After expending all of his might and energy, Caelan fell into a deep slumber.
Three days later.
Caelan woke up, feeling heavy. It felt like he had a fever. That wasn't surprising. That was the least that could happen to him. At the very least, he's still breathing.
Furthermore, looking at the upside, Caelan's headache had lessened. It seemed like he was ready to use his skills again.
The Living Emerald was beside him the whole time, floating and glowing like a mystical object that it is. It continued to sustain him even when he was unconscious. That's the power of the Essence Extraction Skill.
Caelan understood that another benefit of skills is that, once learned and reactivated, they can act independently. This released some burden from Caelan.
Sitting up, Caelan's face scrunched up. He was reminded of his experience, looking at his badly shaped body. Now that he noticed it, other than the bone sticking out of his thigh, his other knee was bent in the wrong way.
"First, I have to fix this."
Caelan was a lot calmer now. The Explore skill was briefly activated, and he didn't find any other living being in this cave other than himself. He was still alone. Since the light from the hole he fell from was brighter than before he passed out, it's easy to guess that it's daytime. This meant that at least some hours had passed, and there were still no other monsters that came to attack him.
However, he didn't want to be too complacent since this may be a precious cave of something or someone.
At this point, Caelan just shrugged his shoulders. If he's that unlucky, then maybe he'll die sooner anyway. With these legs, he can't run, can he?
For now, Caelan's goal is to fix his legs. He looked around and found many ores. It was the same as before. After a quick look, he realized that he didn't know what to look for.
Will using these ores going to fix his legs? Is he permanently crippled? If his legs are useless now, can he replace them?
Caelan thought back on Earth and remembered that if he had accessed to the technology there, he would make a pair of robotic legs that can be controlled by nerves signal. How exciting a project will that be!?
But alas, Caelan sighed, there's no technology like that here… there is magic, though.
Caelan remembered the Armored Canine.
"Its skin has concentrated Earth Attribute…" This got Caelan thinking. Can't he just make his legs anew with the Earth Attribute then?
The Earth Attribute doesn't need to be just plain minerals, soil, or dirt. As the Manual skill describes it, it is a "fundamental principle governing all entities that embody resilience, permanence, and substance".
"Hold on!"
Caelan entertained the idea. What if he created a pair of new legs with the Earth Attribute?
"Hehehe…"
A wide grin appeared on Caelan. Finally, something good to do. He wasted no time and crawled onto the ores that had the Earth Attribute. He got three of them, with levels 57, 49, and 63.
The Living Emerald followed him and continued to supplement his health while Caelan shifted his focus to the skin of the Armored Canine he brought out. With the Explore skill, he studied how the Earth Attribute essence lights are distributed. Can he find the pattern so that he can apply it to his legs?
Fortunately, his Explore skill has leveled up. Caelan can now zoom in and zoom out when observing the essence lights. He realized that each dot of light has its own movements and spin.
Is it random, or do each movement have its own properties?
Caelan doesn't dare to experiment on the skin because he only has one. On the other hand, he has countless ores to experiment on.
The first idea he has is to manipulate the essence lights in ores to simulate that of the Armored Canine's skin.
Caelan went to work.
Two hours later.
It was easier said than done!
The ore cracked and its essence light dissipated into nothingness. A level 49 Rare Mineral was gone just like that! Caelan felt his heart ache.
Before continuing, Caelan looked around and realized that he should be practicing on low level materials first. But the rare mineral that broke didn't go to waste; Caelan learned a lot from it.
For example, he learned that at a certain point, once the essence light in a material is dense enough, it will condense and take the form of the material. Caelan didn't know what to call this first, but he took mental note of it.
Once he gets out of this monster-infested zone, he promises that he will look for other intelligent beings and learn from them.
The problem is, how will he communicate with them? Because this is a different world with different living creatures. Surely, the intelligent beings here must feel alien to Caelan.
Welp, Caelan will have to think about that once he encounters that problem. For now, he went around the cave and found common ores that have levels ranging from one to twenty. He started from the lowest level ores.
Three days later.
A level 3 ore with an Earth Attribute was taking different shapes as Caelan manipulated its essence lights. Caelan was feeling the pattern and how it could affect the physical appearance and functionalities of the object.
Another three days had passed, and Caelan had successfully integrated a level 7 ore with an Earth Attribute with another level 7 ore with a Life Attribute.
"The speed of each spin and its movement determines the action of the essence around it. The movement determines the shape, and the spin determines the functionality. Meanwhile, the density determines how strong that shape will hold, and the speed of the spin determines the intensity of the function." Caelan murmured to himself.
He was beginning to understand the fundamentals that make up the materials in this world. To compare, it's like a student learning how the components of a computer work before they start to program a software application. No, actually, what Caelan is doing is more fundamental than that. It's like a student learning how each digital bit makes a software application.
The Living Emerald continued to sustain Caelan's energy. It is a level 54 Rare Mineral. It can sustain tens of Caelan, who's just a mere level 9, for weeks!
With this, Caelan didn't stop. With the Living Emerald on his back, there was nothing that was limiting him.
Eight months later…
"I did it!" Caelan maniacally laughed that echoed in the cave. He wiped his sweat as he tried to stand up.
His brand new legs were fully functional. Caelan didn't actually put on a new pair of legs; instead, he learned how to reform them.
