Standing.

  Standing was the only thing in the way of escaping this damned Dungeon.

  He had waited a significant amount of time at this point and if the incredibly low restoration of his Life and Mana wasn't annoying enough, well—he was hungry again.

  He had also been thirsty, but he had agonisingly crawled to the stream that flowed through the plains biome and drank to his hearts content. It quenched his thirst, but, unfortunately that was all it did. No magical effects like the flora in the area. On his way to the stream he'd gathered the items from his backpack; The signet ring, the obsidian Dagger and the Elixir. All surprisingly undamaged—more than likely due to the abnormally sturdy metals they were made from.

  Hunger. How would he satiate it? Rejuvenating moss? That would be too easy, as if the stupid dungeon and its overlord would allow the one useful thing in this dungeon to be present in the final challenge room. He'd looked, while prone on the ground for some time, none.

  The absence of moss, however, didn't put a stop to his master plan—the one that was forming as he lay legless in tremendous pain and cursing both the System and Orus. He'd solve two problems at once, and whilst he was very proud of his estimated success rate for solving his hunger, his other problem had a much lower estimation of success—so he did all he could and averaged the success rates to give the overall mission a fifty, fifty.

  Eyes glued to the crimson jungle, he began his awkward crawl. He had tried hopping—which was harder than it looked, especially with super-human attributes. He'd tried hobbling on his knee and stump, but it was just too awkward and made him feel a little sick. Instead, he found himself doing an odd crawl-shuffle.

  Twenty minutes or so passed with a few frustration breaks mixed in and he had finally reached the Flora. It was about time he tested a theory he had on the Corruption.

  He couldn't see himself getting back to Uthred without both legs and he definitely couldn't see himself getting out of the dungeon by himself without them. So, he'd come up with a plan.

  He spent a few more minutes crawling through the jungle until he came across his target. The thorns. He had found a sizeable vine of thorns, each individual thorn protruding a foot long by half a foot wide. He had no intention of impaling himself on one again. He looked down at the large scar across his stomach—where his previous misadventure hadn't fully healed and sighed; "This ideas not much better…"

  He took his Obsidian Dagger and slowly ran its blade across the edge of a thorn—just to see if the tendrils would appear. They didn't. Satisifed he got to work. He began splitting the thorns down the middle to reveal the pulpy insides. After splitting seven of them, he began to scrape the pulp together within each split thorn. The pulp itself was a reddish-white and gave off a faint glow.

  "No time like the present, right?" He muttered to himself, dropping the dagger and gathering a ball of the pulp from one of the thorns. He squeezed it gently together, careful not to draw out any of the juices within, he brought his cupped hands above his mouth—and squeezed tightly.

  Out from the collection of pulp came a thick red-white liquid that drooled through the air into his mouth. The texture was that of raw eggs, it glooped through his mouth still bound to the falling liquid. He gagged hard as he swallowed.

  An intense burning sensation quickly followed and he focussed his willpower, allowing him to continue with his plan.

  The mixture fell down his throat in sticky waves, the rot-like aroma of the pulp now catching his nose.

  He drank. One squeeze after another. The sensation of burning spread throughout his entire chest, but he knew it was working.

  [Essence: 28 / 35]

  Only twenty to go… He thought and he quelled the urge to projectile vomit the new contents of his stomach in every direction.

  Squeezing the contents of twenty thorn sides was easier said than done, despite his best efforts he had thrown up four times since starting—the corruption gain was unpredictable and he still had no leg. Upside—hunger was well and truly gone; whether that be from satiating it with the gooey mixture or through his body hoping that if it stopped being hungry, he'd stop trying to poison it.

  Unlucky for his stomach, he'd committed and, it felt like it was too late to back down at this point.

  With his now crimson tinted vision, he squeezed the eighteenth pulp ball, whilst simultaneously sucking on it. The pincer attack felling the pulp in half the time. Come on Elias, two more?

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  [Essence: 423 / 35]

  I'll be lucky to only need two more, "Come on! Do something!" He gasped as he discarded the latest pulp on the ground. He felt the power within him, he felt it coursing through his still damaged channels. It wasn't like the torrent when he had tried to use it all at once, it was more like a presence he could just feel. It was mostly gathered centrally in his 'core'—with a trickle that pulsed through his channels; as though his corrupted core was a heart, beating essence through his body.

  He went to grab another but stopped, his eyes wide in alarm. He felt something, something—strange; more strange that an invisible power coursing through non-physical veins in his own spirit.

  His eyes lurched to his arm, "Aah-oh-Oh no—" through the wide open holes in his armour that allowed him vision, Elias could see something—wrong—happening to his limb. It was growing feathers, dark, black feathers. Quickly enough that he could watch them begin to sprout from the pores on his arm. He could quickly feel them push into the armour and he raced to pull the leathers off.

  It wasn't quick, but he managed it. He threw the leathers away as he gawped at his now almost completely black-feathered arm, from just above the elbow down to his hand—yet untouched either side.

  "I…I should have expected this could happen" he said as he flinched away from his own limb. "Well…" he said as he began to wave his arm in a circle in front of himself, "It's not pretty. But it does mean part of my plan had some merit."

  It didn't take long before the transformation was complete and he had grown a fully feathered arm. When it had finished growing feathers some had withered and grown a purplish colour, though not many.

  He shuddered and looked between his arm and the thorn sides. He had to work out how he could focus his essence—then he smacked his head hard with the palm of his hand.

  "Idiot," he muttered.

