Well, although this little skeleton's attitude was very sincere, it was naturally impossible for Lynn to go down and swim with it.
However, since he could sense the little skeleton's thoughts, by the same token, the little skeleton should also be able to understand what Lynn meant.
Lynn used his psionic energy to convey his thoughts.
“Can you help me gather that plant in the middle of the lava?”
The little skeleton looked at Lynn, its jaw clicking twice as if in agreement. Lava immediately poured down its jawbone and flowed out through its cervical vertebrae.
Under Lynn's control, the little skeleton floated up and came to the side of the Obsidian Rose. It carefully grasped the roots of the Obsidian Rose and harvested it along with the lava beneath it.
Tomo and Toby seemed a bit nervous about this suddenly appearing little skeleton, but seeing Lynn's calm expression, they understood. This little skeleton that was currently harvesting the Obsidian Rose was likely related to Lynn.
Tomo felt a bit driven to madness.
This was a Mage.
In close combat, he could overpower a Fighter like Tomo, his firepower could directly kill a Tier 2 monster, and on top of all that, he even had various utility methods!
Why hadn't he become a Mage back then?
Oh, right, it wasn't that he didn't want to, he simply lacked the talent.
Well, never mind then.
...
Under Lynn's remote psionic commands, the little skeleton smoothly harvested the Obsidian Rose.
Carrying the Obsidian Rose, the little skeleton swam toward Lynn. Because its body was nothing but a skeleton, swimming through the lava was extremely difficult.
Upon reaching the shore, the little skeleton climbed up but did not hand the Obsidian Rose directly to Lynn. Instead, it cheerfully stuffed the Obsidian Rose, along with the lava beneath it, directly into its own eye socket.
The lava on the Obsidian Rose's roots dripped through the gaps at the bottom of its eye socket and flowed out of its mouth, but the little skeleton laughed happily and clapped its bony hands.
It seemed to really like this little thing.
However, Lynn still reached his hand out to it.
“Give that to me.”
As the thought was transmitted over, the little skeleton's jaw clicked twice. Lynn could sense that it was somewhat reluctant, but it still plucked the Obsidian Rose from its eye socket and handed it to Lynn.
After packing the Obsidian Rose into a pre-prepared clay pot, Lynn tapped the little skeleton's head with his staff.
“Go and bring the corpse of that Bone Snake over. I'll equip you with some things.”
The little skeleton looked at Lynn blankly, and it was unclear whether it understood or not.
However, it still seemed to realize something and waded back into the lava. After a short while, the little skeleton poked its head out again, pushing the remains of the Bone Snake out and tossing them onto the ground to cool.
Lynn stared at the remains of the Bone Snake, observing them for a moment.
The abilities of the Lv.2 Skeleton Construct could be roughly divided into two parts.
One was creating a new Bone Construct. However, the constructs here were different from the golems made by Mages that were powered by magic stones or psionic energy. Those constructs often possessed their own souls and were considered a different type of creature. A Bone Construct, on the other hand, was more like a lifeless object. They were merely tools made from bones, or devices assembled from skeletons.
For example, Lynn could make a construct similar to power armor for himself to increase his speed or defense, or even grant himself a certain degree of flight. Alternatively, he could make an external construct with various functions.
The ceiling of this ability was extremely high, but it required a massive amount of psionic energy and suitable skeletons as materials.
The other ability of the Skeleton Construct skill was to use skeletal materials to modify existing skeleton-type undead creatures.
What Lynn planned to use now was this second ability. He was going to use the parts of the Bone Snake to modify the little skeleton as a reward for helping him harvest the Obsidian Rose.
After thinking and designing in his mind for a moment, Lynn took three parts from the cooled remains of the Bone Snake: a pair of fangs, a section of the upper spine, and the slender tail vertebrae.
After preparing the materials, Lynn immediately activated the Skeleton Construct skill.
The psionic energy inside Lynn's body rapidly depleted, transforming into beams of white skill light that fell onto the Bone Snake materials. The amount of white light wasn't much; even after expanding, it could only barely wrap around the materials.
The thin white light then writhed along with Lynn's thoughts, modifying the materials inside along with it.
After some time, the white light dissipated, and the materials of the Bone Snake underwent a massive transformation.
The fangs became more slender, resembling two long blades. The tail vertebrae also shrank significantly from the size that only the original Bone Snake could use, making them suitable to be installed onto the little skeleton.
The upper spine underwent the greatest change. What was originally just a single section of spine had been modified by Lynn into a complete spine suitable for a human body shape, though the ribs were shorter than those of a human. It resembled a sort of exoskeleton.
Gesturing with his hand, the little skeleton immediately understood his meaning, obediently walking over and sitting cross-legged in front of Lynn.
Lynn first took out the exoskeleton made from the Bone Snake's spine and placed it on the little skeleton's back. Like a centipede coming back to life, the exoskeleton used its residual neural instincts to lock its short ribs section by section onto the little skeleton's spine. This was the anchor point of the construct; all other constructs had to be connected to this exoskeleton.
Then, Lynn installed the other two materials onto the little skeleton one by one. With a flash of white light, the little skeleton's appearance underwent a massive change—
The Bone Snake's fangs were installed between the ulna and radius of the little skeleton's forearms. Under the control of the exoskeleton, with just a thought from the little skeleton, the two long fang blades would shoot out like a snake's bite.
And the tail vertebrae were also connected to the exoskeleton by Lynn, giving the little skeleton an extra tail. It could be used to sweep enemies away or to leap using the strength of the tail vertebrae.
Once the installation was complete, notifications suddenly came one after another from the 《Monster Identification Manual》—
“Skeleton Construct proficiency +12, current Lv.2 (12/20)”
First was the increase in skill proficiency, which was within Lynn's expectations. But the notification that followed...
“In the year 442 of the New Star Calendar, adventurer Lynn unlocked a new entry in the monster encyclopedia—Skeletal Construct I. Current number of unlocked entries: 28.”
He had actually unlocked a new encyclopedia entry! Furthermore, this entry was different from other monster entries; it didn't even have any related description. That page of the encyclopedia only had a print of the little skeleton's head, and nothing else besides that.
This surprised Lynn quite a bit. Didn't this mean that he could repeatedly manufacture different types of constructs himself, thereby unlocking more encyclopedia entries to farm Rune rewards?
Rate on N.U.
