Time-Smith - Chapter 24: ClubSwords, Resurrection and… Minions? (Patreon)

Authors Note: Moving house at the moment so it’s been difficult getting chapters posted, but I’m aiming to (struggle) and have 10 chapters for Soul of Blades out this week, and 1 more chapter for Time-Smith out on Friday. Enjoy.

[Subskill - Create Flesh] allowed Evan to do just that; he could consume his mana to create flesh from nothing. He concentrated, and sensed a shift as a microscopic fleck of muscle sprouted into existence in the space between his open palms. It hung there, floating and invisible to the naked eye, but Evan could feel its Every aspect. With a flex of his will, the flesh sprouted into a mass the size of his arm, and his mana dipped prodigiously, by about a fifth of what he understood to be his total supply.

The flesh floated in front of him, now very visible. It pulsed as layers of skin and muscle too thick and unstructured to resemble anything seen in nature twisted against itself. It didn’t even have bones.

“Ew, what the hells is that!?” Lucia walked over with grotesque fascination at the mound of pulsing flesh that had just sprouted into the air before Evan. She eyed the mass of muscle and veins as one would eye a horrific accident.

“It’s a Subskill. I get that it looks gross, but—“ Evan concentrated, accessing his second Subskill, and altered the shape, removed the nerves, and changed the muscle, skin and protein structure of the flesh until it became a sword made of pure dragon scale. “But it’s pretty useful. It can probably instantly regrow limbs too. Maybe with enough mana I could make a clone?” Definitely not a good idea, though. He thought, as he pictured the process of clone creation. Without understanding how the brain works, what’s to stop any clone I make going evil and trying to take over my life? I don’t think it would have any skills, but it would have all of my abilities, and it would also have no real reason to listen to me. Evan knew that the slightest error or deviation in recreating a brain could create vast differences in personalities. He needed to understand the intricacies of a brain and how to create-or recreate one. He would have to take another trip to through the safety of time to visit R’hazul and study everything to do with the brain to figure out how he could make a subservient clone. Any attempts at clone or minion creation would have to be put on hold for now. Even with three reserves of mana he’d gained from his skills and a decade of mana absorbed from petty kills of countless forest creatures, he didn’t have the mana reserves necessary for such a task.  And to be honest, he wasn't in a rush to take a risk and accidentally make an Evil twin.

Markus walked over and inspected the dragonscale sword Evan had created, It consisted of overlapping plates of scales, finely pressed into the general shape of a sword and hilt with no guard. Markus ran his finger along its edge and frowned as Lucia and Evan debated the possible benefits and disadvantages of creating an army of minions through his new subskill.

”Yeah, but that’s the thing, what’s to stop them from eating us alive-“ Evan was interrupted by Markus’s sharp statement

“It‘s not very SHARP, is it? Is it a club?“ Markus held the makeshift blade and twisted it in the dim light. “Are we gonna bash the Armour knights to death with these things?” He raised his brow in quizzical skepticism before pressing it against the ground and leaning on it, testing its weight. “I don’t think that will work.”

Between their words, the soft winds buffeted them once more, the dungeons caress an invitation to delve further into its deathly depths.

”No, it’s just an experiment.” Evan sighed in response through the calming breeze. “It’s not much use for now, but once I figure it out it‘ll be pretty powerful.” He took back the blunt facsimile of a sword and engaged his second [Subskill - Imbue Flesh] to reduce it to fine dust particles.

[Subskill- Imbue Flesh], allowed Evan to imbue his skill into any flesh, living or otherwise. he had experimented by cutting off a piece of dead skin and then testing his subskills effects. He could alter the dead flesh in anyway he could conceive or understand, but he could not bring it back to life; he didn’t know how. He also experimented with the subskills ability to imbue his skill into the flesh of the living, and attempted to imbue the flesh of his friends, much to Markus’s immediate excitement, and then disappointment as he realised it was just a test, and he wasn’t getting his wings. “Bah, I don’t need them anyway. I’m pretty close to figuring it out on my own” he shrugged and went to stand guard as Evan tested his new capabilities on Lucia.

