After having found a nice cave to hide, Henry left Maurice and Rocky to their chatting and began with a meal. Specifically, a nice, still bloody piece of Thunedermaw kraken.

  Venom Production: Fulminis Bane venom synthetized.

  Lightning Dash: (D) was copied temporarily.

  Magic Mimic: Ability analyzed. Trickster’s Fortitude upgrade unlocked.

  Henry was surprised. Had that fight been enough to unlock the C-rank upgrade? With a quick check, he went into this upgrading menu and deflated.

  Oh. Nope, it’s just lightning resistance. Still, that was a lot of good stuff. Can’t wait to test the dashing ability.

  Without wasting much more time, Henry moved on to the next step and consumed his well deserved and earned core.

  Watchful Guardian (C) - Level 37 achieved!

  ...

  Watchful Guardian (C) - Level 46 achieved!

  2x Stat points awarded.

  1x Strength Stat points awarded.

  1x Spirit Stat points awarded.

  1x Constitution Stat points awarded.

  Thundermaw kraken core (C) contained significant Spirit and Dexterity stats. 3x Spirit and 1x Dexterity Stat points awarded.

  The new stats sank through his body, washing away the fatigue, both physical and spiritual. Even the mild tiredness he’d been feeling from spamming abilities against the tunas and from maintaining all of his clones faded away as the Spirit stat, already pretty high, jumped a full four extra point. Now there were two unassigned points, and one stat about to step into a new rank.

  Oh, yes. That hits the spot, he thought after pushing Strength into the next threshold with one point. As for the last, he gave it to Dexterity.

  Strength: 59

  Constitution: 81

  Spirit: 74

  Perception: 44

  Dexterity: 43

  “[Henry, is there a way we can get him Telepathy?]”

  Henry turned to find Rocky and Maurice staring at him. He shrugged. “[Sure. Do you have something to copy abilities, Rocky?]”

  The kraken stared back at him for a moment, confused, which in turn confused Henry. He felt like it was a yes or no question. Rocky seemed to scramble for a moment, until there was a flash of insight that immediately made Henry think of the classic lightbulb image.

  Rocky looked around for a second, found an oddly porous piece of brown stone, then brought it to its beak and crunched as if it were a chip. A second later, the minerals covering his skin began changing.

  The rocks rippled and slowly lost color. A cloud of dust pushed outward, and Henry quickly realized it was the excess material from all the tiny holes that were now apparent in the rocks covering the kraken’s skin. When the process was done, the kraken’s large yellow eyes stared at Henry, and through his telepathic sense, he could almost hear the kraken’s voice in his mind, asking him if he’d gotten it.

  “[You can copy the materials… that you eat?]”

  Just saying it out loud made Henry’s mind stutter at the implication. But before he let his mind fly away with the possibilities, he waited for the kraken to respond. From its mind, the response seemed to say “mostly”.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Mostly? What’s the limit? If I shaved off a piece of rock from Rocky’s skin, would it stay as it is forever? Was this real matter transmutation?

  Because if so, Henry could not prevent himself from picturing himself covered with gold or diamonds. One was just for luxury, but the second was for sheer indestructibleness. Hell, this world could have some miraculous materials he knew nothing of just yet. What would happen if he could copy those?

  Henry reeled his thoughts back and addressed the first issue. “[It seems like we can’t just transfer abilities to you. We can try with a piece of bone, but it seems that your copying ability is very much focused on copying to materials you consume, right?]”

  Rocky agreed, so Henry quickly fashioned a piece of bone from one of his arms, and once the kraken confirmed he didn’t get anything from it, Henry nodded. “[That means we’ll need to get you something from Thalis. A skill potion. I’m sure they have Telepathy on hand, and if not, we’ll see what we can do.]”

  The next part was a bit more embarrassing, but Henry couldn’t pass on such a potentially amazing ability, and knowing his companion would be just as greedy as he was, he sent the message to everyone. Just for emotional support. “[Rocky… Do you mind giving us a small piece of one of your arms? Both me and Maurice can copy abilities, and yours is just… really good. I’m not sure it would transfer, considering the limits of copying skills, but if it works, it’d be worth it. In exchange, we’ll make sure you get telepathy. If you want, of course.]”

  The kraken was a bit surprised, which then turned to a mixed sense of anxiety that stabbed straight into Henry's sense of guilt. He was about to take back the request and assuage the kraken when Maurice spoke up. Fortunately for them both, Maurice was shameless.

  “[Yes! Please, Rocky! We’ll pay back! And Henry can heal you right away.]”

  That—especially the healing part—seemed to give the kraken confidence, and after a few seconds, he agreed. Henry double-checked that their new friend was really alright with providing a donation, which, now that it was confirmed he could be healed immediately, Rocky didn’t seem to mind.

