Chapter 346: The Bird’s a Liar

There was something profoundly wrong about dragging myself back to my dorm after a long day of work, with the sun rising on the horizon.

Work had been busy, students hurrying about the library as the quarter was approaching the end. I was also busy, but had no time!

Nothing to do but practice while I walked. Bless the System and the stats it gave me, I could easily walk and draw in my notebook thanks to my dexterity. I was working on my Anaconda. I had worked out which runes I’d needed for the latest assignment, and more importantly, where to place them.

The diagram needed three new runes and two new concepts related to placing them – surprise, surprise, the same three new runes and two concepts we’d just been taught in class – and I was practicing sketching them out. One perfect iteration wasn’t good enough, no. I wanted to be able to whip out the rune practically without thinking, while sleep deprived. I strived for excellence in all things, and I had no plans on becoming a mediocre wizard, who needed six tries to draw a simple runic mandala.

Shame that [Repetition is the Mother of Learning] was capped out. I was getting tempted to class up [Student of the Ages]again just to improve my student skills, but no.

Operation: The Improved Elaine was a go. Marcelle’s biomancy classes were quite something, and they focused on what she called the ‘introduction to biomancy’ – modifying elvenoids. The part that didn’t need to be said was ‘modifying elvenoids to be better.’

I was still working on the full list of modifications I wanted to make for myself. ‘Improving my senses’ was an easy one. ‘Honeycombed bones’ was also on the list, but what type of bone I’d use was still up in the air. There were three options here. The first was sticking to what I currently had. The second was looking around in nature, finding an appropriate already-made, tried and tested, measured and known bone, and borrowing that. The third type was to use my knowledge to effectively custom-construct my own, new type of bone. Each method had its benefits and drawbacks. Using human bone had a whole host of advantages, primarily that it would integrate well into everything I already had, but pound for pound, elven bones were just better in every respect, barring total-body integration.

Then there was the possibility of doing something exotic, like making my bones out of titanium.

Ok, technically, I probably couldn’t make my bones entirely out of titanium. I finished my diagram, and swapped notebooks, flipping over to my ‘bones made out of metal’ project.

The entire human body was interconnected to each other, each piece part of a greater whole. It wasn’t possible to just change one thing, dozens to hundreds of other parts of the human body needed to be changed to accommodate even a single modification.

Changing my bones to titanium was the easy part. The problems came with everything else attached to it. Just like the dwarves and their prosthetics, not having any bone material in my body at all was bad. Depending on how I did it, I’d either end up with no bone marrow, or no blood supply to the bone marrow. If that happened, I’d slowly bleed red blood cells until I was anemic, then have a host of other problems occur.

Healing could fix some of the issues, but the base ‘healing template’ constantly updated as people lived their lives. It was why fat people were fat again after being healed, it was why muscles were returned, heck, it was why old people stayed old and why people didn’t get reverted back to being a baby every time they were healed!

That failed to account for the fact that bones were a store of calcium, and calcium was needed for the brain and nerves. It wasn’t critical that I have bones, but not having them meant I’d need to make sure I was always drinking milk, probably daily.

A honeycomb pattern of titanium laced throughout my bones would make them all significantly stronger, at a fraction of the ‘no bones’ side-effect. However, that wasn’t harmless and without issues either.

One thing I flat-out didn’t know, and I’d need to take some classes on, was if titanium reacted badly with biologicals inside my body. Iron, for example, would interact with the air my blood was circulating around, and rust inside my body, weakening the metal and practically ruining the effect. Titanium I was less sure about. Something to look into in the future.

I smiled at a side note I’d written on that segment – ‘Inscriptions’. Like the dwarves, like what I was learning in my Enchantments class, I could engrave runes onto my very bones, and with my healing, keep them there. That would grant me numerous effects that were part of my very being, enchantments to protect me.

Part of Operation: The Improved Elaine, but for another day. The entire body was connected, and this one simple operation had dangling pieces connecting to other projects all over the place.

Back to the bones! Titanium would need to become part of my diet, to replace the parts that were slowly degrading off as time went by. I’d either need to actively remind myself to eat the metal, or rewrite part of my brain to feel and understand that I was ‘running low’, and needed to eat more. That particular bit of fuckery would then result in my conscious mind properly interpreting the signal, which wasn’t a given.

Eating the metal! I’d need to check that my stomach acid didn’t interact with it in a way to transform it badly, same check with my liver enzymes, then my digestive track would need to properly pull the metal out, and hand it off to the circulatory system. My bones would need to know to uptake the titanium from the blood – a part that had a GIGANTIC question mark on it – and the rest of my body would have to know not to absorb it, otherwise I’d just give myself heavy metal poisoning instead of strong bones.

