Chapter 171: Chapter 157: Test Subject

I winced as I made a deep cut on my arm, not with a knife this time, but with my short sword. As expected, the artificial arm split open, developing a similar wound. I'd aimed the cut to slice straight through the runes that made up the body affinity enhancement, and through [Mana Sight] I watched the enchantment splutter and die out.

Unlike the steel knife, my sword was very enchanted, and didn't struggle to slice through my arm. Combined with the unwieldiness, I'd cut quite a lot deeper than intended. Cluma's daggers would have been more suited to cutting myself with, but she'd vetoed the idea after pointing out the bleeding wounds enchantment on them.

"[Heal]," chanted Carys, blasting me with the spell. The wound to my arm closed up, but all eyes were on the semi-transparent artificial arm, which healed up as we watched. The runes repaired themselves, and the enchantment sprung back into life.

ding
Skill [Mana Sight] advanced to level 11

"You can abuse your spells to heal metal? No, forget the metal. You just healed the enchantment," complained Kari. "How does that make any sense whatsoever?"

"I don't think it's really abuse, given the strict conditions," I pointed out. "This is something enchanted with biological integration. It's supposed to act as part of a body. It's not like we could use this to repair weapons, shields or armour. Anyway, next test."

This time, I didn't just slice my arm, but cut off a small patch of skin, trying to be as precise as I could manage with the unwieldy sword. A small section of the fake arm broke off and fell away, after which Carys once again hit me with a [Heal], causing both my wound and the missing lump of arm to regrow.

Everyone just stared in silence. No-one even needed to vocalise the fact that I'd just duplicated metal. But, on reflection, it still wasn't all that useful.

"Given the limitations of healing magic, producing adamantite that way wouldn't be any more efficient than the regular way. Even orichalcum wouldn't be worth it. If we ever get anything that can only be produced in tiny quantities, then maybe."

"Unfortunately, the lad is right," said Grover. "That flake doesn't weigh much, and I can't see any way of using the [Superimpose] spell in this form as a smithing tool. However, [Superimpose] was the result of a complex class. What's to say there isn't another complex class available combining spatial magic with smithing? Kid, if you promise to take the [Smith] class next, I'll fashion you all four limbs from orichalcum and adamantite, even if I need to drag in Hassok again to get the smithing done."

I winced. It was a tempting offer, and I knew such complex classes existed, given [Starlight Weaver], but a crafting class wouldn't increase my fighting strength, and I was already worried about lagging behind Cluma. Taking a class that didn't grow my personal power in order to get hold of goods that increased my personal power seemed like a redundant move. On top of that, [Starlight Weaver] was rank four. Even if a complex class existed, I might need [Expert Smith] and [Spatial High Mage] rather than [Smith] and [Spatial Mage].

Saying that, I did want the [Artisan] class, and this was likely the best excuse I'd ever get. I'd been planning on [Temporal Mage] next, but I could always push that further down the line. It shouldn't take me too long to finish [Artisan], especially if I managed to solo clear the Serpent Isle dungeon, and got another decrease to the level requirements.

"First of all, the [Smith] class isn't available to me. Thanks to my [Versatile Crafter] title, I have [Artisan] instead, so the transferability of any information you got from me would be suspect. Second, even if I do unlock some sort of strange rank three complex crafting class, I'm not sure I'd want to take it; delving takes priority. Third, even if the class you're hoping for does exist, there's no reason for it to be rank three. It could be higher. If you want to make the offer despite all those problems, I'll take you up on it."

Grover frowned, stroking his beard as he thought. "There's no point unlocking a complex class but never finding out what it can do. You're sure I can't convince you to take one if it crops up? How about an extra piece of motivation; cut yourself again."

I wasn't sure where this was going, but if he had another idea, I wasn't averse to seeing it. Using my sword, I made another cut on my arm, having a better idea this time of how effective the sharpness enchantment made it, and hence not slicing so deep.

Grover held his hand over the tear in the metal, and I watched in amazement as my real arm healed. He looked up at my unblemished arm in satisfaction.

"As expected, it works both ways. Just like Carys could [Heal] the metal by targeting your flesh, I can [Weld] your flesh by targeting the metal."

Grover just healed me using a crafting skill! I could see what he was going for—pointing out that I could heal myself without the aid of life affinity—but it wasn't a great workaround. I couldn't heal Cluma at all, and even the healing I could do to myself would be greatly limited. I didn't exactly plan to carry the heavy metal arms around with me inside a dungeon, so I wouldn't have them available to target, and even if I did, being able to heal limbs but not my vitals was another massive black mark.

