Eel meat hung on hooks of deep grey metal, salted and properly preserved to be eaten or used at another time. Though some of it rotted on a bench below, flies and rot infested the flesh as it bubbled and pulsed like it still had a heartbeat. I gagged at the visual and averted my eyes, settling on the mass of bones that were kept in glass cases on the other side of the room. They looked to all be properly preserved, but there were also far less of them than I knew Jun and I had collected.

I ran a hand over them while I muttered to myself. “One… three… five. There was so much more than this. What happened to the rest of it?”

The vent behind me hissed closed, and I felt an unbelievable weight settle on my shoulders. It was as if gravity suddenly increased tenfold, and I struggled to stay on my feet even through the power of the armor. I grimaced as a warning flashed above my health, acknowledging the sudden weight and the strain my armor was under to protect me from it.

//DO YOU FEEL THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD ON YOUR SHOULDERS?

//ALONG WITH IT, YOU GAIN THE ADVANTAGE OF TIME.

//FOUR HOURS WILL PASS IN THIS SEALED ROOM COMPARED TO MINUTES OUTSIDE.

//ARM YOURSELF SUFFICIENTLY TO SURVIVE.

I struggled to the bones and cracked open one of the glass containers, feeling a burst of sweet-smelling air against my helmet accompanying the release of the still-wet bones. They’d been perfectly preserved, and were powerful enough that someone with far more skill than I had could make them into something wonderful. I gathered them up and dumped them onto a workbench on the opposite side of the room, as far away from the rotting eel as I could manage, and set about combing through every nook and cranny of the room for anything that might be useful.

Nothing of use was found. Aside from the bones and meat, there was absolutely nothing in the small room. There were places for things to be; labeled shelves, chests with broken locks, and glass cases that had shattered into the tiniest fragments. It was as if the place had been ransacked and now only served to be used as an intermediary for whatever had happened to the eel remains.

“Nothing? Absolutely nothing?” I sighed in exasperation, slamming the last chest I’d found shut and shaking my head in annoyance. “Either someone found Okeria’s hiding place, or he found Nia’s.”

I placed a hand over the bones and felt the wetness against my gauntlet, drawing them into my inventory with a thought. There wasn’t enough in here to ‘arm myself sufficiently’, but that had to mean that I was missing something. There were no tools in here either, so I couldn’t smith a new sword or inscribe some runes onto my existing armor, and even if I could, I didn’t have the skills for it. I’d end up ruining the tool and my armor.

Though I did have something specifically meant to create. I opened my core sub-menu and glanced at my node count, one that was still counting up as I processed the copy of Inopsy’s core, and paused. I was close to fifty empty nodes, something that was unheard of for my level of core mastery, and I now had two more of each stat node in reserves. I assigned them to empty nodes that connected to the Spine of Enmity and separated the remaining empty nodes into a 75/25 split. The 75% of which I fed to my core for potential, and the 25% I left to sit just in case I needed them for a function sooner rather than later.

//STORED POTENTIAL: 1000

//STORED POTENTIAL HAS INCREASED TO 250.

//STORED POTENTIAL HAS INCREASED TO 750.

//PROTOCOL: MODIFY HAS BEEN UNLOCKED.

//PROTOCOL: REPLACE HAS BEEN UNLOCKED.

//UNLOCK PROTOCOL: ?????? WHEN STORED POTENTIAL REACHES 4500.

Some very quick math told me that I didn’t have enough nodes to unlock whatever Protocol ?????? was, but that was the greedy part of my brain speaking while the other parts simply tried to process what I’d just seen. If creating something was my core function, then modify and replace should be able to take something that already existed and… well… Modify or Replace it. ‘Modify’ was simple enough; I’d done it on my own in my last life with a stylus and enough daggers to feed my failures, but ‘Replace’? What was I replacing?

With one swipe of my hand I found myself staring into the center of my whirlpool of a core. It spun far faster and glowed much brighter thanks to all the potential I’d stored in it, but aside from that, there was nothing to guide me along. I activated //CREATION and drew my Copperbound Mossblade from my inventory, then pressed it against my interface and waited for the options to come up. If I’d get any hints, this was where they’d be.

//MATERIAL OFFERED: COPPERBOUND MOSSBLADE(UNSTABLE). COST: VARIABLE.

//OFFERED MATERIAL IS APPLICABLE FOR MODIFICATION.

//OFFER ADDITIONAL MATERIALS FOR MODIFICATION? [Y] OR [N]

That was new in more ways than one. The variable cost scared me, but the prompt to add extra materials intrigued me. I didn’t know what the (UNSTABLE) modifier meant for my weapon, but I assumed it had something to do with the fact that I could still change its shape even though we weren’t in the floodforest anymore. I reached into my inventory and pulled out one of the gems from the forest and offered it to the vortex, where it was sucked out of my hand and hovered in place right next to my sword.

