I am currently watching the entrance tunnel connecting the third and fourth floor for quite a while, puzzled at what to do.

Went past the few section of tunnels straight into the expanse. Even the tunnels had cracks in them with some orange almost like lava veins in them the closer I got to the expanse. It looked pretty cool. The heat was picking up but nowhere near four thousand mark.

I haven’t been bothered by fire elementals or anything else because of my erase presence.

I could clearly see few molten snakes there and there on top of the lava lake that was present there. And there was even a boss or at least it looks that way in middle. It was a huge lizard. Wasn’t as big as Candace but It honestly looked like dragon without wings. I had no doubt it would be strong. But my goal isn’t to level up or anything and I somehow felt that none of these pose me any threat. There was something dangerous in the lava lake. I could tell because of my incredible senses. I think it was blocking its presence somehow. Similar to my own erase presence but vastly inferior. Otherwise I don’t think I would be able to sense it at all.

Well the monsters there probably, including the dangerous one submerged in the giant lava lake didn’t bother me at all.

Surely because they had no idea I am even there.

Past the expanse only short time until I had come to the exact spot I am still standing dumbfounded.

I cannot tell exactly what is waiting for me in the fourth floor. No, the sense scouting is blocked off. But I can clearly see something very unsettling.

In the tunnel leading down to the fourth floor I can already see that it would seem the floor is flooded.

I think the floor is completely underwater.

How am I supposed to descend like this? I don’t think picking another entrance if there even is, changes anything. This floor had clearly fire theme and lava almost everywhere.

There might be some air pockets around in the fourth floor but I have no doubts that would be rare.

I am actually pretty much fucked?

So third floor is the max I can enter huh??? Damn!

Meanwhile when I was thinking what I can do about this fucked up situation I finally remembered that I have not yet checked the results of the last sleep. Like I know what I got but I wanted to check if the skills that were impossible to read in the screen are finally translated for me.

Honestly I also think that even if I don’t get it translated I know I got stronger.

Slightly casually thinking about the status and it instantaneously showed up.

Status

Name: Felix

Race: Ascended Rat

Level: 202

Fame: 1000

Aspect: Primordial

Class: !?…(-.-)>!!!!?None?!!!!<(-.-)…?!

CP: 1000

HP: 10000

MP: 100000

SP: 1

Skills: Mana Genius, Omnilingualism, Perfect Bite, Bullet Jump, Status, Avoidance mastery, Endless, Presence Control, Eternal, Absolute.

Evolution: Primordial

What the... my status really do like to change.

I don’t understand.

I even lost my damn skills.

URGH!!! I cannot simply get them back when I can buy only skills for hundred of skill points!

Oh well. Actually… When I think about it? Yeah? That makes sense.

They merged somehow? Redundant to show multiple things meaning the same I guess.

Why would they merge just now…

Hm… so the only thing that is completely new is Eternal and Absolute. So they have to be the culprit. Damn am I not getting some crazy skills right there? They definitely sound amazing.

For whatever reason I don’t feel anything out of them now. I know I felt something when I was looking at the skills in the sleep menu. In particular the symbol one was really appealing to me.

I honestly picked the dots only because they seemed the most safe option although even there was some sort of feeling, maybe calmness or so it is hard to describe it was so tiny. But I have no doubts that it was an amazing choice purely based on the names of the skills.

Next we have the insane changes to my hp and mp. That’s sick. I would really love if I had damn appraisal or something like that.

Comparing my own status to others would be really great.

I feel like these stats might be insane but I just cannot shake the feeling that’s just my personal perception because of the insane individual stat growth.

I am no expert but I don’t think I can even remotely have sliver of Candace stats, so I guess she might reach like one million plus just on hp. There is also her mana, she was constantly radiating from her core. I think just purely based on my guess and comparing the feeling to me she should have about half a million mana. The hp is purely guess considering my relative size and all that. There is chance she has even more than two million hp etc.

Like I could imagine that and it wouldn’t surprise me at all.

But with mana I am fairly certain she has like half million. I will actually confirm that next time I see her. I kinda miss that gigantic somewhat nice spider already.

I don’t know why I am like this but I think I have almost thought about her as my mother just before I left. She was a bit too much caring to my comfort. It is really sad to be so fixated on having family. I guess I miss my own damn family. I don’t really want to think about it too deeply because I realize I might have a mental breakdown when I do so. Despite my brave bravado I think I am burying all my stress and bad memories deep inside so I can move forward.

