The spiders did a splendid job cleaning the area of the old village. They sorted the infected fungal flesh into neat piles and returned the cavern to its previous look. The glow moss and glow mushrooms were still missing but those benign plants will grow back in time. The nest of the infestation was dealt with, but that only was half of the job; there were other caverns and tunnels which needed gardening. Without worry, he sent the spiders to cleanse the mountain.

He too was still busy here, he needed to harvest all of the corpses both for precious materials and to safely dispose of them.

“Harvest Material, Harvest Material, Harvest Material…” He invoked again and again.

By the time he had finished, he had three big piles of Red Spores standing where once copses were. It was all nice and dandy until a wind decided to blow the spores around or something like that. Luckily there were no gusts of wind in these deep caves.

Forcing the spores into the bags wasn’t an easy task either. By accident, he had inhaled some and was overtaken by Fright. Never in his life was he so afraid of something as mundane as a boulder. It looked at him full of menace, if he didn’t know better he would think that the rock wanted to eat his soul. The debuff didn’t last forever and wore out rather quickly. However, he was still suspicious of the rock. Later he will tell his spiders to remove this offender.

“This sucks!” He cursed at the dangerous task he had inflicted upon himself. So far he had dealt with only one pile.

“If only I had an inventory space, like in games and manga…” He distracted himself with wishful thinking.

“…and then it could go directly in my inventory. Ahh!” He sighed after making a wrong move.

[De-buff active: Red Spores], while yes the debuff was not [Myconid Spores] debuff, it worked much the same, the former was the weaker version of the latter.

“It’s only Torpor.” He smiled at the bad news. “I don’t need to be quick anyway. Let's keep this one active.” He scooped a bunch of Red Spores and inhaled them greedily. “Yeah, that’s the stuff *cough *cough.”

He exploited the fact that the dust could only give him one negative effect and finished the other two spore piles; now he had three blue bags stuffed full of the dangerous debuff material.

Then he moved back to the corrupted spring.

“What if…” He dipped his hand into the viscous water. “Harvest Material.”

He didn’t expect anything but surprisingly it worked. [Corrupted Water], a glob of liquid splashed next to him and then flowed right back into the pool.

“Interesting.” He could harvest it, but the perk didn’t provide the container for the material. It hovered in front of him and then splashed back into the pool.

Well, there was still a way for him to extract the water, he just needed a container. He had his waterskin on him, but he wondered if it will be able to resist the corrosive properties of the Corrupted Water.

“It’s worth a try, I guess, [Reinforce].” He reinforced the waterskin just in case.

[Magic +1 exp]. Every time he ‘enchanted’ an item using that perk he would get magic exp so he almost ignored the message.

[Congratulations! You have reached Magic lvl .1]

[Perk Chaos Blessed activated]

[Requirements have been met. Hidden perk unlocked.]

[Perk Magic Inventory obtained.]

“Now, we’re talking!” Were his prayers finally answered? “Open Magic Inventory!” He invoked the perk for the first time.

A screen blinked into existence, sleek and neat in its design. Of course, it was rectangular and divided into many little squares. Currently, it was empty. He simply wished to put the waterskin in the inventory, the item glowed purple and disappeared out of his hand. To retrieve it he simply had to will upon it, it was unnecessary to voice the command. “Interesting. What if…” He used Harvest Material on the Corrupted Water again. A square topmost to the left changed, and in its place appeared a low-poly image of a violet sphere. If he concentrated on it, the system told him that it was [Corrupted Water] x1.

“Finally a system that is useful and works.”

He harvested some more, and soon it was apparent that by using Harvest Material, he was getting only a tenth of the water, the rest was consumed by the perk. However, this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because he wanted to drain this corrupted spring dry quickly; it was too dangerous to just leave it here. So he did just that and as a bonus got some Corrupted Water in his inventory.

