Curious as to what else she had earned over the course of the day, Jen opened up her Status Screen and started going through the list of notifications.

Chronos’ Heart has gained 5 levels and is now lvl 13

Low Light Vision has gained 2 levels and is now lvl 7

Patience has gained 1 level and is now lvl 5

Infrared Vision has gained 3 levels and is now lvl 5

Navigation has gained 1 level and is now lvl 6

Yoga has gained 1 level and is now lvl 5

Crafting has gained 1 level and is now lvl 2

Congratulations! You have learned Climbing! Climbing is now lvl 3

Meditation has gained 4 levels and is now lvl 19

Stone Shaping has gained 2 levels and is now lvl 8

Jen was surprised to see that Low Light Vision had leveled, but it made sense after a bit of thought. Infrared Vision let her see infrared waves, while Low Light Vision helped Jen to see better when there wasn’t much light, no matter the frequency. The passive radiation given off by the cave around her might be visible but compared to a fire or the sun it was definitely on the lower end of infrared radiation. Either way, the two skills were helping to slowly increase the detail and range of Jen’s sight.

Combined with her earlier skill level gains, it gave Jen a hefty forty-six Plot Points to spend. Even if her Climbing Path wasn’t exactly what Jen was interested in pursuing long term, she had more than enough path points to spare, and it wasn’t like additional physical stats or a climbing related skill would hurt her.

The Climbing Path was fifteen points long, and Jen earned herself three points each in Endurance, Strength, and Dexterity. Surprisingly, it didn’t grant her a new skill, but Jen didn’t mind too much. It wasn’t like she was planning on making a habit of climbing, and the stats would help her climb far better, but would also help in other endeavors. The boost to her strength was particularly noticeable given Jen’s low starting value and the lack of points she had invested in it, and she amused herself for a bit juggling some fist-sized rocks, easily hefting them about.

After she got tired of testing her new strength, she found her eyes wandering to the Path screen again and the options still waiting for her. On one hand, bad experiences had led to both paths that were left for her to take. She didn’t want to compound on those problems by exacerbating the issues she had with both areas of growth.

On the other hand, she currently still had thirty points to spend. Beyond that, the descriptions were vague enough that they might not be too closely tied to her own experiences. It was tempting, and Jen quickly closed the window before she could think of it anymore. Her points weren’t going anywhere, the paths weren’t going anywhere, Jen didn’t need to force herself into a decision now. A far better idea would be to keep exploring, push her limits, and only start considering those skills if she didn’t unlock any other paths to invest in.

Having learned as much about the ceiling and this area as she reasonably could, Jen began to get ready to head out once more. Starting from her already built path, she paced her way around the pillar over the course of two minutes, before using that count to make her way to spot a quarter of the way around and prepared to set out once more. With the rocks around her she quickly built up a small cairn as a starting point before heading out fifteen feet from the wall and building a second pile. Wandering by herself could still lead to her walking in circles, but building piles or rocks that each attempted to stay in line with the previous ones would keep her going straight, or at least straight enough to hit another wall before curving around to her start.

Even after Jen managed to make her way to a new section of cave that didn’t have the rocks littered about it didn’t slow down her progress much. With her newfound sight heading back to gather more rocks was a simple affair, and Jen delighted in the straightforward labor. Her muscles burned a little from the exertion, But Jen had enough strength and stamina regeneration to work like a machine. Her stomach growled at her a little, hungry from her exertions, but she ignored it. While she could easily use Plant Growth on a mushroom from her pocket, she was willing to push for getting a fasting related path and felt she could hold off on eating for a while yet.

Jen felt like her trail was curving slightly to the right, but decided to leave it as it was. The curve was minimal, and she was positive that any attempt she would make to correct it would overcompensate and lead to a larger curve in the other direction. Much like hanging a painting, if she cared too much she would never get it straight.

Fortunately for Jen, her path intersected a wall before looping back on itself. A horrible thought entered her mind that she had simply curved back to another point on the pillar she had set out from. It took Jen a bit of testing, but with some help from Echolocation, she decided that she was in fact in a different section of the cave. The ceiling was much lower for one, and there weren’t any loose rocks around. Jen felt a little silly after remembering that second detail, but eventually decided to write the moment off as a hazard of spending too much time in this cave.