By combining the Earth and Life Attributes, Caelan was able to not just make stone legs, but legs that function and are naturally connected to his body as if he were born with them! His heart pumps blood and goes through it and back without any consequences!
That was actually the hardest part of it all. Once Caelan learned how to create a biological component from the ores, the next part was to make it compatible with his body.
That alone took him six months. However, he finally did it!
Moreover, the ores that he used to make them are at the level 100+, the highest he could find in this cave!
Does this mean that Caelan's legs have the power of a level 100 monster? Well, Caelan doesn't know. It's not that he doesn't have a way to find out, but it's just that he doesn't have a reference. The strongest monster that he can remember, which he had seen with the Explore skill, is the Winged-Bear that has a level of 35.
It has been a long time since he encountered the Winged-Bear, but he could remember its essence light as bright as day. Why wouldn't he? He was traumatized by the fucking monster! While it was holding him, his brain was going full power to mess with the monster's essence light and hopefully, disrupt it enough that the Death Attribute overtook it.
With the knowledge he has right now, Caelan theorized that the difference in level between him and the Winged-Beast is what made that impossible.
Now, comparing the essence light of the Winged-Bear to his legs? Just like before, it was not even close! The level gap between the two is still wide. It's just that the positions are swapped.
Caelan wondered how the damned Winged-Bear could take a kick from him?
"No, no, no…" He stopped himself before he turned complacent. In reality, he was still no match for the Winged-Bear. Even though the strength of his legs is leagues above the monster, in the end, it's just his legs that are strong.
He hasn't fully tested the strength of his legs, but if he did, he figured that it would rip his body in half. Yes, Caelan's legs are strong, but the problem is that they are too strong compared to the rest of his body. They wouldn't be able to keep up!
There needs to be a balance. If his legs have strength that's level 100, so should the rest of his body as well.
That's why Caelan's not finished yet!
He didn't come out of the cave for some time. Caelan has a lot to learn and create. He already know how to create blood vessels, bones, tendons, ligaments, nerves, muscles, skins, etc. from making his legs. However, the biggest challenges are his organs, the glands, and its chemicals and how they interact with each other.
Caelan has to learn his entire biology and physiology for this to work!
That's why Caelan didn't come out of the cave yet. He still has to upgrade his entire body and make it anew…
…
Time had passed.
Caelan had used twenty-five Living Emeralds just to sustain him in the past three years. The rate at which he's using his energy was increasing as his Spirit Control and Explore levels had maxed out, needing more energy to be activated each time.
But there's no problem with that. Caelan had also learned how to create the Living Emeralds. He had reached a level where he could manipulate the essence lights of the ores and condense them, leveling the ores from common to rare and sometimes, even to epic.
In the middle of the cave, three Living Emeralds are floating around Caelan, giving him life energy. Attached to his back were four extra arms that were working seamlessly to operate on his internal organs. There are also six floating bubbles overseeing the operation. These bubbles have an eyeball on each of them. The layer of bubbles was needed to avoid drying the eyes from the air exposure, as it is covered in an artificial mucus.
After a few minutes, one of the hands took a level 174 ore with the Water Attribute. It pinched it and pulled. A thin line of thread came out of the legendary ore. This was used to stitch Caelan's skin back as the final stage of the operation.
The last stitch dissipated and naturally integrated into his body, and what Caelan calls the Cacoon Project has been completed.
Caelan's eyes opened. They looked ethereal. His blue iris shone even under the faint light that came from the hole above. Not just his eyes, his entire being looked godly. Of course, he made it this way. If he's going to recreate his body, why not make it beautiful?
Fortunately, creating art was one of Caelan's hobbies in his past life. He had created portraits and sculptures of beautiful men and women. His new appearance wasn't separate from his old; it's just an evolved version with few to no blemishes that could be noticed, but it was also influenced by the beauty standards he used as references back then.
Caelan's body was like that of Adonis in the myth.
The eyes surrounding him seemed to have nodded in satisfaction as he stood up.
"As expected of a genius like myself, there was little to no complication, making the first and last attempt successful!"
As it should be. There wouldn't be a next attempt if this one failed. This was what Caelan had focused on a lot in the first three years. He realized that upgrading his torso and head is leagues harder than upgrading his limbs. Each organ has to accept the others, or else, they will be in conflict, killing him.
In the end, he came up with the conclusion that to succeed, Caelan has to upgrade his head and torso at the same time.
However, it was not a smooth journey, and not everything was upgraded. The hardest part of the body that Caelan actually gave up on for now was his brain. How the hell can he modify it if modifying it requires his attention, but to modify it changes his consciousness? It's a conundrum that Caelan felt that only God could solve. That's why he puts it aside for now. What he did, though, was use the Water Attribute to keep his brain in a safer place. Even if a huge rock were to drop onto his head and shake it hard, his brain will be safe.
Furthermore, it's not like it didn't change. The body is a delicate balance of all the components it contains. A depreciation of one part causes destruction on the other. But the opposite also applies. With his whole body upgraded, it's not hard to say that his brain will benefit from all this as well.
In the process of recreating his own biology and physiology, Caelan had become the greatest doctor in the world. As long as it's not a disease he had not seen yet, he was sure he could fix his body. How could he not when he was able to recreate it from just these rudimentary ores?
Now that the Cocoon Project was done and Caelan was left very satisfied, it was time to make this cave into his personal den.