To be fair. That particular problem could be resolved by simply healing the toxic metal buildup in my cells, but I was trying to keep toxic side effects to a minimum in the first place. I wasn’t above using it as a solution though.

Happily, my immune system had no idea how to handle titanium, so I didn’t need to worry about retraining it or messing with it, although my poor kidneys would need a serious upgrade to handle the excess heavy metal. A check on titanium and the blood-brain barrier was also needed, because screwing my brain up and going insane would make it difficult to correct the problem.

Assuming I solved all those problems, and took the proper courses to double check that there were no other further problems, then yes. I’d finally have titanium-laced bones be part of my very being, integrated into ‘me’ to the extent that the System recognized it, and boosted it with my generous vitality.

That was just sticking with the mundane human frame though! I could potentially go exotic. Grow a pair of wings from my back, and fly under my own power! Weight to wingspan ratio became a concern there, although roc bones were apparently nearly ideal for that particular modification. Wing shape, feather types, “How to manage wings while on the ground”, muscle positions, modifications, additions, and nerves were just the start of playing around with something like that.

Naturally, I wasn’t going to stop at one modification, oh no.

I wanted the best, but there was considerable overlap in problems. A stomach that could eat titanium, for example, might not properly digest taurine, which was needed for eyes to see in the dark. Getting both would require extensive fiddling, although fortunately [Biomancers] and [Researchers] of the past had extensively studied and cataloged creatures from around the world, and did their best to describe how each organ worked.

They hadn’t been perfect though. Looping back to the titanium bones example, nobody had ever checked if a treant could eat metal, or if it passed right through them. How they absorbed nutrients from their roots had been studied, but niche corner cases?

Some were unknown, because nobody had gotten around to studying it, taking notes, and sharing them with the School.

Then there was actually acquiring the materials I needed!

Either I could physically acquire one from an existing member – for example, killing a triceratops to get triceratop lungs – or I could study the creature enough to try and replicate it with a skill.

Of course, poor understanding of what I was replicating would result in a suboptimal conjured version, which would cause me all sorts of issues if it didn’t outright kill me. There were skills to offset that, and allow two normally incompatible body modifications to work together, but that was leaning more into the domain of transformation. Most biomancer clients wanted modification once in their life, then to move on normally, not take a skill or three dedicated to stopping themselves from falling apart. I was half in a similar boat. I didn’t want to take skills just to keep my modifications working, but I could lean on my persistent self-healing to help smooth over any rough edges to my modifications. I was mostly thinking about my kidneys, and how my healing handled most toxins effortlessly.

I’d been peeing clear for years now.

Then there was modifying what I grabbed. Taking a leviathan’s heart and shrinking it down to fit inside my chest was on the easy side of the modifications, while allowing a unicorn’s stomach to process meat was more of a challenge. Getting the best of three different organs was something Marcelle had only mentioned in passing, and even with my limited knowledge, I knew mixing mammal, reptile, and fish organs together would have a new layer of challenges.

And everything then needed to be modified to fit together. Biomancy was hard. The total lifetime improvements that I’d end up with, along with the deeper base of knowledge that I needed to acquire just to walk down this path, made it all worth it though. While I had [Mother of Modern Medicine] waiting for me as a [The Dawn Sentinel] upgrade, the more knowledge I had, the better the skills would be. The overlap in required knowledge from medicine to biomancy was almost perfect.

The last tricky part was when did I class up again? I could class up now as a [Student] and get the class a second time, but that felt risky. I would need to grab [Biomancer] at 128, then biomancy my way from 128 to 256. I felt confident in getting there, but I didn’t want to spend a decade working as a biomancer just to reset my classes. I was hoping to complete Operation: The Improved Elaine while at School, then reset my third and take my final class. Hopefully I’d have a year or two at the School to dedicate towards improving my third class, then be prepared for the world!

I didn’t want to class up right now though. My [Student of the Ages] skills were nice for all my other classes, and the more biomancy I practiced, the more achievements I’d have when I classed it up. The relentless practice and learning would make the difference between me getting [Baby Biomancer] and [Seasoned Biomancer], with a corresponding increase in skill power.

Specifically, I needed the skill to make my changes “permanent”. Missing that skill would ruin all my efforts.

That was just one class! I had ambitions in wizardry, enchanting, half an eye on cultivation, learning more about the world, research projects in history, and more!

I closed my notebook in front of my dorm door, and opened it.