Thanks to having Meditation active while carrying out the simple tasks involved in exploring and building a trail, Jen had a comfortable amount of mana and decided to spend some to cast Stone Shaping. It took a couple tries to get everything right, but soon there were large letters carved into the wall proudly declaring this site to be the home of ‘Expedition Gamma’.

Satisfied with her sign, Jen headed off once more, this time following the wall to her right. Jen highly doubted that she had found herself at the base of another pillar, given the lower ceiling and the fact that the wall seemed to be curving inwards instead of outwards. As such, following this wall would either lead her on a tour of the entire cave, or it would lead her to an exit. Both outcomes were acceptable to Jen. while finding a way out would be preferable. Having a complete understanding of her surroundings would let her make better informed decisions heading forwards.

Travelling was uneventful. Even though she could now see where she was going, Jen had decided to switch away from practicing Meditation and instead use Echolocation. It was far harder to keep the passive state needed for Meditation when Jen simultaneously wanted to be devoting every ounce of her attention to studying her surroundings, wanting to spot any openings in the wall or resources on the ground. Echolocation wasn’t nearly as mentally strenuous and would give her further information as she explored.

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Wanting to get a better idea of how long she was exploring, Jen set Chronos’ Heart to keep track of the time once more. With its help she determined that she had been travelling for just over two hours before coming across an interesting feature. Unfortunately, it was one that she had already seen before.

“Damn.” Jen cursed. It was the surface of the underground river. The sight was eerie in infrared, a rushing flood of black matter that only barely glinted when the surface rippled just right. There was none of the light reflection that Jen was so used to, and she unconsciously found herself keeping more distance between her and the water than she would have otherwise.

While she was here Jen was determined to make the most of her time, and gathered a few more of the loose crystals. Stone Shaping once again proved its worth, as Jen was able to form some stone around a bunch of them, turning them into a portable geode, albeit one with a convenient handle. That done, she continued on her way. Jen got her hopes up when she came across a tunnel that was bored into the wall, but following it only led to a little alcove. The dimensions of the room were awkward and the floor was uneven, so Jen didn’t even consider trying to form a new base here. What she had already constructed was far superior to this literal hole in the wall.

Unsurprisingly the next location Jen came across was the forest of stalagmites and stalactites. While she didn’t need a bath at the moment, she carefully traced the wall, confirming there were no other spaces hidden away behind a pillar before grabbing a drink and moving on.

By this point Jen’s mood had dropped significantly. Up until now her exploration had always paid dividends, letting her find new places or new resources, but always something that let her keep moving forwards. Now, Jen felt it was only a matter of time before she would once again find herself at Expedition Gamma with nothing to really show for her efforts.

She hadn’t completed her trek yet, but Jen was already feeling frustrated. It was one thing to operate under the assumption that she was trapped down here. It was another to confirm it, and to rule out any chance of making it back to the surface easily. More than that, was the fact that Jen didn’t have the hope of having a lucky encounter to change her fate. There was no Gollum in her lake, to lead her to the surface after a game of riddles. No magic lamp, with a genie capable of wishing her home in an instant, with wealth and fame besides. No long-lost tunnel connected to the sewers, no fellow prisoner with a plan to escape and a lifetime of knowledge to bestow

It was just Jen, her mushrooms, her crystals and pond. Those were the tools she had to work with. It could be worse, but it could be a lot better instead. She walked in silence until she made out her optimistic sign permanently placed in the wall.

She cast Stone Shaping once more. It was a waste of mana, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.as she methodically broke the sign apart, replacing it with a scar that still served as a location marker while more aptly reflecting her new mood. Her task finished, and done exploring for the day, Jen made her way back to her base.

