Night has fallen upon the magical forest. Yet neither Mewtwo nor I rest. I need to familiarize myself with all the upgrades I have gotten. Mewtwo also has his own work, all the paths he has unlocked along his levels means far too many new possibilities for him to simply rest.

I run, jump, even practice some moves by punching and kicking the air. With the full potential of my body unlocked, I actually leave slight ripples at full speed. It feels... Absurd, yet somewhat right.

Mewtwo is floating next to the porch of the cottage, deep in a meditative state. From time to time, I can see little flickers of elements manifest around him. Shining green blades of grass, blue drops of water, little red sparks of fire, light blue ice flakes and other more exotic flashes. He seems to be trying all the possibilities he has now at his disposal. His hands are close to each other, each finger tips against the other. His tail twitch from time to time, the only other sign of his work along with his furrowing brow.

The more I practice, the more my understanding of my newfound strengths grows. My body was made to be able to operate in any type of environment. High or low gravity, any atmospheres, any weathers. My weight is to counter low gravity, my strength to counter high gravity, the need for energy to counter the need for oxygen, although I suspect my need for food was not in the initial design for some reason, and my resistance to counter hostile temperature, weathers and dangers.

The night passes, and the sun rises. The morning finds us changed, ready to go further than ever before. Mewtwo has achieved both his tool based quests and the path quest. The rewards seems small now, but more is always better. He even got yet another level for it. His completion unlocks a new quest with still more paths to unlock, with only two remaining out of all of them.

Further refine what lies within

Unlock these paths and realize your full potential. Do not dally, for they all have their use.

Unlock the 'path of the ground': 1/1

Unlock the 'path of lighting': 1/1

Unlock the 'path of the venomous': 0/1

Unlock the 'path of the winds': 1/1

Unlock the 'path of Darkness': 0/1

Rewards: 500xp; 5 Exp. Candy L

These two paths seems to have him stumped at the moment. The path of the venomous does not call for him at all, and the path of darkness is an anathema to what he is. Still, he is almost ready to unleash hell on anything that dares attack us. On my side, I can now walk as I did before without any problems. I have full control over my speed and strength... Mostly. I only had one night to familiarize with it, but the result is already far more than I could have hoped for.

Now we need to meet with Princess and discuss a deal to acquire ressources.

We make our way through the forest, greeting any pokemons we meet along the way. It has only been a single night since the picnic, yet my stunt with the pangoro must have spread a bit. Few react with fear, only curiosity. Princess vouching for us and the Trio showing their hand might have helped a bit as well.

None stop us, simply waving or acknowledging our greeting if lacking limbs to wave.

We reach the central tree, and are greeted by Princess's helper. The zoroark seems surprised to see us, and once we explain our presence this early, he leads us into one of the many openings between the tree roots.

We walk along a half-lit tunnel for some time before emerging into a massive chamber. The sight is breathtaking. Wisps of colors float all around the large room, painting the its walls in rainbow hues. It seems the room was grown more than carved. Networks of roots form intricate patterns all over the walls, and at the center, a dais is held above the ground by a web of thin roots. Within, Princess stands.

The florges eyes are closed, and a faint humming can be heard from her. Mewtwo stops, and gawks at something only he can see.

The zoroark bows in front of the dais, and a vine version of Princess grows before him.

For what reason dost thou disturb our watch? Her voice echoes throughout the chamber.

The zoroark remains bowed and barks his answer. The glowing purple eyes of the vine florges looks at us. We asked a question. Thou shall answer now. Her authoritative voice leaves no room to disagreement.

We both bow, and I explain. I tell her our need for lumber, as well as question how far deep the Sanctuary extends. I ask her for authorization to scour the accessible depths for any ressources we may find. Once I am done, she remains silent for a long minute.

Show them, and arrange for a delivery of logs to our savior's cottage. Add a few other... products we have an excess of. They may yet find ways to utilize them. Princess decision comes, and we sigh in relief. Now leave, we have duties to attend. The vine florges dispels itself, and disappear into the wooden ground, leaving not a trace behind.

The zoroark nods and rises from his bow. he beckons us, and lead us through more tunnels within the roots.

We travel for a few minutes, before finally noticing a change on the walls. The wood of the roots becomes sparser leaving ground for packed dirt. After a couple more minutes, we reach a path blocked by brown vines. The zoroark touches them, and they retract. He growls something to Mewtwo and my friend nods.

Beyond this gate lies the Forest Underground. It is a large cave system that has been only partially mapped. Some parts have been secured and serve as habitat for cave dwelling pokemons, but most is left wild. No pokemons leave in the wild parts, only monsters. The Sanctuary extend all the way to a strange almost unbreakable rock. At least the old Sanctuary did, he is not sure about the new one. He also warns us that there is some sort of structure buried in the depths, but there seems to be an unusual amount of monsters within.