Long term plans could wait for an hour and a half, while I worked on my current material. I was starting to fall behind, and there was the eternal temptation to start cutting into my sleep just to catch up.

“Evening!” Auri was posing on the coffee table, while Iona was sketching her. Fenrir and Skye were looking over Iona’s shoulder, watching her draw.

“Brrrpt!” Auri flew over to me, affectionately nuzzling my cheek. I cracked a rare smile for my little flame.

“Heya Auri, I hope you’re being good to Iona. Didn’t threaten to burn her math homework or something to get a picture, did you?”

“Brrrpt!” Auri shook her head, emphatically telling me no, Iona had offered to make her a picture. Three pictures! Her tiny little chef’s hat almost flew off, but a conjured hand – her latest skill, I hadn’t seen it before today – showed up and kept it on her head.

I arched an eyebrow at Iona.

“What did she do?” I asked the tall blonde.

Iona worked her mouth a few times, and I got a little chuckle of schadenfreude. Auri had clearly done something, and I knew Iona couldn’t lie, enforced by her [Vow]. It went further than just technically telling the truth, she had to be honest. I was no great shakes at the social thing, but even I could tell that Iona didn’t want to tell me, but wanted to say something.

“I’m bribing her to keep a secret.” She finally confessed.

“Brrrrpt.” Auri ‘whispered’ in my ear, at roughly the volume of a purring cat. Iona had clearly heard, and understood, and looked crestfallen.

I facepalmed, and shook my head.

“Auri. No.” I waggled my finger at her. “It’s terribly rude to promise someone that you’ll keep their secret, then go and gossip about it to me.”

“Brrrpt?”

“I don’t care. Don’t tell me, it’s not nice. You need to think about other people’s emotions, and how they’ll feel.” Having this talk in front of everyone was awkward on one hand, but I didn’t want Iona and Skye to hear Auri say “I’ll tell you later! It’s a fun one!”, then walk away with her to my room. That just looked bad, and it’d create all sorts of ugly feelings, while Auri was the one causing trouble and making mischief.

Fenrir chose that moment to curl up on Iona’s lap, deep rumbles of contentment coming from him as Iona started scratching under his chin.

“Brrrpt…”

“Yes, it’s important what other people think of you, because they’ll also think similar things about me.”

I crossed my arms at Auri as Skye excused herself, slipping away.

Iona sighed, obviously loudly enough for me to hear.

“Why don’t you sit down quickly, and I’ll explain?” She offered.

Well, that was one way to make everything clear!

“Just as long as this doesn’t take too long, I’m behind on work.” I explained as I sat down.

Iona and Auri traded looks at that.

“Brrrpt.”

“Long story short, Auri’s worried about you. She doesn’t think you’re coping well, and has been trying to find various ways to make you happy again, like it’s that easy.” Iona gave me a rueful smile.

“I’m-”

“BRPT BRPT BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPT!” Auri shrieked at me, cutting me off before I could say ‘fine’.

“Brpt. Brpt brrrpt brpt brrpppt. Brrrptttt. Bbrrrrrrrrrpppt, brpt brpt BRPT!” Auri lectured me, rattling off dozens of different examples of me overworking myself, or ignoring her.

“But-”

“BPRT.”

[*brrrrring!* Hope we’re sitting down to study at home! Auri’s lots of fun, but we gotta get that work done. It’ll just pile up if we don’t do it now!]

I felt a surge of guilt wash over me as I dismissed the notification. I was supposed to be working, not chit-chatting right now…

“I hate to interrupt,” Iona chimed in. “But Auri’s got something of a point. I’m basically uninvolved, and I worry about you. You’re my roommate. When was the last time you took a break? Did something for yourself?”

I opened my mouth, thought about it, and closed it again.

“I did something similar before. Ranger Academy. Two years of physical exercise and classes, designed to turn soldiers into Rangers.”

“Brrpt brrrrrrrrrrrrrpt…” Auri was trying to squeeze out some of her crystal tears, a blatant and transparent attempt at manipulating me. I rolled my eyes at her shenanigans, but I was moved.

“Look, it’s like sharpening an axe. I can hack through goblins all day, but taking a few minutes to sit down and sharpen my axe means I can hack through them even more efficiently, and clear twice as many in half the time. You’ve got five years here, if not more, and four sets of classes each year. Don’t blow yourself up, don’t blow your chance.”

“Brrrpt!” Auri wanted me to spend more time playing with her. “Brrrrrpt!!!” She also had cool new skills that she wanted to show me at the firing range.