That might come to bite me in the future but right now I don’t care. Better to worry about it when it actually become a problem than now.

As if I didn’t have enough problems already.

Well. Everything so far I did was face it head on.

I had doubts about the temperature in this lair but when it came to it I acted like a maniac and literally self inflicted damage on me just to test how much my body can take.

When I compare some water to thousands of Celsius I think clear winner crazy is the temperature of literal sun.

I got no other choice than just try it out again. Maybe I don’t even need air that much.

Obviously that’s just wishful thinking but who knows maybe there is a chance that I really don’t need it that much.

I have decided to walk into the water tunnel.

Immediately after crossing the boundary between the floors I could already feel the bombardment of information to my senses.

The water was cold but it wasn’t that bad. It felt nice compared to the heat from the lava floor.

I have sensed a lot of creatures of various sizes that moved around further away from me. Some of them had a big reserves of mana but what I thought was impressive was that most of them were moving really fast. It felt a lot more alive than the lava floor. There was also way more monsters. That might mean this floor is bigger but my senses don’t reach that far to know that for certain. I was mapping out the layout already but it was only a bit I will have to move around to complete the map. Before I submerged completely underwater I was a bit afraid but once I was there I felt that there is nothing to be afraid off.

The water was full of mana. It felt like swimming in mana. I could tell even before submerging but only after I did I understood that I can just stay there indefinitely long. My body was somehow supplementing the need for air with the mana from the water directly.

It was all done unconsciously but I knew. I was aware of the process and I had control over it but honestly why would I interrupt such convenient thing that’s beyond me. Right now that’s literally what I needed.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Obviously swimming with my presence erased I have been trying out various things such as how fast I can swim and how well I can move my body in general. I also tested some things with my mana skills.

All in all. I am fairly certain that I am not an aquatic creature but have decent mobility and still can move fairly well. Even bullet jump is working very well.

Then next with the mana I was trying few experiments and I could directly extract mana from the water into me whenever I wanted. It was slightly upgraded version of the unconscious effect that I was already doin and it was amazing. I didn’t need any food. I could stay in this floor forever and I would have never been hungry.

I also tested various techniques that I thought would be usable in fights from which one I liked the most. I have found out that I can manipulate the mana in my surroundings to some ridiculous degree. And that could be useful for many things.

Such as my so favorite thing water blast.

It sounds meh because that’s kinda what it is. But it has some ridiculous power behind it.

Very efficient when it comes to mana consumption as well. It costs me basically nothing. Not that I would have to worry to expense my mana when in this watery mana kingdom.

It feels amazing to be in place like this. I feel so good. The mana constantly flowing all around me made me realize that I probably need huge amounts of mana to even feel decent.

I don’t think I had such clear mind and body control in the floors before this.

It might be also results of the last upgrades but I can tell that this environment is like made for me. Minus the water. But that’s just slight inconvenience at this point. The benefits heavily outweigh the bad.

The only glaring disadvantage I am sure of is I am quite a bit slower than the rest of this floor.

Or well at least the ones I feel for now.

It would be ridiculous that rat moves better than aquatic creatures underwater but it still pisses me off.

Oh well who cares. I don’t plan to undo my hidden presence any time soon so it shouldn’t be that much of problem.

Finally confident enough to start exploring the floor I decided to immediately find the expanse or something equivalent to it. I am not sure how to call that underwater?

Maybe deep sea?

Haha... no way right?

Going past the tunnels so far I have been only met with few piranhas, well it was similar looking. They were actually busy murdering each other anyways and they didn’t notice me at all.

I could already feel a bit more broad space coming up. I think that was it. Despite the floor being so different the layout was still somewhat similar. Even in the lava floor. It always had webs of tunnels connecting to middle area where bigger space was present.

From there then branching tunnels that would usually lead back to the huge complex web of tunnels or some of the entrances up or down.

So judging by that it has to be the same on this floor right? So far it feels like it.

I could also pick up on a massive core deep there. My senses were close enough to feel that already for quite a while but only now I can appreciate the immense power radiating from it.

I have no doubts that whatever it is… it is at least close to the power of Candace.

I think purely judging by the flow of mana it would be a huge octopus. Lets call it Kraken for now.