With the corrupted spring finally dry, he looked at his inventory screen: [Corrupted Water] x100; his inner perfectionist was fulfilled and he smiled at the round number. The bottom of the spring was littered with bones, pieces of his broken armour and other things it was unable to dissolve. He kicked the debris casually, looking for anything interesting.

“Isn’t this?” He picked a familiar-looking item right from the stony floor.

[Corrupted Apex Fang].

“Hello, so once again you refuse to be dissolved. But corrupted… I don’t know if I like that.”

Recently he was obtaining a lot of items which were dark in nature like Corrupted Water, Dark Essence, and now this; there was definitely a theme going.

“[Magic Inventory].” He opened a tiny portal of obsidian blackness and deposited the fang into it, filling another tiny square.

He continued walking on the spring floor and he couldn’t avoid noticing the tiny cracks and holes which were seeping violet oily substance out of them ever so slowly.

“The spring will replenish itself with time.” He knew that would happen, hence the need to cleanse it.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

There was little here to do, so he collected his spiders and decided to head home. There was a celebration to be had, after all, he had reclaimed the old Lamia Village.

…

Back home he didn’t hesitate to show Dark Essence to the Lamia Queen and ask her to identify it.

“This-sss isn’t a crafting item, at least I don’t think-sss it is.” She handed back the mysterious cube.

“So what is it?”

“It says it grants the user magic.”

“Magic?” He reacted in joy. Was this the item he needed to finally become a wizard? “…Dark Magic?” Although, there was that dark aspect of it.

“Yes, it sss-should grant you Dark sss-spells.”

“Urgh… Like necromancy?”

“Necro what?”

“Never mind.” At this point, he would take any magic. “So how do I activate it.”

“You need a ritual for that, sss.” She said it as if it was the simplest thing.

“Yeah? Do you know how to perform it?” He was keen to get real spells.

“My mother might have known, but I… And it is Dark Essence.”

“I see.” It was unfortunate that she didn’t know the necessary ritual so he opened his inventory to deposit the cube. “So how about the spring? Can you cleanse it?”

Lamia shook her head. “Again my mother probably could-sss, but me…” She lowered her head to display disappointment in herself.

“Don’t worry…” He felt sad for her, it was most unfortunate that the Old Lamai Queen perished without passing such valuable information. “Here, as promised.” He handed her the slug jelly. “For your help.”

“Thanks-sss.” The smile returned to her face.

“I’ll ask the elves for help they might know a thing of two. And look at the bright side, it is finally safe to return to the caves.”

“Can we sss-stay until the eggs hatch?”

“Of course, that is what we agreed.” He patted her shoulder to cheer her up further. “See you later?” He waver her a goodbye.

However, there was this reluctance in Queen Lamia’s eyes. He expected her to be happier with the fact that she could return home soon. Well, of course, it was not the same without the hot spring; he knew all too well how Lamia loved to bathe in hot water, but still…

Regardless, before he went to the elves there were a few things he had to do. The spiders were taking good care of the farm so he gathered some materials and headed for the workshop. First, he wanted to find a use for Red Spores and Corrupted Water. He started to work with powder, since it needed to be inhaled for it to take effect he needed to make a container to contain it. He had no access to glass or anything like that but dried TomGrape shells proved to work just fine in making a throwable weapon.

[You have crafted Spore Grenade of common quality. Crafting +10exp.]

He was able to do the same with Blue Dust and Corrupted Water.

[You have crafted BlueDust Grenade of common quality. Crafting +10exp.]

[You have crafted Withering Grenade of poor quality. Crafting +10exp.]

Of course, he tried to reinforce both spores and dust but that didn’t work. Reinforcing the grenade itself worked giving it Reinforced +1, but that wasn’t desirable at all; it was just harder to break and he needed it to shatter on contact. Well, the Withering Grenade even then reinforced was a failed product because he could see the water dissolving the shell case slowly.

Also, he wanted to try something different. He crafted a bunch of arrows using wood for shafts and obsidian shells from eggs for arrowheads; both reinforced. Then he dipped the arrowhead in either dust, spores or water.

