Carefully drinking another mana potion, Hal counted how many he had left. Only 9 more. He wanted to complain but he knew he couldn't. If he even thought the thought Flo would be able to read his mind. It was so constricting! But he couldn't, just wouldn't allow her to feel superior because he was frustrated over loosing mana so fast!
He didn't want to talk to Flo about it. She would just tell him that she told him so. It had taken him an hour to move his skeletons fifty meters. At this point he was done. It would be another three potions to get these five skeletons back to the blind.
Unfortunately, his goblin skeleton had run away and Hal hadn't seen him for the entire time. It was getting to the point that Hal had to admit that the goblin had run away on him.
The skeletons would only move when Hal told them to move and he had to guide them through the process of moving each step of the way. Which meant that really he could only control one at a time. So currently his skeletons were strung out in a line. He would walk the skeleton at the back of the line to the front and then go back to the new back of the line and move that skeleton forward. This went on repeat.
It was exhausting. Part of the reason it had taken him so long to go fifty meters was that he had taken the time to practice controlling two of the skeletons at the same time. Yeah, that had not worked. Instead every time he tried one or both of the skeletons would fall apart. He had already put these skeletons back together again ten times.
One of the first things he had done after the third time had been to fuse all the small bones together. Goodbye carpals and metatarsals, goodbye tarsals and metatarsals. Finger bones he kept, but there was no way he was dealing with two bones in the shins and the forearms. He had already combined most of the back bones, but he further reduced them down to four.
Also the ribs just be came one large flat bone along with the sternum. The clavicle and the shoulder blades weren't needed to they went to reinforce the shoulders. Their necks were just one solid piece. Easy peasy.
And the teeth, forget them. They were all fused together and made into one smooth pearly white surface. But he kept the jaw bone because these skeletons had used their jaws to distract the Goblin originally. Biting and chewing they had distracted the goblin enough that he had lived. So let them keep the jaw. Yes, please and thanks very much!
As for the fingers and toes, these were fused as well. It was just too hard to find finger and toe bones! Instead Hal shaped all the appendages into bone blades, thinner and longer on top while below the blades were short and wide.
[No one is going to be scared by these skeletons, you do realize this, right?]
'Yes, but I can have a little pride, can't I? And they might as well be easy to put back together again, right?'
Hal looked at towards the sky with big eyes. Since the system was invisible yet around him all the time he had taken to addressing the sky when talking to Flo. It seemed the safest way to go.
[I suppose. You are doing a great job.]
Flo said hoping he would take her comment as it was intended.
'Are you being sarcastic?'
Hal had been working harder than he ever had in his life and knew deep down that it wasn't enough.
[No, really, I would not have dedicated an advanced AI to you if I didn't really think that you have something special.]
It was her true thoughts.
'Sure, I have heard that before. You are special.'
Now he was beginning to understand why everyone thought he was special. It was because they thought he was 'special'. Quotes added to emphasis! They weren't lying, they were just disguising their own prejudice behind being nice.
'Sorry, Flo, I shouldn't be so picky around you. It is just that I see now that people usually aren't really real around me. Treating me like I am special. I wish that I could just be normal and treated normal.'
[Do you really think you could survive if people didn't treat you so nicely? Especially here, after the apocalypse where everyone is fighting for survival.]
It was a concern for Flo, she had learned that Hal was a very committed intense you man. One that lived with his heart on his sleeve. It made people attracted to him. But she just wasn't sure he could cut it. And she was definitely sure he shouldn't be leading a group of people. It might have been okay back in the old world. But this higher plane was cut throat. Everyone was out to get everyone else in a huge free for all.
An innocent like Hal would be eaten for lunch.
Before Hal could respond he heard a commotion in the trees followed by a mental communication.
(They come!)
His goblin skeleton was luring enemies back to the blind.
'No, no, don't come to our home!'
Hal sent back, but it was too late. Gob had already come into view and soon after it became obvious what he had brought back.
Behind him bouncing around like it was some kind of party where about twenty or so slimes. If his goblin skeleton had been any faster the slimes would have lost interest. But funny enough the slimes were actually faster than the little skelly.
Gob had three or four of the slimes hanging off its bones digesting him as he walked. This was also why he was slower than the slimes. The extra weight of the slimes was dragging him down. Fortunately it would take hours to digest Gob's bones so a skeleton had no fears.
And then it was just a slow waiting game. If Hal brought his five skeletons any closer he would have to then take them back that distance too. Since the fight was not life threatening, he decided to wait and let Gob and the slimes catch up to him. Which took another ten minutes, but this allowed Hal time to think about how he should go about killing these slimes.
