He began sprinting at his top speed (as his Spiritual form didn’t tire) towards the microbiome with the creatures he intended to face, but he needed to experiment on the way. He first needed to come up with a way to fight them if he wanted to kill them, and he had a good idea for how he would do that. Firstly, his SP. It served as fuel for his ghostly powers, as he’d seen before, but he couldn’t quite rely on that. He didn’t have enough of it to maintain his form in the physical world, but he did still need to maintain a physical form and use his ghost powers. He would rapidly deplete his SP by doing anything if he had to rely on it, so that got him thinking: what did spirits normally do? How did they normally manifest themselves or do anything at all? His mom said that ghosts existed, but how would one manifest itself in the physical world long enough to make any significant change?
He found himself with a different idea. Rather than SP being the main fuel, he thought it would be more of a rapidly regenerating auxiliary fuel, for smaller actions. He found that in his ghost form, he regenerated SP much more rapidly than his physical form, with data taken from his extensive workout sessions.
He also learned that SP wasn’t necessary to the basic functions of existing, just the more strenuous ones. If he walked around, his SP would not deplete, but actually regenerate. If he pushed his muscles to the limit though, his SP would go down.
When his body moved in non-strenuous ways, it still consumed energy from food in order to simply exist. The same couldn’t be said for his Spiritual form, as it did not eat, but what did it use for energy? It had to use something, some replacement for food, and that got him thinking about what spirits would eat: energy from other spirits, like how the frog had taken some of his Soul Strength.
If it was true that Soul Strength worked as a replacement for food to ghosts, and SP worked to do all the “strenuous” activities, then it would track that Soul Strength should be used to manifest himself and maintain his form (as that would count as “continued existence” so to speak), while SP would be used to do things like flying or phasing through objects.
After orienting himself and realizing he was fairly close to his objective, Dei began testing his theory out. He tapped into his [Spiritual Re-Attunement], and felt as it began to draw on his SP. rather than allow it to do so, he redirected some of the energy flowing through his body into the ability, and felt it kick into overdrive.
When he used his SP to fuel it, it was like pressing against a wall. He maintained the layer he was on in the spirit world, failing to actually move his entire body into the real world. Now though, it felt so natural, like his body wanted to manifest itself.
In seconds, he saw a white light shine upon the stone around him. While he had perfect darkvision in his spirit form, he could still differentiate light levels, and now he saw that he actually was making a difference to the world.
He checked his Interface quickly.
[Soul Strength: 599/600
MP: 12/44
SP: 44/44]
‘Just a single point!’ he said to himself, impressed.
He also noted that his MP was not fully regenerated. He always tried to lean further into it rather than his saved mana’s in order to make them last longer, and that was still true for when he was using [Astral Projection].
Dei felt solid, more solid than his actual body, and he was full on SP.
He lifted himself off the ground, finding that it consumed one SP. Four seconds later, it consumed a second, and he dropped himself to the ground to allow for his SP to regenerate. It seemed that it drained slower than last time, but he wasn’t sure whether that was because he was more solid with a higher Soul Strength, that his body had a higher Physical, or that he was manifested. Probably a combination of the three.
Either way, he had a good three minutes of flight worth of SP, or a combination of other ghost abilities. He wasn’t entirely sure what the limits of that were, but he knew that flight, phasing through things, and maybe disappearing into the ghost realm for a second would count.
Actually, wait a minute, was that what he was supposed to use SP for when re-attuning? Rather than manifesting himself, he was supposed to use it to flicker in and out of reality so he could dodge better?
He smiled, happy to have figured that one out, even if he felt a little silly for not doing so sooner.
Everything in motion, he kept an eye on his Soul Strength, trying to see how quickly it would go down, or if it would at all. After a few more minutes of it staying stable, he decided it was most likely negligible, and tried pulling some mana from his soul into his body, trying to repair the projection he was in.
Weirdly, the mana didn’t react, doing nothing at all. He was confused, wasn’t this what he pushed into the Skill to make his entire body? Why couldn’t he use it to repair it?
