Chapter 6: Beginning the Dungeon Dive.
3rd person POV.
After Daniel was neutralized by the system and put to sleep. Jane was surprised to find Daniel sound asleep on the ornate marble pavement in the middle of the clearing after she finished picking her skill. Seeing this scene she walked toward the sleeping Daniel before meowing after which small threads of mana appeared from Jane's body before connecting her to the asleep Daniel's body.
“Meow. ” (True Fusion (Body): Connected Life)
For 1 minute, the small threads maintained a connection between the two cats through which Jane continuously pushed her life energy to help Daniel recover from the mental damage that he sustained. During this full 1 minute, she kept meowing in annoyance to herself. As the connection started to collapse after the 1 minute passed and the skill deactivated, Daniel finally woke up.
1st person POV.
… Mmm what happened after I bought the Basic Mana Manipulation skill. Hmm… wait! I remember after I took the skill I saw a very beautiful scenery before feeling an intense headache before fainting… Right! I need to wake up, I can't just keep sleeping. As I slowly started to wake up the first thing I felt was how healthy and refreshed my mind and body were feeling.
Then as my eyes opened I saw a very annoyed Jane sitting beside me looking a little weak. As she saw that I had woken up, she immediately meowed at me in annoyance.
“Meow! Meow?! ” (Daniel! What did you do for me to find you almost dead?! )
“Meow! ” (Explain yourself right now! )
“Meow… meow. ” (Whoa okay I am explaining, so need to be so angry you know. )
After that, I explained to her how I bought the Basic Mana Manipulation skill and what happened after that.
“Meow. meow? ” (And so that's how I ended up almost dead. By the way, how did you heal me exactly? )
“Meow meow, meow meow. ” (I used the True Fusion skill to fuse my life with your life to share my Life energy with you to help in your recovery, If you wanna know what life energy is then ask the system it should answer and also ask it to show you the expanded summary of the True Fusion skill. )
Following her advice, I asked the system to show me info on life energy and show me the expanded summary of the skill True Fusion.
Life Energy
It is a sub-stat of the main stat Energy. It is the energy of life that all living creatures possess. If any living creature's Life energy reaches zero then they will die. As this energy is required for all living functions though a creature can temporarily replace it with mana or other type of energy until their Life energy recovers.
True Fusion lvl.1 (Unique)
This is a unique skill that allows the user to merge with their other half and become complete by merging their soul, fate, body, and existence to achieve true and perfect fusion. This skill passively maintains the link between the two parts.
Current effect time: 1Min of fusion.
Sub-Aspects of True Fusion:
Body lvl.1 (Unlocked)
Soul (locked)
Fate (Locked)
Existence (Locked)
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Note:
The levels of the Sub-Aspects scale with the main True Fusion skill level.
Passive Effect: Eternal Bond
Functions:
Allowing the two parts to always know each other's location.
Allow the usage of partial fusion between the two parts.
Current Partial Fusions:
Body lvl.1:
Connected Life:
Links the lives of the two parts into a singular life.
Current effect time: 10Min*Skill level
Note: The effect time can be saved and used later on and will not increase the cooldown on the sub-aspect fusion.
[Warning: Once a partial fusion has been used. True Fusion will no longer fuse that Sub-Aspect when activated within 12 hours after the partial fusion of that Sub-Aspect. ]
After spending a while reading the skill summary and the information on life energy. I asked a few questions to Jane that I was still unclear about.
“Meow, meow. meow? ” (Hey Jane, I wanted to ask you about when each of the sub-aspects unlocks and do they only scale with the levels that I gain in True Fusion skill after unlocking that sub-aspect, or do the previous levels get added as well? )
As I asked her the questions, she spent a couple of seconds thinking before replying to me.
“Meow meow. meow, meow. ” (From what I know the sub-aspects Soul and Fate unlock at level 10 and 25 respectively though I don't know when Existence unlocks. As for the level scaling the sub-aspects only scale with the levels that you gain from when you unlock them, and all that you gain afterward but not with the previous levels. )
“Meow? ” (Also how many minutes of partial fusion have you used up to heal me? )
As I asked this question to her, she raised one of her paws with one finger stretched out.
Hmmm, she has only used one minute of the ten minutes available to us for partial fusion for now. This means we have 9 minutes of partial fusion left until the 12-hour cooldown ends. Anyway, let's take a look at my new skill before departing as we have already spent too much time sitting around.
Mana Sense lvl.1 (Active):
This skill allows the user's natural five senses Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste, and Touch to not only sense mortal influences but also sense the influence of the Mystical Plane of Mana on the Mortal plane.
This skill lets the user take their first steps towards unraveling the countless mysteries of the Mystical Plane of Mana.
Hmm does this mean that I can now sense that beautiful world again but perhaps without having my mind take damage? I have to try this out at least once before going into the forest.
As I finished steeling myself just in case my mind still took damage. I mentally willed for the skill to activate. As it activated I felt my senses suddenly start to slowly change. Then it felt as if some invisible shackles that had been bound around my mind suddenly shattered into tiny pieces.
As it happened my mind was filled with countless new sensations as my senses suddenly started to work in overdrive to capture and process all this new information being revealed to me. For a few seconds, I couldn't think straight before finally becoming able to process all these new sensations.
First I became able to smell a new kind of smell everywhere which kept changing and never stayed the same. Next, I began to feel as if I was surrounded by some kind of thin layer of cloth which I couldn't touch when I tried to with my hands.
Next, I started to hear very light rustles from everywhere which was confusing but I found out that I could tune it off. Then my eyes started to sting suddenly for a second which caused me to close them momentarily before opening again.
But when I opened my eyes again, what appeared before my eyes was the mystical and beautiful sight that I had seen before. Many multicolored motes of light floated everywhere through the air. I could even faintly see them all inside the earth and plants around me. Even inside my own body, I could feel them flowing through my body like blood.
Even though I would have loved to keep sensing this mystical side of the world. But my head was starting to hurt so I had to deactivate the skill. I felt my senses stop working in overdrive and the shackles which I had kept my senses bound before return as the tiny pieces started to reassemble into suffocating shackles.
Man, I must say it's very uncomfortable and weird to have my senses return to normal after having sensed a new side of the world. As I was thinking about what I had seen just a moment ago, Jane suddenly meowed at me in annoyance.
“Meow? Meow meow. ” (Hey, how long are you thinking of just sitting around here? C'mon we need to get moving after all we have an entire dungeon of deadly difficulty which we have to explore. )
“Meow. ” (Sorry I had been trying out a new skill anyways your right let's go. )
As we both finally got ready to depart and explore a dungeon which could potentially be our grave. I took a final glance at the clearing around the door to the luxury bedroom which also seemed to act as a safe zone of sorts.
“Meow. ” (Alright here we go, I am finally going to truly start my second life now. )