The only one here who was actually in any danger was Hal. If the slimes mobbed him they could over power him and then slowly digest him. Otherwise the slimes could just mob the skeletons as much as they wanted. It was no big deal to Hal.
Eventually the slimes approached. All to happy they glammed onto the legs of the skeletons. It looked like three or four slimes per skeleton. There would have been more per skeleton, but the little things couldn't jump high enough to get above their fellows.
It was time to try [Soul Requiem].
Hal had retreated to about six meters, but now felt like he could approach. The slimes really couldn't move that fast and seemed to be completely focused on digesting the skeleton bones. Actually as Hal came closer and closer he became more and more amazed.
Despite the threat he was presenting to these slimes they were completely unphazed.
Slowly he inched close. He knew he was being overly cautious with slimes, but at the same time he only had a few health potions. It was better to be safe than sorry. However, eventually he became a little more confident and actually reached out to touch one of the slimes.
Completely ignoring him the slime just continued dissolving the bone.
"This is actually pretty strange, right? Is the bone that delicious?"
He had touch a pinkish orange slime with his right hand. There had been no reaction beyond just a springy, boungy texture. He hadn't tried to pierce the slimes membrane at least.
Now he tried touching the slime with his left hand. This time there was more of a reaction. As his hand came closer the slime seemed to stretch out to receive the bone. It was strange, but the slime still refused to let go of the bone that it already had. So when Hal withdrew his left hand the slime just went back to its original surface tension.
'Flo, do you know what is going on here?'
Hal asked politely.
[Bone is a preferred source of food for slimes. Pretty simple. They don't have much intelligence, so yeah, it is what it is.]
Bored with this scene, Flo was wondering when Hal would get on with his life. Slimes were so boring.
'Yeah, but, this is interesting. I wonder how...'
Just as Hal was starting to think about a new project there was a commotion on Gob's skeleton. The goblin skeleton for some reason had come up close to one of Hal's modified skeletons and was staring into its soul flame. Weird, what the goblin had done, but now it was balancing on a single leg while holding out its leg. One of the slimes started swelling up. As it did so the other slimes moved out of the way. Not so far that they let go of their bone meal, but it was enough of a disturbance to catch Hal's eye.
The swelling slime started to have difficulty hanging on as well. But it was almost like it still was trying to hang on, but at the same time it was loosing traction for some reason. Then with a wet rushing sound it lost its shape fell down onto the ground. Finally it split in two and was still for a few moments.
'Well, that was weird.'
Said Hal after watching the show.
[It isn't done yet, keep watching!]
After about thirty seconds the two separate slime puddles perked up and started bouncing energetically around.
'Oh! It gave birth!!'
[I don't think you could call that giving birth! More like it just split by mitosis. Cloning basically]
Said the special system AI, Flo looked on this as an opportunity to get Hal's education right. He needed it, what with all his weird ideas and failure to consider the secondary and tertiary consequences of his actions.
'Cloning, interesting.'
Saying something simple, Hal forgot all about his original goal of going out and gaining experience killing things. Instead he continued to let the time tick by and within another minute a second slime underwent mitosis.
Each slime ignored Hal and went to find an open piece of bone to absorb. The ways that the slimes got creative pushing and shoving each other to access even a bit of bone was incredible. One of the skeletons had even fallen over when a slime had succeeded in getting under its foot.
Of course this allowed the slimes much more surface area to glam onto. Within half an hour the number of slimes had more than doubled. And in just ten minutes after that the slimes had almost quadrupled.
But Hal had sat down to the side of the skeletons and had really started to become confused. Not because of the slimes, the slimes behavior seemed pretty self explanatory. Instead it was because he could not get [Soul Requiem] to work. With these slimes making it so easy Hal had learned that all he had to do to kill a slime was destroy its core.
The core of these slimes looked like a peice of porous ore more than anything else. In fact because the slimes were not moving at all and they welcomed his bone hand he could reach into their bodies and just pull their core away from their gel. Defenseless the slimes didn't resist at all.
Doing so killed the slimes as the core seemed to be the key ingredient that kept the slimes in one cohesive whole.
After pulling out a few cores, Hal became bored and went back to his original thought to use [Soul Requiem] to extract the slimes souls. However, when he went into his trance and thought real hard about souls nothing happened.
Which was why he was currently back sitting on the ground with his legs crossed staring at a slime that was busily dissolving his arm bones.
'No matter how I try, this [Soul Requiem] ability is different from [Bone Realm]. How do I get it to activate?'
Asking Flo a question, the AI was happy to answer feeling like she was being trusted more.
[The trance state that you are employing is an overly complicated and time consuming method for activating any talent, ability, magic, or skill. Despite that, you are able to achieve the required state of mind needed. [Bone Realm] while a high level ability, the requirements for triggering it are among the most basic. Other talents, abilities, magic, or skills might have additional triggers that must be met before they can be activated.]
