Arnold now had somewhat of an idea of his circumstances. He had been born on an asteroid, and his body would be able to survive as long as he had enough mana to sustain himself. The main problems now were finding a way to survive but still have enough mana to find a way off of the asteroid using his newfound abilities, and finding another place he could sustain himself when the asteroid no longer could, as it seemed like there would be very little mana to absorb, at least on the surface of the asteroid.
He also wanted to start exploring the system and what all of the information on his status meant. Unfortunately, he suspected it would be hard to look too deep into his status information for the time being due to having to focus more on surviving and finding out how to use the abilities at his disposal to find a way off the asteroid to somewhere with more mana and energy.
It had been a couple of hours since he found out that he was able to molt as a natural defense against losing body heat in space, and he found that the layer of the flexible shell, his cuticle, had regrown slightly denser after he molted for the first time. He suspected that every time he molts, his body would regrow the cuticle slightly stronger than before, until eventually, he would no longer have to molt due to no longer losing any heat. Although, that would likely be a long way into the future if he even managed to survive that long.
No, I can’t be thinking like that. I must stay positive. I will survive and live this second chance to the fullest. I should go over my status one more time to check what kind of magic I might be able to use to help me leave. Status.
Name: Astrophel (Arnold Wagner)
Species: Space Worm
Rank: 1
Level: 2/10 (10/20 exp)
Titles: Star Lover
Dominions: Space, Stars, Earth
Mana: 999/1000
Innate Skills: Basic Space Manipulation (1/100), Basic Mana Type Converter (2/100)
General Skills: Lesser Mana Sense (1/100)
Ok, firstly, it says that I have the dominions of Space, Stars, and Earth. That probably means that these are the types of magic that I can use. My innate skills are [Basic Space Manipulation], and [Basic Mana Type Converter]. Now I know for a fact that I am keeping [Basic Mana Type Converter] constantly in effect to convert sunlight and cosmic radiation from the stars into Mana, albeit at a pretty horrid conversion rate based on the tiny trickle of mana I am being fed. At least it manages to keep my mana capacity pretty much at its limit unless I actively start using other abilities. Then for sure, it would be unable to keep up with my mana consumption.
Thankfully, constantly using it has managed to make it level up to level two, so there was a very slight improvement in the conversion rate.
I believe now my main priority will be to investigate [Basic Space Manipulation]. Just from the name of the skill, it probably has the potential to let me leave. Maybe I can make portals or something similar, although likely not for a while due to the low level of the skill. This skill is probably going to be very important in me finding out how to leave this asteroid and find another place to live. Now, I just need to figure out how to manipulate… space.
Arnold thought that figuring out how to use a skill that literally had to do with the manipulation of a fundamental part of reality was going to be hard. It turns out, it came almost instinctually to him, most likely because it was. It was one of his two innate skills, an ability that had likely been with his species since their birth. It seemed that all that he had to do was focus on what he wanted to happen, and eventually, he got a reaction.
It took him a bit of time and experimentation, but he was pretty sure he had figured out the most basic ways of using [Basic Space Manipulation]. It seemed that the system agreed as well, as he had gained three levels in the skill since had started experimenting. So far, he had found that when he focused on using the ability, he sort of just instinctually moved his space mana to influence the space near him. The first time he managed to make something happen, he was caught off guard as the space in front of him distorted and stretched ever so slightly. If he had been able to see, Arnold would have been able to see the stars behind the small area of space he had distorted become blurry and distorted as well.
Unfortunately, he had to make do with what he had, which was a lackluster [Lesser Mana Sense], which was able to show him what it looked like through mana, how his mana interacted with the fabric of space where his mana touched it. It looked pretty weird, his mana was uncontrolled and sort of just pulled the fabric in a bunch of random directions for a couple of seconds and then faded away.
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The fabric looked very odd to his mana sense to say the least. It was hard to describe, mostly because his mana sense was not very good, combined with the fact he was looking at a facet of reality that probably held the universe together.
Yeah, this is going to take some practice to get the hang of it. It doesn’t help that my mana-sensing ability is so bad I can only barely make out what it is doing. It's just kind of all this fuzzy deep blue colored mess. I guess that is the color of my space mana, a deep blue. That’s pretty relieving at least. I am able to see color through my mana sense. At least I don’t see in black and white. That would be rather unfortunate, to say the least.
If my space magic is blue, I wonder what color other types of mana look like to my mana sense. If water was also blue, would it just be a different type of blue? Man, I have so many questions.
