Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

Summoning old comrades wasn't an easy thing to grant. The skeletons in the crypt were dying without his presence so obviously he didn't end up receiving their consciousnesses.

As for the named, he obviously let them all out in the crypt. Where exactly was he supposed to get these old comrades from?

Ed had a plan.

'It's about time I make orc skeletons' The orc skeletons could come back with their previous consciousness. Per usual, this was technically an experiment. Would an orc that was revived into their now deceased body be able to cling onto life?

Ed hadn't forgotten about the experiments with drop items, if the consciousness and body weren't compatible the item would break and the consciousness would fragment.

On that note, with the previous research results backing up this experiment, Ed believed the results would be optimistic.

Procuring an orc corpse with its consciousness also available was easy. The orcs from the sacred tribe for example had both their bodies and consciousnesses put into the system space.

'I don't think they'd be rebellious after being brought back from the grave' They might hate him, but there was no chance they'd plot against him. Plus, depending on the outcome of the experiment they might not even be able to hate him.

With these thoughts in mind, Ed plunged into the system's spirit room. There he scanned with a wary eye every single consciousness he could see.

[Lireug (Lightning Firefly Bug)]

[Kog (Sanctuary Orc)]

[Oqozdo (Mensch Lizardmen)]

[ Mungh (insetto furtivo)]

[ Boul…]

[Az…]

[...]

The problem was that he could see everything! The spirit room was full of flickering lights of all shapes and sizes. They were obstructing Ed's vision and obviously as a result obstructing his search.

[Assessment has leveled up]

'Heyyy, look at that! There is an upside to stuffing uncountable amounts of previously living beings into a single relatively small white room' The assessment kill would yield less points for assessing the same things but when there were so many did it even matter?

But this level up did not make Ed's search any easier, the status quo remained. He tried focusing on assessing only orc consciousnesses within the room but it did not appear to work.

'It's possible that the orcs just hid behind a blanket of other consciousnesses though' He did need a line of sight onto them after all.

Regardless of whether the level up helped or not, it was clear that the method of thinking to scan only orcs wasn't very convenient either way.

'System, do you have any upgrades for this?' It had been a long time since he checked out the system upgrades, now was a good time.

[Larger Area Store - Doubles area store size]

[Remote Materialization II - Able to materialize larger stored objects]

[Smith Upgrade - Allows the spirit smith to handle more difficult instructions and materials]

[Assembly Room - Store parts for immediate assembly]

'Those are some interesting upgrades…' Ed thought as he slowly eyed each one.

The remote materialization seemed a bit like a pointless upgrade.

'Hm? Wait on second thought…' If Ed remembered correctly, he actually managed to somehow exceed the limits of the original remote materialization he purchased.

'It was only small items at first' It was easy to forget, but remote materialization was not supposed to be able to summon boats in its base form. That meant that the skill was upgrading itself somehow in spite of never purchasing the upgrade.

'The only answer is the system link level ups' There was nothing else that could affect the upgrades and sub-skills. Especially not anything else that could be subtle enough for Ed not to notice.

Although Ed only realized this now, if one thought about it more carefully…

'It's odd that you could level up while ignoring the system upgrades' The two ways to level up the system was through upgrading and adding functions, or by making an offering directly.

But… what was the point of upgrading the level of the system link skill in advance? Sure you MIGHT get useful sub-skills, but as Ed recently learned that was only a possibility. In the cases where you received nothing, you would have wasted your time and consciousnesses.

'Level ups in games are usually followed by a rise in attributes' The player would either be able to allocate these attributes or they wouldn't. In this situation, it would seem everything received a boost in power as long as it was purchased early.

'Hm? Can I actually make that assessment with confidence?' He would have to make sure that the level ups didn't change the description of the upgrades first. Until then all he could say was that leveling up the system link skill improved the upgrades and sub-skills.

But putting that discovery aside, there were some important upgrades to purchase, assembly room!

'I've been looking forward to this one!' The ability to summon skeletons preassembled would be a god send for his plans in the crypt, and also possibly for the endless elven desert he was now in.

