In order to reach the [Call for Help], Dei would travel through the twisting caves efficiently. He estimated that it would take around two hours if he didn’t run into any trouble, yet there was always going to be trouble. When he used his [Tremor Sense], he saw how knots of corridor-like caves tended to converge on large caverns, all of which were teeming with different forms of life.
The only example he could draw from in his memory of one was the red forest back home, which his mom stated was a Convergence of Wilderness. The Convergence was filled with magic and monsters based on a Conceptual Plane, which is where affinities drew their power from.
The path between him and the [Call for Help] was blocked by one such cavern that intersected with the water-filled system of caves he saw. He wasn’t sure if all of these caverns in the area were Convergences, but they could be. He didn’t believe it was some coincidence that the Wilderness convergence appeared in a cavern: instead, he believed it formed there for a reason. Either the caverns formed around the Convergence, which was unlikely, or the Convergence formed within the cavern, much more likely.
If he had to guess, the formation of Convergences required an excess of affinity mana to fill a space to the brim. Once the saturation of mana became too high to contain, something happened to make a Convergence. His theory was fairly simple, grounded in observing the situation around him, but he knew the specific mechanisms would elude him until he had more substantial proof.
Nonetheless, his worried about the monsters within the cavern he would need to tread through. None were as large as the red forest back home, not by a long shot. The red forest had to have been dozens or even hundreds of miles across, while this smaller one was only about four miles across.
While he could technically go around it to avoid it, he couldn’t do it in a reasonable time frame. He wanted to make it to his goal and back in a single day, so as not to leave his body unattended for too long. The second issue with curving his path to avoid the cavern was that he would almost definitely get lost. It was so much more efficient to take a straight line that his [Fine-Tooth Comb] would always point towards it to accelerate his journey. He had tried making different statements, such as “Take me to the location I sensed the desperation emanating from while avoiding any caverns” but his Skill had not responded. There were simply too many pathways to take. If he specified the most efficient pathway, there was only a single option for [Comb] to lock on to, which was the trend for the skill right now.
There was much outside of the Garden he didn’t know, so he expected the current expedition to fail. He didn’t know the limits of his abilities right now, so his current goal would be reconnaissance. How easy was it for creatures to spot him? Could he harm them in some way, while keeping himself safe? He already knew he could draw upon his [Pandora’s Box] Skill from when he used [Identify] and accidentally used Wrath mana, but could he actually attack something? He knew his [Identify] could be used as a pseudo-attack Skill that pierced the natural defenses of souls, he now needed to test the limits of it carefully.
The first order of business was to find something that wasn’t strong, yet stronger than a bug. A small monster or animal he could easily run from. While he could wait around in the corridors, hoping for something to wander into him so he could test on it, time was his issue. It was already proven that he wouldn’t get his mana back once he poured it into a Skill, and it would take him over a month to build up enough Soul mana in order to use [Astral Projection] again. If he set his deadline for the end of the day, Dei only had about ten more hours to do all his experimentation, then he would need to return to his body and wait for next time.
He didn’t have the luxury to let chance dictate whether he could experiment or not, so he would need to seek something out himself. His best chance was the large cavern teeming with plants and life he eventually needed to cross anyway.
While he was able to see it using [Tremor Sense], it was more like a general shape the various vibrations went through, becoming blurrier the further away he was from what he was seeing. He couldn’t so much see a “tree” as he could see a “blurry cylinder with a wide top.” Getting a good sense for what the cavern looked like would help with future planning, which he would have a full month, minimum, of.
Following the path set by [Fine-Tooth Comb], he traveled through the dreary caves, occasionally passing the patches of life seen on the walls that seemed to be everywhere.
Thirty minutes of cautious travel later, the noise level began to rise ahead of him. It wasn’t the howling calls of nature he heard from the red forest, but a chittering sound bugs and the occasional hollow grumple that reminded him of alligators.
Breaking out of the narrow caves, a dark green light stained the world before him. Rather than a forest, it was a… swamp, of sorts. Except there weren’t trees, just thick brambles. The cave he was in sloped downwards, into a bubbling muck that steamed slightly with each bubble. The steam didn’t rise, instead forming a thin fog at swamp floor that became denser the further into the cavern he looked.
He couldn’t see above the brambles, but there was a small clearing in front of the cave he emerged from. All he could see was mud and thick fog, before a veritable wall of thorny vines blocked his view completely from seeing in front of him.
He couldn’t immediately spot anything before him, but that was fine by him. He knew he needed to find a creature to experiment on, but there was a limit to how much caution could be given up before it became a stupid idea to continue forward. He was in the cavern, so he was much more likely to see any creatures, and he would stop here. When he was ready, he could move further in, but now would be the time to wait around and do nothing until something walked into his field of view.
