Well after I finished claiming all the gaseous mana that had gathered in the generator I began to work on all of the cracks by pushing my claimed matter through them over and over. As I did this through a part of my mind segmented it out as a repetitive task and I could then focus on claiming matter that lay outside the confines of the generator.

At first, I was just claiming the gaseous matter and gaining a larger and larger awareness of the space outside of the generator. I felt the space outside with my claimed matter. The pipes and cables, the panels and rivets, every groove and edge, I felt it all through my connection to my claimed matter.

And that’s where I ran into some problems. I realized that the space I was aware of was the space between the walls. I haven’t tried to claim any other matter other than the gaseous matter so I found myself once again trapped in a stagnant space. The next thing that concerns me is that I’ve found three large irregularities going through a section of the wall. Now the truly weird part about this is that there are only a few places where things go completely through the walls on the ship, and when they do there are always a lot of tubes and wires running all over it. But these are smooth and coated in a strange liquid-like goo. And because of said goo, I find myself unable to spread my awareness any more with my gaseous matter.

Yup, that’s all I can do.

There’s nothing else I can do to expand my influence.

I’m just going to have to wait for a hole to appear in the wall and let the gas move around.

I mean what else should I do claim the walls. Hahaaa like I could do something like that...

A dungeon can claim all matter, in any of its forms. The limitation is in the dungeons power and power against the matter they claim.

“System how come you answered that question. I didn’t ask it out loud and you never have before.”

I have always been able to, this is the first time where the information is imperative to your immediate growth.

“You also know that I knew that right?”

Yes.

But you would have stagnated otherwise and potentially perish.

“Wait. What do you mean perish?”

“System what do you mean when you say perish!”

“System!”

Your instance of the system has been suspended for a time please hold…

“What the heck is going on here!!!”

Please hold…

I don’t think this is going to get me anywhere…

I better do as system suggested before it was…

Suspended hu…

I begin this proses by pressing my mana against a section of wire that runs close to the generator. I then begin to push the mana into the solid matter and claim the latent mana that is held within the matter. After I claim a small section of the wire, I use that place as a launch point and begin to work on claiming the rest of the wire as I work my way along the entire length of the wire. I run into a junction point along the wire, I claim it and then work on claiming the wires that were going through it already. I run into more junctions and claim more wires at an alarming rate. After claiming a fair bit of the wires, I decided to work on claiming some of the studs that the junction boxes are attached to. I then claim a section of the wall, then I claim another section and another. My claim on the matter spreading like a plague in unhygienic communities…

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Just like the last time I lived in the slums…

Abandoned when my family couldn’t feed us all…

Wading through the bodies of the sick and dying to find some scrap to eat…

Or a rat to feast on…

After all, they didn’t care about eating the dead’s flesh…

Whether it was beast or man the rats ate anything they could find…

And so, we became the rat catchers…

Feasting on their flesh like they fed on ours…

Until the sickness took us next…

It always took us…

Now isn’t the time for these memories, this information. I need to focus or I might die once more. Focus on the work and keep moving. Don’t stagnate or fall, don’t become the food of the vermin that surround you.

Enough!!!

I will have time to deal with this latter I need to keep moving for now.

Slowly the thoughts faded back into my subconscious and I was able to focus on expanding once more. Claiming solid matter soon becomes second nature and allowed my mind to focus on other things. I can now see, sense, feel… whatever I can now sense through the solid matter the things going on around it. But I can’t sense much as the solid matter doesn’t move around much. The area does touch and interacts with though provides great detail and information about its limited surroundings.

But I need to see more, know more about the situation the ship is in so that I can know what danger I am in. I look at my progress of claiming more matter and notice that my claim spreading faster on the wiring but slows down when I’m claiming the scaffolding and walls. The growth of my influence is to slow, I don’t know enough about the threat to my existence, I doubt I’ll know the extent of the threat I’m in before it’s too late if I keep waiting around for the solid matter of the ship to be fully claimed.

I need to get an idea of what’s going on now, and fast. When I had used gaseous matter in learning about where the generator was in comparison to everything else, I was able to quickly spread my awareness out through that claimed matter.

I needed that speed now.

But how do I get that gaseous matter?

There aren’t any holes for my matter to go through and it's not like I can claim gaseous matter with solid matter…

Why can’t I claim gaseous matter with solid matter…?

I can, can’t I…

I begin trying my new idea immediately. I focus on a section of the wall that I’ve claimed and focus on the opposite side of the wall. I feel the gaseous matter bump into this section of wall constantly as the gaseous matter rapidly moved about. I then focus mana onto the surface of the wall and make a few layers. I force my mana into the gaseous matter as it goes through my layers of mana and bounces off of the wall. It takes a while to get the mana layer to the right thickness so that the gaseous matter is saturated enough for me to claim when it bounces off of my walls, eventually I figure it out and begin to claim matter in a section of the ship. I layer all the walls I’ve claimed, adjusting the layers of mana as needed, in an attempt to claim the gaseous matter faster.

