Year 52, Month 2, Day 7
I got a skill from Assimilating the mana stone, I wonder if that’s because of the mana stone itself or my new Stone of Adaptation form. Either way, mana means that this world likely is something akin to what I remember as high fantasy.
Taking that into account, plus my current location appearing to be underground or deep in some abandoned building, the natural conclusion is that I am in a monster inhabited dungeon of some kind. Assuming this world follows the logic of other Isekai and games I remember. That may be assuming too much though. It’s best to keep the guessing to a minimum for now since I know so little.
I should continue exploring past this room. I’ve already “seen” everything in here and there isn’t much else for me to assimilate. I’ll admit I’m nervous, but having the Dust Manipulation and Silt Camouflage to defend myself gives me a bit more confidence. I should be able to defend myself from any threats that are close to my size and hide from those too large. Hopefully…
There’s a single door leading out of this room but I haven’t found a way to open it yet. The gap along the bottom is too small for me to fit through so I spent a good day trying to access a handle of some kind but the surface appeared flush as far my spores could reach. It’s a lot more of a challenge now that I can’t roll up non-magnetic surfaces.
Since I haven’t found any sign of the creature before, my thought is that it was able to move under this gap. It appeared to be able to modify its form to a large degree, making it some kind of slime I suppose. Another evidence this world shares some similarities with the fantasy games I was familiar with in my past life.
The door didn’t pose a problem for long however, since I was able to find a rusted pipe of some kind that connected up to a vent near the ceiling. Rolling to the top and passing through the vent grate, I found myself in a stone chamber.
I made sure to release spores as I went, moving slowly so that I wasn’t entering anywhere without vision first. I found that this area had several cobwebs and lots of dust but no sign of life. The signs of cobwebs and dust was a good sign that this path wasn’t taken by the devouring slime which gave me extra comfort.
After traveling down for a few meters, I finally obtained enough material to increase my size to the next level and got a notification.
[Reincarnator’s size has increased, Reincarnator has leveled up.]
[Spore Propagation has improved. Range improved by 0.5 m.]
No new skills but since I haven’t found any specific needs yet, maybe that’s why the system hasn’t granted me anything. I’ve noticed it seems to be attentive to what I need and granting a skill to help in that area when I level up. Nothing else to do now, but keep pressing on.
Over the course of a few hours, I followed the passages of ventilation, assimilating all the particles I encountered along the way. I encountered many junctions and honestly chose at random which to follow most times which led to lots of backtracking at times. Eventually, I had a decent map of the vents and even found a central shaft which seemed to lead upwards and out but I had no way to follow it.
My new map of the vents, however, was a huge boon in helping me figure out where the various rooms and areas were. It appeared I was in a cavern town of some kind. There looked to be about 30 or more rooms with extensive corridors connecting them.
That raised a lot of questions, this was clearly intentionally made but not inhabited anymore. Well, I actually can’t say it’s not inhabited anymore for certain, perhaps my starting area was simply a secret or locked room. I also was extremely curious about these vents as well, how were they carved? They appeared to be carved directly from the stone rather than made from bricks or stones, but the area was far too small for any normal humanoid to carve by hand. Magic? Likely. At the moment, I can’t think of any other method.
I couldn’t find any of the vents that had other metal pipes so I hadn’t yet descended into these other rooms out of fear that I would get stuck again. Eventually there was no other option, I had grown as large as I could, and I needed to choose a room to fall into.
My decision was made after some review of my options and I noticed a slight tingling in my mana sense near one room in particular. Something in there resonated with me and sometimes when the path isn’t clear, you just have to follow your nose. Not that I have a nose of course.
Before rolling down, it would probably be best to try and disperse some spores below so see what I’m dealing with. As I watched the spores fall, I noticed they were carried further than normal. Perhaps there is a breeze here?
I kept releasing spores and found that indeed there was some kind of breeze that carried particles for me. An even bigger surprise was when several spores continued to travel at a fairly regular height above the ground. It seems like I found my first inhabitant of this place. Now the question is, what to do next?
The safest option would be to remain up here and keep sending out spores, hoping to get a clearer picture of those who pass below. I don’t know anything about these creatures and I have no way to communicate that I am aware of.
My second option would be to go down and try finding the source of mana. Perhaps assimilating it will be enough to give me some levels. I need more skills and to do that, I need to get larger. Currently I’m about 73 mm in size and the next milestone is at 100mm. That will take at least 4 hours or more of only assimilating dust to reach, but if I can find larger materials, it should be much easier.
