Should I?... Stacy debated on the merits of falling over and sleeping in the middle of the giant worm tunnel or pressing on. Oh god, she was so tired. So, so exhausted. It wouldn’t hurt if she took a quick little nap, right?

* * *

She woke up hours later. Her mind was a haze. There was a heavy thumping in her head. Stacy knew that the days of good sleep was forever behind her, but she couldn’t help but hope that closing her eyes would let her rest a moment more.

There was no point. Stacy was already wide awake and couldn’t fall back to sleep. With a sigh, she picked herself up and pressed on.

Her face was covered in the gross goo left behind by the gross giant worm. She tried to wipe it off with her clothes, only to realize that they too were covered in the gross goo. Gross.

The only good thing about this situation was the fact that Stacy wasn’t being chased by the swarm of fetidbugs anymore. That meant she could actually walk at a more lazy pace rather than running an entire marathon to survive.

Stacy had to use magic to light the way so she wouldn’t walk straight into the jaws of a waiting monsters. It gradually drained her of her mana, forcing her to take occasional breaks where she sat in nothing but darkness and silence. It was strange. She didn’t think that she was wasting anywhere near as much mana as a [Firebolt], but she had to rest every half an hour.

It seemed like casting magic without a skill was less efficient.

Like, why though? For real. This is so not nice. As she walked and stopped, Stacy decided to finally expend the free attribute points she gained from all the leveling she did recently. She had 5 free points, each of them unused.

Of course, she had to use 2 of each on magic and dexterity respectively. Those two attributes were the only reason why she was still alive right now. She was about to use the last on either intuition or resiliency, when a thought crossed her mind.

What about worldliness? There was a lot of connotations that came with the word ‘worldliness’. Her mind drifted to yoga and meditation, things which would make one more in tune with nature and themselves. Stacy had no intention of finding out more about herself. She was literally herself. It didn’t matter to her.

But if she could become one with nature from raising her worldliness attribute? Maybe it’d help her survive in these terrible caves much better.

Status:

Name: Stacy

Rank: Yellow – Lvl. 2

Health: 88%

Mana: 53%

Stamina: 79%

Attributes:

Power: 7

Magic: 7

Dexterity: 13

Resiliency: 5

Intuition: 6

Worldliness: 1

Free Points: 0

Stolen story; please report.

Skills:

White Rank Skills:

[Evade], [Lesser Stamina], [Quick Thinking], [Mana Control], [Firebolt], [Electric Shock]

Yellow Rank Skills:

[Keen Sight], [Quickened Recovery]

The instant Stacy assigned her free point to worldliness, she felt her head go numb. The world spun around her. She wanted to pass out.

It wasn’t the same as when she first unlocked magic. That had been the opening of an entirely new sense, the experience of a sensation never felt before. Stacy just felt overwhelmed. As though the world itself was bearing down on her.

There was a ringing. It turned into a blare. Her eardrums wanted to explode. And then suddenly, it all stopped.

Stacy was slumped over on the ground, facing the ceiling. Nothing else happened.

“What?...” She picked herself back up, perplexed, confused, and puzzled. “I literally just can’t…” She kept saying that. But still, she pressed on. Because if she didn’t, she would die. And she didn’t want to die.

The tunnel curved to a sharp decline before turning into a vertical wall. Stacy looked up, seeing that she was at the bottom of a pit, and sighed. Her boyfriend in freshman year of high school loved rock climbing. She now regretted only watching him from the side.

Oh god, she hoped it wasn’t too far up.

* * *

After what felt like an hour of climbing, Stacy reached the top of the hole. She didn’t even check if there were any monsters nearby. If it was either climb back down or get eaten by monsters, she was really considering the latter option right now. Thankfully, there was nothing near her.

Stacy expected to find herself in another dark cavern. But this room was different. She saw it from below, but there was light coming from here. She thought it would be more glow moss, even if those were usually much dimmer in intensity. When she sat up, she finally saw what the source of the light was.

Crystals. Hundreds of crystals filled the room. It wasn’t an expansive cavern that reached hundreds of feet up to the ceiling. It was as normal as a cave chamber could get, apart from the green, glowing rock that spiked out of the ground like stalagmites.

She walked up to one, running her fingers over their smooth surface. They were hard, yet easily breakable. Like glass.

“Ow!” Stacy tried to break the tip off one of the glow crystals. It was far less durable than she thought, shattered as she squeezed her hands around it. “Okay, softer this time.” She blinked and hurriedly glanced around. She was talking to herself too much. But she felt safer here, for whatever reason.

Stacy was more gentle when she tried to snap up a shard the second this. She succeeded. Now with her own portable flashlight, she delved deeper into the room.

What is this place? The giant worm hadn’t actually crossed through this room. There was a hole in the ceiling, indicating that it simply passed through this layer before continuing down.

It was an eerie silence which held this room. Stacy thought it would’ve calmed her, not hearing the constant cries of monsters, the squeaks of bats, or the dripping of water. But the ambience of this room only creeped her out. There was no sound. No movement. No life.

Spinning on her heels, Stacy decided that she shouldn’t be here. The terror got to her. It drove her back towards her peaceful tunnel. There were plenty of dead fetidbugs somewhere down there. She had an abundant supply of food, right?

But water… Stacy stared at the goo that lined the walls of the hole. It was sticky. It actually helped her in climbing up better. It also had the same foul magical stench of the giant worm. But was it drinkable?

She had to find out. It was fine if she just took a sip, right? Stacy grabbed a handful of the odd liquid. Its texture was almost like dough. She held it over her mouth—

“Stop! Don’t drink that!”

Stacy jerked. The voice came as a shout. It scared Stacy. She turned around, stumbling back as she caught a glimpse of a few dark figures. They quickly vanished from her vision as she fell, tumbling down the pit.

It all happened so fast. She didn’t even scream. She just knew she was halfway down to her demise and there was nothing she could do. My mom. My dad. My best friends. My boyfriend. My friends. Everyone… I…

And there was a flash. Something shot down at her. A rope made of webs wrapped around her. It caught her just before she turned into a pancake on the hard ground. She bounced on the string like a yoyo as she exhaled deeply. “I… I’m alive!”

Stacy’s happiness only lasted for seconds before she was tugged up the pit.

“Wait, no—“ She finally let out a scream as she was rapidly hauled back to her feet. “Don’t eat me! Oh my god, please, I don’t taste good! I swear!” Stacy fully anticipated that she’d be eaten anyways. But a scoff came in return.

“Eat you?” The voice was high-pitched and squeaky. It sounded like it was taken aback, appalled that she would accuse them of eating her.

Snapping a single eye open, she looked hopefully at her saviors. “You mean you won’t eat me?”

“No, no, absolutely not!” The figures were short with rotund bellies and crooked faces. Their noses poked out like spikes, and they had holes for ears. Three of them stood before her, exchanging amused looks. “We’re not going to eat you. We’ll boil you first, then eat you!”

Stacy stared at them. “Oh.” She was speechless. “Okay.”