As for the other upgrade right above the assembly room… it might be helpful.

'Upgrading the spirit smith might also help but the skeletons don't use too many exotic materials or instructions' It was an upgrade for future endeavors.

For the moment, Ed would just take the assembly room upgrade. While it wasn't what he wanted to see, as it didn't help his current plea, it was still nice to have.

The experiment he planned on having could be abandoned and picked up at a later date. The results were practically guaranteed and the gains were negligible, fixating on it would be nothing but a waste of time.

'Looking back I've made lots of pointless experiments' At the very least they were results he did nothing with. The drop items which he mentioned much earlier were an ideal example.

They were a noble idea which he failed to execute on. What he learned from this experiment was all good knowledge as the mere fact that he mentioned it earlier had proven. 

Nevertheless, theoretical knowledge without practical results could at times feel like a waste of time.

'Is there a notepad upgrade for the system?' He could jot down all the ideas he had and never forget them then.

'Whatever, system what is the price for the assembly room?' He needed to make his purchase, if the system was a cashier they'd be impatient waiting for the inattentive customer to make his check-out.

[Acquiring 'Assembly Room' costs 8 lizardmen consciousness. Offer? Y/N]

'Expensive…? Or not I can't tell…' Lizardmen were a new unit of measurement, how was he supposed to understand these seemingly random conversions?

'Can you turn it into numeric values instead? Also, go ahead and purchase it afterwards' While the worth might be a bit more abstract ultimately desensitizing Ed from the fact that he was using consciousness, the system would be more exact.

[Noted]

[Acquiring 'Assembly Room' for 2000 CP (Consciousness Points)]

'Huh… I still can't tell if that's expensive or not' But that was because this was his first purchase using consciousness points.

Putting aside the small stuff, Ed ran out of the spirit room. The system space's majestic white temple still contained countless unopened doorways. Ed was ecstatic as he looked down this hallway and saw an opening door

[Acquired 'Assembly Room']

The assembly room was open!

Ed rushed over and to his surprise… The room was empty!

'No wait that makes perfect sense, I can probably put the stuff for assembly here' The room was completely empty but after Ed took a single step in, he was able to see a couple of prompts.

[Please store parts for assembly before use]

'So that was it after all… This is just a second storeroom…' There was the possibility that the storage was limited only to parts that could be assembled but that was still exploitable. This room definitely helped lessen the load of the storeroom as anything could become a part of something.

'I suppose I'll get the specifics on using it later' For now Ed would need to procure the materials for anti-skeletons.

'I only have a few…' Whenever he went to the crypt he would restock the anti-skeletons but not his materials. He would keep a few or pick some up skeleton bones casually, but he otherwise had nothing much.

While Ed wasn't sure how the assembly worked just yet, he figured that the more, the merrier. What better way to test a function or system then to bring it to its absolute limits?

'Let's find something outside then' There many things he could assemble, not just skeletons. He could do puppets for example, or maybe even equipment was an assembly possibility.

'The only limit is my creativity' Which not to toot his own horn but… creativity was not quantifiable and therefore no one could truly with 100% confidence say he wasn't creative. What a genius he was!

Exiting the system space, Ed found he was still in the dark room with tree.

'Light' A sudden message came to him from the link. It seemed he and the tree were thinking the same thing.

'The place needs some light' The whole city was going to need a revival. While Ed didn't want to spend his time on every floor doing city building, it wasn't a bad idea to start planning the city around the divine tree right now.

'Let's break the roof' The easiest way to get light was to destroy the roof and let the sun shine its rays on the tree.

'Light switch' Before Ed could think to start destroying the roof, the tree sent him another message, however.

'We sure bonded quickly' The tree was already able to read his mind. The link skill definitely had nothing to do with it.

Ed looked around the room for a good bit before finally noticing a mechanism in a dark corner of the room.

Upon closer inspection, the mechanism was made using runic arrays.

'Elven formations…' There were clearly many things for Ed to discover and study in this city.