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I decided to wait a while, sending out spores, to see what I could discover about the inhabitants before moving down to find the mana source. If I could get my hands on more of those Mana Stones, perhaps I could get some more mana related skills.
I didn’t learn much but did notice about 3 separate creatures that were tagged by my spores. I noticed they would move back and forth along a hallway or room that wasn’t connected to the ventilation. Occasionally, they would return and enter a nearby room but would soon return to their normal routine.
I also noticed that they appeared humanoid based on where the spores fell. I couldn’t tell much more since I had a top down view and could really only make out the head, shoulders, and occasional legs or feet.
A few hours passed and they seemed to have retired to sleep. I wonder if they are nocturnal or not. That was perhaps my favorite feature of my new life, I didn’t need to sleep unless I exhausted myself somehow.
This was my opportunity to check out this new area without worrying about being disturbed. I decided to roll down before I could let fear keep me back. As I fell, I realized I didn’t know if I could take damage or not. Probably should’ve thought about that earlier.
Right before hitting the bottom, I manipulated the dust to create a sort of shield blanket to slow me down and catch me. That helped reduce the impact but to my frustration, I still got a red notification.
[Reincarnator damaged. 95% health remaining.]
This was the first time I had actually sustained any injuries. I wonder what would happen if I ran out of health. Do I just fall apart and my soul leaves? It feels strange to not have my life connected to any organs that give more clear signs of life. Probably best not to find out what happens right before death.
I found lots of iron particles down on the floor surface along with a good amount of silt and other stone particles. It also was not as smooth as the other areas I had traveled along so far. I think this must be a mine then based on the behavior of the creatures and the iron and stone particles.
I started to move, releasing my spores to get some vision of the area. Sure enough, the area looked to be a mine. I also soon found the source of what was activating my mana sense. More mana stones, slightly different than the one before. They felt more passive but also more raw in terms of power.
I soon enough was able to find enough small mana stones that had fallen to the floor to reach my next milestone.
[Reincarnator’s size has increased, Reincarnator has leveled up.]
[Health restored to full.]
[Spore Propagation has improved. Range increased by 0.5 m]
[Mana Sense has improved.]
[Mana Sense has improved.]
My increased mana sense now helped to light up the area around me with small blue lights. This must be a Mana stone mine.
Spreading my spores, I began to cover the whole mine area and continued deeper. It was about 50 meters down when I noticed the sensation of mana again. This time felt different, sinister rather than that electric feeling. Faintly the area ahead began to light up with little sickly green signatures, creating a glowing miasma aura. Why do I feel like I woke something up that was supposed to remain sealed away?
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Reincarnator: Ja̶ʍҽʂ Ha̶ʅvҽʀʂoɳ
Form: Stone of Adaptation LVL 2
Size: 11.7 cm
Next Level: 20 cm
Skills
Reincarnator's Blessing II. Passive. Increase size gain by 10%. Increase luck by 2. Improve relevance of skills upon leveling up.
Advanced Assimilation. Passive. Upon direct contact with objects of similar or lesser size, the material or biological organism will be assimilated into the main body. Assimilating a material gains its properties or one skill for up to 30 minutes. Can store up to 3 different properties or skills at once.
Magnetic Body. Passive. 50% more likely to attract smaller or equal sized objects within a radius equal to 1/4 size. Attract all magnetic objects within a radius equal to 1/2 size.
Regenerative Structure. Passive. Forms a barrier around the core preventing undesired particles from being assimilated. Blocked particles will slowly regenerate 1% of damage every 10 minutes. Bone particles are twice as effective.
Spore Propagation III. Active. Release a cloud of spores that can settle on surfaces within 2 meters and grow, creating a network of mold that can serve various purposes such as spreading influence, detecting movements, and reducing the movement speed of creatures that make contact with the spores by 30% for up to 5 minutes.
Roll. Active. Movement by rolling at a speed of 1/5th size per second.
Written in Stone. Active. Store up to 15 memories in the core that are available for access by Reincarnator at any time.
Dust Manipulation. Active. Manipulate dust within a 1-meter radius to form barriers, simple constructs, or directed attacks. Barriers and constructs last up to 10 minutes or until destroyed. Attacks deal minor physical damage.
Iron Shell. Passive. Gain a hardened exterior similar to iron, increasing physical defense by 50% and boosting physical attack power by 20%.
Silt Camouflage. Active. When active, become nearly invisible to the naked eye for 1 minute. Movement reduces the effectiveness, but still provides a 50% increase to stealth.
Mana Sense III. Passive. Detect nearby mana sources. Different mana types are distinguished by different colors.