Rather unsurprisingly, Arnold was extremely curious about magic and the universe that he had found himself lost in, to say the least.
Does magic follow any rules like my universe? Is this universe even bound by the same rules at all compared to my home universe? No wait, I can’t even call it my home universe anymore. This is my new home universe, whether I like it or not. I should probably call it my old universe. I wonder how my family is doing. Will I ever see them again? How will I even identify them?
He wriggled his body to shake the distracting thoughts out of his head. Arnold also had to keep in mind that although it was probably only a negligible amount, he would likely lose body heat faster the more he moved around, thus causing him to molt and lose mana faster.
My main goal should be to figure out a way to use my space manipulation skill to leave this asteroid after I take as much mana from it as I can get, as well as practice my other abilities, especially my [Lesser Mana Sesne] so that I have a more reliable way to see. I should also keep in mind that I need to find someplace with mana for me after I leave the asteroid. Oh yeah, also, I would like to not die. That would be preferable.
And with that, Arnold, or Astrophel, got to work. He began trying to figure out ways to utilize his [Basic Space Manipulation] to move faster, or teleport, or something that would let him be able to move faster through space. At the same time, he also explored the asteroid for any sources of mana he could find by tunneling and using his mana sense, because there was nothing on the surface of the asteroid, just a barren surface. Unfortunately, he was also unable to use his mana sense to peer into the asteroid to look for any mana because his mana sensing ability was so weak that it barely penetrated a foot through the rock. He had to take a break every few hours from his slow tunneling, during which he practiced using his [Basic Space Manipulation].
Around what Arnold thought was about two days later (he had molted twice), constantly working on his abilities and tunneling, he caught a break. He had discovered that in what he assumed was the center of the asteroid, there was a rather decently sized chunk of what Arnold could only describe as naturally grown mana crystals. The deposit was twice the size of his body, and he was about a meter long, maybe just over, and somewhere around half a foot in terms of thickness. So this strange crystal deposit was by no means small, at least not for a creature the size of Arnold and at his level and rank.
Whew. Now that I have found a source of mana that will be able to sustain me for a while, I should only absorb the mana inside when I start running low on mana. Speaking of, how much do I have now? Status.
Name: Astrophel (Arnold Wagner)
Species: Space Worm
Rank: 1
Level: 2/10 (10/20 exp)
Titles: Star Lover
Dominions: Space, Stars, Earth
Mana: 548/1000
Innate Skills: Basic Space Manipulation (6/100), Basic Mana Type Converter (7/100)
Space Dominion Skills: Lesser Spacial Sight (2/100)
General Skills: Lesser Mana Sense (9/100), Identify (1/100)
548 mana. Enough to keep Arnold going for a while, however using his abilities so much, no matter how minor, massively increased the drain on his reserves. In just two days, he had gone from a capped-out mana storage to just over half-full. Granted, he was almost always using at least one of his skills at all times, but he really didn’t want to find out what happened when he got down to zero mana. Thankfully, his [Basic Mana Type Converter] skill had leveled up from him keeping it almost constantly in use to gain mana from the mana radiated from the nearest stars. Also, he had gained a new skill by practicing his [Basic Space Manipulation]. This new skill let him faintly see all objects in space in a two-meter sphere around him. It made it so that when he used it, the world was sort of blueish and he could faintly see the outlines of objects all around him. This was what led to him finding the deposit of mana crystals in the center of the asteroid.
I also gained an interesting general skill, [identify]. It let me be able to identify different objects, as well as living things, probably.
He didn’t know for sure though, as nothing was living for him to test it on. He presumed it took him so long to get this skill simply because there was nothing new for him to identify until he stumbled upon the mana crystals, which is when he gained this new skill.
Wait a minute, I might be an idiot. Why wouldn’t I be able to use [Identify] on myself? Identify.
Space Worm - Rank 1
Wow, that’s all it gives me? I guess that makes sense, I only just got it. It will probably be able to give me more information as it levels up.
His largest gain over the past two days, however, was learning how to stretch and grip space. It did take some getting used to, but as he gained proficiency in using the skill, he figured out how to stretch space in only the directions he wanted it to, and then let it naturally spring back. He then had an idea.
What if I could somehow grip this stretched space, and then use it to propel me forwards? I would probably be able to send myself shooting forward at vast speeds, maybe even fast enough to properly be able to travel through space!
He got the feeling figuring out how to manifest this idea into reality was going to take a lot of practice and experimentation, which meant a lot of mana. So naturally, he got busy snacking on the mana crystals.