I was hit with the emotions of her soul for a few minutes, until I managed to subside them. They were both strong and raw, almost stunning me in the process.
I could tell those were hers and not mine. Yet they felt personal. I had to lay for a few moments on the ground because I did not feel like moving for the duration of them.
There was still a big amount of Ether around us, so lucky me, I could follow it to a possible exit.
The negative part is that I did not manage to ask enough questions to Ella about the world and what was happening. Hell, I would have loved to have a human as company besides the System.
[Noted]
A system that can read my mind and seemed to have an attitude.
Although… her Soul Stone said it is a higher being… with who the hell did I just speak to?
But, I would have to wait a bit longer to get the first answers about that. At this point, I had no way to be in complete communion with Ella’s soul.
Back up and out of the chasm, I took the path from where I came from.
And then I learned that following Ether was not necessarily the best way to find an exit. Sometimes it moved towards other beings or to something that was trying to consume it, either naturally or just by intentional consumption.
I lost track of time, but I should have spent at least a couple of months wandering inside those caverns, moving up and down, always preferring up, but I had trouble finding the exit. Not to count, the events that transcurred while I was there.
The System had a map, but that did not help me as I had to fill in the blanks. We were deep, extremely deep into the planet, and the whole caverns were a massive dungeon.
I found a current that was going towards some flowers I found that grew too big! Their petals were a beautiful green and some pink.
There were some mushrooms beside it that were the same, glowing in the darkness.
I cut a few pieces that I could take, after all, they were infused with the stuff and I could make good use of it.
[Sorry for not being enough help, Miss Alice]
I was missing contact with other people. What happened to my friends? Did they make it to this world too? Or did they just go to the next life?
Later, I came across a giant mantis. There was some green secretion on its claws, and had a brown color.
It tried to kill me with its deadly weapons, but I managed to kill it with a swift cut to its neck.
[You gained a skill!: Poison Form!]
[Poison form Lv 1: Poison Magic Skill - Sustained - Cover yourself with deadly poison. Cause 10% damage every 5 seconds]
[You gained 80 XP!]
A new skill! At least I was not losing time. Having the capacity to learn skills was one of the best parts of this ordeal.
The bad thing is that I did not get skills with every kill, only experience and Ether.
The contamination as I went up was not as powerful as downstairs, but the whole caverns were full of energy nevertheless.
And the Inventory System was useful. I found all types of plants and stones! I grabbed everything that seemed useful, especially metals that I could use to repair myself.
Another Muckrat that was protecting its nest managed to sneak and attack me. When I noticed what it was doing, and that it was mostly trying to scare me, I decided to get away. It did not have growths, and was not contaminated.
Why would I kill it? XP, I guessed, but it was protecting its nest. I detected it through [Soul Sense] and there were some babies in there.
It did hurt me, though.
[HP: 12/16]
I accessed my inventory and found a piece of raw mineral I had between all the trash I had around, and it healed me completely.
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[HP: 16/16]
I was not leveling up as fast as the first day, so I had to be careful about my HP and MP.
To recover my MP, I had to ‘sleep’, although it was more turning off my skills and focusing on letting my brain do the same. I was giving Extensive use to my spells and skills to survive, so I had to stop from time to time.
By the end of the first week, I got my 5th level up.
[Level: 05/10 EXP: 610/1056]
[HP: 19/19 MP: 19/19]
[STR: 10]
[DEX: 12]
[INT: 10]
[WIS: 5]
[CHA: 1]
[LCK: -2]
Muckrats were not giving me XP anymore and Bats barely gave me a couple of points, so I avoided them.
The big monsters that did were rare.
Time after, I found myself in a most rare situation. There was a chest in the middle of the cavern where a few items were laying around.
[Treasure chests can contain items and…]
I approached, singing a small jingle typical of when you are about to open chests to reveal a great treasure inside!
And when I was about to figure out how to open it… I activated Poison Aspect, swinged and hit it with my blade!
The chest reacted and jumped, screeving in pain and showing big nasty teeth.
[Hmmmm? Care to explain to me how you knew so I could take note of the information?]
It tried to bite me and I took distance from it. It attempted to follow me, only to fall victim to the poison a few meters after. I finished it by stabbing it on its forehead.