I don’t think it would be wise to approach every gigantic monster that I find so I don’t. Even with Candace I was practically forced to it with her.

When I was chilling in the vast space directly above the huge Kraken I could clearly feel the flow of monster around me. I decided to tail them. Some of the flows were not so easily discernable to know what exactly it is. Especially because they usually moved very fast. Not like the Kraken chilling.

Even he took me a bit to realize he is octopus.

So with that in mind I have approached the now clearly visible creature. No wonder I couldn’t tell what it is. I have never seen or knew about this on Earth. I had no doubt that it just straight up doesn’t exist there.

It looked like weird jellyfish with teeth some tentacles and big glowing eyes. I also think it had antennas.

Lets just call them jellyfish.

When I think about it, It might be a jellyfish because of the mutations, it just made ridiculous choices.

Who knows I wouldn’t classify as expert when it comes to mutations so I don’t want to judge her choices.

Just when I thought about it… I saw weird twitch of her antennas and it propulsed itself with great speed towards another victim. I was tailing her to witness the deed and she caught a huge whale.

It seemed ridiculous for such animal to attempt to hunt it. But it was clearly winning.

The whale had quite a bit of her movement constricted by the weird tentacles. Then her whatever it is called the jellyfish has… wait? That’s also tentacles I am just dumb… well she has two set of tentacles. One a bit more what I would assume are octopus like tentacles and then her jellyfish tentacles.

Octopus tentacles were holding onto the whale so it couldn’t shake it off properly while she was spreading her translucent tentacles to deal massive damage to the whale and also when all this was happening she was constantly biting it with her teeth. It took about ten seconds for her to kill the whale.

Eh…. Size isn’t everything I guess. That’s some scary damage she has.

Glad it cannot tell about me despite her antennas.

When I got bored of watching deadly jellyfish gulping on entire whale and fending off occasional electric sharks, I decided to look for the entrance for floor five.

The more time I spend in the deep space the more I realize it has to be bigger than the floors before and it took me quite a while to reach the seabed. There I could truly see how scary the Kraken looks like.

It was a monster very hard to describe. I could only tell it felt like it had mouth everywhere on its body. I also knew that it was releasing something that didn’t affect me but when some monsters got too close they just dropped dead. Usually falling straight into one of its many, many mouths.

Well I don’t wanna have anything to do with this monster so I found the passage to some tunnel that I thought would definitely lead me to the floor five.

There was something weird happening. I felt some presence. Not in the tunnels but swim quite a distance above me. It felt. It felt like something other than regular monster. I had to check. It piqued my curiosity. I had to know what it is.

It was swimming insanely fast so the only way how to even have chance to catch up I had to start using my bullet jump. Obviously enhanced by mana. It was performing quite worse than regularly but it essentially turned me into a living torpedo because I was keeping spamming it constantly. I think I might catch up like this.

There was slight problem. The chilling Kraken clearly picked up on a huge source of mana close by. Very unsettled by the prospect he was trying to quite literally fuck me up with its tentacles. I had to masterfully navigate past at least hundred attempts of his infinite tentacles to finally get out of his reach.

I even went past the jellyfish and I was sure it knew about me because of its antennas twitching like crazy. It was fortunately busy still eating the whale and it didn’t really seem keen on chasing me.

I caught up with the source of weird presence. But there was nothing to be seen. I don’t know what the fuck it is. But I am sure there is something right in front of me.

It doesn’t seem like a big thing, in fact certainly I am bigger and it clearly stopped all movement when it felt me speeding towards it.

Definitely noticed me, when I stopped my own movement it probably got startled because it moved a bit but It kept its cool and started to slowly back off.

Really? Do I seem hostile to you. Whatever you are?

It was getting on my nerves but after a while it continued its movement.

I was sure it either thought I am no longer there or that it just had weird feeling and was wrong about it.

I don’t know how would it feel to perceive a mana shooting towards me and then disappear without knowing about it but I guess I would rule it myself as a magic shot from someone or something.

Its good. I know that whatever it is that’s hiding its presence is vastly inferior to me as well. I know for a fact it is even better at hiding presence than the thing in the lake.

I started to torpedo swim, I like to call it this way. It is my constant spamming bullet jump underwater. It feels natural to call it torpedo swim.

