Thalor was never a morning person. Waking up with the sun in his eyes, he felt none of his usual grogginess. He was able to just get up without wallowing in his bed.

Getting up and off of his mat, Thalor didn't know what to do today. He could go out and try his new body-controlling mushroom, but he felt that before he went too far with something new, he should take some time to get familiar with what he already had.

Thalor was already able to make crude structures, but he wanted to eventually be able to hide his face, and the only way he could think of to get to that goal was to first start making more intricate things with his fungus.

Thalor was, of course, able to do more with his fungus than just shape it, but he felt that, at least for a while, he wanted to try shaping in a more refined manner. With his goal in mind, he looked at his walls.

There was nothing inherently wrong with his defensive structure; it did keep any roaming animals out. After looking at how some of the wall sagged and some spots were thinner than others, he wanted to make everything more uniform and proper.

Still having most of the fungal mass somewhere in his body, he pushed most of it out, only leaving a tenth remaining in reserve. Pushing his senses into the wall and the fungal mass he just produced, he felt all over the wall, sensing spots that were not level and th spots that had uneven thickness in the wall.

Taking a deep breath and mentally marking all the spots that needed work, he used his will to push segments of the fungal mass to gather at the spots that needed work. Not able to do every spot at once, he gave every imperfection his entire attention.

After a couple of hours of work, the entire wall was level and shared the same thickness. "Now for the hard part," he thought to himself as he looked at his house. It wasn't hard because of the volume; no, it would be hard because he would try to detail it as much as possible in order to practice.

Not having enough fungal mass left, he quickly went out and converted a tree that was about three hundred yards away, not wanting to disturb the forest directly near his base. Getting back with his fungus secure, he walked over to his home; it was little more than four posts and a roof at the moment. He wasn't mad at himself for his work the other day, but he did think he could have at least put up some walls as well.

The first thing he did was unharden and remove what was currently there. He wanted to start fresh with what he had in mind. Spreading out a layer of his fungal mass, he made the foundation of the building and shaped it into a simple square.

With the foundation done, next came the frame. That was the tricky part, as he was not a builder, so it took him a while, but eventually, he was left with a bunch of thinner filament poles where there would usually be wood in a normal material house. He left room so he could add some type of insulation later.

Next were the exterior walls. He shaped them into a stone brick design. He had left room for a door, but other than that, he had no other entrance. The walls did look like stone from a distance, but if you looked closer, one could see filament lines showing that it wasnt actually stone.

Next, he made his roof, which he left flat as he wanted access to it for later scouting if he decided to build a tower structure. Making a drainage system for rain took some mental gymnastics, but after everything was done, he was happy with how the exterior looked.

The interior had a bedroom, and everything else was open. First, he made insulation and filled in the walls, then added a layer to the frame. The interior came together nicely. Lastly, he made himself a storage area where he created some chests as well as some shelves.

The next thing he did was general furnishing. He made a proper-looking bed in his room and even experimented with making some clothing, which didn't turn out great but was still good practice. Then he made a dining area where he just put a table and some simple chairs.

Not needing to eat or drink was nice, but he still wanted his home to feel normal.

With a content sigh and half the day gone, he appreciated his own work. "This won't win any awards, but I like it," he chuckled.

Not wanting to go exploring again, he just stayed home and practiced his fungus creation. Building was good practice, but he also wanted to pick up where he left off the other day and see what he was capable of.

Sitting down and closing his eyes, he looked inward. Looking past his small core to find his mental library, he combed through what fungus he had access to.

The different fungi he had access to at the moment consisted of decomposition-based ones, and there were even a couple that he felt were there to help nurture plants. When he found one that could release spores to induce hallucinations, he tried to replicate it.

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Opening his eyes and lifting his hand, pointing his palm away from him, he pushed. Nothing happened at first, but just as he felt something was wrong in his thought process, a breeze pushed out of his hand, and he felt thousands of spores being released in the direction he pointed.