I claim more and more gaseous matter and begin to get an idea of the interior of the ship. I feel many protrusions and objects that slowly become clear to my senses. Buttons and panels become clear on the walls, tools, and machinery hanging off of hooks and lay on tables, while piles of materials lay in the corners of the room. I feel the frame of the door as well as the fact that it’s sealed tight, confining me to another limited space.

Luckily another section of wall that I had claimed and revealed to me an ever-expanding hallway. I just hope that I can find this threat quickly in this blurry and empty space.

I start to learn the ship’s layout through the gaseous matter in this hallway. It spreads through the halls, I’m shown something out of place embedded into one of the walls. I believe it’s one of the odd protrusions I had found that had gone through the wall. My matter flows into the hollow space inside the protrusion and I begin to see its innards. Once inside I take note of the contrast between the hall I came from and the innards of this protrusions as it appears fleshier in comparison to the hard-metallic matter that I’d become familiar with. The hollowed-out area inside was empty as far as I could understand, with only fleshy strands dangling from the ceiling and walls under the layers of goo. I was confused because the room seemed to be quite large but void of anything that I could recognize as a tool or any form of furniture.

I change my focus from this fleshy protrusion and focus on the outer edge of the gaseous matter as it spreads throughout the ship. A room begins to come into focus and I begin to see what it holds. There are multiple beings gathered together in a large open space of the ship. From the fuzzy image I was receiving, I saw a few beings gathered around a section of a wall. As my matter explores the area the image begins to come into focus.

The beings gathered appeared to be covered in layers of overlapping plating. The plating was a sleek shade of midnight blue. Their eight legs protruded out of their body’s all around the abdominal core. The legs themselves looked to be made of four sections and five joints that first rose around its abdomen before dropping to their five taloned feet. They had four arms, two joined at each of their shoulder joints. Their elbows were covered in a thicker plating that bulged around their arms. The hands were shaped with three blade-like talons that curved inwards and held an edge on either side. The flat sides of their claws having ridges and bumps covering them, while the inner edge was serrated. Their heads were truly monstrous in nature, the smooth plate covering their heads like the rest of its body, except for the two blades like curves that ran from above the six horizontal slits, that housed their eyes, and over their head before meeting at the base of their neck and tapering off. Their eyes were black and speckled with glowing green that shown through the slits on their heads. And when some of my gaseous matter was breathed in, I was able to feel my way through the layers of sealed interlocking mandibles that had appeared to be its smooth plate face.

The scene that these beings were a part of was one of statues and torment. There were six beings with gaping holes in them on the floor with green entrails and ichor spilled across the floor. Another eight stood around a door in a tense stance ready to strike. Another six covered the other entrances, three to a door, into the room while the last four gathered together in a group just a little behind the eight that were sieging the sealed door. Not a single one of them moved or budged as they stood around the room.

But one of the four was different, just barely, but as the matter, I had claimed bounced around the room the details became clearer. I saw the blades on its head to be a tad larger and the plating or chitin that covered it’s being thicker and just a shade darker than the rest of the beings in the room. It also appeared to be a little smaller in stature than the rest.

The room itself was a mess, tables were shattered and in ruin, many fixtures on the walls were sparking from the gashes through them. The walls were scorched and peppered with small craters. And one of the doors into the room looked to be smashed and ripped apart, one door had half of it torn apart laying on the floor.

Suddenly a hatch in the wall opens on the opposite side of the room from the sealed door. Two large bolts fly out of it towards the group of four. The beings moved as soon as the hatch opened two of them dashed towards the hatch while the smaller one is covered by the other being. One bolt impacted against one of the rushing beings raised arms, the bolt barely pierces it before shattering, sending shrapnel around itself and into the beings around it. The other bolt sails towards the smaller being, another being jumped in front of the smaller variant guarding it as it braced for the impact with the bolt, as the bolt collides with the being it punches through its arms before finally stopping after losing momentum in its abdomen. The hatch in the wall closes before the beings reach it when an explosion of green paste and blue carapace radiates from the being that had guarded the variant. The two beings move back to the center of the room with the variant and return to standing as still as statues.

The encounter was brief but through it, I saw the battle going on. These beings were fighting the walls for killing its friends…

Well, I think that’s what’s going on…

I feel another explosion ring through the gaseous matter coming from the opposite hallway.

But I might be wrong…