worried trill

  “Can you pull stuff out, too?”

  more worried trill I guess my animation over the fact made him think he was in trouble. His reactions reminded me of a dog who had peed on the carpet.

  “Bud…so not mad about this. I’m excited. Even if it’s just clothes, the void flash is so short you can hide as needed. It’s a great safety measure.”

  questioning but semi-confident trill

  “Yeah, you did well.”

  happy trill I could hear the unasked question. I pulled a meta coin out of my inventory. It disappeared in a boiling puddle of purple. Ink proceeded to swap his and my versions of the clothing rapidly, only stopping when my mana bottomed out. Showoff. Freshly dressed for the first time in years, I went into the next room wearing more than a smile.