He’d chosen the four checkpoints because they were noteworthy enough in his head to give at least a cursory glance, while also being in the general path he needed to follow. He’d given himself a generous clearance of Bog Cavern, so none of the larger creatures would wander into his path. Despite that, he seriously worried about what kinds of creatures might be able to find him.

While it was true that his Spirit form would be much more difficult to track, as proven by how the frog had taken more than a few seconds to catch his scent, it wasn’t impossible. He had to stay on guard for situations where a creature he couldn’t sense might be tracking him.

When he was running towards the Lorpee cave, a massive centipede had almost tried hunting him, but decided against it when it realized he could see it. If such a situation repeated itself, he wouldn't have [Tremor Sense] to rely on, and [Spirit Sense] was proving much less effective at finding creatures. He needed to find a way to block others completely from seeing him. To this, he decided to utilize something he hadn’t tried before: his Visible Presence.

His only instance of being found while in Spirit form was when the Frog found him. He believed that it was able to “smell” the mana he’d been using on the different bugs, but what exactly was it sensing? Dei was little more than a feeling to the physical world, so how would the frog see him?

That's when he had the idea that it wasn’t sensing him, per se, but his presence. His Visible Presence would be key to this part of his plan.

He split his mind in half, as he wasn’t in active combat, so a large portion was being wasted. While it helped him be more cautious, he decided it would be worth the risk giving up some of his reaction time to try and ensure he wasn’t attacked at all. If he came under attack, he’d gotten to the point where he could barely merge his mind back together in a single go, so he wouldn’t be as vulnerable. From there, he would use the quickened reaction time to try and fight using his Physical stat, because his soul would doubtlessly be pushed to the limit already from merging his minds back together.

If that didn’t work, he’d dive deeper into the Spirit world. If it was a spirit itself that was chasing him, he had his [Natural Claws (Major)], and if that didn't work, [Spiritual Re-Attunement (Major)] for a speedy escape. Because he had such an advanced version of it, he suspected that he could either re-attune faster than most spirits, or it was cheaper for him: perhaps both. Either way, he had a leg up when it came to Re-Attuning

He idly planned out his interactions, but he never stopped scanning his surroundings with the part of the mind that controlled his Projection. The mind that controlled his Presence started sorting through it, trying to find a way to disguise him, and figure out what it would look like.

The presence he wanted to emit was that of the caves, more than that, he wanted to emit a presence of the cave where he currently was. He wanted it to be virtually indistinguishable from the exact point he was in. To accomplish this, he brought up different experiences from the miscellaneous portion of his Presence, experiences involving rock formations, quiet, empty areas, or non-noteworthy moments. He pulled these from deeper in his Presence, organizing them on the surface of his entire soul. He was pretty sure he was now emitting the aura of an empty, inconspicuous rock. That itself would be noteworthy though if it didn’t match with the area around it; if you found a red rock in a gray cave, your eyes would be drawn to it. From here, his passive mind split into two parts again: one to meditate, the other to focus completely on distributing the fog of presence around his soul in such a way that it matched his surroundings. The meditating mind would perpetually meditate on the link he had to the point he was currently at, basically giving a constantly updating snapshot of wherever he was.

The primary mind, the last thinking one, was still running, and it realized the meditating mind could be split again even further. Because it didn’t have to worry about basic tasks such as breathing or instinct, it could be broken up again to have two ten-percent minds running meditation to provide twice as much Presence.

[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (44) -> (45)]

Overall the makeup of his mind looked as such:

* 40% Primary mind focused on steering the Projected body and watching for danger

* 20% Secondary mind focused on organizing his Presence in an inconspicuous way

* Two 10% Tertiary minds giving their all in meditating on the current moment, providing updated terrain Presence.

* 20% Reserved mind, keeping the main body alive

It felt absurd to split his mind into such small pieces, but he was proud of the versatility he was able to express using [High Mind] rather than only using the generic boosts it provided.

Keeping an eye out, he quickly fell into a rhythm of running and scanning his surroundings for bugs to kill.

* * *

He soon came upon a small crack in the wall with a few bugs crawling in and out of it. While there was nothing of note around the wall, his search for bugs led him to find this hidden pocket anyway, giving him the chance to realize something was up.

He looked into the crack with his [Darkvision] and realized that there was an opening some ways inside. While he could start crushing insects out here, he didn’t want to waste [Soul Strength].

Even if he had tons of it for now, it would pay to be frugal with it. He wanted to find a large concentration of bugs, that way he could test out if anything in particular gave him experience by crushing different types.

Readying himself, he jumped into the crevice, phasing through the walls as he was much too large to fit though it. After a few seconds, it opened before him.

