After resetting the floor he had gone back to that first rat and killed it with an absorption powered kick after the rat bashed itself senseless, and found that he had completely misunderstood the absorption attribute gain. He didn't gain any attributes.

At first he thought it was because he had technically already absorbed the rat. He made his way through the next corridor into the following room which held two rats, exactly the same as the rat from before, and proceeded to allow the rats to batter themselves to near death. He absorbed them both for no attribute gains. This solidified the fact that he couldn't absorb any more rats.

He still gained mana, which powered up his absorption skill, and he was a bit happy with that. He sat at 120 total mana and smiled at his basic math skills when figuring the damage of his skill was 12. All of the teachers that ever told him that math would be useful in any career path were wrong, but simple mathematics had become useful in death.

But since his only use for mana, right now he assumed, was his skills. He could imagine the damage of absorption reaching incredible numbers. If only it could be used with a ranged weapon. Or if he had any weapon. Steven didn't even have his rat tooth spike anymore.

He made his way through the next corridor into the opening of the next room. There he saw three rats, and this time the exit to the room was straight ahead. The previous rooms had the exit corridors in the side walls, out of his field of view.

All three rats were standing completely still, facing the exit corridor. Steven felt tired, but taking on these next three rats should be just as easy as the last two. He didn't really even have to do anything since they effectively defeated themselves.

A sudden wave of embarrassment washed over him as he realized he had an entirely new skill he could be using. Backtracking to the second room, he sat down and tapped on the implant to bring up his status screen. He flipped the page to his abilities and double checked his mimicry skill.

The lack of decisive mana cost worried him a bit, but after resetting the floor several times without any real consequence he was reassured that he had an unlimited source of mana. If this skill was going to be his mana user, there would be no other reason to hoard it. Its not like he could use it to level, like the other classes evidently could.

Steven still didn't know what he could transform or what his mimicries were. He flipped the screen to his Quests page, saw there was no change there, then flipped it again past the Mimicry Codex to his status page, which should have been abilities.

"What?!"

Scrolling back to the page he inadvertently assumed was his status, since he didn't even know it was there, he found the most useful bit of information he could use for his class. A list of monsters he had absorbed, and their mimicries. Right now, it was nearly bare.

Rat (Basic) - Absorbed on Floor 0

Rat Tail (Dexterity)

Rat Claw (Strength)

Not only did the page contain the mimicries he could use, it also contained what monster the mimicries came from and what floor the monster was absorbed on. Steven assumed that the attribute next to the name of the mimicry was whatever attribute the transformation relied on. He wasn't really surprised to see that the transformations were based on Strength and Dexterity, as those were the two attributes the rats used the most. Dashing, lunging, biting, and slashing claws. It made sense that if he had those same abilities, he would need the same statistics. Absorption made a bit more since too, with attribute stealing increasing his abilities where needed.

Excluding the implant, which required a tablet-like touch to scroll even though it was an awesome hologram, everything else he could and had done was with mental commands. He accepted his class with a thought, and cast his skills with a thought. With a thought, he focused on his right hand, and commanded it to mimic the rat claw.

Immediately after casting Partial Mimicry: Rat Claw, his right hand exploded into red dust that looked exactly like the absorption dust. It was a strange sensation, not painful but definitely uncomfortable like pins and needles of a sleeping or numb limb. He watched as his hand reformed from the red smoke in the shape of a rat claw.

Steven's mouth fell open. He literally had a rat's claw for a hand, it even had the red gem implant on the back. The claw had four fingers without a thumb. From the end of each finger grew a wickedly sharp looking two inch claw. He opened and closed the claw and decided he definitely could not punch anything, as the claws wouldn't allow him to ball up a proper fist, but why would he want to with two inch keratinous blades extruding from his fingertips.

Tearing his eyes from the new digits, he checked his mana. The counter read 74, which means the mimicry cost 46. Steven frowned, that seemed like a weird arbitrary number for a skill cast. It almost cost half his mana to transform his hand. Hopefully it wouldn't matter much in the future, since he couldn't exchange mana for levels. The Partial Mimicry skill did read that multiple transformations increase mana cost, which he assumed was multiple simultaneous transformations. He made a mental note to watch how he used the skill and how much mana he'd have left over.

