I didn’t enter the hyena’s den immediately; I wanted to do something first. I activated [Rudis Subtilis Biomancy] and focused on my bloodstream. Instincts took over, and I became able to guess what each ingredient of the blood could do.

  I created small blood droplets and made them float. Enhancing or decreasing different components in each droplet gave varied results. In a droplet where I changed the shape of the blood cells, the liquid became more fluid, less viscous. Another one, where I increased the number of the white tentacles, made the red blood turn yellow.

  After a few experiments, in which my skill’s instincts helped a lot, I got what I wanted—blood that quickly coagulates and dries.

  Good…

  After that, I ordered the bone helmet to be split. Being my creation, it obliged. Soundlessly, a crack formed and with opposing pushing forces, I made it fall off. I did that because I wanted to recreate it for two reasons. First, it was cracked and had burn marks from the python. Secondly, it wasn’t that heavy, but its constant weight had created pressure which I had ignored at first. Now it was starting to become painful.

  I recreated the helmet, but this time it was way thinner and had more openings. I was even able to create microscopic holes in it, hoping to lighten it even more.

  By now, my film would’ve been fully depleted, but from all the draining and refilling I had done, its capacity had increased noticeably, allowing me to do all of this while I still had half of it to work with.

  I created ten thin bone needles; they were the length of my claws, and the width of a dozen hair strands. I then filled them with the new blood type I had created.

  Poisinous Needles, I called them. They floated close to me, almost inside my fur—barely visible.

  I still had a bit of Mana left, so I created thin bone plates that covered the shins of my legs and arms, and a circular bone covering for my shoulder. I made them fixed to my body by creating tiny tendons between them and my skin.

  Jumping around, I was pleased with them.

  Before entering, I spent some time using [Forced Mana Regeneration], getting my film up to a quarter of its capacity.

  It’s time…

  ***

  The cave was dark, long, and had a few branching paths. I could barely see, even with my cat vision, so I relied on smelling my way. I followed the scent, and after a few turns, I came into a large opening. Here, the smell was overwhelming. I knew I was going to lick myself a lot after escaping.

  Maybe even plunge in the spring. Kamos used to clean himself with water.

  A pile of bones was in the back, barely visible as the only illumination was a few holes in the ceiling that let a few white rays from the moon enter. Next to the pile was a python’s carcass and… a sleeping hyena.

  No one opposes me, and soon, your flesh will join my all.

  I approached the sleeping beast carefully, not wanting to awaken it by making any sounds. But then…

  Splsh

  I stepped into a pool of piss.

  I quickly looked towards the hyena. Yellow wide eyes met mine; they looked like two shining stones in a pool of darkness.

  My heartbeat increased. I felt the liquids gush into my bloodstream. It wasn’t that I was scared. No, I was… excited.

  As the beast started to rise, growling at me, I… ran at it.

  You don’t scare my all.

  Five Poisonous Needles floated away from me before I launched them at the beast.

  It didn’t seem to notice them, still bracing for my impact.

  If they break inside of it, its blood will coagulate.

  The needles hit on different spots, and the beast… was still clueless, or chose to ignore the slight pain, opting to swipe its claws at my face.

  Rudis Subtilis Biomancy has reached Lv. 3

  In the last second, I… stopped. I controlled my bone defences to help me in the sudden change of motion. I succeeded.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The beast's paw passed a short distance away from me, making it overextend and lose balance.

  I leapt, wanting to hit the big beast in its flank to make it fall, but it… vanished.

  It reappeared to my right, its paw was still in mid-motion. A huge impact hit my side, making me go flying.

  I impacted the ground ungracefully a short distance away. My body continued to slide until I hit the bone pile.

  This is bad.

  Through my peripheral vision, I could see that my side had three large gashes in it. The middle one even had some stomach sticking out.

  Hehehe

  The hyena didn’t push its advantage, instead laughing wickedly; its shoulders wobbling up and down crazily.

  I took advantage of that. With me standing still, I warped my [Manima Senses] into a thin line that connected a Poisonous Needle head with the hyena’s eye, then I released it…

  Manima Senses has reached Lv. 4

  It hit!

  Hsssaaa! The beast screeched loudly.

  It swiped its paws, trying to dislodge the needle, but only worsened the injury; its claws were no help.

  No one steals from me!

  I didn’t pay the beast any more attention, focusing instead on my injury. It was seeping blood in large amounts. I focused my biomancy skill on it, noticing inner wounds. I tried to close those, stitching them before moving on to close the surface wound. The healing was horrible, and blood still escaped, but it was temporary and necessary.

  I stood up weakly and started to climb the bone pile, wanting to gain the high ground. I slid on my blood, but managed to recover quickly.

  Standing on a skull that looked like it had belonged to a human, I reached the top.

  The beast was now on the ground, thrashing wildly.

  I activated my biomancy skill and formed a spear like the one I had killed the python with.

  I aimed at its head and released…

  Die!

  The spear soared through the air. The heyna noticed the attack, but was too late to evade it entirely. The spear tore the creature’s small back limb completely off. Dark blood gushed out, spraying its matted fur. The blood had lumps in it.

  The poison’s working! Although my Mana is almost fully drained.

  The beast stopped its whimpering. It glared at me before vanishing.

  No, it didn’t vanish. From my perch, I saw how the creature’s speed increased for a short distance, then it slowed down. Last time I was too close to notice, and its lost limb seemed to hinder its… dash skill?

  It reappeared at the pile’s base, but was unable to stop.

  The impact made the pile crumble, submerging the hyena, while I jumped with great difficulty, managing to evade the bone wave.

  Hitting the ground, I rolled as pain flared from my side; the wounds reopened.

