[ Criteria Met. Lesser Energy Tendrils leveled up. ]

[ Criteria Met. Lesser Energy Manipulation leveled up. ]

[ Criteria Met. Lesser Identify leveled up. ]

[ Criteria Met. Lesser Unknown Nucleus leveled up. ]

Euphoria tore through the crystal as it felt itself undergo a qualitative change. Pure energy gushed from the crystal into the surroundings. What little terra attribute energy was in the area was forced away by the flood. The surrounding pressure increased rapidly bringing with it that dreaded ‘threat’.

Stuck between euphoria and fear, the crystal remained stunned, unable to even react. The gushing pure energy only increased with the excess energy slipping into the fissures of the mountain. Pressure continued to build, and yet the ‘threat’ seemed no more dangerous than it had moments ago.

[ Criteria Met: Requesting unlock of racial skill Dungeoneer. ]

[ Failed. Request denied. ]

[ Override: Forcing unlock of racial skill Dungeoneer. ]

[ Success. Racial skill Dungeoneer acquired. ]

[ Adaptation: Racial skill Dungeoneer mutated to unique skill Energy Fabricator. ]

The crystal’s size expanded by another 60 or so millimeters. The once pebble, now rock, felt information flow into it, tearing apart what internal circuits that supported it up until now. The mesh of knowledge shattered and reformed becoming even more dense than before.

The vague thoughts that drove its innovation for survival became more refined. Memories of unknown origin became accessible to the crystal, though they seemed more like a database of sorts rather than actual memories.

The crystal scoured the memories, the results of which left it thoughtless. Magic, science, theology, and other branches of discovery and revolution foreign to the crystal elucidated it. The new knowledge was too much for the crystal and so put to the back of its mind. Rather, the crystal was more curious about the new unique skill it obtained.

[ Lesser Identify: Energy Fabricator. ]

Enables construction via energy.

‘Useless as always.’

The crystal didn’t hold back on its opinion of [Lesser Identify], however it refused to stop using it as it knew usage was the primary way of leveling skills. While the skill was pitiful, it did provide at least something, which was technically better than nothing.

Pure energy continued gushing from the crystal, something it took less as a threat or danger than before. Despite the continuous rise in pressure, the ‘threat’ didn’t appear to come back. Rather, the crystal felt the surroundings become more ‘homely’, instead.

Every second that passed, every kilopascal introduced, and every assessment the crystal made resulted in subtle changes to its surroundings. An inexplicable connection formed between the crystal and the land around it.

[Energy Perception] seemed to link itself with the surroundings, expanding the crystals view far beyond its tendrils and nucleus. The influx of new information overwhelmed the little crystal, tearing at the freshly formed wirings inside it. Migraines assaulted its less than average mind in waves. Every expansion of what it now understood was its territory came with another burst of pain.

Debilitated from the onslaught, the crystal lost control of [Lesser Energy Tendrils] and [Lesser Energy Manipulation]. The energy forming the web of semi-transparent fibers dispersed leaving behind a lonely silver rock.

Despite what seemed to be hours of residual pain and virtual throbs in its mind, the crystal managed to recover enough to start making sense of its situation once more. It found right off the bat that it was no longer limited to the immediate area around its nucleus.

A mental map formed as it spread its consciousness through what it knew to be its own territory. Fueled by the pure energy that exploded from it after leveling up, the phenomena that claimed the territory followed every fissure until reaching dead ends.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The crystal’s mind traced every microfracture, every fissure, every cavity, and eventually stopped at a massive crevasse. The crystal found the rift fascinating as its territory seemed to extend into the crevasse, yet the territory only existed in the air. By instinct, it understood that eventually it could claim the crevasse's everything, however it required enough energy to do so. For now, it was limited to the immediate air surrounding the crevasse.

Another interesting thing it found was an opening far larger than anything discovered by it so far. In fact, it found the region so massive, that it was unable to see anything outside its territory. Not only was the region a behemoth in size, it contained things the crystal never saw before as well and in such diversity that it didn’t know where to start.

With so much to discover and explore, the crystal placed the mammoth task on the back burner and instead chose to experiment. [Energy Fabricator] called out to it in ways it could only describe as an addiction. As it understood now, at least on a naive conceptual level, of what energy was, it collected what terra attribute energy it could from the surroundings and used [Energy Fabricator] on it.