I nod and thank the zoroark. The cave beyond is dark. Gray stone covers most of the walls, with veins of different colored rocks visible in some spaces. I am already seeing ores ready to be collected. And if we can find monsters to hunt, even better. I have yet to make another sword, but I am certain I can deal with monsters with my hands now. I will still make weapons once I have more ressources, but right now, I need to find said ressources. My pickaxe is already pretty damaged, but we need the coal.

I get a torch out, and Mewtwo summons little wisps of fire to float around us. With our light ready, we descend within the cave.

We begin by mining all the coal we find. And boy do we find coal. With my inventory half-empty, I am happily shovel every pieces of coal we extract into it. This is our greatest bottleneck right now, and I am making sure we have enough to last us a good while. As we go deeper, we stumble upon dead bushes. How plants managed to grow in this environment is beyond me, but the moment we try to grab them, they fall appart into sticks. This is quite the boon. My iron pickaxe is not yet broken, but if I can save it for harder ores, I will gladly do so. I quickly assemble a couple stone pickaxes and we continue our spelunking.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

We come across iron, as well as other interesting metals. Aluminium, zinc, more copper. One in particular gets my attention: osmium. I have no way to use it right now, but it seems to lead to some pretty advanced machines. I collect some, as it could always be useful for something.

Our little adventure is not without dangers though, The deeper we go, the more monsters seems to appear. Zombies, skeletons, creepers, they all converge on us whenever they see us. More exactly, on me. They only seem to target Mewtwo whenever he attacks them. Although... None truly manage to present a threat to us. They fall with a couple of punches and barely leave scratches upon my body when they manage to touch me. I have not, and will not try to resist a creeper explosion.

Psshhhh~

NOPE! I jump away from the newly arrived creeper and Mewtwo slays it. I leave most the walking bombs to him as he does not trigger them instantly.

We have reached the deepslate layer once more. And what greets us on the border make me smile. Gold. We have found gold. This might not be diamond, but finally being able to create the supposedly unbreakable casting molds could be quite important. We mine a few blocks and continue deeper.

Something squeaks and we freeze. Nothing has squeaked down here up to now. What sort of creature is it? The squeak echoes once more, and we look around, trying to find its source.

Something flies into my face and I scream. My shout startles Mewtwo and he cannot react in time. The thing trashes on my face before flying of. Wha- What?

Then Mewtwo starts laughing. What just happened? The squeak echoes once more, and this time, the flying creature passes by us. It's a bat. I have just been scared by a bat. I join Mewtwo in laughter.

A glitchy gurgling noise echoes all throughout the cave. We instantly stop laughing. Mewtwo let his little will-o-wisp float around, extending our range of vision within the darkness of the cave. The sound echoes once more, and something rounds the corner of the tunnel we are in.

It is... hunched, too tall to stand upright in the tunnel. It is black with strange purple glitch shrouding parts of its body. I look up at the tall and lanky creature glowing eyes, and notice the WAYLA name tag: Enderman. Before I can express my joy at the find, a loud glitchy noise fill the cave. The enderman jaw slowly opens, its eyes dilate and it screams before rushing for us.

Mewtwo tries to catch the creature, but the moment he freezes it in a psychic hold, it vanishes in a shower of purple particles. Two long arms slam into the both of us and we crash on each side of the tunnel. It got behind us!

I turn around and punch. I barely connect before the enderman disappear in another shower of purple light. A glitchy scream echoes behind me and I am slammed down on the ground. A cone of fire passes over me and with agonizing screams, the enderman disappears.

Mewtwo is up, his arm extended before him, wisps of flames still dancing along his open palm. Where did it go?

We look around, ready to finish the fight, but only the echoes of the enderman screams greet us. they echo form everywhere at once. Left, right, above and below. Then silence.

We tense. Did we win? Did it die from burning? An enraged scream erupts from behind us and we react in seconds. I swipe low, my leg fully connecting with the otherworldly being. It does not teleport and I feel something break within. Mewtwo summons a sphere of blue energy. The sphere of compressed aura hums with power. Mewtwo slams it into the monster's torso. With a final glitchy gasp, the creature stops. We have won. The teleportation was surprising. If we had not faced something similar before, we would have had a hard time reacting.

I click on the 'loot monster' pop-up and am rewarded with an ender pearl, along with fragments of another. That... Okay, that was lucky, because the recipe screen was telling me it was NOT a sure chance. But now I have an ender pearl. Now I just need diamond and we can make the both the band of aura and the band of mana.

I still have enough food to hold on for longer, and Mewtwo sill has a lot of stamina left. Nodding to each others, we continue deeper.

We mine more gold as we go. As well as a strange red powder. The system calls it redstone, and it seems to be used mostly for more advanced machineries. We also find blue gems called lapis-lazuli as well as a couple of saphirs. I have no use for either right now, but still we collect. I am slowly reaching the end of my iron pickaxe durability, and still no diamond in sight. I just need one. Once I have it I can make the band of mana and have on hand mana storage.