I suppose I could accept the offer and gamble on not unlocking any new rank three classes, but given that I had [Artisan] instead of [Smith], I didn't rate my chances very highly. Chances were excellent that I'd unlock something unexpected, whatever it might be. I couldn't offer to provide the materials, either, because I had no idea where to get that much orichalcum from. I could scrounge up enough steel to make the adamantite, but I couldn't convert it myself.

"What if I take [Artisan] but not a rank three class, and you use lesser materials? I can provide the mythril myself."

"Bah. Again, there's no reason to know the class is there if you aren't going to see what it can do."

"I don't really see the advantage. Rather than going for a complex class that requires jumping through hoops to work adamantite, wouldn't it be better to just go straight for [Master Smith]?"

"It's not just for working adamantite. Imagine overlaying a pair of swords, each with a different set of enchantments. Armour that let you switch out its elemental resistances at will, by overlaying it with a range of other sets. Leather armour overlaid with adamantite, to combine flexibility and toughness."

Oh, wow. That would be a good personal power boost. If he wanted to convince me, why didn't he start with that? Without having the class myself, I couldn't switch things around on the fly. Or if it was like [Superimpose] and had a constant mana drain, without the class I couldn't use such overlaid weapons at all.

There would be another problem with overlaying things on the fly, though; I'd need to carry everything. Or would the link still work from my [Item Box]? I stored the artificial arm, feeling the link weaken, and invoked [Superimpose] once more.

It worked, but the mana drain increased by a full order of magnitude. It far outstripped my natural regeneration, but I'd long since stopped depending on that. In the ambient mana of a dungeon, it would be sustainable. Deeper in a dungeon, far enough that the extra boost was actually needed, I'd be able to sustain multiple. It was enough to be useful.

A class that let me stack double the number of enchantments on my weapons and armour would be great for my personal power. And even without enchantments, his suggestions of wearing light, flexible armour, but merging it with plate-mail—in the same way as I was merging my soft and fleshy arm with mana-reinforced steel and mythril—was just as tempting. Perhaps it wouldn't be as good as a proper rank three combat class, but I hadn't even taken a rank two combat class yet.

It was still a gamble. I could unlock a rank three class that was interesting to Grover, but that gave no new combat capabilities to me. But that was a lesser gamble than taking the chance I wouldn't unlock anything unknown. I hadn't considered that crafting skills could be used for combat.

So, it would be a cool class that no-one else in the world had, and he was offering me a lot of expensive materials to take it.

"Fine. You've convinced me. I'll take [Artisan] next, and if it unlocks any previously unknown rank three classes, I'll take one, with preference given to anything that looks like it could prove useful in combat."

"Deal," said Grover, sticking out an arm. I resisted the impulse from [Basic Etiquette] to spit on my own palm before shaking Grover's proffered hand. I didn't care whether he would have understood the gesture; it was gross and unhygienic.

"Phew," went Cluma. "Does that mean we're all done here for now? No more cutting limbs off or deliberately maiming yourself?"

"I think so? I can't think of anything else to try right now," I answered. "Besides, I've been healed a few times now. It's about time for it to start waning in effectiveness, so continuing wouldn't be safe."

Grover nodded in agreement. "I'll call you once I've got the next set of limbs prepared. It'll take a couple of weeks to get the amount of orichalcum they'll need, but you can keep the experimental one till they're ready."

Oh. I'd assumed I'd get to keep that one anyway. I hadn't taken it back out of my [Item Box]. Glad he saved me a spot of embarrassment there, if I'd tried to walk off with it.

And with that, the experiment was declared over.

ding
Trait [Researcher] evolved to [Test Subject]
Title [Self-Destructive] consumed by trait [Test Subject]
For your research into the secrets of magic, [Test Subject] awards 5 soul points.
Class [Eldritch Mage] advanced to level 17

"Oh, a class level!" said Grover.

"Me too!" said Carys, happily.

"Aww. I didn't get one," complained Cluma.

"Nor me, but I did get bonus soul points," said Kari.

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"What? Did everyone other than me get something? What about you, Peter?"

I'd have pointed out that Vargalas was still standing grouchily in a corner, and presumably hadn't had anything either, but I was distracted by my own notifications. What the heck was [Test Subject]?

[Test Subject] - You look upon the world in wide-eyed wonder, ever eager to discover new things and then, for some reason, to inject them directly into your veins to see what happens. Awards soul points for making new discoveries when using yourself as a research subject. (Rank 4)

I wasn't sure what to make of that. Unlike the evolution from [Curious] to [Researcher], it wasn't a straight upgrade. No longer did it grant soul points for learning and exploration, but now it required me to experiment on myself. That wasn't entirely bad. There was a limit as to how much I could explore, after all, and boosts from [Researcher] were growing few and far between. The only recent ones I'd had were from experimenting on Cluma, and anything that reduced my incentive for repeating that could only be a good thing.

