“Hey Razum! You wanted to talk?”
His sister’s voice ringing through his head had Razum perking up, his fruiting body coming to attention as his willpower flooded it with his intent.
“Yes I did,” he said simply. “I just finished gaining my class and…”
“And you want to try it out in my Dungeon?! That sounds amazing! What kind of class did you get?”
Razum let the rest of his statement, that he had been looking to rest, fall to the wayside. He wasn’t really annoyed by his sister speaking over him though he thought it could be considered rude. Her obvious enthusiasm for learning about his new class made it easy to forgive her.
“It is called Mycelial Scion. I got it from a Unique Quest.”
“Ooh! I got a Unique Quest too! I have to protect some seed that a god left behind when he fell.”
Razum paused at that, his mind constricting to boost his processing speed. He knew from his father that at least the sun god had been slain as evidenced by the shard of sunlight that Dug kept with him at all times. Now apparently his sister had obtained something similar. Then he shrugged using his fruiting body. It didn’t really matter in the long run.
“Anyway! Mycelial Scion huh? What does it do for you? I don’t actually know how anyone else proceeds through the Ranks. I assign my Attribute points and Experience growth that way. How do you do it?”
Razum took a moment to sort through his sister’s chatter. She always spoke so fast that he had to consistently keep his mind compressed to boost his thoughts to keep up.
“From what I can glean, I gain a certain number of Attribute points per level, and in order to gain levels I have to utilize Experience to gain Skills and Abilities. They may have levels too so I will most likely have to either expand my knowledge of the Skills or combine them in interesting ways to produce more Abilities.”
“Fascinating!” Obu’s voice was full of wonder and Razum smiled internally to hear it. His sister’s enthusiasm made things brighter despite the darkness of the cave. “So do you want to come in and try it out?”
Razum thought about it for a moment before shrugging his fruiting body. He had wanted to rest but perhaps this would serve as an excellent standard to gauge his growth going forward. “Sure,” he said simply before moving to enter the Dungeon proper. Right as he was about to do so the System began scrolling words across his mental vision. By his sister’s accompanying gasp, she must have received one too.
Congratulations Razum!
New Quest Given!
[Ranking Up]
Type: Repeatable, Rank-Up Specific
Description: You are on the cusp of advancement. To advance complete the First Room of the local Dungeon alone and without assistance. Boons and Titles may be used as normal, however, rewards will differ based on how many are used. Boons and Titles necessary to complete the Quest, such as natural Boons and Titles, are excused. Class Skills and Abilities suffer no penalties.
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Razum hummed mentally to himself as he looked over the Quest’s information. He felt at it and understood instinctively that he could lock his Titles and Boons to keep him from using them accidentally. He nodded his sporecap contemplatively. He moved to lock the ones that he had no immediate need of. Luckily most of them were simply natural so he had no need to lock them.
He didn’t know how his Symbiosis with Ten’Telo would factor in but he figured it counted as natural at this point. Regardless, he could feel from his bond that the Symbiote felt eager to begin. Perhaps it had its own way of advancing.
“Hey Razum, sorry for keeping you waiting! I had to take care of a few things. You can start whenever you want.” Razum looked up at his sister’s voice and nodded. He had been busy too but he didn’t think it needed to be said and his sister’s attention had already shifted. He expanded his Mycelium Network into Obu’s Dungeon, gathering a more sizable portion of his brain power than he had the time before to lock into place around his fruiting body.
Then he stepped inside.
Almost immediately he began producing glowing spores. Each one glowed a purplish blue and was carried softly on the currents of Aether. These were his natural spores rather than ones crafted by a Skill or Ability though he did give them a push outward using [Aether Manipulation 1]. He didn’t know if the creatures of this place would notice right away or not but his goal was to create a web through which he could affect their mental state.
He knew there would be quite a few monsters and while he wasn’t sure of the numbers, he was quite sure they would be able to force a retreat from his through force of numbers. Above all, Razum wanted to do this without the aid of The Growth. While it would be important for him to cultivate that particular Boon in the future, he wanted to see just how far he had come on his own merit.
He expanded his mind, using the spores in the air as nodes to ping off of and keep his thoughts stable and connected. It wouldn’t do for his mental state to become fractured and disjointed. As it was he could sense around five minds in the general vicinity and though they were on edge because of the lights he could sense they didn’t see much danger in them. He would show them why that wasn’t the case.
Manipulating a mind was difficult. Full control was impossible in most cases unless the target submitted completely to the process, which was something most creatures instinctively couldn’t do. Even when Razum was a more powerful, though simpler, mind he couldn’t force the other mushrooms to obey him by sending him all their nutrients, thus depriving and killing them.
What he could do was manipulate and cultivate them. They wanted to grow and needed a variety of nutrients to do so. So he would offer them Aether in exchange for the nutrients they had which would hold them over till he traded with other shrooms in the garden for the nutrients others needed and the cycle would continue. The benefit was that the Aether he gave them had a strong Mind Affinity so over time it got easier as their “minds” got bigger.
These monsters already had minds of their own so the manipulation would be both harder and easier. Harder because their minds had never encountered his Aether before and therefore weren't as malleable and easier because the Mind Aether he was using had something tangible to effect. The task was made easier still by the fact that his targets weren’t the sharpest of minds.
Thus, it was relatively easy to foster a fascination within them for the floating lights that were his spores. After that, it was a simple matter to draw one away from the group and toward the entrance where Razum stood ready and waiting. The entrancement broke as soon as Razum sprung his trap but by then it was too late. A [Spore Cloud] of various respiratory inhibiting spores hit the creature right in the face and its surprised roar turned into a spluttering coughing/wheezing fit immediately.
Razum checked to make sure, but none of his other targets had broken free because of the noise, though he noticed that now others had entered his awareness and were moving cautiously. He grunted mentally before shaping the right arm of his body into a viscous spike. He slammed it into the coughing goblinoid’s throat, ignoring the spray of blood that followed as his mind worked to ensnare the new monsters.
It was hard to juggle so many awarenesses but he was determined. He would win this challenge flawlessly and reach ever higher. He was the greatest example of his father’s fungle cultivation and he would show this world that his father’s title of Sporemeister was justified. Slowly, he expanded his Mycelial Network outward across the stone and his fruiting body followed, moving soundlessly through the shimmering light of his spores.