With a mental command he dismissed the transformation, and watched his claw explode into red dust again to reform into his normal hand. Steven figured he'd most likely use up the rest of his current mana but decided to go ahead and try out the other mimicry. This time he focused on his entire left arm, and cast Partial Mimicry: Rat Tail. The arm exploded and reformed just like the hand, but from his shoulder draped a four foot long scaly rat tail. He was glad it worked the way it did. Ruining his pants over a test cast would have been rather embarrassing.

His new arm had movement and range that took Steven a few minutes to adjust to. Not only could he move it like he moved his real arm, but he could move it in all other directions. He could even curl it into a spring shape, which seemed to be the only way he could grasp objects with this transformation. Loosening his muscles, he flung the tail with enough force to end in a whip crack, which caused him to flinch. That hurt him and would undoubtedly hurt something as much as it hurt himself. He spent the next few minutes swirling around the room in an awkward dance while moving the tail through multiple motions. This must be what a woman would do first had they transformed into a man, he smiled at the thought.

Before canceling the transformation, he checked his mana counter again. This time it read 9. He sighed, frustrated at the amount of mana he had wasted playing with his new skill. His arm once again exploded into dust and reformed back to normal.

Steven went back to the Red Eye and reset the floor. He was bound and determined to finish it now, and made his way to the first room with the rat. The battle went just as expected, and was rewarded with 20 new mana. He continued through the next corridor into the second rat room, and allowed them to once again beat themselves silly before stomping on the little rat heads.

Outside the final room with three rats, Steven had an inspirational moment. He focused on the fingers of his right hand, which exploded into dust and reformed into the rat claws. This Partial Mimicry: Rat Claw was even more partial than the first he cast, and checked his mana. If his math was correct, the skill had cost considerably less than changing his entire hand. Elated, he focused on his left arm, below the elbow, and cast Partial Mimicry: Rat Tail. When the tail formed it was shorter and more slender than the previous tail. He checked and found that he was left with 2 mana. Not deterred however, he grinned and went to gain 60 more.

Steven made it two steps into the room when all three rats turned and screeched at him. He bent his knees slightly, anticipating the charge when they bolted towards him. When the rats lunged, he ducked to his left, wrapping his arm-tail around the leftmost rat and hoisting it mid-air as far as he could stretch. The remaining rats turned and dashed at him again, in their seemingly predetermined attack patterns. Steven twisted and swung the hoisted rat down where he anticipated one of the remaining rats to leap. The two rats collided with a resounding crunch, both twitching, as the final rat flew by him leaving a shallow but painful gash along his chest.

He looked down at the blood starting to seep into his shirt, only to remember the rat still had to be dealt with. He turned just when the rat leaped at his throat, and Steven lashed out when his own claw, connecting with the side of the rats head. The blow caused a few small lacerations, and pushed the rat into a new trajectory. Steven followed up with a few quick steps toward the rat after it landed, and before it could turn he wrapped his arm-tail around the rat's midsection. He pushed the rat down into the rocky ground.

The rat clawed at the stony ground attempting to get free, and swiped at Steven's leg with its tail. Steven easily bore the tail swipe, and perched over the rat, shoved his four clawed fingers into the back of the rat's head.

He canceled the mimicry even before the third rat stopped twitching and checked to make sure he gained the proper amount of mana. He then flipped the page over to quests. His quest had reached 9/9 with that last rat kill, and had disappeared before he was even able to look and see what the progression reward meant. Nothing had changed, in the room he was in at least. He could see the rat's corpses, and the exit corridor. It all looked the same as it did before.

He moved forward to the exit corridor and walked down its length. The rocky hallway was straight, and there was no corner to hide behind. He could see exactly what was in the next room long before he got there and cast Identify.

Giant Rat (Basic)

Mana 40

Strength 4

Dexterity 3

Endurance 4

Intelligence 2

Wisdom 1

Mimicries 0