  I have to end this.

  I searched for the hyena through my spherical vision, finding it shoving bones away as it tried to stand up.

  With the last of my Mana, I formed a skin mask on its face, hoping to obscure its vision and smell, while I hid. The beast noticed the skin and scratched at it with its claws.

  It wasn’t how I had envisioned the fight, with me limping toward a stone outcropping, hoping to outlast the hyena, but it was better than death.

  The hyena managed to rise, a few bones falling off it. Its condition was… miserable, to say the least.

  It had scratched the skin mask off its face, creating more cuts. Its leg was still seeping blood, while it struggled to keep upright. It glared at me, one final time, before leaning to its side and hitting the ground.

  Its remaining eye didn’t leave me, as it heaved its final breaths.

  Ha…haha…hahahaha

  I couldn’t help but laugh; I was spiteful.

  After a short while…

  You have killed Solitarius Hyena, Lv. 14

  Since the user does not own a class, the experience will be stored until one is acquired.

  ***

  15 morning and night cycles had passed since the hyena fight. In that time, I fully consilated the cat’s memories; this allowed me to know what it had hunted to survive—rats.

  I had decided to make the hyena’s den my new house. Although it stank, it was way more protected than my old home.

  After spending an entire day cleaning it, I resumed my training. Since I had lots of food, I trained for the entirety of the 14 days, not exiting even once, although I wandered around inside the cave. I wanted to discover where its pathways led. Most of them were dead ends, except for one that led too far down, so I had put off exploring it for a later date.

  My advancements were not that bad:

  Mana Manipulation has reached Lv. 7

  Soul Manipulation has reached Lv. 5

  Rudis Subtilis Biomancy has reached Lv. 4

  Soul Mind has reached Lv. 7

  Manima Senses has reached Lv. 5

  Forced Mana Regeneration has reached Lv. 6

  [Forced Mana Regeneration] was the skill that levelled the most, gaining four levels, while [Identify] didn’t level once.

  I also spent some time experimenting with skills. I discovered that I could only control my Mana within my [Manima Senses] sphere, although stuff created from [Rudis Subtilis Biomancy] could be controlled at greater distances, but I didn’t manage to find the limit.

  I tried creating the green liquid that the python had sprayed me with. It got generated, but for some reason, a part of my soul didn’t fuse into it, making the green stuff useless.

  Could it be that I can only create stuff that my cat's body has? It was my best theory.

  I tried to verify it, and I turned out right. I managed to create every single cell I could observe in my body, but when I tried to create the cells of two round balls in a sack that the hyena had, and I didn’t have, I failed (I created the tissue, but my soul refused to fuse with it).

  I also managed to confirm my earlier theory that skills level faster during combat, and when trying new stuff. That is why during the training, I changed stuff a lot, and when I felt something was getting easy, I increased the difficulty. Through that, I found new uses for my skills, like making myself stronger through increasing the density of my muscles, and figuring out what each liquid in my blood did and controlling them—I found which liquid gave me hyper focus.

  But my biggest discoveries were when I tried to use my skills together.

  I used [Rudis Subtilis Biomancy] with [Soul Manipulation]. After creating some blood, I added more soul to them. The blood glowed a faint red before…

  Boov!

  The explosion injured me badly, but thankfully, I wasn’t standing too close, or I might have had to find a new host. I tried it with: bones, the explosion created shrapnel; soft tissue, the explosion was weak but made a strong smell of burnt meat and for some reason hair made a large black cloud—that almost sufficated me.

  I decided that bones and blood were the best in combat, hence I named them…

  Soul Bombs

  I also combined [Forced Mana Regeneration] and [Rudis Subtilis Biomancy]. I made a neuron and tweaked it a bit. The tweaking pushed my biomancy skill to its limit and drained my Mana and soul mind power, but in the end, I managed to create a neuron that had double the Metacondria, basically, increasing the cell’s Mana generation. I took that unattributed Mana and added it to my film.

  Creating a single cell has taken me this long. If I ever hope to upgrade all my cells, I’ll need to level up my skills first.

  My final and best achievement was combining [Mana Manipulation] with [Soul Manipulation] to create… a duplicate.

  Detaching a portion of my soul, I used [Soul Manipulation] to make it spherical. The sphere was a quarter of my soul’s biggest size and was fainter. I then used [Mana Manipulation] to create a hollowed sphere that covered the soul sphere, and then… it didn’t work out.

  I changed a few things, even adding the creation to a cell, but it didn’t work.

  It was then that a bold idea hit me.

  I had watched an enormous number of cells duplicate, and I was supposed to be created from a tumorous cell, so what if I duplicated as cells did, and increased my all?

  At first, I gave up the idea. Soul pain was no joke, and I could end my life. But as the days passed, I thought about it more, theorising how the process might go.

  This might be risky, but if it works… I could have two hosts.

  I got to work, expanding my soul to its biggest form; it now basically touched the walls of my Mana film, then I found the centre of my film and soul, and cut it in half.

  Pain. Hot pain like never before assaulted me. I hoped to pass out, but the pain kept me awake.

  I… need…to…

  I couldn’t complete the thought, the pain was all-consuming… but then I remembered, I’m one of all, and all is me.

  I pushed through the darkness and pain. I was… two pieces. To my horror, the Mana films and souls on both sides were disintegrating at an unimaginable speed. The strings of the films were unravelling while my soul looked too faint, almost invisible.

  I acted, holding both films and souls, then bending. I closed the films by stretching the films thin, stopping the soul leaks, then I shaped the souls and made them spherical again.

  The pain didn’t stop, but it lessened. My will and mind were spent, then… darkness.