'Oh! Thank you so much Flo. You just solved it for me!'
Happy that Flo had given him such a great answer Hal ignored any mention of what she might consider to be over complicated.
In the next moment Hal started singing.
"Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb."
As he did so the motionless slime froze. The little bubbles that showed it was digesting Hal's wrist bone stopped and the slime began to wiggle about.
"Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow."
Struggling the slime looked like it was dancing along to the song, if out of beat. Really what it was doing to resisting [Soul Requiem] as its body and soul were forcibly divided.
In the end though slimes don't have defense against soul attacks and a white shinning point of light appeared from within the slime's core.
"And everywhere that Mary went. Mary went. Mary went. And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go."
In the end the slime's cohesion was lost and the slime fell into Hal's lap with its core. Well used to messed by now Hal didn't mind one bit. Instead he was staring at the point of light. Already in a trance he lost himself for a moment just looking at the slime soul.
[Uhmm, Hal, are you there?]
Flo spammed a few text boxes that appeared between him and the soul. Which was quite effective at breaking Hal from his contemplation.
'Oh, thank you, Flo!'
[No, problem. But I suggest you don't use that ability in combat if you are going to zone out every time you see a soul...]
She made a suggestion.
'Sure, that sounds like a good idea.'
Hal said before becoming distracted as he stood up. The soul had started to float away dimming as it went when he had been mesmerized. Now Hal sang again.
[It followed her to school one day, school one day, school one day. It followed her to school one day, which was against the rule.]
Recapturing the soul he brought it to one of his skeletons and using his bone hand pushed it. The white light easily plopped into the bone and like last time when he had pushed his own soul into the skeleton a blue light flashed.
[Wait, don't! ... Great another win for Hal...]
Before Flo could get his attention with her text boxes Hal had inserted the white slime soul into the skeleton.
'Wait, was that wrong? I thought for sure it would be helpful.'
said Hal when he noticed the text prompts.
[Sure, sure, it will strengthen that portion of your soul which is inside that specific skeleton. But you also have to understand that souls don't conform to material science. That soul is still your soul and you just added a slime soul to your own. Do you even know what that means?]
Trying to be patient, Flo explained a few things.
'Wait, but why didn't you warn me? I, I, ... is it bad to have a slime soul added to mine?'
Scared, hesitantly Hal asked a question.
[Of course it is bad! Why would I think to tell you not to combine your soul with a slime... Slimes have literally no intelligence. Your soul and a slime soul combined? Even the system has no information of what this could mean.]
Exasperated Flo tried to limit her frustration.
'But what else could I do with a soul?'
Hal said acting as if it was obvious that he would have strengthened his skeletons. This was in fact the reason he had wanted to go out hunting. His intention the entire time had been to use [Soul Requiem] to add more soul power to the five original skeletons.
[What else could you have done with a soul?]
Flo asked the question back.
[Just can't add tone inflection here, but you should know I am being facetious!]
And then Flo added some notes to make sure Hal understood her tone this time.
'Oh? I don't know, what else can be done with a soul?'
Hal was genuinely interested now.
[The power of the universe in the hands of babes!]
This time Hal understood Flo's frustration just from reading the sentence.
[Souls can be used for literally anything. I thought you were going to absorb the soul's mana!]
Finally Flo said the thing that she had been expecting Hal to do.
'Wait, you can get mana from souls?'
[Yes!! It is one of the easiest things to do with an ability like [Soul Requiem]. Here try it on another slime soul. Heaven knows that you need the mana!]
Without responding mentally to Flo's suggested course of action, Hal got up from his sitting position and immediately walked over and grabbed another soul from a slime.
Of course it wasn't as easy as that. Hal had to put himself in a trance, sing the beginning of Mary had a Little Lamb again, and then sing even more to work out how to get [Soul Requiem] to turn the slime soul into mana.
It took him an hour, but in the end the soul provided him ten points of mana.
'This is awesome!'
Rejoicing Hal looked up from his work to realize that there were what looked like five hundred slimes piling up on top of his skeletons.
'What!!'
He went from rejoicing to horror in the space of a moment, but then he checked himself. The slimes were just doing what they were programmed to do. There wasn't anything wrong with it, beyond destroying his skeletons. But they were all still there, if a bit thinner than before.
And then Hal smiled.
'What do we have here? A mana bouquet?'
Immediately Hal started in on Mary had a Little Lamb.
'Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Mary had a little lamb, ...'
[Wait, wait, wait! Just for my sanity, could you pick a different song!]
Flo interrupted Hal quickly while there was still some possibility he would see her text box.