On top of that, it had finally ridden me of [Self-Destructive], and the soul point bonus had more than doubled. The title loss was a pleasant surprise, but I suppose I wasn't recklessly throwing myself into dungeon monsters anymore. It was a legitimate description of my changing mindset.

"Peter?"

"Oh, sorry. I was distracted. The good news is that I finally lost [Self-Destructive]."

"And what did it evolve into?"

"Why are you assuming it evolved?!"

Cluma didn't answer, but simply stared pointedly at the pool of blood on the floor, where I'd leaked after my delimbing. It was surprisingly large, given the short period for which I'd been bleeding. Come to think of it, I was still twenty points of health down from my maximum, despite the healing and having no remaining wounds. It must be from the blood loss.

"Well, it didn't evolve, okay? It got subsumed into my [Researcher] trait, and that evolved."

"Into what?"

"[Test Subject]," I mumbled. Asking about traits was rude!

"[Test Subject]," repeated Cluma, louder and flatly. Darn her good hearing. "And what might the description of that one be? From the way your ears flopped over, I assume it's something interesting."

Darn my traitorous ears, too! Stop giving away what I'm thinking!

"You look upon the world in wide-eyed wonder, ever eager to discover new things and then, for some reason, to inject them directly into your veins to see what happens," I read out. "Which I think is most unfair. I've never once injected anything into my veins."

Carys and Kari both snorted with laughter. Grover nodded, as if it was obvious. I even saw the corners of Vargalas of mouth twitch, which was as close to a smile as he normally got.

Cluma just scowled. "Okay, you've abused yourself enough for now. Let's get you out of here before you do anything else stupid."

"You really don't need to get so worked up," I complained, eliciting another glare.

"You might have forgotten what happened here, barely a week ago, but I haven't. These experiments of yours are dangerous, and I don't want you to get hurt!"

"In this room, we have two people actually doing the experiment, and four people here for safety reasons. How much more careful could we be?"

"That's not the point! You didn't have to do this at all! Why does it matter if [Superimpose] works on artificial limbs? You shouldn't have bought a dangerous skill like that in the first place."

I wasn't sure why she was so unhappy. She'd got over her own accident quickly. Heck, after discovering she could eat monster cores, she'd completely embraced her changes. There didn't seem to be any sort of lingering trauma.

No, I was being an idiot again. I knew she liked me. What sort of person enjoyed watching someone they love hurting themself? Maybe her concerns weren't entirely rational, but fears often weren't. Should I stop her from watching? That wouldn't be fair either. Refraining from any further experiments until my new fake limbs were ready wouldn't be hard, but I wasn't going to promise to quit my experiments forever. A class like [Eldritch Mage] practically demanded them!

"Cluma, I'm going to get hurt from time to time. Even if not self inflicted, you haven't gone delving with me yet on a floor where the monsters are a threat. Soon enough, that will change. I'll get hurt. It's likely that one day you'll see me have a limb ripped off by monsters. Not in controlled conditions, like this, but for real, and if you panic then, it could cost us our delving career. Is that going to be a problem?"

Cluma recoiled as if I'd hit her. "Hurt by monsters? But you're really strong..."

"And monsters can be stronger. I'm worried you have an unrealistic view of me."

She fell silent and turned away, wandering towards the door. She couldn't think I was invincible, surely? She'd met Krana and the slime who disapproves of being called Blobby. There were two rank fours in the room with her right now. More likely, the thought of me getting hurt was just something she didn't want to consider.

"How come you have an etiquette skill?" I asked Carys, on my way out to catch up with Cluma.

"My mum works as a maid in Lord Reid's manor. I wanted to take after her when I was younger, before I decided on being a healer. What about you? It's not a common skill."

"I unlocked it accidentally, and I have the [Jack of All Trades 2] title, which made it free to buy, so I figured, why not?"

"Unlocked it accidentally? That's... unusual."

Kari pounced between the pair of us, eyes sparkling. "Would this have anything to do with the comment Cluma made last week, or the enchanting job Grover was doing when I came to drop off materials yesterday?"

"Oh! Kari! That's a brilliant idea!" shouted Cluma from in front of us, her ears perking upright as her bad mood departed all at once.

"I don't remember her stating an idea, though?"

Cluma turned around to stare at me, wearing the scariest smirk I'd seen on anyone since Clana at my intervention.

"Umm... I just remembered... I need to be... elsewhere..." I stammered.

"Peter!" exclaimed Cluma, completely ignoring my poor attempt at escape. "From now on, I'll permit you to run as many dangerous experiments as you like, on condition that you wear that while doing them. Including the bonus items. And if you're too embarrassed, that just means the experiment can't have been important enough."

...And thus it was decreed by my overprotective girlfriend that I would never get bonus soul points from my new trait ever again.

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