GalaxSec: A Sci-Fi LitRPG (Skeleton in Space Book 2)

by Andries Louws

  Another complication he had failed to account for in any way is that the Histaff Reworked is even now still filled with magical ice. Normally, the frozen goop would have long since melted, allowing the suspended consciousness of the beast to reawaken and reassert control. The constant stream of mana Douglas has been running through the exoskeleton is keeping the frost spell constantly active, never letting the frozen being reawaken. It had taken him literally a week before figuring out that the very first movement design he had imprinted on the beast’s smallest hind toe did in fact work, the ice was just resisting any and all movement. Only when he accidentally overloaded that particular circuit while working on something completely different, having given up on that way of moving things for the time being, was when the ice inside cracked and crunched.

  He hadn’t even been mad that the previous week of effort was wasted, so enamoured was the skull with the entire process of making magical markings to move the monster. In retrospect, that week of mindlessly listening to the system’s hints and tips while randomly trying stuff might have been useful. The constant repetition of the basic Magical Animation principles was thoroughly drilled into Douglas’s mana stone-filled skull, allowing him to animate the rest of the monsters shell with speed and forethought. This initial breakthrough was then followed by a massive amount of accidental movements, wrongly enchanted joints, and in general, a lot of magical fuckups.

  Douglas doesn’t have a single clue how long he spent inside the monster, stuck in the slowly pulverising ice as he inscribed the Histaff Reworked insides. He does know that he is thoroughly lost the moment he realizes that there is nothing more to do. All the information that he has access to from the system is either interwoven in the being around him or is useless in his current situation and project. Finally noticing that the blue dot at the bottom of his vision is going absolutely apeshit, he allows the boxes to swarm his vision.

  [ Multi Casting lvl 10 ]

  [ Magical Animation II lvl 20 ]

  [ Magical Animation II has reached lvl 20; Associate Arcanist 6/6 ]

  [ Associate Arcanist; all relevant class skills are max lvl. Please evolve class ]

  Douglas mechanically agrees with the blue box, mentally asking it what it should do next now that his current task is done and complete. The boxes once again react slowly, but honestly, the skull is way past finding this annoying.

  [ You have reached full skill mastery over the tier 2 Associate Arcanist class. Please evolve the class ]

  [ Tier 1 classes available: ]

  [ Official ]

  [ Vendor ]

  [ Tier 3 classes available: ]

  [ Apprentice Arcanist ]

  Douglas briefly entertains the idea of learning the two tier one classes as he watches the blue boxes appear one by one, but even the placid skull shows that he can learn. His previous bout of mass class learning only gave him a lot of utterly useless and confusing information. The smattering of skills that had come with his tier 1 Craftsmen, Labourer, and Fighter class have yet to prove useful. Instead, they turned out to be rather irritating. Looking at any random piece of metal, his Smithing skill wants to whisper at him how to make it using forge, fire, coal, and hammer. His Industrial Design skill simultaneously tells him how the thing is mass produced, either being cut from rough stock, stamped, or poured from molten metal.

  Looking at the concrete detailing still intact around the city is much the same. His Carving skill insists on using primitive chisels, and the best way to use wooden logs to roll the needed massive stone blocks into place. His Industrial Design then tells him that nearly every single building around him is made from concrete poured into mass-produced reusable moulds. His Fighter class hasn’t levelled a single time, as Douglas can do very little Footwork, Dodging or Punching when he is without the majority of his body - which seems to be nearly all the time.

  Asking the nice blue boxes what they have to say about the Apprentice Arcanist class, Douglas patiently absorbs the presented information.

