Unknown Cave, Kai's POV

Main POV

It didn't take long before Kai was able to freely control his body. He wasn't sure exactly how he was able to but he wasn't complaining, it was a gift he wouldn't let go unused.

Kai dislodged himself from the large chunk of stone he was connected to and inched onto the uneven ground. It was quite a surreal experience moving without limbs. Kai smiled internally, being stuck in place for so long had really annoyed him and he was happy he could finally move again.

Forming wheels, specifically caterpillar tracks (or at least what he thought them to look like), on his underside with ease, he manipulated the metal links to turn, and... it was incredibly slow. This is quite disappointing... Kai transformed them to regular wheels and tried once more, it was a major speed improvement but was a much rougher ride.

Kai spent some time looking around the cave he was in. It was quite a unique cave, the entire cave seemed to be glowing, and the few bunches of plant life were a lustrous green. Crystals could be seen on every corner of the round-shaped cave, each of differing colors.

These crystals shone with a dim light as though they were light sources, shining with a color that was still beautiful despite its lack of radiance. Of course, none of these could be compared to Kai, his light single-handedly lighting up the entire 5-meter-wide cave.

Water trickled down the far-left side of the cave, water trickled down the side and eventually gathered at a small pond that occupied a fifth of the cave.

Looking up, Kai sees a sharp stalactite directly above his birthplace. Apparently, the cave wasn't spherical, it had a downward curve from the far left side to the center - Where Kai's birthplace was - It looked more like somebody had taken a chunk out of the far left side of the cave, causing the top of it to slope downwards.

*drip* ... *drip* ... *drip*

The sound was soothing. It had an alluring sound that completely grasped Kai's attention. It was the dripping of water that was dripping from the stalactite. This intrigued Kai, he was sure he didn't find the sound of dripping water so relaxing so why did he find these drops of water to be so?

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Kai headed back to the bottom of the stalactite, the closer he got the the drop the more he wanted to hurry his pace. Reaching the small puddle of water that was being formed, was like standing in front of your favorite food on a starving day.

Why do I feel like this? Kai was confused, he hadn't felt this way for a long, long time. What was more confusing was that now he was a metal, not some biological being in need of sustenance, right?

Reaching out one of his smaller spikes -now turned into a wire - he touched the puddle of water. He didn't dare do anything rash in case of something truly dangerous.

*SSHRRRIP*

The sound of sucking suddenly resonated in Kai's mind. Well, it was mostly a sound Kai made in his mind when he saw the sight in front of him. The puddle of water was quickly absorbed into Kai's body, and he could feel it nourishing it. He could clearly feel that he had more of that foreign energy in him now, which greatly confused him.

Other than the changes to his body, that small puddle of water gave him a feeling of fulfillment. He felt as though he had eaten his Mom's homemade stir-fried potato slices after a long day of school. ...What am I thinking about... Kai quickly shooed away those sad thoughts, making a frown in his mind.

Snapping back to reality, he could feel that his body was improving, but he wasn't sure how though. He instinctively knew that more of this would be beneficial to him, as he could feel that the foreign energy in him wasn't harmful, in fact, it seemed to be what was improving his body.

Moving to the larger pond of that weird water, Kai this time tried submerging his entire body inside the water. The water wasn't deep, roughly 40cm in height and 1 meter in length. There weren't any lifeforms that Kai could see living inside but it was crystal clear and had a supernatural glow coming from it.

It was the clearest pond Kai had ever seen. Even more than some of those nature documentaries that he saw online, not that he actually watched any of them.

The moment his body was submerged in this unknown liquid. The size of the pond was decreasing at a pace visible to the naked eye, not that Kai had eyes, of course. Now that I think about it, how do I see? Kai thought as the pond was completely drained of the strange liquid.

This time, Kai ignored that pleasant feeling from before, lest more disturbing memories attack him. Taking a look at himself, he was surprised to see that his body had grown. It was once 50cm in height and 15cm in length and width, but now he was around a meter in height and 30cm in length and width in his base form.

That weird energy in his body also seemed to have grown by a large amount, almost quadrupling his original amount. He still wasn't sure what this energy did but was still delighted by that.

Looking around once more, Kai decided to head towards one of the nearby crystals: a Red crystal with a dim light emanating from it with its very center being the brightest.

The crystal, like most of the crystals in the cave, had multiple large chunks of dull spikes jutting out of it with a few sharper small spikes around the sides.

Since I can manipulate my body, maybe I can manipulate crystals as well? Kai thought it was worth a shot, not like he had anything to lose.

Kai neared the small chunk of red crystal, he wondered how he would go about doing this. He willed his body to stand on top of the crystal, to see if there was any urge that appeared instinctively.

*sploosh*

Kai suddenly started melting.