Psychokinetic Eyeball Pulling

Chapter 113: Voidbent Bones

She expected a prick of pain that would usually come from a sharpened object, but that didn’t happen. It merely seeped into her body.

The feeling was similar to a breeze from an opened window, but instead of brushing over her skin, it was within the skeleton of her hand. From reading Leena’s thoughts, she had an understanding of how to accomplish it. But reading something and putting it into practice was a completely different experience.

Still, she continued. The matter needle penetrated into her bone, until she attached it to the marrow within. Then with the thought of a connection in her mind, it slowly spread. She transformed the needle into a microscopic pipe as she surged the purple Voidbent matter through it and into her body.

Astrid seethed in pain. It was like millions of ants were snapping out chunks of bone out of her arm with their razor-sharp mandibles.

The very shape of her bones were being warped beyond what they should be able to handle. Then, with a snap, Astrid fell to the floor and crawled into a ball as she cradled her cracked arm. Her body heat spiked as sweat glistened from her forehead.

Astrid thought the knowledge would be similar to her Omni-kenesis, but it was entirely different. With the skill, it was merely like turning a dial and her body would strengthen. She didn’t have the skill like Leena to instinctively know how to complete the process, so all she could rely on was trial and error.

With a thought of her mind, her arm was repaired thanks to her Mind Domain. Next, she quickly numbed the suffering from her pain receptors.

Shit, that hurts. Astrid stroked her arm. Here goes nothing–again. Astrid took a breath to calm down her heightened nerves and continued.

Again and again, the bones within her arm snapped, splintered, then repaired again. They were unable to take the strain from the foreign heavy metal but with enough attempts, Astrid was able to slowly, and patiently combine the purple matter into the regular matter of her bones. It would have been easier if the arm was simply one bone. But, the fact that her fore-arm was split into two, and each bone had a different size, and thickness, made it even more difficult.

She hadn’t even started on her hand yet, as the joints would pose a nightmare of troubles.

After a couple hours of attempts, she had succeeded with the fore-arm transformation. Astrid sat cross legged as she seeped her mind’s vision down below the skin of her arm. The off-white of her two fore-arm arm bones had transformed into a deep purple that was akin to the very void that she just recently escaped from.

Raising her arm, the added weight of her new bones were a staggering difference compared to her regular old human ones.

It will take some time to get used to the added weight of the bones, but even with just the first step complete, it will provide an even further layer of protection for my body. Astrid clenched her hand as the feeling of improvement made her palms itch.

The next step was to then control the Voidbent metal within her bones, to seep outwards and cover her skin like an armour much like Leena’s. She didn’t know which would be more difficult, but she would find out soon enough.

But the whole process of melding her bones with Voidbent metal got her thinking. Since she can do it with Voidbent metal, then unlike Leena, she wouldn’t be simply restricted to just metal ore. She could absorb and alter her body with anything that she touched.

Trees and plants would be considered living, so she wasn’t sure about the viability of something like that. But she already knew she could Psych Warp wood as she had already done that back at the, but living wood was a different subject.

Astrid pinched her lips in thought. That’s another thing I could attempt–Controlling roots and melding it with a solid metal like Voidmetal. But then what would be the point considering I can just create weapons through Psych Warp?

She failed to see the use in it, at least not yet. However, there was always a situation for everything. For example, she couldn’t yet create a metal spike underground, so the root method may work better. Although she had no idea how to do that yet, it needed further experimentation.

Astrid moved her thinking to the more pressing matter. The upper arm should be a lot easier to form as it’s all just one bone.

Soon, the entirety of her arm’s composite construction was made of Voidbent metal. The only part that wasn’t was her hand and the shoulder. It wouldn’t be long until her entire skeleton was created by Voidbent metal. The sheer hardness of it should hopefully mean that it wouldn’t be broken.

It brought her to another realisation. The Voidbent metal armour had to have a weakness. The fact that it was Epic rarity and not Legendary meant that the unbreakable metal had a false scale somewhere in its construction.

At first she thought it was the heaviness of the metal. It would be impractical for dexterity users without any strength to heft up a weapon of any meaningful size, but that shouldn’t make the difference between rarities.

It had to be something greater than that. Something as powerful as ‘unbreakable’ had to have something just as negative to balance it. Such was life. There would always be balance somewhere.