And sure… it picked onto me immediately already stopped moving again to try to hide completely. When it did, I catch up to it very shortly.

Its good. I can tell it Is here but It is hiding really well. Truly makes me appreciate how good manipulating own presence is. Way superior to some lame invisibility.

Now the problem is. Oh well it is not that much of a problem. I will show up. Clearly whatever it is, it doesn’t want anything to know about it.

I will fess up first. I hope it has common decency to do so after me.

I am not stupid however. Releasing my presence out in open like this might be suicidal. Even the Kraken itself would probably start hunting me. After a little bit of brainstorming I have found a solution.

So instead I made a field. I erased presence around us.

Essentially I made a bubble. Completely erasing our presence to outside of the bubble but within the bubble it is out in open. At least for me.

The thing got startled again. Don’t know why would it be startled by my impressive and no doubt magnificent looks but that wasn’t important right now. It tried to move away but this time I was intent to follow it. I was tailing it until it realized I want it to show up. It didn’t even break outside of the bubble once that’s how fast I was reacting to its movements.

I also felt it constructing some magic. Not on my watch.

I have disassembled its attempt to use some magic on me and still intently watching the space where I assumed it is.

I had to repeat the process like at least ten times until it finally gave up running or trying to cast something on me.

At the end it even casted something. I didn’t manage to interrupt it fast enough but I felt literally no change to me and nothing bad happened.

It gave up. I knew.

I started to finally see some shapes. Apparently it had to gradually show me its presence. I guess not everyone can go seamlessly between state of presence or no presence.

It was a mermaid. A genuine beautiful mermaid.

Oh my god. OH MY GOD! WHOA!

I have NEVER EVER EVER SEEN ANYTHING MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN THIS. Holy shit. I don’t even think I am affected by any charm or so. It just looks like goddess to me. It is legit the most pretty chick I ever seen. No porn, comic, movie chick or in general any woman was even close to her beauty.

She was scared at first. But quickly changed her behavior.

I don’t know how but she probably realized I am dumbfounded by her looks. She petted me and was trying to go away. Already she was slowly disappearing to my regular senses.

Well obviously that’s when I got normal again. Not that I would be affected by anything but Jesus that was nice. I didn’t let her to go away. She was attempting to cast something again but I just disassembled it again.

This time fortunately it didn’t take her long to realize that I want to see her again.

She appeared again. But this time she had something to say about it.

¨WHAT DO YOU WANT CREATURE!!!!!¨

Whoa. That was telepathy alright. Yeap. Telepathy.

Okay lets give it a shot myself.

¨I want to talk to you lady¨

I could clearly see her shock in the face when a rat could talk to her back with the same speech form.

¨HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE! RAT SPEAKING TO ME WITH OUR PEOPLE LANGUAGE!¨

¨Lady could you please not speak so loudly. I can hear you well. I just wanted to talk to you about few things¨

I am sure she was quite a bit pissed. But she was bested already. She knew she is basically my prisoner.

¨Speak what is it that you want monster?¨

¨Oi oi. Aint you monster too you half fish, half human bitch… I swear to god If she doesn’t treat me with at least a little bit of respect any time soon I will murder her painfully¨

Wait… did I just.. yeap I said that out loud.. urgh. I didn’t really mean it. Fuck there goes any chance for me to befriend her.

She got legit scared. Maybe I got under her skin but she dropped her bravado and was genuinely afraid of me.

¨Please don’t hurt me…¨ She wanted to talk something but I interrupted her. This is not how I want this conversation to go on.

¨ENOUGH! Reset. I didn’t mean to say it. I can be really mean sometimes but that’s only in my own head. This is confusing for me and the fact I am speaking with telepathy is completely new to me. I don’t wanna hurt you at all. In fact I promise you I wouldn’t hurt you no matter what even if you refused to talk to me. But please. Please. Find it in your heart if only a little bit the kindness to speak to me and don’t be afraid¨

I feel like this just might be the most important day in my life. In this life at least. If I fail this. I might be alone forever. Well until the floor fifteen but who knows what awaits me there. Except the probably very deadly offspring of Candace. Damn I wish I could talk to her right now. She would probably advise me how to talk to her. Oh well. Lets hope for the best.

¨I am Felix. Nice to meet you¨

¨Eh…i…i..i am Aqua. Nice to meet you too¨