As we go deeper, we start to hear something bubble. It is faint at first, but grows louder as we approach its source. Up to this point, the cave had been moderately cold. Not that it bothered either me, as I do not feel cold per say, nor Mewtwo, who can simply keep a couple will-o-wisp close to him to stay warm. But now the temperature is rising. The closer we get to the bubbling, the hotter it gets.

Light suddenly appear in the distance. Mewtwo dispels his will-o-wisps and I store my torch to make sure. Yep something is emitting light up ahead. We cautiously approach and finally find the source. A small lake of lava occupies parts of an open chamber. The lava lazily bubbles, sending sparks above itself.

"Do you think it's hot?" I ask Mewtwo.

Why don't you try putting your finger in it? He answers me sarcastically.

I approach the lava. Wait I was joking! He hurriedly adds.

"I know." I mischievously say.

I kneel before the molten rock, amazed that the rock surrounding it is not melting. I plunge my right index finger into it, and take it out a second later. Only a third of it remains, blackened and charred. Uh. "Guess I'm not fire-proof yet."

Mewtwo looks at me in disbelief. "Hey I had to try! If I was made to resist all sort of extreme conditions, I have to make sure how extreme I can get."

He pinches his muzzle. Fine, I will give you that one. I am not testing my body's resistance to fire though.

"Could you not make an aura or psychic shield though?"

He looks at me with a blank stare for a long minute. Before his brow furrows in actual though. Maybe... His eyes shine and a pink bubble surrounds his hand. He approaches lava lake bank and cautiously lowers his hand. He closes it in a fist, leaving a good couple of centimeters between the psychic bubble surface and his knuckles. The bubble touches the lava. And as he pushes further, the lava parts before the bubble.

Once half of the bubble is into the lava, he stops. It feels a bit uncomfortable. Mostly the heat emanating from the lava itself. I can maybe mitigate it, but it is far from perfect. I might be able to do it after more experimentation though.

I nod approvingly. And plunge my left index into the lava. What I get out is another charred third of a finger. WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?

"Verifying that both sides are similar." I casually answer. I wiggle my right index, already healed. "Look, it's already fixed." I then wiggle my left one. "And so is that one."

Although we have experienced exponential growth. It might be better to avoid growing reckless now. Mewtwo chastises me.

I look away, he is right. As much as I wish to enjoy my newfound strengths, I should still remain cautious. We never knoooooOOOH!

I fall forward. Right into the lava. With the bubbling and our discussion, we failed to notice the lone zombie sneaking on us. I say sneaking, but its growls should have alerted us. Still it sneaked on us.

My face touches the lava and start to melt. I fall no further, feeling something grab my entire body. In my flailing, I let both my arms enter the lava, and I can tell they are melting as I loose all sensations in them. My vision goes from bright red to nothing, and only the sensation of floating and the barely audible grunt from Mewtwo indicates that I have been moved to safety.

Astra? Astra!

I'm okay. No need to scream.

Okay my tail! I can see your trio-damned skull Astra!

Ah... Did you kill the zombie?

Wha- OBVIOUSLY I KILLED THE ZOMBIE! Ah, you are starting to recover. Here, have some help.

A couple drops of something cold fall upon my head, and my sight fills with a letters.

'Oculars Rebooting - Standby...'

'Connection checks - Okay'

'Update Speed - Okay'

'Refresh rate - Default - Check: Okay'

'System ready - Rebooting'

My vision returns. Oh that is disturbing...

What? Wait why can I not talk? My vocal cords should be fine right? I only melted my face.

Watching your eyes grow back, even though they are artificial looked weirder than you could imagine. Also your mouth is still fused, it might be why you cannot talk right now.

Ah... Wait I should still be able to make some noise though!

Maybe your body does not works like that.

Okay... Maybe... Still, that makes no sense. As do a lot of things about us.

I groan internally but concede that Mewtwo is right.

With my vision restored, I take a look at myself. My arms are melted to slag under the elbows. I summon my system and groan, still in my head, as I notice I have burned my upgrade chips AGAIN! They were not even IN my forearm so what gives? Was the heat enough? I really need to look at a better alternative than wood for these.

Already my body is almost done healing itself. After a minute, I finally recover my voice. "Well that sucked." Are the first words I utter. Mewtwo snickers at me at that. But I see he was worried. A couple burns marks also adorn the left part of his body.

"Did I..."

When you were struggling. You splashed lava. Do not worry, it is only surface damage.

I nod with a wince. "Thanks. I would be dead without you."

Don't mention it. He accepts my thanks. But my point still stands. We need to remain careful.

I can only nod in shame at that. This little experiment has proven that tenfold.

After that, we decide to return to the surface. We have not found any diamonds, but we will return with better equipment and we will strip these mines of all their ore.