  [ Apprentice Arcanist; while well versed in the creation of moving magical machines, the apprentice is not yet a master in their field. No longer needing to solely rely on magic, the arcanist can now use logic and physically carved channels to make ever more complex animations. Skills; Meditation, Mana Sense, Mana Control, Spell Shaping, Mana Stone Production, Magical Animation, Engraving, Logic. +3 INT, +3 WIS ]

  [ Skill upgraded; Engraving III lvl 10 ]

  [ New skill learned; Logic III lvl 1 ]

  [ Skill Logic III lvl 1 consolidated into Mathematics lvl 1 ]

  [ Mathematics III lvl 1 ]

  [ Skill Basic Math lvl 3 consolidated into Mathematics III lvl 1 ]

  [ Mathematics III lvl 3 ]

  Douglas once again feels like slapping his bony hand to his metal-clad face despite his lingering lack of limbs. The immediate disappointment in his own skills the moment he evolves his class is immediate and apparent. Just like when he was forlornly sad about the dumb way he had enchanted the entire ship previously, now Douglas laments his lack of skill in animating the Histaff Reworked. He could have sped up his work a thousand times by manually engraving the thing, just like he did with the ship. Instead of tediously pushing mana through solid matter, he could've carved thin channels for the power to run through. Also, instead of making extremely complex circuits out of varying patterns, he could have used a few simple calculations to convert mana ratios and set trigger lines.

  It takes the skull an entire hour to work through his morose mood. He could adapt his current work to all the new things he is being told, sure, but that would probably make it an inefficient amalgamation of simple patterns and amateurish circuitry. His sudden introspective silence, his brainless head for once not completely filled with the thoughts of magically fondling bone, allows him to feel the pull again. Something or someone is still pulling on his mind, telling him that something or someone is over there. With a sullen sort of resignation, Douglas starts prodding the control flows that steer the Magical Animation principles he has magically engraved. His ice covered skull jerks around inside the monster, its interior now filled with a magically cooled slushy. Douglas uses the pull in his mind to steer the exoskeleton but stops after a few minutes after nothing really happens, his enthusiastic attempts at steering the thing going nowhere.

  Then he feels the entire Reworked being moved, some outside force causing his skull to roll around the iced muck. Douglas understands that he will need some form of sight to manoeuvre his personal bone vehicle, and thus decides to act. Articulating the animators formed around the monster’s jaw, he excites the mana channels connected to those patterns. Light floods the red interior, and a thick stream of pulverized ice starts flowing out of the Reworked animated jaw. Chunks get stuck between its comically oversized teeth, so Douglas opens it wider. The stream halts rather quickly though, and the skull starts the mana in several other channels moving. The being resumes its previous chaotic breakdance, which causes large volumes of frozen Histaff slime to spew from its maw. In a turn of events he should have seen coming, Douglas himself is also ejected into the bright morning sun.

  He lands surrounded by confusedly staring Histaff monsters. To his utter terror, the towering frame of a fifty-meter high Histaff Behemoth is now blocking a part of the dull sky. The few remaining buildings tower over the elephant-shaped bone being, who in turn towers above the assembled Reworked, who in turn tower above the metal clad skull, who is staring up at everyone. The entire scene seems frozen in time for several seconds as no one present really knows how to react to the current situation.

  Then things, as they tend to happen, happen very fast. The red ice pouring from the hijacked bone frame started sublimating the moment it came into contact with the dried out atmosphere of Evengi Prime. The amount of activity on the planet had significantly lessened after many years of Histaff plundering every single usable material and substance from the planet’s crust. The sun unevenly heating parts of the rotating planet does guara
ntee that there is some wind left, however. The lack of a rain cycle - apart from the most freakish and most extreme of weather circumstances - has prevented any high or low pressure fronts from forming. This means that it takes at least ten minutes before the vapour sublimating from the frozen Histaff goop reaches the olfactory clusters of the beings surrounding the skull.

  The moment the first Histaff being smells the heavily damaged nature of the frozen Reworked interior, it sends every single being near it into high alert combat mode. Douglas, in the meantime, sort of felt that something like that would be coming, and has been preparing for the moment the biological waste would hit the air ventilator, so to say. Instead of doing nothing, he has been stealthily carving some additional features into his Associate Arcanist masterwork, just to prepare for this moment.

  The closest Reworked - sluglike with three folding and bladed tentacles - starts furiously flinging its limbs towards the source of the heinous smell of his severely damaged comrade. This is followed by the surrounding Histaff attacking a split second later. Even the Behemoth starts swinging both tusk and trunk towards Douglas’s position. Douglas equally springs into action, grabbing hold of one of the many spines on his ride’s back with his mana hand spell. He pulls with all his mental might, slamming into the magically reinforced bone plating not a second later. Simultaneously, he excites the mana paths inside his magical animation. His new Logic skill turns out to be a major help. Supported by the Mathematics, it helps him figure out what joint to flex in order to do certain movements.