He tried running Soul mana from his [Pandora’s Box] into [Astral Projection], but failed at that too, it simply didn’t react. His brow scrunched, trying to activate [Growing Pains] to heal him, but it was fueled by Wrath, and his body was repaired with Soul, so it also did nothing. Trying to feed Soul mana into [Growing Pains] did nothing as well, completely failing to have an effect.
Why couldn’t he feed more mana into his body? How would ghosts normally repair themselves? Well, for one, they didn’t have a body to rely on, so no extra Soul mana. They would need to take it from others… but why was that different?
The only thing he could think of was that his mana was run through a Skill to create his projected form. Did that add something to it? Some sort of intent that was required to give it life?
He only had one way to test it out, so he went off to a corner where a few plants and bugs resided. He looked at some sort of cow ant, except it was brown. He saw how it had a soul, and he realized he’d need to squish it. He didn’t have any shoes on, and he also really didn’t want to hurt the little guy, so he opted for a plant instead.
Uprooting the shrub, he noticed that his [Soul Strength] did not decrease, as it would have if he were using SP to manifest his form. He began snapping branches off, thoroughly shredding it. He did feel bad for it, as he could actively see its soul and that it knew it was dying, but not so bad, because it didn’t feel any panic or emotions or anything. It was like watching a computer declare that its motherboard was malfunctioning before shutting off.
Some spiritual energy leaked out of it as it died, and he tried pulling that into himself by just thinking about it, same as he would control the other energies in his body.
It didn’t respond to him though, and he realized that he didn’t really have any control over it, as he should have expected before. Instead, he waved his hand around the weird spirit-ey smoke, and absorbed it into himself.
It was… so negligible that it practically did not exist. He got virtually nothing from that, not even regenerating the one point that was required to create his body. There was some sort of transfer of energy, from “plant soul power” to “human soul power” that turned it completely useless, like a very low exchange rate
He looked at the ant, knowing that it wouldn’t be much different. That did give him a better idea of why spirits acted the way they did, in folklore at least. Rather than killing everything around them, they needed the energy with a better conversion rate. Chances were that the closer something was to his species, the more energy he would get. More than this though, it felt like his body was a very pure form of energy, probably from how much concentrated Soul mana was used to make it, and that made the conversion even worse as his body tried to concentrate it into that familiar level.
The frog that attacked him probably had a field day with what kind of energy it got.
Now knowing that in order to heal in his spirit form, he would need energy from either living creatures or spirits, he set out again for the cave, also noting that he received no experience points from killing that plant, despite the fact that it had levels.
* * *
He stood in front of the little entrance to the cave he needed to get into, psyching himself up. He tried to remember all the things he knew of the creatures he was about to attack.
They were small rodents, with the older ones being able to fly, while the juveniles climbed along the vines that drooped along the entire room. As far as he knew, the females stayed high up, guarding the babies on top of the carpet of vines by making small openings to hold their children in.
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The males on the other hand battled each other closer to the ground, and ate the various bugs that coated the place. He remembered counting how many rodents there were, and saw that there were two hundred and seventeen of them. Only sixty two were adult males, the rest being children or adult females by his last count.
It didn’t seem like the males ever killed each other in their confrontations, but they were battle maniacs, always fighting when they could. He suspected they were honing their Skills, trying to get stronger. It was also one of the reasons he even chose this microbiome in the first place: first, he knew they would fight back. As much as he was willing to do, he didn’t want to go around squishing helpless animals. Second, their population wouldn’t suffer if he let loose. The mothers and children were always up in the highest vines, so he didn’t fear sending them to extinction. When the next generation grew up, it would be enough to kickstart their population.
He knew this was going to be a gory fight, but he was banking on getting lost in the moment, potentially fearing for his life a bit to distract himself from how gross it was going to be to squish a bunch of flying hamsters.
Inhaling deeply despite not really needing to breathe, he psyched himself up. The entrance was too small for him to fit through, so he just walked into the wall and willed himself to phase through, which he luckily did.