Without anything to preoccupy his time, he decided to first check his notifications
[Skill Leveled Up: Fine-Tooth Comb (6) -> (7)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Fine-Tooth Comb (7) -> (8)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Fine-Tooth Comb (8) -> (9)]
It was a staggering amount of level ups for how much effort he put in. While he was using it frequently during his excursion, it wasn’t enough to justify the jump in Skill experience from how much he was receiving before. It took him over a month of constant use, every day, to reach level six. Now though, he had gained half that over the last thirty minutes? Something was fishy about this. What did he do differently now than he had done before?
His System-granted knowledge gave him a layman's understanding of his Interface, but no insights into the inner workings of it. He would need to reason this out himself.
He mentally created a list of all the differences with his current situation that he could think of, unwilling to summon the notepad his interface gave him for fear of becoming too distracted and not seeing a creature near him.
‘Lets see. One, im an Astral Projection. Two, I’m no longer in the Garden… technically? Three, I’m now using the Skill with a clear goal in mind.’
He didn’t think being a projection would gain him extra experience, but what if it was harsher on his soul to use Skills outside of his body? Keeping his eyes open, he split his attention slightly in order to glance into his soul, observing to see if there was any extra strain.
[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (6) -> (7)]
Further proving his point that something was weird, he continued to observe his soul. [High Mind] was an intensive Skill to use, always putting that familiar pressure on his soul of Skill overuse. The strain slowly alleviated over the past month through persistent meditation, but never went away.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Careful to watch for any extra strain, he used [High Mind] to become left-handed again, feeling the pressure it put on him. Despite that, the pressure was no greater than when he used it with his body.
Suddenly struck with an odd thought, why was he able to see his full soul right now?
It might seem like his soul had split from his body, but the description from [Astral Projection] made it clear he was simply disconnecting his “Identity” and walking around in it.
He searched his soul for whatever constituted his Identity, finding that it was, of course, present in all his memories. He realized that his “Identity” was exactly as it sounded, his reactions to all incoming information, constituting who he was.
Dei felt like his [Soulspeak] Achievement was doing some heavy lifting with this discovery, as it fully mapped out his soul for him and allowed him to easily find what an Identity was.
By empowering his Identity with Soul mana, the soul created a projection of itself. He was currently seeing through a sort of hologram that allowed for mana and information to pass through it. The two-way nature of it was both a boon and detriment, allowing for damage to follow his Identity through the portal, while also granting him the ability to use Skills and genuinely level them up.
That being said, he rounded back to the original issue: was this the reason he gained extra experience? In short, no. There would be no difference to using his real body and his Projection, as they were virtually one in the same. That took him to item two on the list: he was no longer in the Garden.
The differences the Garden made to his situation was staggering. It was safer in the Garden, cut off from the world, and he hated it there. He was growing absolutely sick of that enclosed green space. The safety of the Garden was most likely what hindered his experience. It would make sense if he gained more from his Skills if he used them in dangerous situations, giving the System a reason to reward him. He didn’t think it was the “cut off” aspect, as he always left the bubble slightly in order to use some Skills, and they never improved drastically in leveling speed. His open irritation with the cave wouldn’t slow his leveling speed either, just cause more suffering. If anything, the irritation would probably increase the leveling speed if he did gain more experience for more dangerous situations, because he was in danger of losing his Goddamn Mind.
Conclusively, the best excuse he could think of for the second item on his list would be that a more dangerous situation leads to more experience.
The third option was that he used his Skills with a clear goal in mind, one with actual detriment to his goals if he failed. This actually related back to the previous point, of more danger being the source of better levels. Did he gain more experience for using his Skills in a practical way, rather than as training?
If he trained in a dangerous situation, like the center of a volcano, would he gain more experience than carefully attempting to achieve something harmless, like using [Fine-Tooth Comb] to play hide and seek?
This third option was also likely, and definitely related to the second.
In conclusion, he could discard the Projection as being an extra source of experience, but either Risk or Goal would accelerate his progression. Potentially even both.
[Profession Leveled Up: Pondering Sage (Level 3) -> (Level 4)]
[Stats Gained: +5 Spiritual]
‘Hell yea’ he thought, smiling at his rapid growth.
It had been all of five minutes to reason that out, so there was yet to be the appearance of an animal. To occupy his time, he started identifying the various plants; that wall of thorns had to be magical, so he started with that.