I hesitated. I was falling behind on a few classes, and I didn’t feel like I was properly applying my best efforts in the rest of them…

I stopped and thought about it for the first time in ages. I’d just been mindlessly going from class to class, my life dictated by the schedule the School set and the timers I’d arranged with [Timekeeping]. The more awake and alert Elaine of the past had set them, and I’d been gamely grinding through the classes and work, constantly on the path of self-improvement.

What would happen if I kept going the way I was?

I was on a slow downward spiral. Things continued to slowly pile up in my backlog, unimportant things to be sure, but it was only a matter of time before something important ended up in there.

How important was the world geography or cultivation class, once I’d learned the basics? Did I really need to learn all those details right now?

On the other hand, what would happen if I dropped some classes?

I’d do better in the ones I was still in, but I’d always have this feeling, this sense in the back of my mind that I was squandering my opportunity. That I wasn’t getting as much out of the School as I possibly could, that I was leaving knowledge and opportunities on the table. Having spent most of my new life being denied opportunity after opportunity, I wasn’t inclined to leave a single one behind.

But… people were worried about me. I thought I was holding things together well enough, but the nightmares weren’t getting better. Auri was upset with me. Iona was intervening as well.

What would Artemis say?

Well… she wasn’t exactly a great example, but she was laid back and relaxed, except when she wanted something. Then she didn’t care what laws she broke, people she murdered, or fae she insulted to get there.

Ok, Artemis was not a good example. She would totally go full-throttle, and that suggested I should possibly tone it down.

What about Night?

Well, he had eternity. He’d been around for eternity. He probably didn’t need to learn things, he was there when they’d been invented.

And I also had eternity.

Eternity to read books, to learn and educate myself. Eternity to gather knowledge.

Blowing myself up now would be a terrible idea. I knew I was in a poor place, mentally.

Ok.

Priority reshuffling.

Get my head straight, then work on broadening my knowledge.

“Ok. You two are right.” I conceded. “I need to cut down.”

“BRRrrrrrrpt!!” Auri cheered as she flew around me, heralding how she was the BEST and helped me! Her excitement was infectious, although I could barely muster a smile at it.

I felt my shoulders relax, tension bleeding out of them as I gleefully murdered all the [Timekeeping] notifications for cultivation, geography, and botany. Huge swaths of time suddenly opened up in my schedule. No need to write that essay on the Han civil war!

I stood up and stretched, noticing Iona looking appreciatively. I thought about her, and realized something.

“Oh yeah! You said you wanted to clear the air, and me needing to take a break doesn’t seem to be a huge secret worth bribing Auri over?”

I paused a moment, realizing what I said might be somewhat insensitive.

“If you don’t want to say, you don’t have to.”

Iona grinned roguishly at me. Gods, that grin.

“Well, sure! Auri, in her brilliant little mind,”

“Brrrpt!”

“Noticed that my friends all seemed happy, and in her bird brain,”

“BRPT!” Auri puffed out her chest, the insult sailing right over… her tiny little feathery head.

“Figured that I should also make you happy.”

Iona arched an eyebrow at me, as Auri happily brrrpted about how brilliant and genius she was. Also something about today-Auri thinking.

I just chuckled ruefully at the little bird. Of course she’d tried to hook me up with Iona. I knew Iona would jump the bones of anyone who met her standards – and she’d draw a picture of everyone else! I appreciated Auri’s attempt at making me happy though. She cared.

“Of course, I know you’re far too busy, and you probably weren’t interested in spending a bunch of time not studying.”

I tilted my head. I knew exactly what Iona was saying and dancing around, but she was handling it in a classy fashion. Wasn’t making it awkward or anything. I knew she was interested, and I was somewhat interested in return, but she was right. It wasn’t the time or the place, nor did I have the energy or bandwidth, and I appreciated that she wasn’t forcing the issue.

“Appreciate it!” I said.

“Anyways, let me know when you get some time and catch up on things, I’d love to show you around the student center! There’s some fantastic wargames in there, and I’m dying to get a reliable practice partner.” Iona said.

I had absolutely no idea what the wargames were, and that spoke to another part of the ‘missing opportunities’. If I was always buried in my books, I’d miss the entire thriving culture of the School.

Also, it’d free up some time for side projects, like consulting with [Historians] and [Archivists] over the Medical Manuscripts issue. I bet I could trade first hand accounts of Remus for help, or something. Or maybe they were like me and medicine, and would be delighted to give me a hand either way.

It took me no time at all to think about hanging out with Iona. She was easy to be around, in more ways than one.

“Yeah! I’ll let you know!”