[SP: 42/44]
The sounds of chittering squeaks and the calls of bugs filled his ears. Looking around, he spotted that one of the gerbils was close to him. It was around three times the size of his hand, and only about six or seven feet away on a vine.
They stood there, studying each other for a second, before the gerbil let out a high pitched squeak, and lunged for him with its tiny claws outstretched.
His [High Mind] kicked into gear to accelerate his thinking and, surprisingly, [Vigilance] too. While he didn’t think he was in too much danger, it was clear that he was in enough danger for the skill to give him a massive boost to his awareness.
He swung his arm to try and slap it out of the air, but the gerbil gained a massive boost in speed mid air, causing him to miss. It was closing in on his face so, thinking quickly, he pumped the twenty MP he had regenerated into a single Wrath [Identify].
He blasted its soul, causing it to stutter in its movements for a second, and brought his head forward in a headbut.
[Aeroflight Lorpee Screamer - Level 188
The Lorpee are small rodents. This strain utilizes the Wind affinity along with a webbing between their legs to fly, with a minor affinity for Vibration to both communicate and daze enemies]
It wasn’t as extensive as most of the times he’d used identify, but the rodent had put up a good fight in protecting its soul. He focused on trying to glean what affinities it had, if any. He realized that he might have legitimately been in trouble if he came here in person, as he had a weakness to Vibration.
Seeing the rodent falling towards the ground, he punted the little fucker hard against a tree, hearing a sickening crunch.
It was, surprisingly, not dead though. Sitting on the ground, he prepared to put it out of its misery when it let out a loud “SKREE” noise, that pierced through the cacophony of sound around them.
Immediately, the micro-jungle quieted down, and he noticed that all the rodents were looking straight at him.
[EXP gained for killing the Aeroflight Lorpee Screamer (Level 188). EXP gain raised due to level disparity]
[Class Leveled Up: Prodigal Detector (Level 34) -> (Level 35)]
[Class Leveled Up: Prodigal Detector (Level 34) -> (Level 36)]
[+1 Mental, +1 Magical]
There was a beat of silence as the Lorpee’s all observed the new enemy, then one of them let out a scream similar to the first one he’d just killed.
In seconds, all the Lorpee’s had joined the first. At once, they descended upon him ‘aw ya gotta be shitting me, they work together?’
More prepared for their bursts of power, the first to close in on him was met with a punch straight forward rather than from the side. Weaved around his fist, flying up his arm, but his left arm came up from below and just barely clipped its back legs, sending it careening above him.
He didn’t have time to capitalize on that though, as two more descended immediately, one slamming into his side and the other into his back.
Both latched on and began tearing into him, so he grabbed the one on his side to rip it off, backing up as hard as he could into a tree to crush the second one on his back.
He felt a weird resonance from his back, and drained the now-corpse of the power its soul gave off, marginally healing him.
One of the walking Lorpees approached him but instead of kicking it, he used the one he was holding as a baseball, throwing them together and dealing damage to both.
More swarmed him from the skies, trying to latch onto any vulnerable or undefended parts of him, but his back was already against a tree, and he could grab them from any other part of his body.
They stopped attempting to latch onto him when five were already grabbed and killed that way, instead opting for hit and run tactics that left swipes out of his body. His projection was fairly sturdy, but each swipe took two or three points of Soul Strength.
They always managed to dodge the first strike, but the second usually took them off guard enough to get a small graze in, at first.
Over time, they began adapting to his tactics, dodging the second strikes, while he adapted to theirs. When the fight first started, they cleanly dodged his first hits, but two minutes in, he was getting closer.
He found himself enjoying the fight, a wide grin splitting his face as he focused more and more, falling into a rhythm of just barely blocking the Lorpee’s while dealing small amounts of damage.
Neither were scoring large hits anymore as Lorpee’s stopped dying and stopped being able to take full swipes out of him. He felt his mind became noticeably faster, [High Mind] and [Vigilance] both working to accelerate his reaction time. Still, they eventually reached a stalemate as his body could respond no faster, his mind greatly outpacing it.
He slowly made his way around the field, stepping on the bodies with his bare feet and absorbing their essence, healing him. When all were collected, he decided it was time to start becoming a bit more slippery.