And in the meantime Evan had made another discovery. When a person resisted the invasive mana of [Flesh Smith]’s subskill, it took a Herculean effort of concentration, will, and control for his skill to pierce thier mana. It took too much time, and he was half drained of his mana in the end. His hopes of utilising [Flesh Smith] as a deadly weapon to disable enemies with a touch was shattered. He could only use it on already disabled or incapacitated enemies, and what was the point of that? No point wasting precious mana on a monster when a particularly  pointy stick would do the job just fine.

There was some good news as to how the subskill functioned, however,  if someone was willing and accepting of his mana it was much more easy to use, even more so than when he had healed and altered Lucia. The subskill had streamlined his capabilities, and now, if a person was willing a touch was really all it took. His skill would break past willing participants defences as if they had none to begin with. But the true challenge still remained in making changes to their physical structure and forms. It would not be good for immediate combat, but he had already seen the benefits. It was a powerful healing subskill, and with the blastema cells and the regeneration they offered, he’d only have to use it once. It could potentially save all of their lives a multitude of times.

He called Markus over to him, and explained his plans to give him regenerating cells, and highly oxygenated blood. He asked Lucia to defend them both while his consciousness sifted through Markus’s cells. Markus whooped and hollered in celebration before Lucia hissed at him to stop the noise and keep quiet, not willing to fight suits of armour alone while Evan made the enhancements.

Evan proceeded to make the enhancements, and the world around him faded as his consciousness became one with the current of mana that shocked through his body, from the blazing sun of dark mana in his heart, all the way to Markus’s strangely weighted mana.

As Evan’s consciousness navigated through thick pockets of Markus’s dense mana, he wondered how mana could feel so solid, and so heavy. He felt as though he was back in the desert with R’Hazul, sifting through thick sand.

He mutedly studied the unique nature of Markus’s cells. They were different in the way that he had learned all peoples cells slightly differed from each other. He studied them for a moment before he began to alter his friends regenerative capabilities to unnatural levels.

He made the final changes to Markus’s DNA, physiology, and body to allow it to regenerate from blows that would fell most men. Or at least, most men without famous skills like [Second Chance], [Healing], [Regeneration], or the rumored and heavily debated [Undying] skill.

Evan honestly thought that skill sucked pretty bad. What was the point of living forever if your body never healed? Unless you kept a healer on hand at all times or somehow managed to evolve your [Undying] skill, It would only be a matter of time before you became a grotesque undead. In his opinion it was one of the worst skills rumored to be out there.

He continued manipulating Markus's DNA at the cellular level, permanently altering his genes with finishing touches. He mentally sighed, satisfied with his work. He had targeted specific genes responsible for cell division and growth, enhancing the capabilities of Markus’s blastema cells until they no longer resembled that of a human. In all honesty, only monsters or inhumans had cells this advanced. By introducing a lesser version of the modified BetterBody pathways critical to tissue regeneration, Evan had made Markus's new blastema cells able to work at unprecedented speeds and efficiencies, allowing him to recover from otherwise fatal injuries.

Although honestly doubted Markus would ever really need it, but there was always the risk of mana depletion. It would be an additional layer of protection. Better safe than sorry, the guy's kind of overpowered, in his own way. But at least with this Only instant-death blows, decapitation or massive simultaneous damage to multiple vital organs could kill us… which the suits of armour are more than capable of inflicting. Evan sighed in resignation. This dungeon just wasn’t fair. On the outside, in the city slums, they would be a force to be reckoned with, only challenged by adventurers or the most senior of the slums crime syndicate members.

Either way, Lucia was now much more harder to kill, Evan had practically a become walking miniature juvenile dragon, and Markus had joined their ranks as an human regenerator with enhanced stamina.

Wait, if we have kids, wouldn’t they all have a lesser version of natural regeneration? Evan wondered as his consciousness retreated from Markus’s cells. Hells, what would happen if I had kids? Would they be overpowered, multi-skilled, geniuses? Or tyrants? What if they were hunted down? Evan decided to cross that bridge when he got to it, and shoved the thought into the recesses of his mind. Eh, I could always just change them back to normal. Or start my own country or something. That’s future Evans' problem. Sorry buddy.

