I was startled as suddenly I could see and feel things around me.

It appeared that I was surrounded by dirt on all sides. The moist surface atop of me caused me to become unable to move my arms or legs at all. It seemed that I could see, but everything around me was covered in dirt so I wasn't sure. Currently, there was only darkness.

I considered where I was and how I got there. I tried recalling my memories, but all I knew was that I had flown through a dark tunnel alongside multiple other orbs of light, me being an orb of light as well. Additionally, I had knowledge of a place called “Earth” but had no recollection of the life that I led there.

[Level: 1]

[Race: Living Bioweapon]

[Skills: ]

* [Mana Absorption]

* [Growth]

* [Reinforce]

* [Body Manipulation]

* [All Sense (Passive)]

What’s this…race, skills, and level?

This somewhat reminded me of RPG games that also had information panels. Was I in a video game then?

My race, Living bioweapon, sounded menacing. Was I a virus of some sort? So I wasn’t human anymore? Too many questions I couldn't answer yet. I needed to find out more information about where and what I was.

Thinking back to my knowledge of light novels, the only thing I could do at the moment was to see what my skills did. I tried to will the panel to look specifically into the skills to see some sort of description about them at least.

[Mana Absorption]

Absorb surrounding mana into the body

[Growth]

Increase your body size

[Reinforce]

Strengths your body’s flesh, increasing its durability and muscle power

[Body Manipulation]

Manipulate your body in various ways

[All Sense (Passive)]

You can constantly see, hear, smell, and feel on all parts of your body allowing for any part of your body to act as the eyes and ears.

Aha, it worked! I could see the description of each of my "Skills", even though it did not seem like a lot.

Hmm...Mana?

[Mana Absorption] implied that there had to be mana in this world, meaning this couldn't have been Earth. It also hinted that in this place, wherever I was, beings could use magic.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Ah…magic. A concept that was exciting yet dangerous. I certainly don’t want to run into an all-powerful mage or something of that sort. But if I got stronger, I wouldn't need to worry about such things. So not wasting any precious time, I decided to experiment with my new body and the skills it had.

I thought of one skill to activate, [Body Manipulation]. Soon, I began to feel something flowing inside of me, possibly mana? After a while, I managed to determine that it was coming from the center of my being.

[Body Manipulation] caused me to become more aware of my form and shape. I believed that I was a sphere? And as I concentrated on the skill and my "body", I tried to manipulate myself to grow out a small tendril. Eventually, I managed to extend just a little nub, weakly pushing back against the dirt.

And the moment I deactivated the skill the small nub retreated, causing my body to return to its original form.

Feeling excited, I decided that next, I would try [All Sense].

I activated [All Sense] and immediately noticed a difference as my whole being became more sensitive. This caused me to become even more aware of my body. The spherical shape was pulsating!

I could also tell that my body was made out of a dark gooey substance that looked generally disgusting.

Then I thought of my body size…I still wasn’t sure how big I was at the moment, as I had nothing to compare myself to. I could be as big as an elephant or as small as an ant. Maybe I was microscopic? No, I would be able to see other microscopic creatures if that was the case.

Leaving that thought behind, I moved on to the next skill.

When I used [Mana Absorption], the energy I noticed before appeared to be pulled into me, blue and slightly dull. It came in through the outer parts of my body and headed towards the middle, forming an orb of swirling blue energy. The longer I used the skill the more the mana seemed to condense. Soon enough it began to become a deep shade of blue which sometimes flickered with lighter colors.

After a while I noticed the mana intake of the skill was reduced, maybe the mana of the surroundings was getting drained by me? I waited longer but the main mana gain plateaued, leading me to believe that mana constantly refilled the surrounding dirt at a base regeneration rate.

Beautiful…

With this blob of mana in me now, I wanted to test out the skills again. Perhaps there would be changes? Using [Body Manipulation] I tried to extend a tendril out once more.

The result was significantly better this time but also drew upon the orb of mana, siphoning the mana towards the point where I wanted to extend out the tendril.

This time it grew much longer and seemed like a genuine tentacle.

Coooool!

Then, using [Mana Absorption] alongside [Body Manipulation] I tested to see if I could draw in more mana this way.

I could, but this mana couldn’t recoup the costs of using body manipulation. It was effective if I didn’t have to focus on too many things at once, using multiple skills was already difficult. It gave me a headache just thinking about it.

Now I just had two skills left, [Reinforce] and [Growth].

I used [Reinforce]. Mana from the swirling sphere was once again siphoned, but this time the mana spread across my entire body and seeped into it. I could feel the mana entering my flesh and toughening it, increasing their overall endurance.

Using [Growth] I extended out a small tendril, a significant amount of mana was taken to grow it. But it was worth it in the long run as the more surface area there was the more mana I could absorb. It was a win-win situation.

I continued this cycle of growing and absorbing mana, while occasionally playing around with body manipulation, trying to make different shapes and such. Each time I cycled through growth and absorption I made the mana sphere grow more and more, trying to probe if there was a mana capacity limit

Either the mana capacity limit was high, my mana gain was low, or there was no limit to how much mana I could store. How riveting a prospect that the last one was.

Feeling comfortable with the mana absorption rate, I decided to switch out the [Growth] part of the cycle with [Reinforce] to increase my survivability. If there were any threats out there that were tougher and stronger than me, then I would need to get stronger. In video games, power and strength were the determining factors between life and death.

Whilst thinking about this, I considered several situations and how to effectively deal with them. I experimented using [Body Manipulation] to test out different things. It turned out that I could make my flesh sharp and rubbery as well, increasing a lot of my options.

I had to be more careful in the future, and I had to test out any skills I had to their limits to see if I could find any way to exploit them or use them more effectively. The creatures in this world may or may not have the same system I had, thus I must remember to never underestimate my opponent's abilities. Doing so could be the mistake that could lead me to my death.