The room he was in looked absolutely rank. There was the corpse of a dead monster, and he could see on the farside of the cave that there was a pile of rubble from the caved-in entrance. Around the crack in the wall, he saw an indent of scratch marks from the creature supposedly trying to dig its way out through the only other opening.

It was the general shape of a dog, with a long neck that bent like a swan, and a full maw of teeth. Its whip-like tail ended with three sharp spikes, and the four legs had the typical pads of a dog. It might’ve had fur at some point, or it might not have: he couldn’t tell from the state of rot it was in, absolutely coated in bugs.

The room was more of a corridor, with thirty or so feet of clearance to the rubble. He would need to manifest before he could try using [Identify], so he walked over to the pile of rubble. He didn’t want to scare the bugs out, nor did he want to be too close in case there were some seriously dangerous ones

Using his [Soul Strength], he found that he could physically manifest in half a second, a far cry from the first time he’d tried where it took him three or four. Not because he improved at all, he was just doing it wrong the entire time. Now he realized he could “bounce” off the barrier between the physical and spiritual realms to dodge, providing intangibility for a key second or two.

Looking towards the bugs, he tried to see the different types with his eyes before identifying them, as he didn’t know what kind of reaction they would have to the intrusion. It seemed like an overall painful process, so he thought they would react aggressively.

He could count three distinct types of bugs: crawling, flying, and hiding.

Generally, the crawling ones had longer bodies, like a millipede or a roly poly, but there were a few that were flat, like a sand-dollar.

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The flying bugs were a bunch of variations of the insect “fly,” which was an optimal decomposer he supposed.

The hiding bugs couldn’t be spotted, but he could see their souls all along the body. They were things like larvae and a few that were larger than that. He saw one in particular that was fighting off all the other bugs hiding in the corpse. It looked stringy, like a worm, and was slowly spreading out from the head of the body.

What was it doing? He couldn’t see it eating anything as it passed, it was actually stopping the natural decomposition as it worked. While he said it looked like a worm, it was definitely closer to a very thin, gangly octopus.

Its main body was in the head, and tons of tinier tendrils were spreading out. It had taken over the head and chest area, but the other bugs were fighting back from it spreading further.

He would be here for half an hour if he tried scanning all the different bugs, so he decided to only scan the noteworthy ones: in other words, any that he didn’t recognize. His logic was that any “mundane” looking bugs wouldn’t need magic all that much, as a variant of them had evolved on Earth. The ones he didn’t recognize were likely to require magic, thus their nonexistence on Earth.

The four bugs he decided to [Identify] were the sand-dollar like bugs, a really big fly, a type of bug that he couldn’t see but whose soul-shape was obvious to him, and the octopus-worm-thing.

Starting with the sand dollar, he tried something first. He’d first dedicated a portion of his Presence to “friend of the beetles.” Since then, he’d meditated on all the different bugs he could remember meeting in his previous life, as well as the new bugs he met in this life: essentially, he was attempting to create a “friend of the bugs” aura. He’d chosen bugs specifically to try this with, as he imagined they were the only creatures in this world whose minds were weak enough to be tricked into giving information about them.

He intended to do more things like this later if it worked, but this would be his test.

When he went to [Identify] the bug, he chose the Kindness variant first, showing off the Presence he was trying to send, and asking for more information on it. “Only to see what kind of bug you are, not your weaknesses, levels, or stats!” was the request he made.

The bug didn’t even care, immediately accepting it. Something told him that even the slightest friendly presence would’ve gotten that kind of surface-level information accepted, as the bug had no reason to deny it. If he tried digging deeper though, more trust would be needed.

The screen from his [Identify] slowly filled up with the small amount of information the bug was willing to volunteer.

[Infant Cophinus

The Cophinus is a type of insect that latches on to prey, drawing them into its body and devouring them slowly. The Cophinus family can naturally grow up to five meters tall]

‘Five meters?! Thats like fifteen feet! This is an infant version of a bug, damn am I glad I don't have to see the mama bug.’

It was certainly magical, thats for sure. The fly was next, and it reacted similarly to the Kindness [Identify], volunteering a bit of information.

[Latching Rotfly

The Fly is an insect that consumes decomposing material, waste, or otherwise useless materials]

Okay, the fly was something he was familiar with. The name gave him hints as to what it actually did though. If he had to guess, it would attack enemies by latching on to them, and injecting them with some sort of poison to make them rot. Something to do with the Rot affinity, at the very least.

The hidden insect was the second most interesting one to him, as his [Identify] came about when piercing the cloak of a creature. His Skill would supposedly deactivate it for a time, and this was the first time he might be conscious enough to see the effects.