One moved in to swipe at him, and he jumped between the physical realm and the first layer of the spirit world using his SP, gone for just a single second, but enough to dodge the Lorpee perfectly.
It had intended for there to be friction with its claws, as well as to leap off him, but its balance was thrown off completely. It slowed itself to redirect, but he was already in motion a half-step out of the spirit world. The moment he phased back into reality, his fist came down, slamming it into the Lorpee.
The trick worked two more times, before they wisened up and got more careful, but he’d already done some good damage.
Next time, he tried to avoid disappearing, instead becoming intangible in the same way he would move through a wall. He intended to save on SP, but the moment the Lorpee hit him, it dealt significantly more damage to him than they were previously. Becoming intangible while still in reality was a very bad idea, lowering his defenses. He quickly checked what condition he was in.
[Soul Strength: 553/600]
‘Doing great so far.’
It also helped that he couldn’t really feel the pain. He hadn’t felt pain in his Spirit form since the frog had hit him with that special croak. Now, he just detected it as damage, without the need to feel it.
More focus was put on deflecting them while he regenerated some SP for the second part of his plan, when he was at [40/44], he tried a second trick. Some of the Lorpee were waiting above, sitting on the vines and resting after committing to strenuous attacks. They couldn’t all swarm him at once or they would lose the space to maneuver, so instead they took turns in doing so, employing rapid-fire swipes and vibrational attacks that failed to really affect him.
It had been about fifteen minutes of combat now, and the Lorpee’s were starting to get bogged down. In between launching their ultimate attacks, they would sit around and rest, letting others take over. Now, Dei launched himself up into the vines, grabbing two and crunching them with his bare hands. It felt way too good to do that, but he put it out of his mind for now.
Quick as a whip, he darted around the vines nimbly, striking out at any he got close to. His aerial mobility helped keep them off him while he moved faster than they could adjust.
None of them ever retreated upwards into the women and children of their society, probably for fear of him going for their young. Instead, they redoubled their efforts.
When he got down to [15/44] SP, he stopped flying so much, and instead started swinging himself around like a monkey in the vines.
He was, frankly, having a blast. It was a bit cruel of him to take so much enjoyment from hurting some other creatures, but his superhuman reaction speed made crazy maneuvers in the air possible, and fighting as he launched himself off vines a viable tactic. The critters very clearly did not have high Mental stats, even if they were fairly smart, so their reaction speeds were lacking.
At one point, two were chasing him, only for him to grab onto a vine above him and swing around, ending up behind them as he reversed their roles.
He wasn’t taking the fight seriously anymore. It had been months of nonstop training and stress, so much so that now the slightest taste of being the one “in control” made him absolutely hysterical.
When he killed around thirty, half their fighting males, they began to pull back, flying upwards.
He dropped to the ground with practiced grace, despite the fact that he’d never done this kind of thing before. He just had so much time to think about his actions now, that he could take the time to plan each one out.
With the Lorpee’s retreating upwards, he quickly ran around, absorbing all the spiritual energy he could from their bodies. He even collected four of them in his arms. He didn’t bother chasing them upwards, figuring they were retreating to try and get a home field advantage.
When he looked up though, he noticed an odd Lorpee, floating above them. The other ones looked like orange-and-white spotted gerbils. This one, however, was blue and white. It floated there in the sky, watching him. It hadn’t extended its webbed arms to glide either, seemingly standing on nothing as it observed his every action.
Knowing a boss when he saw one, and to stop while he was ahead, Dei backed away to the exit, passing the Lorpee’s through the hole in the wall before phasing through the wall himself. Once he was on the other side, he picked up the four bodies and took off in a sprint down the corridor leading home.
While he could have kept fighting and hadn’t even pulled out all his tricks, he still had much to do. His Physical stat was being far outpaced by all the Mental enhancements he had so far, and he couldn’t properly move his body to his own pace anymore.
The excursion had been an incredible success and, while he knew it had only been about an hour since he left his safety, he decided it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to close out the trip on a high note.