“Lord Skeleton, your wand and the legs.”
With a thought from Rorona, four shadow ropes wrapped around the fire crocodile legs and the wand, dangling them in front of Li Xiuman.
“Hold onto them for me first.”
Li Xiuman pulled out one of the left legs.
To be precise, it was a left claw.
His left leg had been bitten off by the fire crocodile king and was currently missing, making it the perfect time to attach this new one first.
He carefully burned away the flesh with fire, making sure not to damage the bone.
Looking at the short fire crocodile leg in front of him, Li Xiuman prayed in his heart.
“May the Goddess of Luck bless me with a gold on my first pull!”
Holding the short leg, he connected it to the position of his left leg and activated [Bone Manipulation].
[Ding! Acquired skill, Crawling lv1]
In an instant, an urge to crawl on the ground surged within Li Xiuman. He was confident that his current crawling speed would not lose to anyone!
Getting a gold pull on the first try was too much to ask; this was only normal.
Li Xiuman pulled off the short leg, and [Crawling lv1] vanished. His burning urge and confidence to crawl disappeared along with it.
The second left leg.
[Ding! Acquired skill, Biting lv2]
He didn't like this skill. His humanoid skull wasn't built for biting like a fire crocodile's to begin with. Next.
The third claw.
[Ding! Acquired skill, Resilience lv2]
A skill he used to have, but he hadn't expected to obtain the lv2 version of it now.
He could feel his bone resilience significantly increase, and the rate at which his bones cracked and crumbled slowed down a bit.
Keep.
He activated [Bone Manipulation] and [Bone Hyperplasia] to elongate the short leg, restoring it to a normal shape.
Next, he detached his right leg and looked at the three remaining right legs.
He had to get a hit.
The first one.
[Crawling lv1]
Crawling again?!
What a joke.
Li Xiuman ripped off the short leg and took out the next one.
This time, he got it.
[Ding! Acquired skill, Self-Healing lv2]
A warm current swept through his entire body, as if his bones were being soaked in a hot spring.
The cracked portions of his bones began to heal bit by bit.
Obtaining [Self-Healing lv2] and [Resilience lv2] greatly improved Li Xiuman's bone quality.
However, it still couldn't withstand the rate of destruction from the two conflicting forces.
If not for the two energies maintaining a delicate balance, the energy—which was several times greater than what he received during a level-up—would have literally blown him into a firework of bones.
At his chest where the two forces continuously tangled, a rib slowly began to change under the constant erosion of the dual energies.
This was the very rib that Li Xiuman frequently extracted and transformed into a bone sword.
This rib seemed to have undergone a mutation, starting to slowly devour the energy of the magic stone and his right arm bone.
The red magic stone energy was devoured bit by bit, condensing into blood-red, slender patterns on it.
Meanwhile, the energy within his bone arm was also devoured bit by bit, making its rounded edges gradually become flat and sharp.
At the same time, in the process of devouring energy, it was constantly destroyed and constantly healed, repeating this cycle endlessly without ever stopping its devouring.
“What... is going on?”
Li Xiuman felt the changes in his rib, taken somewhat off guard.
However, this was a good thing.
If this rib could devour enough energy, then he wouldn't have to worry about bursting from being overfilled.
He manipulated his bones to move this rib toward the center of where the two energies clashed, wanting to let it devour more energy.
To survive, he used every method he could think of to try and pacify this energy.
However, he clearly had no realistic sense of his own limits.
This rib had only slightly mutated, merely scavenging a bit of leaking energy at the edges of the clash.
As a result, it was suddenly pushed directly into the center of the clash.
The rate of devouring and self-healing was absolutely no match for the speed of its collapse. Within just a few breaths, it was covered in cracks.
Li Xiuman panicked too.
This rib was currently his only hope of survival.
His eyes fell on the bone sword formed by his left arm bone in his hand, as well as the torn-off right leg bone.
Regardless of how well they would work, he stuffed both bones into his chest and activated Bone Manipulation, connecting them to the rib to serve as raw materials to fill in the collapsing, shattered parts.
Only then did the rib, which carried the hope of his entire skeleton body, barely avoid crumbling and managed to maintain a precarious balance.
Under the replenishment of the raw bone material, the mutated rib gradually adapted to the two energies, devouring them continuously.
The rate of devouring also began to slowly rise.
Rorona kept a vigilant watch on their surroundings from Li Xiuman's shoulder, preventing the distracted Li Xiuman from being ambushed.
As for Li Xiuman's various actions, she was completely baffled.
Although she had never met other skeleton monsters, based on her limited experience:
A normal skeleton would absolutely never be this absurd.
The raw bone material was rapidly consumed to patch the damaged parts of the rib.
Soon, the arm bone portion was entirely consumed, leaving only the leg bone to continue the replenishment.
The rib's devouring speed had increased to double its initial rate, but once the raw bone was completely used up, it would still be easily destroyed at the center of the clashing energies.
Li Xiuman planned to move the rib out of the energy center the moment the raw bone material was fully consumed.
Then, relying on the devouring process of this rib to share the load, he would force his way through digesting the remaining energy.
By now, they had already flown to the great waterfall between the twenty-third and twenty-second floors.
With Rorona's reminder, Li Xiuman had to divert most of his focus to cast spells and control their flight in order to leap over this great waterfall.
However, the balance achieved between the two external energies in his body, his self-healing, the devouring speed, and the raw bone replenishment allowed him to digest the energy bit by bit.
He no longer needed to focus entirely on controlling it.
He vigorously flapped his Bone Wings, his wind magic propelling them forward with full force.
Rorona also extended her tattered, bleeding bat wings. Ignoring the pain of the silver nails pinning her wings, she flapped them to help propel them across the molten waterfall.
Ultimately, under their combined efforts, they finally leaped over the waterfall and returned to the twenty-second floor.
Li Xiuman continued to digest the energy, while Rorona kept watch over the surroundings with tacit understanding.
At this point, the raw leg bone material connected to the rib was almost completely consumed.
Indeed, having a leg bone and an arm bone sticking out of his chest earlier was a rather sanity-depleting sight.
By now, the devouring speed of that mutated rib was three times its initial rate.
The appearance of the rib had also undergone a significant transformation.
Its shape was slightly flattened, its edges were razor-sharp, and it was entwined with bright red patterns.
It even glowed with green light on his interface, revealing a description of a magic item.
[Skeleton's Rib Sword] A magic item accidentally formed from a rib inside a Low-Tier Elemental Skeleton. Possesses the power of devourment. Can devour life energy during slaughter, granting an extra +5% kill experience and 5% elemental damage reduction.
Had he really pulled out his rib to use as a sword so many times that it had actually become a sword?
With the rib moved away from the clash of energy, the powerful forces immediately poured into the other recently healed bones once again.
Intense pain descended once more.
Rate on N.U.