  All of this results in another odd sight. A slightly less randomly breakdancing Reworked is clambering across a large pile of a collapsed skyscraper, pursued by at least two hundred Reworked in various shapes and sizes. Occasionally, one of the pursuers is smashed into bone and goop paste as the following Behemoth misses their spastic prey. Dangling from an ethereal blue thread, a faceted metal skull bounces around the erratic monster like a ping pong ball on a string. Each attempt on Douglas’s side to reel in his mana hand is accompanied by a large increase in bounce frequency, similar to shortening the ping pong ball string. Fearing that his forehead horn might accidentally damage his precious magical animation, Douglas backs out by lengthening his mana hand each time he tries this.

  Because of the chaos and the occasional bout of friendly fire - the attacking Reworked horde gets plenty of hits in but fails to do any damage - the chase peters out quickly. The smell of the heavily frostbitten Histaff compounds coming from the rogue Reworked gets lost in the smell of freshly flattened monsters. The Behemoth is the first to give up, as it is intelligent enough to realize it is doing more harm than good. Douglas initially doesn’t manage to make any headway at all, his constant bashing about disorienting. Despite the fact that his vestibular system is long gone, he actually gets a little bit sick in his nonexistent stomach. Then it feels like a weird form of switch is flipped, and the skeleton somehow adapts.

  Had he actually been paying any attention to the process instead of being distracted by a horde of Reworked chasing him, he would have noticed his forehead going still, while the mana stone of his mount increases in activity tenfold. Douglas manages to get a hold of steering his mount over the rubble-strewn and deteriorating roads of the ruined city. He pushes and pulls on the mana channels weaving throughout the complex exoskeleton like a masterful conductor guiding an orchestra. The beast still looks like it is suffering from at least three epileptic fits simultaneously as it clambers through the town, but at least Douglas is moving again.

  Following the steady pull inside his mind, he leads the diminishing group chasing him closer towards the crater. They pass more and more ruins, each one shorter than the last. The only buildings still standing as they near the large pit are the short and sturdy ones. Here and there, only thick pillars from sturdy foundations are left, the rest was undoubtedly blown away when whatever made that crater happened. The roadways become worse and worse. Almost as if compensating for the lessening road quality, the amount of rubble blocking Douglas’s path also diminishes. They are running across clear flatlands by that time he is followed by only a dozen or so Reworked. Just when he is really getting into fine tuning the optimal gait of his exoskeletal mount, the world drops out from under him.

  Douglas finally loses his grip on the spine he is holding on to. Actually, he doesn't really lose grip. The spine breaks off as hundreds of kilos of magically glued together bone plating falls right on top of the sharp spike. Both animated bone shell and skull roll down the hill a bit, the following beasts not having much more success in staying upright after the sudden tumble. They generate quite the dust cloud as the group rolls down the crater wall, the weirdly steep wall of the massive bowl-shaped indent not giving them any grip or handholds to stop their downwards momentum.

  Douglas’s consciousness snaps back to his skull, confusing the rapidly rolling head for a few moments. The second he comes to a stop is the second he uses his mana hand to right himself, lifting himself from the ground while swiveling his sight around. Seeing that his mount is still and rigid, he starts moving towards the dusty white form. The slowly moving shapes around him make him stop in his tracks. Seeing that his pursuers aren’t in the greatest shape of their lives themselves, Douglas decides he wants some vengeance.

  They tried to break his precious bones, after all. It's only fair that he tries to break theirs in return. With focus born from completely righteous indignation, Douglas casts his best dephlogistonation spell yet. When he tried to cast this spell earlier, this spell either had access to too little or too much water. This middle ground he finds himself in - with small trails of red ooze coming from the recovering group of Histaff beasts - seems to be pretty ideal. A beautiful fireball containing ten mana points forms before the spell shape even has a chance to manifest in front of him. He lobs it with all haste to the nearest beast, the burning liquid turning the struggling cat-shaped bone beast into a cat-shaped torch. Grinning like a fool, Douglas pumps another ten mana into the spell shape, throwing it at another Reworked.