  Maybe he lost his regenerative abilities when he evolved… in exchange for his transformative skill. That’d make it understandable for him not to want to lose limbs willy-nilly.

  Rocky stretched out an arm, and Henry counted to three while Maurice scuttled around, watching excitedly.

  “[In three, two, one, now.]”

  With a firm and accelerated strike, Henry cut down with all of his strength. He couldn’t hold back, considering the tough exterior, and he didn’t want to have to cause the kraken any undue pain. Thankfully, the kraken seemed to have switched the matter covering its arm to something soft, and Henry managed to cut through in a single slice.

  Blue blood spurted, and Henry instantly reached over and began healing the severed limb, and immediately he paused. Healing up Rocky was taking nearly triple the amount of mana per second compared to himself or Maurice. Maybe it was Rocky’s nature, or maybe its rank, but either way, he would be healed soon. With the process well on its way, he put his healing Octomind on the task and turned his attention to the severed limb, which Maurice was poking at curiously.

  As soon as the limb had been cut off, the rocks and minerals covering the skin began to deflate.Within a few seconds, only a softly glowing, pocket-like layer was left in place of the rocks lining up the arm’s dorsal skin. Henry picked up the bleeding limb and examined the cross section. Within moments, he began thinking that actually, he might not be able to copy Rocky’s ability. Most of the anatomy was normal, just like he expected it, but on the dorsal side there was a still-glowing layer of what seemed to be liquefied mana. As soon as it touched his arm and hit his taste-buds, he knew it wasn’t.

  The transmutation thing might be limited by physiology, then.

  Henry brought the cut limb to his beak and bit into it while his mind considered the implication.

  If Maurice is considered rare and valuable for hunters, Rocky might fit the criteria as well. Maybe not for his copying skills on its own, but whatever this liquid in his arm is has to be valuable. I have no idea how one could use it, but I’d be shocked if it didn't make heads turn.

  It didn’t take long for Magic Mimic to do its work. He could feel the skill activate somewhere in his spirit, and more precisely, in his beak. He could feel the little magical threads reaching into the flesh and picking samples and bits out of it, pulling them into the skill itself, turning them around and rearranging them.

  Henry got lost in his observation for a moment, and before he realized, the process was over.

  Transmutative Skin is not compatible. Skill has been adapted to Matter Mimicry.

  Magic Mimic: Matter Mimicry (D) was copied temporarily.

  Oh? Better than nothing. considering the physiological limitation.

  Henry knew he could bypass that limitation if he’d managed to recreate Rocky’s mysterious skin, but it was a struggle to create nerve centers, much less something as complex as whatever Rocky’s body was made of.

  Matter Mimicry (D) - Level 1: After sampling and tasting a matter enough, you can mimic its texture and properties. Proficiency scales with practice, levels, ranks, and complexity of the matter itself.

  This will easily merge with Shiftiness once I can manually merge skills to Aspect, Henry thought to himself. A moment later, his Octomind confirmed that Rocky was fully healed. The kraken was staring at his fully-healed arm, shocked, and Henry resolved to also try and get him a healing skill.

  “[Did you get it, Henry?]”

  “[Yup.]”

  Maurice threw both pincers up. “[Yes! Is it good? Can I get it as well?]”

  Henry winced inwardly and quickly explained his theory. He didn’t think Maurice would get it, having neither the ability to copy materials nor to mimic anything, but Henry didn’t mind trying.

  “[Oh… Oh well. You can’t win them all, right? I guess I’m just unlucky…]”

  That was an odd thing to say, and quickly enough, Henry realized the crab wasn’t done. Maurice sighed, then slumped against the wall, pincers dragging on the rocky floor of the cave. Then he sighed again.

  It was all fake, of course. “[Spit it out, Maurice.]”

  The crab slowly looked up, and with fake-shame, he rubbed his claws together. “[You know how there are krakens in the area?]”

  Henry stared down at the crab, and sighed. He was pretty sure he already knew where this little scam was heading.

  RoyalRoad is going off schedule for now. You'll be getting at least two chapters a week ( same days ), but I'm not scheduling them in advance. If for some reason I'm stuck in one story, then I'm not going to stress over it and move on to something else until I can come up with an organic resolution, without need to force it. This might change in the future (especially once I'm done with the mountain of edits I've got and once I'm back to 100%), but for now, I'm taking it easy.

  Last week of the month will be a break week. Doesn't mean I won't publish anything, as I might put up a chapter or two if the week had been productive, but otherwise I might just take it to rest or edit, so it would be a week of no expectations. I'd rather do this than... you know. Get too close to a burnout and then need a month+ to recover.

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