117: Harder to Hide 1

Harder to Hide 1

[Criteria met - 100/100 Skeletons]

[Necrotic Ring - Evolution Available]

Jay opened the notification, full of expectation.

[Consume all stored skeletons to evolve the necrotic ring?]

[Yes / No]

Without a second thought Jay hit ‘yes’.

Unfortunately for Jay, he didn’t realise that this would include all the silt-wolf corpses he had gathered. He was simply too excited to have his ring evolved, and the next moment he realised - it was already too late.

“Oh wait, dammit. Shit…” the blue bones were gone as soon as he accepted.

“Oh well. I’ll just get more...” he thought.

The blue bones weren’t that important anyway, so it was likely that he would forget about them in a moment like this.

All the bones floating around Jay suddenly stopped, freezing in mid-air. Next, they changed direction and converged in front of Jay, gathering into a large massive ball.

After the last bone touched the ball, there was silence for a moment.

Suddenly, the ball contracted like it was imploding, pulling itself into the middle as if there was a black hole there.

All of the bones cracked and turned to dust under the immense force.

Jay grimaced as he watched and heard them all snapping and squeezing together, hoping a piece wouldn’t fly out and hit him in the face at warp speed.

The orb got smaller and smaller as it tried to form into a ring shape, though it was much bigger because of all the bone mass, currently resembling a thick bracelet or a bangle.

Soon it seemed like the pale white ring gave up on actually becoming a ring and it began to morph. It seemed almost like a white liquid as it formed a sort of claw-like finger.

Instead of being a ring, it now appeared more like the chopped off finger of a gothic crusader knights gauntlet, though it still had a single red band going around it.

The necrotic sense ability was what caused the ring to have a red band in the first place, so it was still the same size.

Finally, after all the squeezing and snapping, moulding and melding, the process was over.

The single finger-piece of what looked like an impressive jagged gothic gauntlet floated over gently to Jay.

He held his hand out as it found its place snuggly on his finger.

“Awesome…” he turned his hand and looked over it; it came complete with joints so he could still move his finger - it would have sucked otherwise.

The first thing he did of course was analyse the ring… well… the finger piece.

<[Necrotic Finger]

0% Full

<[Functions]

[Transplant]

- Bones are extracted from the surroundings and added to the ring

- Bones are extracted from the ring, floating around the wielder.

[Amputation] (Finger form)

- Only the desired amount of bones are extracted. Do not float.

[Shift] (Finger form)

- The ring changes form, storing the bones in a different form

- No mana cost

<[Description]

[Bone storage]

“Awesome, a new skill. Amputation?” Jay checked over the new function.

“Hmm, so I don’t have to summon a swirling cyclone of bones to extract some bones from the ring? I guess that will make it useful when I have a lot of bones and only want to summon one skeleton.” he thought as he looked up “Better than having a whirlpool of bones rattling and tapping around.”

Jay realised that this would also help to conceal his presence, stopping it from being given away if he had to summon quietly.

“Maybe now I could even sneak into cities and summon an army of skeletons - and before anyone realised it was me, it would be too late.” he slyly smiled, “But for now I only have four.”

Jay looked at his own perennial skeletons before looking back at the sea of skeletons around him.

“Well, I better get this levelled up.” he flexed his new finger armour a few times.

He shifted his necrotic finger again into the orbital ring form, and it turned into an empty circle of green luminous gas, with only the dust of bones floating through it - it was empty now, though not for long.

Without warning, bones started floating into it once more, automatically plucked from the mass grave, being added to the ring more quickly than it previously did.

The bones once again formed a ring around him, slowly becoming a curtain as more were pulled into its domain.

Jay noticed something was a little different this time - the bones floated slightly further away; the ring had gotten bigger and now more bones could float in it - but just how many?

“Interesting…” Jay would need to keep adding bones until the ring could level up again. Thankfully, all he had to do was walk forward, into the mass burial.

Realising this, he picked up the pace and began taking steps more quickly; he was no longer going to wait till every single bone was sucked off the ground or pulled from the tangled mass of skeletons.

The spinning ring of bones tapped against the sea of bones, helping to loosen some of them - only to become a part of the storm.

Jay walked right up to the wall of bones and waited as they were drawn into his orbit.

After a few minutes, another notification finally appeared, and another massive cyclone of skeletons were floating in the air around him.

“It’s almost too easy,” he smiled, opening the notification.

[Criteria met - 200/200 Skeletons]

[Necrotic Finger - Evolution Available]

[Consume all stored skeletons to evolve the necrotic ring?]

[Yes / No]

“Yes, obviously yes!” he nodded with a grin - there was still a mountain of skeletons to collect after this.

Again, the same process happened - though a little different of course.

The bones all condensed into a small orb and began to try forming the finger, but to no avail. After giving up, it gently took the shape of two of these gothic gauntlet fingers.

“Two fingers now?” he raised a brow - though was still smiling. 0

It seemed that it was slowly forming a gauntlet.

“I wonder, if I get enough skeletons, would I find myself in a full suit of armour?” he thought as he looked at the sea of skeletons around him.

“Only one way to find out I guess.” he chuckled as the two finger pieces floated towards him, nestling themselves on his fingers.

***5 chapter release tomorrow :)***

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