'Over 2000 years... so much time passed, yet I barely remember any of it.'

'I feel as if I'd just woken up from a very deep slumber...'

'Wait, I'm still trapped in this thing, the reason I even opened my status in the first place was to add some points into Intelligence to get better control of my mana...now is not the time to have an existential crisis.'

...

'There, 20 points should be enough.'

As I mentally accepted the operation, I felt a sense of something wash through me. Everything felt slightly more...defined? Somehow?

'Wow, I can almost feel the particles floating inside me and out through the tunnels. This is insane... I'll add 10 more... just for good measure.'

As expected, the feeling became even more tangible, and I felt like it would be much easier to mingle with the flow of mana now.

'I really missed out by trying so hard to save points. Well, it's too late to regret anyway. I- I just have to forget about the past and think in the present. There's nobody even still alive from before I died anyway. Plus, even if I had somehow found them back then, they wouldn't have noticed me and we wouldn't have been able to communicate anyway. Gotta think possitively.'

'Still, if only I could've seen mom again, at least one more time... Cass too... I hope they lived their lives happily.'

Shaking those thoughts away, I concentrated on utilising my newly improved Intelligence to expertly control my mana and make it go through the narrow tunnels, and found it to be infinitely easier than before.

I soon reached a bottleneck though. There just wasn't enough mana to fill up all of the channels without spreading it too thin and losing control over it.

'Well, I can fix that easily enough'

Adding 20 full points to Capacity, I felt a huge wave of the magicky stuff surge inside me, and immediately put it to good use. As all of the tunnels, which were actually more like channels, were steadily filled up, I realised they formed a very humanoid shape if you ignored its missing left arm.

The mana channels were akin to the nervous and circulatory System all in one, and the amber core (which wasn't actually made of amber) acted as the heart, smack bang in the middle of its chest.

As the last channels were filled up, it felt like something had fallen into place, and suddenly I didn't have to use any concentration to make the mana stay in the paths.

I released all control, and was delighted to confirm that the mana really did stay in place without any input from me. It seemed to constantly lose a little bit, but the amount was much lower than my mana regeneration speed, and it fed itself automatically.

Still, I had made no progress towards getting out of this... thing.

'...I suppose I'll have to start seeing what the enchantments do...'

Pushing a bit of mana into the smallest, most harmless-looking of the enchantments which was located in the pinky toe, I felt it twitch through the movement of my mana.

'Again.'

This time supplying it a steady stream of mana, the pinky toe curled down, and didn't relax until the mana supply was cut off.

'I see... So I'm inside some kind of mana-powered robot? If so, does it have enchantments for vision too?'

To be honest, my old senses were probably the thing I missed the most about being a human, and if I got them back, being stuck inside a clunky robot seemed like a fairly decent deal.

'Let's see...'

The enchantments on the head were by far the most complicated and densely packed, save for a few spots near the core and in the forearm which I didn't even dare get near to for now.

I finally found the two that were used to open the eyelids, and as I filled them up with mana...

They opened, but nothing else changed.

'Do I have to activate the eyes separately? Why make eyelids then? For realism?

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But my question soon got answered. As I tentatively put mana into the enchantment that was engraved all throughout the interior of one of the eyeballs, it started pulling on my mana all on its own, and it beatifully whirred into life as it separated my clumsily controlled mana into countless thin strings that were all precisely sent to their designated areas. It was strangely entrancing, but I didn't have much time to marvel at it.

'I see, once this enchantment is activated, it won't be easily turned off...WHOA!'

Suddenly, an almost painfully blinding light hit me, signalling my connection to a sense I had lost long ago. As I endured the discomfort, I gradually got used to it, and soon realised that it wasn't all that bright, just that it had been so long since I'd been able to see, that even the slightest stimulus was enough to give me quite the shock.

Excitedly, I activated the enchantment for the other eye, and basked at the wonderful feeling of sight. Actually, the place I was in had basically zero light, but I was still somehow able to see just fine.

'I got blinded even though there's practically no light... well, it makes sense taking into account how long it was since I last saw any light at all.'

It took me a few minutes to finish adjusting to the recovered sense, and if I had been able to control my body I would've long started jumping with joy. I soon found the enchantments to move the eyeballs, and looked around the room I was in.