Evans consciousness returned to his body, and he spoke a single command to Lucia and Markus. “Protect me.”

Markus opened his eyes with a yawn “You done with the changes? Already? I don’t really feel any different” he inspected his arm, and then the skin on his chest. “I guess I’ll take your word for it.” He looked skeptical, but pleased.

Evan however, didn’t move or respond, he remained seated. And before he even opened his eyes, he enacted the final part of his DungeonArtifactRetrieval plan;

Time travel.

He had planned on using Time-Travel to scout ahead and explore the dungeon without risking their lives, but doing so came at a steep cost. That costs was the growth of his friends.

Initially he had thought that without any real experience, they would likely fall behind him in skill, and anny gains they made before he returned to the present would be lost. So he had tried to test the waters And enter the dungeons first level to gain experience for anll three of them before reversing time. But that had been a mistake- and a success, of sorts.

Despite the growth of all three of them, Evan had learned a harsh lesson from Lucia’s brush with death. And the beginnings of a plan had formed shortly after. He had yet to explore his subskill [Postcognition - Echoes of the Past]. But he had a theory- several theories- and they were all backed up by his recent first hand experiences.

According to Gideon, his skill reconstructed a version of the past, his own private universe- completely identical to the one they existed in from the tiniest molecule to the furthest stars. A universe trapped in time; where history repeated itself.

But he had inadvertently found a way to take it a step further.

If he traveled only seconds, or minutes into the past. The Subskill would not cease, it would strain and twist at a breaking point when it reached the present, pressuring Evans mind and body in ways a normal human couldn’t withstand. He suspected a normal human might collapse, have an endless seizure, become crippled, or simply bleed from every orifice and die, if they tried to force [Postcognition] into absorbing so much information and showing them anything other than the past. But Evan wasn’t a normal human. His body and longe since been able to withstand things a normal human couldn’t fathom. not only had he increased its capabilities beyond human baseline, but in a sense he had entered the realm of monsters, if only by a single step. Through his enhanced biology his subskill would snap free of its constraints and extend beyond the present, and with further improvements to his form; his subskill could become limitless.

And then he could experience the future in any way he wished, and receive all it had to offer for as long as his mana would allow.

Evan focused, his eyes still closed, and reached for the sun of mana deep within his brain. But instead of allowing it to run free as he had in the past, he focused all of his will on containing it.

The skill raged against his control, and he visibly trembled as held firm, but he didn’t yield; if he allowed the skills mana to run rampant, who knew where and when it would take him?

No, for this he had to be precise.

Evan concentrated, every aspect of his being and willpower focused on the task of wrestling the skills mana, sweat dripped down his head as he kept it contained, he allowed the barest trickle of mana to spread through his body.

A single drop of the skills mana seeped through his being and spread, reaching all corners of his psyche and diluting his soul.

Evan felt a brief sense of vertigo and opened his eyes to see the world shift and blur in a moment, becoming a blend of colors, experiences, and strokes before settling in place in the blink of an eye.

It was then that Markus spoke.

Again.

“You done with the changes? Already? I don’t really feel any different” Markus inspected his arm, and then the skin on his chest. “I guess I’ll take your word for it.” He looked skeptical, but pleased.

It worked. Evan had expected as much, but he couldn’t be sure, the slightest mistake in handling his mana would have sent him back to R’Hazul, or to Lady Sariel, or somewhere else. Maybe even somewhere worse.

But it had worked. He’d been right.

He was in his own private version of the past, and in a few seconds the present, and in a few seconds more; the future. He had time traveled.

Intentionally.

Evan rose to his feet as he surveyed the surroundings, feeling slightly better about their collective odds.

But in the Godfell dungeon, their lives were still at risk from every battle. Even against the dungeons first monsters, the ‘weakest’. Even with naturally armoured, regenerating bodies.

They could still die at any moment.

These artifacts better be worth it. Evan grumbled internally, but even as he grumbled, he still felt budding excitement at the prospect of gaining an artifact of his very own. 

Gaining an artifact was almost like gaining another skill. They were heavily desired, and craved by all. In some cases, where they carried echoes of divinity; they could even grant temporary subskills.

He couldn’t wait.