  He focussed on his skills and drew two windows into his vision—side by side.

  [Mana Manipulation - Basic - Tier 0, Level 7 - 'Allows the user to channel mana into the physical realm, opening up an array of additional uses for the users own mana.]

  [Mana Manipulation - Infused - Tier 0, Level 7 - 'When infused with Essence, Mana Manipulation changes to Essence Manipulation. It allows the user to manipulate the Essence within their core and channels with a much greater degree of control. It also allows the user to channel essence into the physical realm, opening up an array of additional uses for the users own Essence.']

  The uninhibited Corruption Core, Elias had completely disregarded the most important upgrade he'd been given by the System—too distracted by Wendy and Vostus. Every single skill he had, now had an infused version. It allowed him to view the additional or altered effects that his skill would have when infused with Essence.

  Mana Manipulation might finally have a use outside of pushing foes slightly off balance.

  He focussed internally as he channelled the skill—normally at first, with orange runes appearing in the air around him. He stabilised the skill and then pushed Essence into it—only a trickle.

  [Essence 422 / 35… 421… 420… 419 / 35…]

  He immediately realised that just infusing the skill with Essence and not directly attempting to control essence had a slight drain—it wasn't extrodinarily high, but it was there.

  He felt inwards, looked for the Essence, to take hold of it. He found it in droves, bundled in his core, gently flowing through his spirit and—as expected, wrapped around his arm. He smiled, it wasn't over yet.

  With a mental tug he pulled at the Essence wrapped in layers around his feathered arm—it met a strong resistance. He pulled harder. A slither of essence fell into his control—he felt a pinch and winced before quckly refocussing—He pulled the Essence back towards his core, he felt as it travelled through his channels, guiding it gently through his upper arm, into his shoulder and through his chest to his centre. As soon as it connected with the condensed ball of Essence that made up his core it fell from his grasp, but it stayed there.

  He felt internally at his arm, it hadn't attracted any more of his wandering essence by itself.

  "So, I can remove it… Can I add it?" He muttered curiously.

  He grasped at a slither of essence that travelled in the channels within his transfigured arm and felt it immediately fall under his will. He willed it to the layers that surrounded the alteration, as it tried to merge with the outer layer he felt it rebound. He tried again—rebound. "Why isn't it merging?" he said.

  He tried various different methods to attach the controlled Essence with the transformation and had so far been unsuccessful. Force alone wouldn't do it.

  He looked deeper at the layers that revolved in circles around his arm, there were four layers, each one spinning in the opposite direction to those adjacent, all of seemingly equal density. He also noticed that as his Essence was draining—it was draining wholly from his Core, the wandering Essence and that around his arm remained untouched.

  He studied the layers for a while until he realised something, the second layer was the layer he'd taken the Essence from—it was also ever so marginally less dense than the other layers. He pushed his controlled essence to the second layer and—"Yes!" he exclaimed.

  The Essence merged fluidly with the second layer and all layers seemed to resonate with a slight pulse—only noticeable due to his intense gaze. A notification appeared in his periphery.

  [Mana Manipulation - Basic - Tier 0 has increased from Level 7 to Level 8.]

  He knew what he had to do. He looked to thorns all around him with a greedy glint in his eyes. Time to get to work.

  Jacob grabbed the smoking-pipe from Pranam's mouth as he casually walked past the sitting man.

  "Eh?! You fuckin' dim shit—" Pranam began in his usual passionate way—albeit slightly dimmed by his almost sleeping state.

  "—Calm down, I just want a smoke lad," He responded as he pulled the pipe to his mouth and inhaled deeply, only releasing a few seconds later as he felt a wave of relaxation pull over his shoulders, "How you holding up?"

  Pranam only stared, his arms seemingly frozen as they locked eyes. Jacob turned his head to the side as he looked at the tired adventurer. Blood and ichor caked every inch of his clothes, as well as his own. A few wounds could be seen through torn clothing and for some reason, Pranam had kicked off his boots. "Are you broken lad? How are you doing?" Jacob said.

  Pranam's eyes turned fiery, and he braced with a smile, ready for an onslaught of obscenity—it didn't come, "I'm tired Ironside, I'm jus'… tired."

  He watched as Pranam's gaze fell ahead of him as he leaned against the tall doors at the entrance to the temple. Jacob followed his gaze and turned against the bright sunlight, they stood atop a thousand step staircase one that ascended above the tallest structures of the entire island. It provided a sight that few would ever behold; hundreds of mutilated corpses lay in pools of blood, limbs, vomit and ichor covering the steps, covering the roadways of the town beneath them, covering every inch of ground they had pushed through to get here.

  He took one more puff of the pipe and looked back to Pranam, their eyes met again and Jacob saw something he'd never seen in the man before—"I guess we are all destined to grow soft at some point." He said as he sighed "Go lad, go home. I will do the rest"

  A tear fell down Pranam's cheek and he grunted "You crumpled Irv'eth dick, I ain't lef' you yet, an' I don' intend to anytime soon. By the incestuous Twins I fuckin' hate you Ironside"

  A smile tugged at his lips as he slapped Pranam's shoulder, "Then, onwards my friend. Into the heart of this beast."

  He looked at the temple's entrance—depictions of the winged one sprawled in dried black ichor over the once sanctuous doors that led to what was a temple to Arwen—now it reeked only of that blasted monster. Hairs stood up on his arms and a shiver ran down his spine.

  One last foray into the darkness. He thought as he watched Pranam come to his feet. One last time together, my friend.