Wasn’t there like some sort of position you should take if you’re falling out of a plane?! Like hell, I’ll be able to remember that now! I keep falling down the gigantic crevice, the dim green lights of the ecosystem down below grow brighter while the Novum Ape King’s corpse flips wildly next to me in the air.
The walls around the crevice begin to open up and all sorts of plants surround the walls now, giant bioluminescent mushrooms come into view down below me. Wait! If there’s greenery down there, maybe I can fall into a big tree or something to stop my fall! I compose my posture and try to force myself into a skydiver pose, but I don’t even know how and flip up and over myself.
The trees are now closer into view and they are gigantic! Maybe something could actually happen if I held onto it there! As I close in, I meet one of them by pure chance, I grab onto it with sheer force, but each branch I clip immediately breaks under my weight. The tree’s branches pull me closer to the tree and I grip onto its trunk for my dear life using [Crushing Grip].
More and more branches snap under my weight, while the Novum Ape King has already crashed into the forest next to me. Like a meteor crashing into the earth, everything in a radius around the giant ape’s corpse is pushed outward by a shockwave. Luckily, the tree I’m using to fight gravity is also affected and bends outwards.
Finally, my descent stops, my metal fingers are buried into the trunk of the tree, and smoke is emanating from the carved line I ran through it. Hanging onto the bent tree like a koala baby onto its mother I finally decide to loosen my grip and look around. The entire forest around the giant ape is bent outward.
Gigantic trees around the impact zone hang backward from it. I lie on one of them, looking more akin to a sloth than a robot. Between my legs hang the remnants of hundreds of branches that broke my fall and my hands look like someone sandblasted them.
I-I survived! Hooolly crap! How the hell did I survive that?! I mean I know how…but HOW?! I knew the Motus Intrepid was strong, but this was absurd, [Crushing Grip] absolutely mangled the tree I used to break my fall and my hands. And the aftermath of the giant ape’s fall doesn’t look much better.
Inching my way down the tree, I realize my hands simply don’t have the same power they had before so I’m forced to rely on my legs for the descent. When I finally get down to floor level, I only realize the destruction that my punching that ape in its chest brought. It looks like a tiny meteor hit the place.
I leave the ape where it is, that giant corpse is only going to attract hungry things and I’m not interested in any more fights today. I move into the forest in honesty and am amazed by its sheer size, I feel like I shrunk down. The grass is either taller than me or nonexistent and the trees are so tall and spaced so far apart that you wouldn’t even need to cut down trees to make a road through here.
My ears don’t pick up any sounds except for a long droning noise which I can’t make out. The ground under my feet is hard but still looks like dirt, unlike you’d expect to form a gigantic cave like this one. Everything down here is shrouded in a damp green light emanating from mushrooms that dot the place, there is no natural light down so deep. The mushrooms come in all sizes, some tiny and the same size as a normal mushroom, others as big as a person and the biggest can be seen in the distance challenging the trees in a size competition.
I fell so deep…How am I ever going to get back up to the surface? And I was just about to get to the capital with Seline and Emma too… “I wonder what they’re thinking right now…” I accidentally speak out loud. Seline and Emma showed some real concern about me when I got grabbed by the Novum Ape King, they probably think I’m dead right now. I think over the whole process again and stop after I punched the Ape King.
Oh yeah, I leveled up when I punched the Novum King Ape, I should probably look at what I got. I open up the Menu.
Name: Andy
Race: Motus Intrepid
Level: 16
HP: 213/250
MP: 0/0
Strength: 150
Dexterity: 50
Agility: 30
Constitution: 100
Intelligence: 25
Wisdom: 30
Skills:
Power Punch, Crushing Grip, Devastating Kick
Points: 15
Nice, a new [Skill] and finally enough Points to buy something useful from the [Skill Shop]. While we’re at it, I look at the [Skill Shop].
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Skill Shop
Skills
Description
Cost
Devastating Kick
Kicks performed will be significantly more powerful
5 Pts. (Unlocked)
Overclock
Accelerate thought processes for a short amount of time
8 Pts.
Heightened Senses
Your senses will be heightened permanently
10 Pts.
Alternate Cameras
Alternate Vision Modules: Heat, Laser, and Night Vision
15 Pts.
Mana Vision Model
Gain the ability to perceive Mana in your surroundings.
15 Pts.
Overwhelming Strength
Boost strength for a short amount of time, the damage will be taken in response and strength will be diminished temporarily thereafter
15 Pts.
Regeneration
By using MP, wounds on your body can be healed
15 Pts.
Elemental Power
Unlock the ability to imbue yourself with an element most attuned to you for a short time. Requires MP.
25 Pts.
Damn really looks like a lot of the stuff here requires MP, I’ll need an Evolution that allows me to have MP. Now finally, let’s look at Future Evolutions.
