Chương 565: Chapter 556: Remnants

For a brief moment, I felt like I was made of dough. Every single piece of my mind, soul, and body was stretched, pulled, and twisted in every direction. It didn't even hurt - it felt like I was a knotted up piece of string, and someone was gently unravelling all of the knots in my existence. The fact that this felt like it was happening on the level of my soul made it feel incredibly odd, though.

My human half quickly shut down as something plucked me out of my mind and pulled me out of myself - no, out of the vessel I had been inhabiting beforehand. For a moment, my eldritch half writhed and struggled, as it tried to ascertain whether I was 'dead' and whether it needed to create a new body from the thin strands of hope I had gathered since returning to the Market. Fortunately, I managed to clamp down on it before I instinctively did something foolish.

Instead, I did my best to observe what was happening through the eyes of the eldritch. My vision remained nonexistent for a few seconds, before I saw a few faint flickers of light, darkness, and metal. Then, my vision flickered, and I saw my own soul, being pumped out of an old, patchy vessel - almost like water being pumped out of a reservoir. It was as if I was looking at the world through my soul sight, but my vision was far more blurry and patchy than it usually was.

My old body started to unravel the moment there was no soul inside of it. It was almost like a clod of dirt that had been thrown into a whirlpool. Without my soul to keep the whole thing together, it dissolved into nothingness in seconds. I wondered if this was why bodies seemed to dissolve so quickly in the Market - it was a flaw in the way mass-produced bodies were made in the first place. A problem with both materials and construction.

Before I could think further about the nature of mass-produced bodies, my soul was dragged away by the cold machinery. I lost sight of everything for a moment, and I got the vague feeling that I was spinning in the void. Then, I slammed into something that held onto me. I panicked, and for a moment, I tried to thrash around - only to realize that I had no limbs to do so. A moment later, I felt the same feeling of stretching and tugging I had felt before, and realized what I had gotten 'caught' on.

It was my new body. My field of view expanded, and I could see the entirety of my new body. It was still just pieces of flesh at the moment - none of the limbs were glued together, and the human half of me was still inactive. A moment later, a stream of Achievement pooled around my body, before it started to churn and bubble.

Through my conceptual sight, I saw hundreds of different concepts start to pour into the pool of Achievement, and I realized that the conceptual side of reality wasn't just a side component of the process of creating a new body. It was the core, driving force behind how this worked. In the dizzying mix of complex, structured concepts, my new body started to knit itself together. The gap between my new head and my new torso disappeared as threads of flesh wove themselves together.

My new arms stitched themselves to my shoulders a moment later, and then my legs attached themselves afterwards. Once the process was finished, I could no longer detect any signs that my body had been created only seconds ago. It now looked like a totally normal, seamless body - and I could even faintly feel that this body had a conceptual 'quality' to it that I couldn't quite identify, but I could still feel it thrumming beneath the skin of my new vessel.

My soul sent a few pulses of energy throughout my new body's nerves and muscles, almost like a cat stretching out its limbs after a comfortable nap, and then fell still. All of a sudden, all of the sensations that had fallen away from me returned. I sucked in a deep breath, before I exhaled. I touched my {Lake Watcher's Dress}, and marvelled at how much clearer my senses felt than before.

It wasn't just a matter of my perception suddenly improving - it was as if every single cell of this body was more alive than my previous body. My conceptual vision started to fade, as a raw humanness started to invade my senses. The doors in front of me opened. I emerged from the interior of a coffin-like chamber. My friends, as well as our two new allies, all glanced at me.

"How long did it take?" I asked.

"About five minutes," said Sallia.

"Shorter than I was afraid of, honestly." Huh. I hadn't felt like five minutes had passed - I could have sworn that only thirty seconds or so had passed. It seemed that when I was only able to 'see' through my eldritch half, my sense of time got messed up. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. I shrugged, and then flexed my arms and legs. They felt much better. The Market's mass-produced bodies always had a slight sense of stiffness to them.

Their joints weren't built to perfectly replicate the way my limbs should feel - and there was always a very faint sense of woodenness to them. It wasn't a huge problem, but it was certainly unpleasant. Now, I once again felt like I was alive - and more than that, my stats were currently exceptional. I popped open my status Screen, to take a look at my new stat totals.

Physical Mental Essence Strength: (130+100) Grade 11 Intelligence: (130+100) Grade 11 Absorption: (130+100) Grade 11 Agility: (130+100) Grade 11 Willpower: (130+100) Grade 11 Manifestation: (130+100) Grade 11 Fortitude: (130+100) Grade 11 Perception: (130+100) Grade 11 Binding: (130+100) Grade 11 Alteration: (130+100) Grade 11 Grade 11 in every stat. It wasn't an outrageous number.

I could boost myself much higher if I layered my third rune ability on top of myself, or used any other means to enhance myself - but it was the highest my baseline stats had ever been.

"How does it feel?" asked Kexley.

"Very good," I said.

"This is the most responsive, powerful, and energetic I've ever felt. Not just in the Market. Ever. It feels like this body was designed for me." I smiled, and then looked at a mirror that was visible just inside the assembly chamber. I smiled at myself. The woman staring back in the mirror gave me a radiant smile. My new eyes twinkled at me, and the flecks of gold in my irises seemed to glow. I laughed. I had spent a lot of time designing my new eyes, and I was really happy with the way they looked.

I stretched out both of my hands and then did a few other quick stretches, before I nodded to myself. I felt great!

"Do you feel any safety issues or problems?" asked Sallia. I checked myself with my soul sight, my eldritch half, my conceptual vision, and then, just to make sure, I tried throwing some healing magic at myself. I found no problems with any of my tests.

"We should be fine. I don't see any problems," I said. After that, my friends and our new companions all changed into new bodies. Sallia went next, followed by Kexley, then Anise, then Valeksi, and finally Felix. Everyone who wasn't swapping into their new body guarded the area. Once everyone finished, we spent a few more minutes getting acquainted with our new abilities - our new physical limitations, the way our joints moved, and our new reflexes.

After that, I dragged everyone back to the center of the room to discuss our next steps.

"All right, we have our new bodies. What next?" I asked.

"Did the four of you have any plans?" asked Kexley.

"We haven't finished looting this shop yet, so we could do that first," said Sallia. I blinked in surprise. We hadn't? I realized Sallia was right. We really hadn't finished looting the shop.

"All right, let's do that first," I said.

"I imagine this place has already been ripped to pieces by other survivors who passed through the area, but there's always a chance they left some Achievement or resources behind. We should still have some time before a new guardian shows up." Everyone nodded, and we split up to search. I spent the next five minutes rifling through a few other rooms we hadn't seen at first. There was nothing terribly interesting in them, sadly - most of them were just storage rooms.

I didn't even know what had once been stored inside of them - they were empty. Other people from the Market had probably looted them long before we set foot here. Nobody else found much, either - just a lot of nothing. However, after five minutes, Sallia finally had something new to say through the communication bracelet as she was searching one of the last rooms with Kexley. <We found something. It's not an item or something we can use for combat, but it looks like some old records from the Market.

> At Sallia's words, I started heading towards the room she had been searching. At the very least, we could uncover a bit more information from the old Market. It wasn't ideal, but it was far better than nothing.