Sending out his Kindness [Identify], he felt it struggle to lock on to the plant for some reason, like it was sliding off a bit. This wasn’t something that happened to the moss, but potentially more powerful plants? Nonetheless, it eventually gained enough “traction” on the plants soul to begin scanning for information, and he sat there for a few minutes as a window filled itself up.
[Growberry Bramble of Decay - Level 155
Formerly a Nexberry Bramble, this strain has adapted to exist within a bog, while being flooded with enough Decay mana to further deviate it from its predecessor. It manifests its Decay as a toxin secreted from the spines along its stems, causing necrosis in any organic matter it pierces. The berries have taken on the life aspects of Decay, becoming Growberries.
Physical: 24
Mental: 9
Spiritual: 10
Magical: 74]
That was actually a very helpful description. For one, it discussed how it grew in a bog, giving him a clear indication of where he was. There were so many know-it-alls in his last life that talked about the difference between a swamp and a bog that, now, he was the know-it-all.
For practical purposes, it would just be more solid muck that he had to be careful not to get stuck in, rather than the watery soup that made up a swamp.
The decay mana also fit with this view, as bogs tended to be made up of rotting plants. It was possible that things decaying in the bog produced Decay mana, or that there was some sort of Convergence in the bog that did the same. Either way, he had a solid idea of what he was looking at now.
That didn’t answer the fog though. Bogs didn’t just have a layer of fog on the bottom of them, at least not outside of movies. ‘Bog fog.’
He tried [Identify]ing the fog, but of course that failed. If bogs were made of rotting plants though, could he identify that?
He scanned the mud, and did get a response, but no window popped up. No conclusive evidence could be found from the mud. There were some insects around him too, but when he tried to scan those, his [Identify] completely slid off. Maybe it was because they were small and fast moving, but it was most likely also related to the feeling he got from scanning the plants too. He didn’t get this feeling when he was in his physical form, so it had to be something to do with his new spiritual form.
He already knew that he couldn’t interact with the world at large, could this be something similar? Insects phased through him, were his spells phasing through the insects in turn? That would make sense, as it would be a bit overpowered if he could attack things without them being able to even interact with him in turn.
So what could he do about it? He already knew that he could kind of interact with plants by willing himself to stand on top of them, thus seeming like he was floating in the air. When he did this, his Stamina, or SP, would drain slightly.
Then how could he push the boundary of interacting with the world? He tried to will himself to interact with the bugs in the same way he did the plants in that he could stand on them, but was immediately tossed to the side as a fly ran into his form and bowled him over.
Sighing as he stood back up, he realized that was probably not the greatest idea. He already knew that when he stood on the plants, they did not actually indent downwards. He wasn’t pushing the plants, they were pushing him.
What he wanted to do was the opposite. He wanted to push the plants, without pushing himself. This wasn’t possible in his mind, as the plants would always push back, right? Equal and opposite force and all that?
But there wasn’t an opposite force on the plants when he stood on them, as they were not pushed downwards… so his spirit form was different somehow?
He was only a projection, not physical. It was like looking through a one-way mirror, as he was able to see into the world, yet the world could not see him. He was so close, yet a thin barrier separated him. The dilemma reminded him of one of his Racial abilities
[Spiritual Re-Attunement (Major)
There are multiple layers to the world of spirits. Few reside on the top layer, becoming more prevalent and powerful the further down one goes. Spiritual Re-attunement grants the ability to enter lower and higher layers at will.]
It spoke of the different layers of the “world of spirits.” The deeper down one went, the stronger the spirits got. He was at the first layer, where weak spirits resided. If he went “up” one, it would be where no spirits resided.
He was somewhere underneath the physical realm. If his current layer was floor one, he needed to make it to ground level. He had to pierce into the physical realm, at least temporarily, using his projection, and his [Spiritual Re-Attunement] gave him an idea as to how. He was still too afraid to move down the layers, but what if he tried moving up?
He tapped into his Racial ability and felt two things. One was the layer immediately below him, and he knew he could freely jump through to it if he wanted. The other was practically a brick wall above him, the physical realm. He could sense the wall, and knew there would be no free passage. He still tried, though. He pressed his ability against it, straining as he forced his willpower into the wall, and felt that it was elastic. It wasn’t as solid as he originally assumed, instead bending around him the more he pressed himself through.
He saw as a white glow began to shine onto the surface of the mud, and many of the bugs around him reacted instantly, darting away from him. He pressed further into the wall, watching as the glow became brighter and brighter, until he couldn’t press into it anymore. It was a struggle to maintain his current attunement, but he felt like he had one foot into the physical realm.
He didn’t know what the creatures around him saw, but he felt triumphant as he successfully made his projection a bit more physical than before.