Possible Future Evolutions
Evolution
Description
Requirements
Robot(Common)
A nondescript upgrade to all of your stats.
-Level 20
Servant Robot (Uncommon)
Your body will be augmented to be better suited to serving someone
-Level 30-Subservient Nature
Pugilist Robot(Rare)
You gain Hand-Combat [Arts] and your body becomes augmented for hand-to-hand combat.
-Level 40-Simple Hand-Combat Knowledge
Killer Robot(Rare)
Your body will be transformed into a machine perfect for killing. You can heal yourself using blood, but it also acts as fuel
-Level 50-Heartless and Violent Nature
Android(Epic)
Gain a more human exterior, voice, and the [Class] System.
-Level 80-Prolonged Human Cohabitation-Human Psyche
What the hell?! Where did the Mage Robot go?! Last time there was a robot variant that could let me use Magic! I need to get my body repaired! I think a bit about the mechanics of the Possible Future Evolutions, but the only concrete reasons for their disappearance I could think of are the same as the new Additions. Maybe my current state of mind is taken into consideration when presenting these…
I came to a new world of Swords and Magic and was amazed by the possibilities of magic, so the System gave me the Mage Robot Evolution, but now that I practically only use my first, it’s removed that. Same with the Strategist Robot, before I used to be at least a bit more mindful, but now I simply run in and crush whatever I’m fighting with my [Skills].
In return, I gained the Android and Servant Evolutionary Options, presumably because I hung out too much with Seline and Emma. Well, I can’t exactly say that I wasn’t acting like a Servant… The Android Evolution looks very attractive to me, if that one looked anything like how I imagined it looking, then people might stop looking at me weirdly and stop thinking I’m a monster!
Well, all of these are so far away, guess I’ll just need to keep leveling… I look around once more, the green light down here is pleasant, but I can’t help but feel uneasy. I’m deep underground in some sort of ecosystem which nobody even knows that it exists and I have no way out. I guess I’ll just go in one direction to find a wall, then find a way upward around that wall. Can’t do much more…
I keep walking in one direction and keep watch for anything, but it feels like there simply isn’t anything here. It’s way too unnaturally quiet down here, with no water dripping, no rocks breaking, and no animals of any sort to be seen or heard in any direction. It feels like I’m a shrunken person walking around with some night vision goggles on my head.
The worst thing though is, I can’t gauge time. I could be walking for an hour or a day and my robot body wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, I try and keep landmarks in mind, like giant mushrooms and important trees but it doesn’t work as well as I thought.
The dry and hard dirt sits under my feet, there aren’t any leaves to be found here, even though this is a forest. The tall grass breaks my vision once again, I keep straight by looking into the sky and following the next giant mushroom. I keep walking, but suddenly, the green lights grow dimmer and dimmer, and the trees and grass grow sparse and smaller until I am completely enveloped by darkness.
Damn, now I can’t see anything! Should I try and make a torch? Last time I had an idea because I had a flint with me… I try to find some suitable firewood around me, but in all my time here, I’ve never even seen leaves and much less fallen branches, so I wouldn’t even know what to use to start a fire.
Wait, wasn’t there something in the [Skill Shop] I could buy? I look once more and realize that [Alternate Cameras] is just what I need. But I can’t spend all my points now, I just got so many! I think for a bit while standing on the cusp of complete darkness. Hmm, wait! I’ve got a great idea! I try and imagine my LCD Face turning into a completely white screen, slightly illuminating whatever I’m facing and it works! Damn, I’m smart!
As I keep walking, the ground under my feet slowly turns from dirt into hard stone, I still can’t find any walls around me. It feels like I’m in a large emptiness, there is nothing around me. The low droning noise is still the only sound that can be heard, slightly accompanied by my metallic footsteps clanging against the hard rock I’m walking on. As I keep walking the lush and green scenery behind me gets smaller and smaller. Just as I’m looking behind, I resoundingly run into something hard with a Bang! When I turn my head to inspect what I ran into, I see a large rock face right before me.
Finally! How large is this cavern?! As I’m inspecting the wall in front of me for any opening, I finally hear a new sound, the scuttling of feet, and a lot of them. I look around with my flashlight face for a bit and when I look up, I see the source of the noise. Hundreds of cat-sized insects cling to the wall, running into the wall and creating a loud noise must’ve piqued their interest, when my light hits then they scuttle back into the darkness in a panic. Oh god, that is disgusting. I wouldn’t want any of those near me…
I don’t find any openings in the rock face nearby, so I decide to follow the wall in one direction and keep walking until I do, but I quickly notice something, the scuttling noises never stops. When I turn to look where it comes from again, I see the bugs on the wall following me, but they’re not just on the wall, they’re also in front of me, on my side, and behind me. I’m surrounded by giant insects… Gross! Why couldn't I just get to the capital!?