She just had to find out what it was, considering that Leena had a better connection with it–maybe she knew?

Astrid awoke herself from her lucid thoughts.

“Leena, how much do you understand about Voidbent metal?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Astrid continued, “you have created a connection with the metal, so I was hoping you understood the weaknesses of it as well.”

“Oh,” Leena assented. “I’m not sure exactly. I’ll have to experiment with it, but it’s not as if the metal talks to me. I just control it.”

“Right.” Astrid nodded. I’m the only one that talks to alien creatures within my mind, got it.

“Well, that just means we need to experiment with it,” Astrid said. “If someone finds the weakness before us and discovers you use the armour of it, or maybe even the terrorists already have an answer to it. It must be common knowledge by now that we intend to make weapons and armour from the ore.”

Leena nodded.

With that in mind, Astrid took a break from creating her Voidbent skeleton and attempted to figure out the weakness together with Leena. It was better to discover it now, rather than it being too late to prepare for a dangerous situation.

Skills of water, earth, wind, among other magical attacks were just a few that Astrid created and attacked Leena with. But nothing was working and that left the only element among the basics that was left. Fire.

Astrid formed a ball of fire within her hands and with her imagination, increased the power of the spell to befit a mage at her level.

“Incoming!” Astrid shouted and pitched the ball toward Leena as it tore through the air like a blazing bolt.

Leena’s usual face of confidence and focus, turned to one of panic. She was going to block it with her body, but instead, her Voidbent armour transformed to the lower quality metal she had used before. The ball of fire struck her body as she crashed into the floor.

Astrid rushed to see what had happened. She erased the dust and watched as Leena took a relieved breath of air.

“What happened?” Astrid asked in worry.

“If–” Leena stuttered. “If I had taken that attack, I had the sensation I would receive serious damage.”

“So fire is the weakness of Voidbent?” Astrid pondered. “I wonder if the entire void element is weak to fire then?”

“It would be a good thing to err on the side of caution.” Leena dusted herself off and stood up.

Astrid agreed, “It would be a good idea not to use it when there is a fire user. For now, I’ll make use of Identify against other people to make sure they have no fire mages.”

“What if they have a blocking stone?”

“Which is more than likely,” Astrid said. “It just means that if it tells me they are a mage, don’t use the Voidbent armour, just to be safe.”

“Okay,” Leena said.

“Anyway, how is the progress going?”

“Good, no, it’s great.” Leena tightened her hands. “This whole place feels exactly like the real thing. I thought that gaining a connection with the metal would be unlike in the real world, but every minute detail within the ore is exactly as what it is back in Ruitera.”

“I made sure of it,” Astrid said with a chuckle. “We'll be leaving my domain soon. I just have to finish a few things.”

“I better get some more practice in then.” Leena flashed a grin and continued her practice with her newly gained metal.

Astrid fell back and caught herself with Psychokinesis. It was as if she was sitting within a reclining chair as she spared some of her mental ability to relax her body. Next up, she had to re-create her entire skeleton, making it into nothing but Voidbent metal.

It took her around three hours to finish both arms, along with the shoulder, and hands. She wanted to continue, but a throbbing pain within her mind, and the rapidly lowering amount of mana potions within her Void Storage made her stop.

There was no other stop until they reached the mission destination, so the only mana potions she had on her body had to last for the duration of the trip.

I’ve made good progress. Doing all of this without the guidance and instinct of a skill’s usage is a total pain in the ass. Astrid massaged her temples, then with a thought, she cancelled her Mind Domain.

Leena looked around and took a moment to collect herself at the sudden change. She gazed at Bellona and frowned. Leena walked over and poked her cheek without any hesitation.

“Astrid, it really is like real life!” Leena exclaimed. “It’s truly amazing what you are capable of within the domain!”

Leena’s poke turned into a pinch as she stretched the fleshy cheek.

Astrid puffed out a sudden breath of air, but she wasn’t able to hold back her uncontrollable laughter after seeing Bellona’s incredulous face. It was as if she couldn’t comprehend the situation she was in.

Leena looked at Astrid, before her eyes shone with a realisation. She slowly creaked her neck back to Bellona’s face.

Leena awkwardly laughed and scratched the back of her head. “I thought–”

“Don’t think,” Bellona stood up. “Just run.”

“Fight, fight, fight.” Astrid chanted. She bobbed her fists up and down in anticipation.