Bro, I'm not an Undead!

One hour.

One whole hour had passed with the figure of the Discount Human down on the ground as his head was set forward, his blank eyes seeing nothing of the beauty of the waters in the world held up on the Elimparidis Stone Staff.

A soft breeze brushed past him and his body picked up its velocity and consumed everything there was to know about it.

The sensitivity possessed by the Discount Human's flesh now was ridiculous as with this same breeze, he could identify everything within a 100 meter radius, everything this same breeze smashed into.

Grass, soft bursts of dust, the ground...

Every slight movement, every little vibration on in ground, told him everything about most things in this hundred meter range, his ears perfecting the image atop all of this through the soft and hard sounds.

This was phenomenal... but Skullius didn't pay it any heed. At least at this moment.

He subconsciously took in breathes as he thought back to everything that had occurred.

How Sila used his Discount Human body.

How he had used these strange things called...Creeds, to sacrifice his core, his sight and some of his important skills, like [Greater Communication I] for gains that were probably meant for short term purposes.

The other sacrifices were quite troublesome but for Skullius, losing his core was quite the blow.

He didn't know much about the core but he understood its importance.

Feeling it vanish as if it was never there during that fight with Bek had been a tragic experience. Almost tragic enough for Skullius to rage out and yell bone expletives into the sky.

Yet, he did still feel a raging sense of unfairness.

He had lost quite a lot, disrupting what he thought was a phenomenal path to growth. His own path to growth.

"Tsk..." Skullius clicked his tongue.

In all honesty, he wasn't as upset as one would think.

Heck, he wasn't even as upset as he would have liked.

At this point, expecting things to somehow go wrong was his daily bread and now, it was starting to stick.

His life was never going to be easy.

Whether it was atrocious luck behind it or something else, Direction seemed to dictate that hardship was his portion.

Even something VOW had said to him way back rung in Skullius' mind, making him scoff and feel like that was some nasty foreshadowing.

'...True strength is forged when one is alone and resolute...'

(A/N: Refer to Ch.12).

That's right.

Because of UNCoddled, the feeling of loneliness was always drilled into Skullius and he was forced to grow alone for the most part.

Even his new goals, like risking more and digging into his past through different means were things that he had set to do himself.

All alone and resolute.

"Yeah... all alone..." Skullius mumbled.

The memory of Doom Factor 2 reaching 52% scaled up in his mind but he quickly suppressed it. He didn't even want to know how much time he had left. At least not now when he was trying to figure out how to move forward.

At this moment though...

[The skill 'High Cosmetic Body' has timed out – 00:00:00]

Skullius' flesh began to recede, his frame growing taller as the Penetrator emerged, four blazing sockets being lit aflame by a fierce blue fire.

Skullius' vision returned and the sensation of mana rushing through him palpably brimmed through his body.

"As I thought..." Skullius said.

His Discount Human body was an additional body he had, with its own characteristics even though he shared things like Null Life Essence and some skills between it and the Penetrator body.

Whatever had happened to the cosmetic body did not apply to the Penetrator.

What a unique state of existence this was. Skullius could truly appreciate this right now of all times.

Still... he felt sullen.

There were a great deal of things that he needed to wrap his mind around first as he didn't really have the luxury of sulking in what he had lost.

"So using [Crude World Projection] isn't an option anymore, huh?"

This skill which had been quite important to him had suddenly become something he couldn't use now. If he did, he would probably be met with the same circumstances he had had to suffer through for past few minutes.

"My awareness goes with my Projected form and I leave my soul and body without any control. That's fleshed up but I get it now. Though this one mistake caused me a lot of problems."

Yes.

The biggest one, besides losing his mana core was that Sila knew everything about him now!

Skullius' privacy was now completely gone while he barely knew much about Sila, which could be even more detrimental.

All that said, Skullius was already in the process of digesting it all. There was no going back now.

An internal enemy had ingested all his memories.

It was a frightening thing indeed.

However, once again, Skullius didn't have the luxury of dwelling on it. Instead...

Skullius inserted mana into his spatial storage ring, two objects falling to the ground.

Demion's Dance and the Lord-Slayer spear!

One was a blade meant to slash with death while the other was a weapon Skullius had crafted with [Unbound] in order to use as his Penetrator body's signature weapon.

This along with another item he had used a large chunk of Null Life Essence on were two items he had been looking forward to using in the upcoming battles between his two bodies.

The Lord-Slayer spear was meant to cover for his inability to inflict any other damage outside of penetration damage while the other item would ensure he wouldn't have to suffer from losing armour after armour.

These aside though, Sila's use of Demion's Dance and the spear in the previous battle had been insane, especially the green bladed sword which Skullius had not been able to use even half of what Sila had been able bring out.

If there was a way to put what had happened behind him, Skullius thought it would be by mimicking Sila and making the most of what he had set.

'Now that I think about it though, would Sila really resort to fighting without a mana core for rest of his life. I mean... he probably responded to what he needed at the time to defeat Bek,' Skullius thought.

This seemed like a safe assumption or rather, the Discount Human was trying to figure out a convincing argument towards possibly restoring his mana core.

'I should be able to do it, right? I don't know how long it will take, but it should be possible!'

There was no way Sila intended to live the rest of his life without a core!

While this had been a concern of Skullius', he decided to cast it aside and believe that his mana core could be reforged!

Skullius balled his hand into a fist with determination, casting his worries aside.

He had to do it!

He had no other choice!

From his side, the figure of Ferex leaned against him as strings of Unliving Thread streamed from its body and wove themselves into.... a book!

No.

It wasn't merely a book!

It was an Innate Holder!

The cover and the old pages that constituted this unique item immediately drew Skullius' attention and he couldn't help but be awed.

"How did you get your hands on this?" he asked as he touched the book, feeling the rough cover and sensing the profound, intricately woven mana within it.

After a quick mental message, Skullius grasped the basic idea of what had happened.

Apparently, Ferex had used [Amorphous Sampling] along with another one of his racial skills called [GENIUS!] which granted him a temporary 'enlightenment' into unclear or abstract concepts. The more complicated they were, the harder it was for Ferex to understand them.

However, if the Hound understood it, the Unliving Threads could, to some extent, mimic the effects!

For such an innate ability like creating magical books from which spells could be spammed nonstop, [Amorphous Sampling] was not enough, and even when coupled with [GENIUS!], Ferex did not get all the spells in the book he had sampled.

Within this Holder with a dark blue cover and yellow orange pages, only five pages had the imprint of an array for a spell.

"This is really good, Ferex. Great work. At least one of us got something good out of this," Skullius said as he patted the large creature's head.

While Skullius was awed, he couldn't really say he was shocked. Red Rage was able to do something similar with his obscene blessing, copying skills from Advanced Classes with ease.

Ferex's ears swayed this way and that, his hollow but luminous sockets lighting up brightly.

This wasn't merely an expression of excitement from the praise but an indication that the beast had several plans it aimed to execute, all of them geared towards making life easier for its master.

By the time Ferex was indulging in his thoughts, Skullius was already conjuring the necessary resolve to begin reforming a way ahead that incorporated the aftermath left by Sila.

"This could be an opportunity in disguise if I keep the right attitude. Maybe it will help me find some insights about the mana core and for that..."

For this, a certain skill which had come off cooldown way before its time because of a strange technicality was needed.

If Skullius intended to reforge his core, he needed...

[Depths of the Core].