[You have crafted Torpor Arrow of common quality. Crafting +10exp.]

[You have crafted Failed Arrow of poor quality. Crafting +1exp.]

[You have crafted Withering Arrow of common quality. Crafting +10exp.]

The ones with Red Spores kept failing, so he just assumed the combination didn’t work. He gathered a good bunch of arrows, he will show them to elves and ask for tips on how to improve them. Interestingly, the Withering Arrows didn’t destroy the material this time.

With the projectile weapons experimentation out of the way, he moved to armour. Well not quite, because it was time to visit the Metal Spider. The guy had a healthy appetite for metal ores and pretty much always was nibbling on them, it had grown quite large and its body now was covered in shiny dark-orange scales of metal. They protruded from its body in rows and layers giving the spider that plump look of an artichoke. The scales resembled bronze but probably were something else entirely since bronze was an alloy and metals normally didn’t grow on spiders.

“Yes. King.” The spider bowed and then began to shake its body not unlike a wet dog who wanted to get dry. “[Shed Metal].”

He was double surprised, one because the spider now could speak and two because it had a perk of its own. The metal plates separated from its body dropping to the floor with a loud clang. Much like a sheep which had just been sheered, the plump spider was transformed into a slimmer shape; it looked so vulnerable without its scales.

“Won’t you get cold now?” He joked.

“No. Problem. Will. Grow. Back.” The joke flew over the spider's head.

He deposited the scales into his inventory, [Metal Spider Scale] x25, and then thanked the spider before leaving for the workshop again.

He reinforced the [Enchanted Boar Pelt] and [Blue Cloth], using both to shape a new set of armour. Then he hammered the hexagonal scales making rounded shapes for a nice and sleek design; they were malleable and perfectly suited for such tasks. Malleable metals usually meant that they weren’t too strong, but he had just the solution for that. After he was done shaping the armour and riveting the scales, only then he reinforced the scales with his perk, yes, the [Reinforce] perk was positively OP because it let him to +1 metals. Once the armour was done he reinforced it as a whole again raising its overall durability.

[You have crafted Plate Armour of superior quality. Crafting +100exp.]

[Plate Armour: Reinforced +3, +1 fashion, +10 Rep with Dwarves.]

[Temporary perk Spell Deflection obtained.]

[Temporary perk Bastion obtained.]

Okay, there was a lot to take in from the information. First, he used metal spider scales, but since they were roughly 20x20 each the armour registered as a plate. Secondly, he hoped that the Reinforced will add up to +4 but it remained at +3. Thirdly, he lost the Minor Regeneration perk probably because he didn’t use the obsidian egg shells. Then there was this nonsense of +10 Rep with Dwarves, yeah that was just random and not useful at the moment. However, he had obtained another interesting perk.

He donned the armour and tried it. “Bastion!” He found himself unable to move. “What happened?” It didn’t seem to do anything unless…

He invited an assistant, an overly keen spider crafter with its beloved hammer which was way too large.

“Bastion!” He felt unable to move. “Okay now.”

The spider slammed the hammer right to the chest showing no mercy. The hammer just bounced off. The perk remained active. “Again!” He commanded.

The spider hit again and then again… and then he could feel himself being able to move again, however, there was another blow incoming. “Wai… Ahh…” He flew backwards taking a heavy blow. He felt that, but the armour did its job.

He stood up and glared at his assistant. “So three times.”

“Fourth. The. Charm.” Spider added way too pleased about the fact it managed to land a hit.

“You didn’t have to hit me that hard.” He checked the plate, there was only a small dent. Considering that it was a hammer and a full blow, Reinforce +3 was indeed a powerful enchantment.

The spider was happily waving its hammer, “Go. Again?” it asked full of giddiness.

“No, thanks. The experimentation is over.”

“Aww…”

But that was not the end yet, he still had Corrupted Apex Fang and he couldn’t wait to see what sort of weapon he can make with that.