Wide open world

4

I am taking a nap, or rather pretending to take a nap since sleep immunity makes me never need sleep, when the voice sounds. “Flesh clones consumed. Experience and knowledge acquired. Skills acquired. Compatible with existing skills. Fusing appropriate skills.” This went on with quiet a list before, “Vampire magic learned.” a long list of spells, “Shadow magic learned.” a long list of spells, “Dragon magic learned.” a long list of spells, and then, “General magic learned.” with yet another long list of spells.

On that note I make new clones and this time they are all equipped just like me. This time I tell one to focus on evasion and infiltration, one to focus on attacking with the knife, three to practice magic, one each to practice blood and shadow manipulation, and two to fill in and expand the map.

As the clones wondered off I checked my storage, in it I found something I was quite excited to equip. In hindsight I should start checking storage before I make new clones. My newest piece of equipment consists of a semi-sentient grimoire that replicates all of my knowledge and insights related to magic and acts as an autonomous caster equal to 50% of my own capability, it also happens to able to get upgraded.

And so I take to the sky and begin spiraling counter clockwise away from the goblin maze while taking in the scenery. This world has three suns orbiting each other in such a way as to draw an infinity sign, and several moons all flashing through the sky. Thus far it seems earth like, wait what does that even mean?, isn't earth just another word for dirt?, why did that phrase come to mind? From what I can tell from the map, this world has an abundance of forests and mountains, rivers and lakes. I wonder if I can map this whole planet before Blasphemy arrives. Hmm I wonder who or what Blasphemy is since for some reason I'm am convinced that a capital letter implies a proper noun.

I find it odd that my mind contains a vast assortment of trivia like nouns and phrases, and things of science, and yet I have no memory of the life from which I incarnated. Another oddity is that I feel as though I posses a a few decades worth of knowledge and to be honest I have a craving for something called chocolate milk although I have no idea what that is.

Having drawn near the edge of mapped territory I drop down to a lower altitude. This leads to me being attacked, but it allows me to have better opportunities to spot new things. I only kill what attacks me first, thus far however, I've only encountered mindless hostiles be they wild creatures or the goblins from the maze. It seems that all the fauna on this planet is predatory, but hey I seem to be the apex predator. Thanks to my many skills nothing impedes my progress and hey, shadow pales are wonderful, they even work on flying creatures. My flight path continues expanding the mapped area while effortlessly destroying various monsters at nearly the same frequency as back in the goblin maze. I even stop to explore all the caves and other places of note, most are simply small caves with a few creatures and some resources but a few are more like the goblin maze being vast and full of a tremendous number of hostiles of various species ranging from giant insects to packs of huge bears, and even some higher lifeforms like murderous elves, and psychotic rat-people.

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At the end of the day my clones would give themselves to the shadows and I would check my storage. It was then that I noticed a bunch things called spawn shards and two spawn fragments that I can't appraise as unfortunately to do so requires a mastered appraisal to learn what they are. I can however see that they are acquired by killing the boss monsters in the swarms and hoards, usually in the densest populations. Since I don't have anything new to equip I make new clones and we set out to continue mapping. This time we have an additional objective to acquire more spawn shards, of course doing so lead to more battles that in turn lead to more spawn shards.

At the end of this batch of clones lives I had acquired forty seven new shards and so when I summoned them again we all sat around a pile containing all of the shards and both fragments trying to piece them together in order to figure out what they are pieces of. After a full day we had concluded they they likely formed a sphere and I had almost the enough pieces to make a whole one.

Make clones, explore, examine loot, repeat. It is nice to know that every time I manage to amass a million experience points I receive one stat point added to each of my ability scores. I also continue to improve my skill levels. Ten clone lives later and now I have enough shards and fragments to form a whole sphere with quite a few left over but although I have pieces for more than one sphere I don't have all the pieces of one.

I decide to dedicate a full day to focus on appraising every thing the clones see, smell, and otherwise sense while I work my way through every item in storage even the duplicates. When the clones give them selves to the shadows we had successfully managed to master the appraisal skill, and so I used it on the shards and fragments. I learn that the shards when bonded to a life form will endlessly spawn what ever that life form wants be it either food, riches, books, or even other lifeforms they can even alter the environment with in a certain range and within set limits. I happened to have pieces of three distinct spheres, I really want to complete at least one. Ten clone lives later and I have 90% of one, 76% a second, 68% of a third and several pieces of four others.

I have also found sign of civilization, though I don't yet know what perpetuates it. At the moment I find myself hovering about fifteen feet above what amounts to the fifth burned out and cratered farm, all that's left are ashes, some melted metals and heavily smoking, still smoldering crops lingering close to the remains of a spiked stone perimeter wall around what used to be the field. This one however is different from the previously encountered sites because it was fresher and something very large crashed into the forest that surrounds it on all sides.

After following the wreckage of broken trees I find them, one is basically Cthulhu, (???) what with the bat like wings and the facial tentacles. It is partially crushed in the teeth of the other, a house sized winged turtle that died when it tried to eat the other and ended up with a spear thrust through its brain. I appraised them and the spear, I liked the spear so I equipped it before giving the corpses to shadows.

“Consumed fiendish mindflayer. Items acquired. Consumed doom tortoise. Items obtained. Species trait acquired. Dreadnought.” I look at my storage and see quiet a haul. Shards, seven off them and two fragments, also magic tentacle beads that fit my dreads and a tremendous amount of other less interesting things.

Now what is dreadnought? Oh! Oho! Wow I like it. Dreadnought provides temporary bonuses to my attributes and my Hp, Mp, and Sp are replenished by a % equal to half my level with each and every kill. Evil laughter echos through the forest quickly fading into a giggle before stopping. Back on track, I have a theory, the turtle was eating the mindflayers. I don't know why but I think its because they had shards. I also think they only manage to have civilization because they have the shards.

At that moment my clones are consumed.