The eleventh floor was, once again, a more complete ecosystem.
Both the floor and the ceiling were filled with wide craters. Each large enough to swallow one of my Cannonlings whole. Within them were pools of thick, viscous slime with the consistency of gelatin that held spots which glowed with a beautiful variety of vibrant greens, burning reds and spectral blues.
To my admittedly untrained eyes, they looked like collections of bacteria living within the slime. Coming together to form patches that resembled the night sky and all its stars. The magic which emanated from these pools only added to the allure. Giving me the same feedback as I'd gotten from my fields when I worked them out in the refreshing open air of the surface.
Between each pool were paths of solid bedrock. Each one ranging from half a meter to three or four meters in diameter. They crisscrossed the landscape as far as my eyes could see. Stretching on and on for at least a couple of kilometers.
And speaking of which...
"Holy jumping spiders! How big is this floor!"
For the first time since beginning my descent, I was unable to see the opposite walls encompassing the floor. Even with my enhanced senses and the new and improved eyes I had grown atop the layers of sunflower brutes I had assimilated atop my now bone-plated skin.
At some point, the terrain became suffused with a thickening cloud of fog that remained in place. Blocking off my vision and hiding all manner of monsters within it.
As for the monsters I could see....
Well. There were a lot more.
Manta-rays with two pairs of wings that glided lazily about the ceiling. Their bodies leaving trails of light whenever they passed through an area.
Giant snails the size of dogs that crawled along the walls. With shells that shone a baleful emerald glow, tinted with shades of black.
Beetles the size of cows. With red shells the opened up whenever one took flight. Their wings glinting like freshly sharpened blades.
I saw small crabs and big crabs. Some the size of normal human shoes and some that were larger than even my super-sized form. Some with small tentacles instead of pincers and some whose pincers were formed into the shapes of swords and shields.
I saw small monkeys with jet-black eyes. Their fur a loud orange crossed with mossy green. They had three tails each and in each a flower with crimson petals.
I saw monsters with feline bodies and butterfly wings. I saw bears with the skin of rhinos. I saw octopi that floated about thanks to bulging air sacs and feathered serpents that leapt in and out of the thick fog in the distance.
Their large flat heads retreating into its embrace or into the pools whenever their eyes spotted me staring back at them.
And that wasn't all.
Transparent flat fish leapt out of the slimy pools now and again. Their organs and circulatory systems visible under the dim glittering lights coming from above. They lacked teeth and in their place had a sort of proboscis organ that looked nearly identical to a mosquito's mouth. Yet the oddest part of them was their eyes.
Each one was a deep dark yellow and as big as a bowling ball. When compared to the rest of their bodies, the eyes easily made up 25% of their total mass. Making me wonder how they managed to swim and leap through the thick fluids of the pools.
What's more, there was an odd hypnotic feel to them. Almost as if my mind were conjuring distant pleasant dreams from the recesses of my psyche the more I stared at them.
I remembered simpler times. Before I had to worry about global catastrophes and lunatics with secret cabals and far too much money and time on their hands. I recalled how uncle Uter had taken me and Eva for ice cream at a fancy parlor. I thought back to the time Eva dropped hers and I gave her mine in turn. I remembered... how bright her smile had been. How proud uncle Uter had been. How warm and fuzzy I had felt back them.
Then I started feeling a slight pain in my forehead, as well as the flow of my magic towards the afflicted area. Moving in the same way as it did when it was healing me.
Then I cursed under my breath and ordered all my Sniperlings to focus their fire on the damn things.
The manta rays were shot down by regular Riflelings as well and I had the Cannonlings fire indiscriminately upon the thickest concentrations of life.
Thus were the crabs, the beetles, the monkeys and the snails killed off by the dozens. My creatures dealing death from the safety of our lines.
The Torchers were set upon the pools after that. I had each and every one lit up as we marched and I marveled at how flammable the gel-like substance was.
All those craters lit up like oil drums. Releasing scathing waves of heat that could be felt even through the many layers of living re-enforced tissue I was wearing.
