Steven laughed as he jumped forward and aimed an overhead smash at the skeleton’s skull with the dismembered foot. Such a largely telegraphed attack was easy for the skeleton to defend against, and it quickly rolled over to its back and defended with the shield. The blow contained enough power to shatter the foot and Steven’s mirth died.

He was more than a little disappointed that the foot broke. It wasn’t like he could stab the thing with the remaining shards in his hand so he threw the remains at the skeleton’s midsection. The shards passed through and after bouncing a bit on the ribs, clattered on the ground.

It wasn’t an intentional attack, but it did give Steven an idea. While the skeleton flipped over to its front and continued to crawl at him, he jogged over and picked up a few bone pieces that were lying on the ground.

He threw each one at a different section of the skeleton. The skeleton didn’t block the bones aimed at its leg and arm, but it raised the shield to block the bone heading towards it’s skull. Steven’s throws weren’t any real threat, and yet the skeleton still defended its head.

That solidified a plan. The skull must be a weak spot if it’s the only thing the skeleton is willing to defend. All Steven needed to do was to dismantle the skeleton until just the skull remained.

Focusing on both arms below the elbows, he cast Partial Mimicry: Rat Tail. His forearms and hands exploded into red dust and reformed into three feet long scaly tails. Glad he had enough mana for both transformations, he whipped each tail down to crack near his knees.

Advancing on the skeleton, he whipped a tail at the skeleton’s head which caused the skeleton to promptly pull the shield up in defense. He whipped the second tail at the arm holding the shield, but instead of letting it crack he flexed the tip to wrap around the upper arm of the skeleton just below the shoulder.

A quick shuffle to the skeleton’s side and Steven yanked on its arm as hard as he could. The wrapped up tail slid down to the skeleton’s elbow, but it still pulled the arm out to the side giving him enough space to land a couple sharp whip cracks into the monster’s shoulder.

Steven jumped over a swipe from the skeleton’s free hand as it twisted and tried to grab his ankle. Shuffling to the side to maintain his position, he landed another blow to the shoulder joint and saw a few cracks appear in the bone. Again he pulled on the arm and the shoulder crumbled as the skeleton’s shield arm broke free.

Seeing that his strategy worked, he tossed the arm with the shield away. Now the skeleton only had its left side appendages for mobility, and Steven had little trouble staying at the skeleton’s broken side as it tried to push itself with its remaining limbs to get at him.

He unleashed a barrage of whip cracks to the skeleton’s neck, causing a few of the vertebrae to crumble and then wrapped a tail around the neck and pulled.

The head popped right off, and the skeleton’s body stopped moving. Steven could still see the orange glow from the skeleton’s eye sockets, so he knew he hadn’t missed his chance at absorption.

He made his way over to the head where it was clattering on the ground. The skeleton could still move its jaw and was quickly opening and closing its jaw, causing it to bounce and skitter along the floor. He gently pushed the skull into the room’s corner with his foot. When the skull was in the corner, he quickly reached down to place it where the jaw wasn’t clacking on the floor.

Finally still and propped up in a corner, Steven crushed the skull with an absorption powered stomp.

He felt a small surge of strength and saw the skull disintegrate into dust, which was absorbed by his implant. Looking back he saw the body still remained, having been disconnected from it’s power source at time of absorption. He’ll deal with that in a moment.

Steven excitedly tapped on his implant to see his status page, and went over his attributes to check if he had gained the proper amount. He had three more points in strength, dexterity, and endurance each. Intelligence and wisdom both went up by one as well. But that wasn’t why he was excited. He flipped to his Mimicry Codex and saw that the list had not grown at all, instead the page had gained a sub-page titled Mimic Growths.

He focused on the title of the sub-page, hoping for a detailed description and explanation as to why there was now a separate page in his codex. Curiosity was rewarded when a small description box popped up.

Mimic Growths are absorbed from species with no inherently built in weapons or defenses. The mimic can grow a piece of equipment that was magically bound to the defeated enemy.

“This is getting ridiculous.” He dismissed the description box and went into the growths page.

Heater Shield (Strength and Dexterity)

Mana cost {S+D}/2 = 13 per minute. 2 mana minimum.