//OFFERED MATERIAL: CRYSTALLIZED MOSSROT. (3) MORE ARE NEEDED TO FULLY MODIFY THE (COPPERBOUND MOSSBLADE). POTENTIAL COST ADDED: 1750.

“Nope.” I hissed as I pulled the gem away from my core, tucking it back into my inventory with a thought. My sword followed, as I had a horrible feeling that just modifying it would cost me more than I could afford. Instead I brought out the replacement //SWORD I’d corrupted out of Jun’s starting gear and forced it onto my core. What I saw was a much more palatable cost, and most importantly, one that I could actually see.

//OFFERED MATERIAL: //SWORD. COST: 50-750 BASED ON MATERIALS.

//OFFERED MATERIAL IS APPLICABLE FOR: MODIFICATION/REPLACEMENT.

//PRESENT MATERIAL TO REPLACE (LOW GRADE STEEL) [Y] OR [N]?

So replacement truly meant just that; a replacement of the base material that had been corrupted. I wondered why it hadn’t tried to have me replace the material that the hilt and guard had been made of, but shook my head and chided myself for thinking too far ahead. There was a good chance that I’d be asked about that next.

I pressed [Y] and called the eel bone out of my inventory, then pressed it into the vortex next to the sword. I didn’t get the option to confirm my choice as the bone was sucked into the vortex, something that I’d have to remember for later, and was instead presented with a small visualizer for what materials I had available to me.

It read: Cloud-Dweller Eel bone: 1.35kg. Cloud-Dweller Eel marrow: 450g.

It also gave me a prompt to consume all the remaining eel bone in my inventory, with a note informing me that any bone and marrow that were not consumed in the //CREATION process would be stored in my core for later use. And that it would still contribute to my carrying limit, which cut off the potential to be a walking bazaar before I could even consider it. I pressed [N] and instead offered two more large bones to the vortex, leaving enough bone for Jun if she wanted to make something out of it.

//MATERIAL OFFERING CONFIRMED: //SWORD WILL REPLACE (LOW GRADE STEEL) WITH (CLOUD-DWELLER EEL BONE). POTENTIAL TO BE CONSUMED: 125.

//PRESENT MATERIAL TO REPLACE(WORN LEATHER)?

I scraped off some bits of skin that remained on the meat and presented it to my core, which it accepted as a replacement for the worn leather of the sword’s handle. It offered me no other replacement options, and with a final confirmation of a cost of 140 potential, I watched //SWORD transform before my eyes.

But it didn’t stop there. The murky silhouette of my weapon tantalizingly spun in place just before my eyes while another prompt drew my attention away from it.

//PRESENT MATERIAL TO MODIFY //SLITHERBURN?

Slitherburn. That was a little more theatrical than //SWORD, and hopefully also more powerful. I grasped the shadowed hilt and pulled, the darkness breaking away like a thin plastic as I pulled my new weapon from my core. It was still a simple sword; I’d only replaced the materials, after all, but it felt strangely cold in my hands. Not like what I’d expected something called Slitherburn to feel. The eelhide rubbed roughly against my gauntlet, a coarse yet sticky material that wouldn’t be wrenched out of my grip unless I was severely outmatched.

I replaced my copper sword with this new creation, then swiped over to my inventory to see exactly what I’d made.

//SLITHERBURN-BLADE: core mastery required: 10.

Current mastery level: 1.

//FIRESTORM-DEVOURER: Consumes (Fire) or (Electricity) on-hit to empower the weapon and wielder. Grants .25 POW per 1% stored, with additional effects at [25,50,100%].

25%: Grants the wielder a 10% resistance to (Fire) and (Electricity).

50%: This weapon becomes more powerful.

100%: All effects are increased by 50%, but cannot consume more.

Upgrades at mastery [1,15,35,65,???]

Still no stats from anything I’d made from //CREATION. That had to be the drawback of the instantaneous forging I could do, but it was one I’d gladly take if it meant I could have gear like this so early on in my journey. I did wonder why there was no way to expel any of the energy I consumed with the weapon, and if it would start burning me if it got to one-hundred percent capacity, but I pushed those thoughts aside for the sheer usefulness of having a fire-eating sword to fight what I assumed was a fire-based enemy.

But it still wasn’t enough. I needed more if I wanted to survive this.

{Can I leave this room and come back if I need to?} I asked The End, who wasted absolutely no time replying.

//YES, THOUGH EVERY SECOND YOU SPEND OUT OF THE ROOM WILL WASTE MINUTES OF POTENTIAL TIME.

//ENSURE WHAT YOU MUST LEAVE FOR IS WORTH THAT SACRIFICE.

A quick check of my bone-reserves solidified a plan in my mind. “Sorry Jun, but I’m taking more than my share of eel-bone.” I said as I climbed towards the vent, looking out into the armory as well as I could without leaving the distorted space. “It’s for a damn good cause, though.”