Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

Back in the orc plains, Ed was no longer waiting patiently in the carriage. The link skill's cooldown wore off and he formed a link with the human girl, Kimani. She was shocked by the bond she now spontaneously shared with Ed. She felt like both of them could communicate with one another!

This was the case, and Ed did end up asking her to communicate with him. Now that they were linked, the adventurer girl truly had no way out of their cooperation. Ed didn't send her off just yet though.

They continued to head towards Sanctuary. Building some trust with the adventurer was not bad. It was just too bad they couldn't reach Sanctuary any faster. This was why Ed was no longer waiting patiently in the carriage, he was waiting impatiently.

To distract himself and pass the time, Ed conversed with A through their link. Taking advantage of A's mouth to communicate with Sharog was also something he did.

While not convenient, Ed was able to give Sharog some pointers through A using the crude method. Unfortunately, these pointers weren't actually much. Without his body skills, Ed only had superficial knowledge.

This had to be a consequence of the system.

'If I lose the system I'll probably lose the skills' Ed had wondered about that before and looking at the way things were, the reality was as such.

[Recalling Champion's Soul]

It was when Ed lamented this reality that all his thoughts were forced to a halt. His consciousness faded and he could only leave A with a simple message.

'Take care of things here' Ed was about to return to one of his other bodies, the mushroom body would need to be handled by A.

Coming into the deep dark void that was the dungeon's space, Ed could only sigh inwardly. The space became quite frankly sickening after the first few visits.

[10 minutes before respawning]

'Of course' The usual message appeared, Ed had to keep himself busy. Usually, he would start planning ahead, but this time he took the liberty to inspect his spiritual marks and links.

'I can actually sense them from in here' Somehow, Ed only managed to realize that now.

'The connections are very faint, however' It was as if there was some sort of barrier between himself and the marks and links.

'This is most likely the reason why I couldn't communicate with W when he was outside' The dungeon was somehow insulated for his transmission-based skills.

'More importantly…' Since Ed could still sense the marks, he could also sense the distance. While he had no numbers to go off of, he could tell if he was closer or further to some marks.

'I'm headed to the desert aren't I?' Ed could sense the marks on Azalia and the skeletons he made growing nearer. Was this a clue to how the dungeon transported him?

Ed couldn't tell for sure. He did believe it was some useful insight but he simply didn't know what it would be useful for.

Maybe it meant that in the future he could learn how the dungeon pinpointed the location of his body and start switching between them on his own? That would be the hopeful result.

'All in due time' Ed thought solemnly before taking notice of an opening in the void. To be more precise it was a vacuum. The dungeon was summoning him! 

[Summoning Dungeon Champion]

Ed's thoughts were whisked away and soon enough his vision met a new sight.

'Just as I expected' Ed thought as he shook his groggy body off the ground it laid on. He was back inside his elf body.

He was currently inside Azalia's chamber, the large previously dry tree was now full of new leaves. They looked small and maroon in color, the sight was gratifying. 

Ed's effort was not in vain.

'Azalia, I am back' Ed transmitted gleefully. How could he not be happy seeing the divine tree's brilliant recovery?

'Welcome!' The tree said cheerfully.

Ed simply nodded before pausing.

'It looks like Mauro is returning' The lizard skeleton Mauro was drawing nearer, Ed imagined they found something. On the other hand…

'Why isn't Idrisi moving?' The orc skeleton also seemed to have strayed from the direction Ed originally designated for it.

'I should try and find out what's going on' Ed wanted to learn more about the floor and both Idrisi and Mauro encountered something odd. He already knew what could be employed for the job.

'Getting the memories back might be a bit difficult but...' It was still Ed's best choice. He just needed to teach any new undead servants how to communicate with him.

Not even a few minutes after returning to his elven body, Ed was already back in the system space. The assembly room still held his experimental creations.

[Skeleton Bat]

{A creation of the being Edwa&!, it is made out of a blood bat. Its wings are preserved with divine sap}

'Looks like the system might use my real name for things related to my consciousness, but not my bodies' After a while, Ed became the real name of his bodies, Ed felt this was a reasonable deduction.

More importantly, Ed had successfully created a skeleton bat. He just needed to create an ideal consciousness for the bat and take it for a spin.

'Directing it might be a bit troublesome' Ed desperately needed a way to transmit scenes from one entity to another.

'Looks like I might have to put W in this skeleton bat' If he did that then W could use transmission combined with spiritual mark to do just that.

'It's not the best but it is a solution' Ed actually lost W thanks to doing something like this before. It was a flying mushroom that he made if he was not misremembering. The sudden onslaught of a mushroom monster then resulted in the separation of him, Bloody, and W.

After that incident, W encountered Eon and it took a significant amount of time before he and W eventually reunited. The reunion was brief however as the king of Bosque Brennan had to be allowed out with his subjects.

'How quick time flies' Ed thought somewhat amused as he left the system space. He then activated the assembly room and called upon his area withdrawal.

A skeleton bat appeared in front of Ed, it stood tall and upright. But it only stood like this for a couple of seconds before collapsing.

'Although they are assembled, without a consciousness they'll quickly fall apart' It was like a museum exhibit where the display fossils had no strings attached. Basically, it would just be a pile of bones with a fancy name tag.

Noting this failure, Ed grabbed the bones again and returned to the system space. He returned the bones and wings to the assembly room before going to the forge room. There he suffered at the hands of the forge anew to give birth to W.

'Welcome back W' Ed transmitted to his split.

'Welcome back? Technically I'm a new W' Since they had just split W and Ed were currently near identical in thought. Their circumstances ensured that their thoughts were different, but otherwise they would come up with the same things and like the same things.

'That's true, but just go chill in the assembly room' Ed transmitted to W who nodded.

'I was going to do that' W responded before moving to carry out this duty.

Ed then went back to his elf body and waited for about half a minute before assembling the blood bat again.

This time, even after a minute the bat did not collapse.

'I'm surprisingly not used to this body' W transmitted to Ed who had an understanding expression.

'It has wings, that's expected' Ed didn't have any flying experience apart from that mushroom fly thingy he previously mentioned.

'Large wings' That was the main difference. But W was not discouraged, he quickly started becoming acquainted with the body and before Ed knew it, W was already soaring the skies. 

... or he would be, for now, he was only soaring Azalia's ceiling.

Whatever the case, the sap had proven it was useful in preserving undead parts. It might be possible for Ed to revive the bat as an undead without fearing it would rot next time.

'W, I'll continue to transmit Adrisi's and Mauro's locations to you.' Ed informed W who could only roll his nonexistent eyes.

'Yeah I got it, I'll check up on Mauro and continue towards Adrisi' W suspected Ed would follow up with these words. Which was why suddenly didn't feel like complying. He was already planning to do it, why instruct him?

After a small back and forth between W and Ed, W truly took to the skies. He flew out of the palace and into the night sky.

Ed watched for a good few minutes before shifting back to the main character of the floor. The divine tree, Azalia.

The water in the desolate city continued to run in abundance through its sewers. Ed's ears were being constantly caressed by the sound of running water.

'With so much, it's no wonder the tree is growing so fast' Azalia might have very well been starving for hundreds of years. Who knew, maybe even thousands…

It was a thirsty tree and that was justifiable. What wasn't justifiable however was that the tree could make better arrays than Ed himself.

'I'll need to take advantage of you' Ed thought to himself.