Much like the mimicries, the growth had a governing attribute. Or attributes. He was happy to see it had a visible mana cost and it was relatively cheap. He had no idea how much his transformations cost until after the fact, and that’s assuming he could remember how much mana he had before transforming.

His mana counter read 45. It seemed like he could never really build up mana easily. Surely exchanging mana for levels wasn’t cheap. How would the other classes ever get any levels at the rate he was going? Especially those that had abilities that cost mana to use.

Regardless, he had 45 mana now, so he could spare a couple to try out his new ability. He focused on his left forearm to cast Mimic Growth: Heater Shield and watched as a mirrored shield burst from his arm in a cloud of red dust. The dust quickly dispersed and he saw it was identical to the shield that the skeleton wielded, which reminded him.

There should be a shield laying on the ground in the room.

He looked around the room, not sure as to where he tossed the arm and shield after removing them from the skeleton. He didn’t see either. They must have gotten absorbed too, being magically bound.

Feeling a little unlucky about not being able to have an actual shield to use or sell, he turned his attention back to the growth on his arm.

It didn’t look like it grew out of his arm at all. He had a handle to hold on to just inside the outer edge, with straps that wrapped around and secured the shield to his arm. There was even padding between his arm and the shield. He grabbed the top of the shield and pulled it a little towards him. Instead of the shield twisting around his arm as he expected, his whole arm moved.

The thing really was a part of his arm. At least he can’t drop it. He dismissed his ability, and the shield poofed away in another cloud of red dust.

Having no idea if bones would be a decent resource to keep, he left the skeleton body where it lay. He did, however, pull out a femur and stash it in the pouch. Maybe it would make a cool handle for a weapon.

The next order of business was to get back to the lever. Steven wasn’t sure if the traps had been deactivated in the hallway since defeating the skeleton, so he spent a few minutes slowly sidestepping along the wall.

Back in the initial hallway, he threw the lever back to its original position. The door it had controlled rumbled its way back up and closed. The door showed the number 0.

He moved the lever to point at the middle doorway and the middle door descended just like the previous one. Once again he was able to witness the torches lighting up down a long hallway, identical to the first, and likely containing deadly traps waiting to end his life.

Bypassing the traps, he sidestepped his way to the end of the hallway to see another coffin inside the room. When he entered, the coffin creaked open to reveal another skeleton and he cast identify.

Lesser Skeleton (Greatsword)

Mana 25

Strength - 5

Dexterity - 1

Endurance - 3

Intelligence - 1

Wisdom - 1

Mimicries - 1

This skeleton had more strength than anything he had fought thus far, but with a dexterity of 1 Steven was confident in outpacing it. He was less confident of staying out of range of the giant sword that it held.

No doubt that the sword would be his soon, he cast Mimic Growth: Heater Shield on his left arm and Partial Mimicry: Rat Tail to his right. Both arms exploded in a cloud of red dust and he advanced on the skeleton with his shield raised.

The skeleton stepped out of its coffin and raised the greatsword above its head in both bony hands, and with surprising speed swung the sword down. Steven met the blow with the raised shield, but was thrown back as the sword completed the downward arc.

He scrambled to his feet and shook out his arm. Shield or no, that blow had a lot of force which caused his arm to tingle for a few moments. But it just tingled.

Steven smiled as the skeleton walked towards him, dragging the greatsword behind it with one hand. He dashed to the side opposite to the sword, and the skeleton planted its feet and twisted its whole body towards him, swinging the sword in a wide horizontal sweep aimed to cleave him in half.

He jumped forward, past the skeleton as it was executing the swing, and lashed out with his tail arm. Wrapping it around the monster’s neck, he easily pulled the skeleton off balance and it fell onto its back.

The skeleton thrust the sword at his abdomen, but without much leverage it was easily deflected with a quick swipe of the shield. He quickly planted his foot on the skeleton’s shoulder and pulled. It dropped the sword and grabbed at Steven’s arm tail. In a game of tug of war, Steven won easily, and the head was separated from the neck. The skeleton’s body went limp and Steven could hear the clattering of the skull.

He dismissed the shield, and with an empowered whip crack from his arm tail he absorbed his second skeleton.