When he sent out his Kindness [Identify] to this insect, it quickly rejected him, and he saw as it began moving erratically and trying to make its cloaking more effective, shaping it in different ways to more creatively block attempts. Its soul also naturally began to hide itself more, but he knew what to look for and didn’t lose track of it.

Before it could shake him, he used his Wrath [Identify], seeing a needle pierce the bug. Normally, the needles of Wrath would create ripples along the souls of whatever it hit, and Dei would glean information from the waves. To him, it looked like broken ice. Once the ice was broken, the needle didn’t interact any further, usually exiting out the back of whatever was hit with the needle.

Instead of any of that happening, the needle struck the cloak of the insect and immediately came alive.

Rather than the mana just leaving a ripple, Dei watched as it went out of its way to scour the bugs soul, tearing into the connection it had with its cloaking ability. The bug began writhing and squirming, trying to tear at its insides as it looked to be in absolute agony.

When he first used it on the [Nightstalking Devourer], it writhed for a second or two. This insect was utterly helpless to fight back though, with Dei being so much stronger than it, and he started genuinely feeling bad for the little guy as over half a minute of pain later had still barely dwindled the Wrath mana.

It kept tearing into the connection in the soul between the bug and its cloaking skill, until he saw something snap with the Skill, and the bug suffered a terrible soul wound.

Once the Skill was broken, the bug stopped its writhing, simply lying on its back with its legs occasionally twitching. Its soul shape began to undo itself, and Dei gleaned from the sparks information flaking off it easily.

[Stalking Centipede - Level 73

Centipedes are long segmented insects, known for their painful bites and aggressive tendencies. The Stalking Centipede has acquired a natural affinity for Shadow, giving it a cloaking effect to help keep it hidden. This particular centipede's heritage is that of two Stalking Centipedes of Crushing, making their bites physically more dangerous at the cost of decreasing the effectiveness of their poison.

Physical: 26

Mental: 14

Spiritual: 23

Magical:14]

[EXP Gained for killing the Stalking Centipede - Level 73]

With the final scan, the insect's soul came undone entirely, and it died. Dei grimaced at just how painful such a death was, and understood now why the Nightstalking Devourer reacted the way it did.

He also got a momentary flashback when he read that this centipede had “Stalking” in the name, but it didn’t appear related to the first cloaking monster he’d encountered.

He was starting to realize that the monster names actually meant something, each descriptor giving power. The only repeated example he had to draw from was “Stalking,” and both the Devourer and Centipede used cloaks. The alternative he could think of would be something akin to camouflage, where it was not an active process to hide. Did the word “Stalking” in a creature's name indicate magical invisibility? He needed more evidence to be sure.

On top of that, he was actually able to glean what this bug's parents were, indicating that it would be important enough to be information included in its soul. If he had to guess, it was meant to be an indicator of what this Centipede would likely evolve into once it reached level one hundred.

It was all useful information, but he felt guilty after doing that to a centipede who’d done nothing to him. That being said, he would try to not beat himself up over it, and decided to move on to the final creature: weird octopus-worm.

He sent it a Kindness [Identify] but was immediately shot down, the creature not seeming interested in the slightest. It didn’t care that it was detected, but it also felt greedy. When he scanned the other bugs, they would see his greeting of friendship and accept it, as it cost nothing to do so, and they didn’t care if some information was given. This octopus thing didn’t care if it cost nothing to allow him to identify, it wanted payment.

Based on the response, he understood that this creature would be smarter than the other bugs, as it was capable of bargaining.

He had no interest in giving it anything though, so he just switched over to Wrath and poured fifteen MP into the [Identify], getting the information anyway.

[Trudging Accipere of Dominance Echo - Level 336

The Accipere is a type of hive mind parasitic worm specialized in assimilating foreign flesh into its mass. The Trudging Accipere is a slow, creeping threat, lying dormant for until its host meets certain conditions. The Dominance Accipere has successfully assimilated multiple other Acciperes, granting it the ability to split some of its sub-minds into more mobile forms and fetch more flesh for its mass. This is an Echo, one of the sub-minds that has been disconnected from the main mass, and only has a small selection of the originals abilities

Physical:121

Mental:63

Spiritual:87

Magical:92]

His nerves spiked at the description, and he kept a close eye on it, but it didn’t react. He could guess that it wasn’t happy with him, but he hadn’t done anything worth hunting him down. From the description, he guessed that it would soon begin dragging the corpse back to its main mass. For now, he would ignore it. While it was true he could likely kill a few of the worms, gaining a good amount of experience, he wasn’t confident enough to risk it.

Instead, Dei would focus on the surface level bugs, and hit any of the cloaked ones with his Wrath Identify. He’d gained EXP from a bug already, so he knew it was possible, now he would farm them for it.

‘Ugh, another disgusting job to earn experience. I should really make some tools or something.’