I look around me.

I stand at the rocky shore of the small pond I had surfaced from just moments ago. My senses does not feel anything close by, but I shouldn’t relax. After all, that is what had gotten me killed in the first place.

I’m still holding my old body in my hands. Bloody and fragile. I eat it, all of it. I can’t allow the smell of blood to spread, and so, I wash my face in the pool while keeping an eye at the dim tunnel behind me. Nothing, yet.

My status and level didn’t increase from the battle. But despite this, underneath my watchfulness, I can’t help but feel overjoyed.

I pick up a stone from the ground and begin to head onwards.

Chapter 4: Adventure: START<

I have discovered a problem. A huge weakness if you will.. Now I am just the same as any other mindless stone, except - I have a mind.

The problem lies in that it doesn’t seem to be anything near me to take control over. Because of this, I don’t even know where I am!

If I could only confirm the situation, I would be a lot calmer. But as it is now, it seems as though my mind control have quite a short range. And so, it’s rendered completely useless.

But since there isn’t much else to do, I concentrate at feeling the presence of other lives around me. I should be able to do it. If there is anything here, that is..

And entirely correct, after some time my mind hits something hard. It seems as if I panicked too early.

I press my consciousness against the surface of what seems to be a wall, and slowly transcends the bounds of the barrier keeping me out.

The creature seems to have noticed, and in a hurry to get rid of me, it puts all it’s being into pushing me back, out of it’s mind. However, the thoughts are disoriented and unclear, so I can block the attack fairly easily.

I make use of the gained momentum, and while the defender is still in shock, I pierce its defenses.

.. I can feel. The cold water against my streamlined body and limbs, the current, and vibrations from prey not to far away. Amazing, I never thought I would have been so grateful for being able to feel again, but that is not all. I can see. After the darkness before I met the witch, as well as just now, I feel like I yet again have been completely blinded by the sharp light.

Moreover, my vision is a little bit disorientating and very different from a humans, which merely contributes to the fluster of impressions.

Yet I can still make use of sight and I soon grow accustomed to the presence of the pillars of sunshine piercing the water around me.

You see, while it’s not very deep down, I seem to be at the bottom of the sea.

I turn my vision to the bottom and carefully watch my original body. It looks like a completely normal rock..

Imagine a stone you could find at the roadside, not to small, nor big, something that could easily be held in your hand. That is my appearance. Well, how goes the saying now again? Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, or maybe “the inside is more important than the outside”? Something like that.

I look at the my own status.

Status Window:

-No Name- [Lesser Squid Lv. 1] (Controlled)

HP: 19/20

MP: 1/1

Strength: 10

Agility: 15

Intelligence: 10

Stamina: 86%

Passive Skills:

-

Active Skills:

[Swim Lv. 3] [Embrace Lv. 1]

Titles:

-

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Compared to my own status the values are very high, all except intelligence and MP.

But that goes without saying since I have the brain capacity of a human.

However it’s lacking skills to the extent that it only owns two. While the first one’s effect is obvious, what’s the point of the second one?

[Embrace]:

Tightly hugs something, exerting compressive force. Inborn skill.

Ah, I get it. This is the squids “killer-move”. Well then, let’s try it out while experimenting a little!

Wait!

Wha, it’s stamina is dropping rapidly! Why?

Startled I loosen the grip of the squids consciousness and it quickly begins to oppose me, desperately, fighting for oxygen.

Oh.. That was rather stupid of me, wasn’t it? I just supposed that even the conscious processes such as breathing would continue automatically. That is clearly not the case. Rather, I probably will have to avoid taking over at 100% in the future. That way, I should be safe from drown myself or having to worry about how to breath as a squid..

Through, even with that out of the world, this is still rather hard. Finding the balance between complete control and survival of the target I mean.

After a few minutes of testing I decide to settle with 8-2 for now, since I can not go any further without risking being distracted by the squid's body.

As the day passes I hunt small fish in the surroundings, but they are not my prior objective. I’m practising to move. The swim skill is extremely useful, since it even makes navigating in this three dimensional space relatively easy.

I also test the limits of my mind controll. After all, it would be bad to make a devastating discovery during a battle..

Apparently, when one have gotten the control of an individual's body it can be moved further away from the original body without losing contact.

But not to far, my limit seems to be about 3 meters. Which means that I would have to carry my original body with my if I want to move further than that.

Right now, I am luring at the bottom, right under a school of fish. It’s time to test my new body.

I patiently mark out a single silver-sparkling fish and prepare to make my move. No, observing it up close, it looks like a fry, not even worthy of being called “fish” yet.

Well, fish or fry doesn’t matter, the result should be the same. I’m higher up in the food chain as a squid anyway.

While making full use of my swimming skill I shot forth like a torpedo right into the fish school from below. I focus on the one closest to me and while all other fry flees in panic, my prey is caught within my eighth arms. I quickly use embrace and crush the small fish's entrails, killing it instantly.

Notification:

The required experience level have been reached. Individual -No Name- [Living Stone Lv. 1] has become a [Living Stone Lv. 2]

Controlled individual -No Name- [Lesser Squid Lv. 1] has become a [Lesser Squid Lv. 2]

.. Now that is interesting! To think that both of us gain experience from hunting.

Upon till now I thought that I would have to make the squid self destruct in the future, just to level up myself.

But it seems that it would be more profitable if I keep it alive. This way, it will gain experience together with me and at the same time I will become more skilled at using it. And just like that, kill two flies in one sweep.

Thus, to celebrate my first kill, let the experience-grind begin!