[You gained 90 XP!]
XP became slower to obtain. The difference of speed was very clear at that point. As she explained to me some time before, easy fights did not help me to get that stronger or to gain XP, even when I was absorbing Ether to grow faster.
[If you can tell me what did you notice that made you suspicious of the chest, I can keep it into account to warn you about possible mimics]
The System was confused, but I still had my traumas.
Searching around, I found a bronze dagger and a helmeth. Since they were metal, I took them as potential HP potions.
The real treasure came from the mimic itself. It had eaten and dropped a ring with an amethyst jewel.
[Analysing…]
[Ring of the Vessel Master]
-Wearing this ring counts as having a Level 3 Vessel Creation Spell and Vessel Master Feat. It allows the casting of the same spell.
[Vessel Creation: Earth Creation Spell - Active/Sustained]
-Allows the creation of a body based on your knowledge. Knowledge can only be obtained after defeating strong Leader Type enemies. Creations copy the Caster’s stats. Creation takes half your current HP.
[Vessel Master: Control Spell - Active/Sustained]
-Allows the caster to control vessels. No MP Cost
Create a vessel? That did sound useful. But I had no fingers to equip weapons and items.
Hmmm… what could I do?
Then an idea came to me. How about if I consume it? Metal infused itself onto my body, so maybe that could mean…
I dropped the ring and consumed it, making its metal fuse with my metallic body.
[You learned a new spell: Create Vessel Lv 1!]
[You learned a new spell: Vessel Master!]
[Actually it was a few weeks ago]
The answer made me feel dizzy. I did not realize at that point I had been inside of there for a few weeks already. I needed to hurry up|
<[Create Vessel]!>
A menu appeared in front of me.
[Choose a Vessel]
-None
Yeah, I had none. The Giant Bat I killed before did not count because I did not have [Create Vessel] at that time, so I had to hunt for them again.
Although, I was more worried about leaving those caverns. My search continued, on my quest to finally be free from that darkness.
I was imagining what kind of monsters I would find, what kind of people and kingdoms would be there. I was even wondering if I would find my friends out there.
Each day was frustrating. It was an advantage that I didn’t need to eat or drink, and the only moment I required to rest was to recover MP.
[You have a hamburger recipe on your memory]
I found a lake inside of the caves. It was inside of a massive room. The water looked crystal clear, and the pool seemed to go deep.
Some plants were growing there. Bushes with pointy leaves, together with mushrooms and other flora that did not require light to grow. On the walls were some that did shine bright.
I was exploring the place, gathering some plants and placing them on my inventory (something I got used to doing on MMOs to sell or to craft anything useful), when I heard growling.
I hid behind some plants when I saw a group of beasts entering the room, chasing another
They were wolves! There were five black ones chasing a silver fur one. For a moment I thought that would be the leader, and that I would finally get a vessel, but I was wrong.
One of the five jumped at the silver one and pushed it to fall.
“Agh!” the silver wolf yelled, which seemed to sound pretty human.
“Surrender, silver one! Your crimes against our King will not be tolerated!”
One of them yelled with an authoritative tone.
[Possible positive assimilation of the Excess of Ether, most likely because we are away from the densest part of the energy, away from the source. This is one possible result]
“Crimes?” the silver one answered, with a feminine voice, “your king devoured my family! I will fight him until my last breath to kill him for that crime alone!”
“Silence, traitor! You were part of the pack, so we are willing to let you know if you swear to our goddess that you will not return!”
“To the goddess? I swear to her that I will feed his corpse to the Muckrats!”
“You damn mutt! Everyone! She is going to continue fighting. I’m sorry, our goddess, but we cannot let him harm our King!”
The silver wolf began to walk backwards, unknowingly approaching me.
What should I do?
“Goddess… in your amethyst eyes… be my light…”
The black wolves were approaching while baring their razor sharp teeth, growling. The poor wolf girl seemed too small in comparison to them.
If I had a mouth and tongue, I would have made them click, before making this stupid choice. Yet I felt the compulsion to have to step in.
Before they could jump at her, I came out, hovering over the silver wolf, and made myself appear.
I killed a few dangerous monsters at that point. A group of big scary wolves with sentience was not going to intimidate me that easily.