Lying down on her moss bed helped Jen’s mood a bit, and a session of meditation helped more. She was still unhappy, but it was a distant feeling for the moment. Idly, she opened up her Status page, ignoring the various notifications, and switched it over to check her paths. There were still only the two paths present, and Jen felt her mood drop a little more. She’d earned a few more points exploring, enough to finish both remaining paths if she wanted to. It was tempting. After all, her expectations right now were so low that any outcome would be a positive one. Before she could think further on it, Jen began putting points into the Hibernation Path. It felt good to indulge her emotions. There were so many times that she was held to a higher standard, either by her family, or her teachers, or herself. Part of it was her own fault for trying to become a female engineer, but that didn’t change the fact that all the expectations to excel weighed on her. Time and time again she had risen to the occasion, pushing her limits, sacrificing her free time and childish pursuits to earn good grades, make it into her desired program, earn scholarships and internships. But the only person who was invested in this current decision was herself and she didn’t give a damn. A small part of her felt sorry for her future self, but today had enough shit in it that a little more wouldn’t change anything.

It helped that the Path rewards were generous and exactly what Jen needed. Constitution, Resilience, and Composure, rotating every Plot Point she invested. It stopped on the thirteenth point though, and Jen felt that the path was working towards a different reward for the last segment. The final reward was the skill that Jen had been expecting and fearing, and she took the time to carefully read the description.

Congratulations! You have learned Winter Layer Lvl 1!

Winter Layer: A portion of consumed nutrients is stored in a new layer of fat. When activated, enter a state of hibernation that consumes this fat and boosts regeneration.

Jen read it again. Then she snorted. She had come up with more than a few possible skills that she could receive that would drastically hamper her capability, without giving her any chance to compensate for them. While Winter Layer had a passive component that she wouldn’t be able to avoid, it only made her fat. She giggled. She wasn’t a perfect beauty, but she had taken pride in her appearance and her ego had been boosted by the attention she had received as one of the few girls in the engineering program. If she had told her younger self of a year ago that she would be cursed to inevitably grow fat it would have been a terrible fate.

The perspective Jen had achieved helped her calm down. It was true that her situation was bad, but it could have been worse. She might not find any new resources in her surroundings, but every Skill she earned was another resource she could use. Beyond that, she still wasn’t fully utilizing the resources she already had. Some of her skills had been effectively ignored the last few days, and Jen felt she could learn more from both the crystals and mushrooms.

As Jen re-evaluated her situation, she was grateful to the Stat System. Resilience and Composure were now her highest stats, and Jen knew her ability to keep her calm and continue progressing was due in large part to the perspective and peace they gave her. The shocks and pains of the world were still felt by her, but she was better equipped to handle them, to break them down and understand them before creating an effective plan to move forwards. It wasn’t perfect, and Jen would have been worried for her humanity if it was, but it helped.

While Jen had her concerns about her new Skill, they weren’t serious ones. She attempted to activate Winter Layer, and could feel it attempt to take hold, her body slowing down as she drifted off into a deep sleep, only to be suddenly woken up by a rumbling from her stomach, and a sudden awareness of how hungry she was and how empty her reserves were. The feeling was new, but it wasn't hard to realize that the skill had stopped because she didn’t have any fat stored in her Winter Layer to power the skill. It was a relief to know that the skill had that limit, and that she wasn’t likely to be accidentally drawn into it every time she closed her eyes. She lost enough time as it was without having to deal with the risk of accidentally hibernating.

Jen chuckled as a thought came to her. Winter Layer took a portion of what she ate to add to its layer of fat, but at the moment she wasn’t eating anything at all, looking to earn a path related to going without food. As such Winter Layer could do nothing to her or her figure, and the path of Hibernation truly paid off with the four Resilience and Composure that it granted, both for the mental bolstering, but especially for the 1.2 Mana Regen that gave her.

As she settled down to sleep normally, Jen worked over a couple of things in her head. Her position might be objectively terrible, but at least she had food, water, and access to the system. It wouldn't help her out any to go wishing for things that weren't going to happen, so she'd just have to make the most of it, and save her ire for an appropriate target if she ever met one.

The last thing Jen focused on before drifting off was Chronos' Heart. She now knew why she had been sleeping longer than expected, and a good part of it was that her skill was actiating without her control. However, Chronos' Heart wasn't able to both alter time and her heartbeat simultaneously, and Jen was hopeful that she might be able to keep Chronos' Heart active in its counting mode, letting time pass normally while she slept. The additional practice Jen had with Meditation tangentially helped, giving Jen the mental flexibility needed to concentrate on counting her heartbeat while everything else slipped away.