In fact, I slowed down the columns halfway through to create a new kind of creature. One made from thin, yet flexible vines I grew out of my own body.
I ordered them into the shapes of pot-bellied frogs. With powerful legs that would allow them to leap over vast distances and large wings that would allow them to glide down to their targets.
And in their centers, I had them carry as much of the substance as they could without popping. With added sacs of flame-producing organs like the Torchers had on their backs.
I called these cuties, Napalmlings.
Nodding my head in satisfaction as I glanced over the first couple dozen to be born.
'Guess I should also dip my hand into one of the intact pools to make sure I can re-create the stuff for later. Might come in handy if I'm ever in a pinch.'
I did so and immediately cursed once more as I felt the gel come to life and try to drag me down to the bottom of the crater.
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At first, I thought that escaping would be easy.
I was wrong.
The power of the stuff's pull redoubled after just a couple of seconds and my whole body fell in like a boulder. My senses telling me that the sunflower armor I had donned was being devoured alive by trillions of molecule-sized mouths.
When the stuff had finished eating its way through, it reached the bony plates on my skin and tried to devour it as well.
I used [Drain] in turn. Feeling vast torrents of magic going to the skill and feeling vast amounts of lifeforce coming back. Some of it turning into back into magic which then went back to maintaining the spell.
I would have been screaming by then. Partly from disgust, but mostly from the agonizing, unbearable pain the flared all over my body. But I was too afraid of the stuff going into my lungs and stomach and eating me alive from the inside out.
What's more, I felt additional sharp prickles of pain as invisible things squirmed in the gel all around me. Some of them trying to bite their way through my skin and slither their way into my body.
A few actually succeeded. But I felt my body reacting instinctively to counter the intrusion. My muscles turning to mouths and chomping away at the now desperate worms while they tried to retreat.
'Serves them right.' I thought. Before I felt a new surge of magic forming in a brand new manner. As if my very cells were figuring out how to imitate the substance and devour it while draining it through the already active skill.
The speed at which I processed the stuff almost tripled in an instant and I managed to collect myself to the point where I resisted the urge to climb out. Even as the stuff was trying to push me out.
'I feel more alive now.' I thought to myself. 'Like I finally learned something new. That, and I get the feeling that this is the best training I've gotten in a long time.'
By the time I got out, the entire pool had been either drained of lifeforce or outright consumed.
I moved my arm a bit and tried to have my muscles, tendons and bones mimic the semi-liquid way the slime had moved.
I got it on the first try.
And I found that I could sweat the stuff on command now too.
Bonus.
"Though I would have preferred if the damn things hadn't left me naked." I mused. "Come to think of it, how come the Analyzer didn't melt?"
I looked down and the bracelet was still buzzing and vibrating with a new message.
[New skill unlocked! [Assimilate] has been added to the status.]
Then, out of curiosity, I looked over the changes to my stats.
[Vitality: 10.1 -> 10.8 (Over 10 days.) - (Continuous physical exertion - carrying loads exceeding 900 Kg over prolonged periods of time. Monster hunting - estimated 74 specimens killed directly. Monster hunting - estimated 821 specimens killed indirectly. Enduring severe physical damage. Enduring severe corrosive damage. Enduring severe psychic damage. Enduring attempted parasitism. Sustaining life-threatening injuries. Being partially devoured. Experimentation with skills.)]
[Endurance: 9.9 -> 10.3 (Over 10 days.) - (Continuous physical exertion - carrying loads exceeding 900 Kg over prolonged periods of time. Monster hunting - estimated 74 specimens killed directly. Monster hunting - estimated 821 specimens killed indirectly. Experimentation with skills.)]
[Potency: 8.1 -> 8.4 (Over 10 days.) - (Continuous physical exertion - carrying loads exceeding 900 Kg over prolonged periods of time. Monster hunting - estimated 74 specimens killed directly. Monster hunting - estimated 821 specimens killed indirectly. Experimentation with skills.)]