Its mind was latched onto the blob of energy while [Energy Fabricator] went to work. Seconds, minutes, hours passed. Nothing. Nothing happened. The crystal was exasperated. Everything seemed to work. The skill was active, it knew that for sure. The energy was compatible with the skill, as was the application of the skill to it.

‘What am I doing wrong?’

The crystal was at a loss on how to proceed. It turned to the memories database that it once pushed aside, scouring it for ideas. The knowledge was there about advanced topics such as spatial resonance, genetic engineering, and mana discordance, yet the crystal felt instinctively as if concepts were useless to it as it was now.

Drained from the failure, the crystal let its mind wander, glancing over its territory until it landed on a particularly shiny crystal. No, the crystal wasn’t looking at itself, rather perhaps a cousin of sorts? The brown color was rather attractive and as the crystal took a closer look, it used [Lesser Identify].

[ Lesser Identify: Advanced Terra Crystal. ]

A crystal capable of converting unattributed energy to terra attributed energy.

As it understood the meaning, the crystal used [Mana Perception] on its new found discovery. Pure energy that hovered around the brown crystal seemed to be drawn into it and expelled back out as terra attributed energy.

What the crystal found interesting was how pristine the terra energy happened to be. Unlike the diluted, slow moving, less potent terra energy seeping from the ground around it, the high quality terra energy seemed to flow with a mind of its own. A continuous stream of the energy spread across the ground as if spreading out from the crystal at the center.

Though it never accessed the memories, ‘density difference’ somehow entered the crystal’s mind. [Lesser Energy Manipulation] kicked off and the crystal tried pulling on the pooled energy. To its pleasure, the pristine terra energy crawled its way towards the crystals nucleus. It took a few days of concerted effort to bring the energy close to it, however once it arrived, the crystal felt as if the effort was worth it.

[Lesser Energy Circulation] and [Lesser Terra Assimilation] kicked off in full throttle. The pristine energy took on a life of its own, spiraling around the crystal’s nucleus and soaking into it. Filled with an energy more potent than it ever felt before, the crystal experienced a searing pain for the first time. [Lesser Energy Manipulation] cut off its control, dispersing the potent energy into the surroundings. An outside observation would show the pristine terra energy assimilating and diluting into its weaker form.

Pain continued to wrack the crystal, familiar sensations once more tearing through it, though the euphoria was overshadowed by a sheering sensation. Internal twitches brought it back into control of itself. It used [Lesser Energy Perception] to check out its situation and found cracks running across its surface.

A quick [Lesser Identify] solved the puzzle as the crystal couldn’t help but gasp internally at its own status.

[ Lesser Identify: Lesser Unknown Nucleus ]

Name: N/A

Race: Unknown Nucleus

Rank: Lesser

Level: 5

Health: 3/22

Mana: 2/80

A shiver went down the crystal’s metaphorical spine as it saw its health barrel down to settle at 3. It realized how very close it came to suicide with its blunder just now. More than a moment was required before the crystal came to terms with its situation. It continued down the status page [Lesser Identify] showed it. Although it felt pain, it also felt that leveling sensation.

Lesser Energy Circulation - Level 9

Lesser Energy Manipulation - Level 7

Lesser Terra Assimilation - Level 7

Lesser Energy Perception - Level 8

Lesser Proprioception - Level 9

Lesser Energetic Growth - Level 5

Lesser Energy Resistance - Level 2

Lesser Reactor - Level 5

Lesser Chemistry - Level 5

‘All it took was nearly dying to have level ups across the board.’

The sarcastic revelation heard only by the crystal itself died out just as quickly as it flared up. Recovery was the crystal’s new priority. The dramatic decrease in health, the fractured crystal nucleus, and the shards of what it could only assume were itself laying on the ground, were enough to drive the crystal away from interacting that energy that potent.

Bit once twice shy described the situation perfectly. Though it remained curious about it, it chose to direct that curiosity towards elsewhere. In particular, the new open area called for it. Consumed by curiosity over the new areas discovered and without much to do aside from regenerating what damage occurred to it and tinkering around, the crystal spent the next several years with [Lesser Identify] as its best friend.

First result it received.

[ Lesser Identify: Wild Zoysia. ]

A common strain of soft grass.