  A beautiful ballet unfolds. A grey skull supported by a blue arm weaves through the slowly rising monsters. Each one receives a rather neatly cast fireball to the face, perfectly dousing them in magical fire. The graceful fight then turns into a chaotic horrorshow, as the burning Reworked all start screeching furiously, their boiling jelly seeping and bubbling through the plates as they burn. Leaving steaming trails of red foam in their wake, the panickily scampering beings all die one by one. Their gelatinous nervous system, usually amazingly competent in fighting high temperatures, just can't win against the small spells Douglas throws around. Douglas isn’t really one to bask in his enemies defeat or anything like that, but seeing the things struggle, bubble, and expire does put him in a better mood. That should teach them to try breaking his precious animated bones. Seeing that the things that are burning are also largely made from bone does put a damper on his mood, though. Instead of dwelling on the osseous destruction, he moves towards his animated project, hoping that there isn't too much damage.

  Arriving at the rigid shape, he is relieved to find it in pristine condition. It’s a bit dusty, and its mana levels are a bit low because Douglas consciously conserved a large portion of his power, yet it’s completely functional. Rubbing his metal skull against its smooth bone using his magical limb is extremely rewarding. The way his plated cheekbone scrapes across the slightly porous material feels extremely satisfying. The feeling that transfers into his mind when his forehead horn catches on the slight edges between plates is pure bliss.

  [ Reworked Histaff chrysalis lvl 21 slain; 639,011 xp earned ]

  [ Reworked Histaff chrysalis lvl 25 slain; 3,245,855 xp earned ]

  [ Reworked Histaff chrysalis lvl 10 slain; 4,481 xp earned ]

  [ Reworked Histaff chrysalis lvl 30 slain; 2,096,198 xp earned ]

  [ Reworked Histaff chrysalis lvl 30 slain; 1,850,306 xp earned ]

  [ Reworked Histaff chrysalis lvl 10 slain; 4,776 xp earned
]

  [ Reworked Histaff chrysalis lvl 31 slain; 2,103,322 xp earned ]

  [ Reworked Histaff chrysalis lvl 31 slain; 2,269,028 xp earned ]

  [ Reworked Histaff chrysalis lvl 12 slain; 13,096 xp earned ]

  [ Reworked Histaff chrysalis lvl 18 slain; 290,833 xp earned ]

  [ Reworked Histaff chrysalis lvl 18 slain; 243,067 xp earned ]

  [ Reworked Histaff chrysalis lvl 31 slain; 2,142,807 xp earned ]

  [ Reworked Histaff chrysalis lvl 38 slain; 41,926,557 xp earned ]

  [ Reworked Histaff chrysalis lvl 16 slain; 86,982 xp earned ]

  [ Arcane skeleton lvl 23 17,894,400/17,894,400 xp earned ]

  [ Arcane skeleton lvl 24 26,137,600/26,137,600 xp earned ]

  Douglas refuses to be distracted by the intrusive messages as he keeps molesting the bone plating. He has spent too long inside it distracted by magical nonsense that he nearly forgot why he did this in the first place. Even if these lovely shapes of calcium never move another centimetre, he will be happy and content. For once, his fleeting bout of post-levelup smarts has no effect on his thought process. Even the slightly less moronic Douglas loves the white stuff, after all.

  So when his structural integrity appreciation session is interrupted by said structural integrity, Douglas is unpleasantly surprised. The very thing he has just spent days - at the very least; he doesn’t quite know how long - and massive amounts of mana on is trying to free itself. The long-legged exoskeleton keeps twitching and moving, bucking wildly in its attempts to get rid of the assaulting skull. And Douglas is not having it, at all. Forcing the mana to circulate through its channels, Douglas locks the entire thing in place. Setting every single actuator inside the thing to its frozen position, the skull manoeuvres to the being’s front. From here on, he remotely manipulates the mandible movers, slowly forcing the teeth encrusted jaws apart.