[Precision: 7.9 -> 8.0 (Over 10 days.) - (Continuous physical exertion - carrying loads exceeding 900 Kg over prolonged periods of time. Monster hunting - estimated 74 specimens killed directly. Monster hunting - estimated 821 specimens killed indirectly. Experimentation with skills.)]
[Fortitude: 9.3 -> 10.2 (Over 10 days.) - (Continuous physical exertion - carrying loads exceeding 900 Kg over prolonged periods of time. Monster hunting - estimated 74 specimens killed directly. Monster hunting - estimated 821 specimens killed indirectly. Enduring severe physical damage. Enduring severe corrosive damage. Enduring severe psychic damage. Enduring attempted parasitism. Sustaining life-threatening injuries. Being partially devoured. Experimentation with skills.)]
Name:
Cecil Fowler
Core:
[Life] (7th Stage) / Gains skills from: [Adaptation] / [Constitution] / [Healing] / [Hunger] / [Effort] / [Animal] / [Plant]
Level:
1
Vitality:
10.8
Endurance:
10.3
Potency:
8.4
Precision:
8.0
Fortitude:
10.2
Skills:
[Drain] / [Perseverance] / [Heal] / [Transform] / [Spawn] / [Terraform] / [Over-Mind] / [??? - Error - please see manufacturer] / [??? - Error - please see manufacturer] / [Assimilate]
At a glance, the best improvements had been in [Vitality] and [Fortitude].
The latter going up by almost a full point since I had checked the status out after waking up in my house with amnesia.
Comparing the changes to last night however, a more specific cause for the improvements could be surmised.
All this hunting had earned me an average of 0.1 points in each stat. Not bad for a few hours, but not ideal given how much I'd done and how much I'd pushed myself.
The sole exceptions were, again, [Vitality] and [Fortitude]. Where I had gained 0.3 points in the last fifteen minutes alone.
I thought back to the pain. The terror I'd felt while fully submerged and the disgust I was still reeling from after coming out.
Then I thought back to how my gains had slowed and about how much I'd improved in just fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes.
Out of the whole time I'd been here.
Then I stared at the remaining craters. Trying to talk myself out of it.
I failed.
----------------------------------------
The huge wall of fog had actually been a monster. Some kind of pixie thing that generated a gaseous version of the slime.
Only, it was less potent and by the time I pushed through I was so used to the stronger stuff that the living fog didn't even tickle me.
The pixie, on the other hand, had a very bad time.
As it turns out, the worms that had tried to bite their way inside me had been parasitic. Much like the ones that crawl inside of mantises and puppeteer them from the inside out in nature.
Furthermore, [Assimilate] had allowed me to assess the things much more efficiently than usual. Combine that with [Transform], which allowed me to turn my arm into a green-bean rifle and [Spawn], which allowed me to birth creatures directly from my flesh at the cost of more magic consumption and I had effectively created a bio-weapon that shot out parasitic worms as ammo.
Which the pixie did not find funny.
Especially not when I shot one of those worms directly into its open mouth while it made fun of me through telepathy or something.
I ended up spending the next ten minutes figuring out how to order the worm around through [Over-Mind]. Getting the helpless pixie to do whatever I wanted while it screamed internally.
An understandable reaction, given the way the worm had bit deep into its brainstem.
Regardless, I am not prone to sadism. So I promptly used [Assimilate] to devour the pixie boss whole. Thus gaining the ability to create the bacteria mist it used.
"Maybe I should create a new kind of creature." I pondered aloud. "Something like a massive humidifier that shot out the mist. While also making sure the mist knows not to attack my other pets. Could provide cover and act as a deterrent. Come to think of it, the worm-gun is too good of an idea to waste just on myself. I should also make a Sniperling variant that can shoot them out."
I decided to work on the project on our way down. Letting my troops do most of the fighting for the next couple of hours while I recovered my magic reserves.
And with that, I led my troops down to the twelfth floor.
Feeling a lot better about my status improvements and my progress in general.