I was lying face-up on what was probably a table, in the middle of a big, stone brick room. The stone ceiling was old and worn, but it still held fast, no sign of crumbling at all, maybe since it was built with mana-enhanced stone. Most importantly, the walls were filled to the brim with shelves carrying various vials with substances that were as colourful as they were dubious, strange powders, and all sorts of things, some of them wrapped in cloth or leather.

On the walls there were also piles of metal, colourful, glowing stones and some other materials, most next to workbenches that were also made from various different stones and woods. They all had at least one strangely shaped apparatus or multiple tools, ranging from giant saws and hammers to minuscule pins. There was also one that only had pointy metal sticks of every possible size and material.

'That one's probably for engraving enchantments... is this place some kind of alchemy and enchantment lab? Well, it's probably the only place where a robot as weird as this would be made in this messed-up world. Still, the metal parts should have been made in a forge. Is it outside, perhaps?'

'For now, let's focus on trying to get this clunky body to move.'

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'Alright, now if I activate the enchantments, all in the correct order...'

The hand of the completely immobile metal creation that was lying on a table suddenly turned into a fist in a fraction of a second. It had been spamming in weird ways for the better part of a day already, but this was the only sensical motion it had made up until this point.

'Aha! I'm starting to get the hang of these enchantments. I hope it'll become second nature soon. Also, it looks like this robot's pretty strong, that was one hell of a clench. Alright, let's keep at it.'

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Over two days had gone past since the first fist was made, and now the whole right arm of the metal creature was agilely air boxing, weaving between punches and blocks. The rest of the body was still lying down face-up and just as stiff as before, though.

'Alright, I've got the arm pretty much figured out. Well, there's still there weird enchantments, but I don't really wanna mess with them. Plus, they're not necessary for movement anyways.'

As I took a short break, I decided to finally try my 'new' skills out. I had been unconsciously avoiding them since they reminded me of my own stupidity and uselessness, but I couldn't shy away from them forever.

I steered myself, and called out inside my mind.

'[Map]'

Suddenly, a 40cm by 40cm square screen appeared in front of my new, mechanical eyes. In the middle was a white dot, which I knew represented me. It was in the middle of a small, stone-grey structure that seemed to be on a hill, surrounded by lush forests in all directions. The map only showed that far.

Zooming in on the middle, I could see the outside of the building perfectly. It was some sort of square tower with... three floors? I couldn't tell if it was two or three since I was seeing it from above. In any case, one thing was clear.

'This skill is useful as hell.'

'Alright, let's try the other one. [Olden Knowledge]!'

'...'

'Maybe it won't activate until I ask a specific question? Uhhh... [Olden Knowledge], what is the thing I'm stuck inside?'

Your soul is inside a specifically designed [Soul Container Orb] to house a theoretically perfect soul. It is also the centrepiece of an [Incomplete Humanoid Mechanical Soul Golem].

'Soul container orb? Incomplete humanoid mechanical soul go- Wait what!? This is a golem? Like those giant stone monsters who I can't even posses because they have no soul? Oh, I guess that's where the 'soul' part of this one comes from. Still, the name is too long. I'll shorten it to... Soultech Golem. Yeah, much better.'

After fooling around with the Skills and trying to cast [Inspection] on multiple enchantments but failing miserably due to them not being living beings, I stopped procrastinating and got on with trying to juggle with the enchantments on the legs to somehow learn how to walk

'This is gonna be fun. That was irony, by the way.'

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After several boring, boring days, I finally managed to not only stand upright, but even move around! It would pitiful if anyone was watching, but having a higher vantage point had at least allowed me to better look around, and apart from spotting multiple other strange ingredients, a dusty book in the corner of the room had come into my field of view and piqued my attention.

'Alright, Mission: Get There Without Falling, Start!'

Crash

I fell.

'Well, there's always the trusty ol' one-armed crawl.'

I pathetically dragged this shiny new body to the corner of the room, finally reaching the tattered leather book and opening it up by the first page.

It was clearly a diary, but the language was strange, similar to English, but with many odd differences, making it impossible to read all in one go. Still, thanks to my enhanced mental capabilities, I eventually managed to piece the meaning of the entries together.

I could only think of one thing after reading it all:

'Well damn.'