Chapter 2: The Swagger of Bones

The tall figure of Luke Aurelion Vale sank deeper into the swamp of his own bitterness.

He stood motionless, a monument to cosmic disappointment, still staring at the floating blue panel that had just confirmed his life was a joke.

Then, a tap on his shoulder.

It was a light, brittle tap—like someone drumming their fingers on a hollow piece of wood.

Luke flinched.

"Hey, my man, don't be like that."

The voice didn't exist. There was no sound. No vibration in the air. Skeletons, by their very nature, lacked lips, tongues, larynxes, and all the fleshy plumbing required for speech.

Yet the words arrived in Luke's mind as clearly as if they'd been whispered directly into his ear.

"You got much to live for and all that shit, y'know?"

Luke turned his head slowly, his bright blue eyes narrowing with a mixture of disbelief and morbid curiosity.

Billy was gesticulating.

The skeleton's bony arms swung with an exaggerated, rhythmic confidence. His shoulders rolled in a way that suggested a lifetime spent leaning against chain-link fences and nodding to a beat only he could hear. His skull tilted at an angle that radiated pure, unearned swagger.

If Billy had flesh, he'd probably be wearing a backwards cap and chewing on a toothpick.

But he didn't have flesh. He had porous, brittle bones and dim green flames for eyes. The contrast was staggering. The skeleton moved like a streetwise hustler, but looked like a strong wind would reduce him to a pile of calcium powder.

Despite the absurdity, Luke understood.

Every word. Every inflection. The casual reassurance. The dismissive hand wave. The implied "quit whining, bro."

Or maybe Luke was just losing his mind. That was a distinct possibility. The Weaver of Death's Threads, Level 1, standing in his dorm room, having a telepathic heart-to-heart with a skeleton named Billy. Perhaps the stress of transmigration had finally snapped something vital in his psyche.

"Holy shit."

Luke's voice was flat, tinged with the hollow acceptance of a man who had officially abandoned all expectations of normalcy.

"He talks."

He paused, correcting himself with a weary sigh.

"I mean, of course he doesn't. There's no sound. Look at him. No vocal cords. No lungs. Just... bones and bad posture."

Billy's jaw clattered silently. The dim flames in his eye sockets flickered in a pattern that might have been amusement. He threw up two bony hands in a universal gesture that screamed "You get me, right?"

Luke rubbed his temples.

"And yet, somehow..."

He looked at the skeleton again. Billy had stopped gesticulating and was now leaning against the stone wall, arms crossed over his bare ribcage, head nodding slowly as if listening to an invisible beat.

"...I feel like he just said exactly that. Or something close enough."

Then Luke blinked. He shook his head, slapping his own pale cheeks with both hands.

"Wait. What the hell am I doing?"

His voice regained a shred of urgency.

"This is supposed to be the big moment. They told us—turn eighteen, graduate, and the Transcendent Status appears. So where the hell is mine?"

He ignored his calcified companion and turned his full attention back to the azure panel. His eyes locked onto his name, and with a focused thought, the display shifted.

[Status]

Constitution: 6

Spirit: 9

Agility: 7

Mana: 11

Luke stared at the numbers.

The familiar wave of bitterness threatened to crash over him again. He felt it rising in his chest like bile. But this time, he clenched his jaw and forced it down.

"Constitution is garbage."

He shrugged, a gesture of long-held acceptance.

"Nothing new there. I've always been more bone than skin anyway. Slender Man, remember?"

He traced a finger down the glowing list.

"Spirit is okay. Agility too. Fine. Whatever."

His finger stopped at the final entry.

"Mana... eleven."

A flicker of something resembling hope crossed his pale features.

"That's actually a bit above average, isn't it? At least one piece of good news in this steaming pile."

It could be said that Luke's talent for the arcane arts was slightly above the norm. Nothing to brag about at prestigious gatherings, but enough to not be a complete magical cripple. His physical attributes, on the other hand, remained a certified disaster.

Billy's jaw clattered with renewed energy.

"I told you, blood! Enough with the moping!"

The words arrived in Luke's mind with the cadence of a hype-man who'd had one too many energy drinks.

"Time to look forward, yeah? Maybe get us some fine-ass women to party with! Hahahaha!"

Luke shot the skeleton a deadpan glare.

"You don't have reproductive organs. Or flesh. Or a face."

Billy ignored him completely. He thrust a bony hand outward, palm facing Luke at an odd, angled orientation.

"Let's go, man! Give me some skin!"

The pose was peculiar. The arm was raised, the elbow bent, the hand flattened and turned inward toward the skull. It was a gesture Luke recognized from a thousand old viral videos from his previous life.

It was a dab.

For reasons that defied all logic and sanity, Luke felt a pull in his soul. A resonance. A cosmic call to action that bypassed his rational brain entirely.

He didn't think. He just moved.

Two hands met in the air. One skeletal and bleached white. The other pale, thin, and desperately trying to pass for fully alive.

They connected.

FWOOOSH-CRACK

A sound echoed through the dormitory room. A double sonic boom compressed into a single, harmonious note. The laws of physics whimpered in a corner as the sound of the dab somehow occurred twice simultaneously, a heavenly reverberation that should not exist.

DING

SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE
INITIATING MERGING

[Luke Aurelion Vale]
[Status]

Constitution: 6 → 6

Spirit: 9 → 13

Agility: 7 → 9

Mana: 11 → 22

Luke's bright blue eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

"What?"

His voice was barely a whisper.

"What the hell just happened? My stats... they went up?"

The azure panel flickered, drawing his gaze to a section that had previously been a mere footnote. Now it glowed with explanatory text.

[Blessings: Dab Prodigy]
Description: Billy and Luke share a surreal connection. Whenever they initiate a synchronized dab, a merging of their souls occurs, resulting in a corresponding increase in attributes. Due to being a skeleton, Billy cannot enhance Luke's constitution.
Effects: Higher probability of a heavenly dab.

Luke read the words once.

Then twice.

Then a third time, his lips moving silently.

"The fuck did I just read?"

Billy retracted his bony hand, crossing his arms with an air of supreme satisfaction. The green flames in his eye sockets flickered smugly.

Luke stared at his own hand, then at the skeleton, then back at the status panel where his Mana had literally doubled.

His second life had just graduated from "disappointing" to "completely unhinged."