Doing some more experiments, he found the delay was due to his palm sucking in some air before adding the spores and compressing then releasing them. This all felt so natural to him that he hadn't even noticed it.

"Maybe I'm more changed than I initially thought," he grumbled as he looked at his hand. It was still the same as it was the other day, but after comparing the sensation from when he first changed to now, he felt that now he was more deeply connected with fungus. Like it was more than a part of him—it was him.

Sitting there, stupefied at the thought, he shook his head, not wanting to believe it. Thinking that he could prove he was still mostly flesh and blood, he made a small blade out of condensed filaments. He took the edge and cut his thigh to prove he was still made of blood.

After enduring the pain from the cut, he looked down, hoping to see blood. That is not what he found. Instead, it was as if he cut open a mushroom. Sure, it was moist, but there was no blood. Looking at the wound and how the edges tried to come back together, it really dawned on him that he had been irrevocably changed.

Doing his best to calm down, he used his fungal sense, not outward but inward. What he felt horrified him. He was fungus. There were no bones or blood; instead, the bones were just condensed fungus, much like his walls. Instead of tendons, there were just thick filaments that pretended to be tendons.

Scared, he looked at his brain. And in his head, there was no brain but dense mycelium. He could sense how everything he was and had been was stored in that mycelium. With an extreme shudder, he turned off his sense and just sat there.

Not even an hour ago, he had been happily working on his home. Now he felt as if all hope had been snuffed out by a god of wind. Trying to think rationally, he now knew that looking normal again wouldn't be as hard as he initially thought, as he could probably dicectly shape his face. That wasn't what he worried about, though—it was the fact that he knew he could never be human again, as there would be no way to turn his brain back to normal without effectively killing him.

He had no idea how the mushroom in that ruin managed to change him so fast without making him black out, but there was no way he could replicate it backward.

It was then that he thought of something. "If I'm a form of fungus and I've been able to replicate any fungus I have come into contact with, doesn't that mean I can replicate myself?"

With a new line of thought to distract himself, he quickly ran and converted as much material as he could in an hour, not caring that he was right outside his walls.

After gathering his absurd amount of mass—which would have been enough for him to make his base four or five times over—he focused.

What he couldn't absorb into himself, he just condensed next to himself as he tried to figure out his next step.

"I just need to be able to reconstruct my brain; then everything else should be easy," he quickly thought. Taking a deep breath, he looked inward once more, this time going straight to his head. Looking at the mycelium in his skull, he realized he needed to make a skull first, then put the mycelium in it.

Doing just that, it took a while, but eventually, he recreated his skull. It was surprising how easy it was to replicate his skull, but he knew the next part would be harder.

He focused entirely on the mycelium that was his brain. Copying it exactly as it was in his own skull into this new one. He didn't stop even after the sun set; he kept going all the way until morning.

When the mycelium was exactly like it was in his own head, he felt a connection so deep that he couldn't tell which side he was on.

The moment that connection was made, there was a flood of information from himself into the new consciousness. It didn't speak—hell, it couldn't speak—but he and it knew exactly what happened.

It was him on the other end; that's why he couldn't tell which side he was on as both sides were him. Quickly, he began replicating the rest of his body onto the new him. The more he added, the more the other him was able to help. This went on for hours; it didn't stop even as the sun rose and set again until it was morning once more and he opened his eyes only to see a naked version of himself doing the same.

At the same time, they spoke: "Hello." Looking at each other, then laughing, they took some time to calm down. The original Thalor spoke first. "So you're me, huh? Well, you can't be, as I wear clothes when I have company over."

With a cheeky grin, the other Thalor responded. "Company? The only thing I see here is me and myself. Why would I need to get dressed in front of myself?"

"So, how do you feel?" the original asked with a serious tone. With an equally serious face, his copy responded, "I feel completely fine. The only thing I know is that one moment I was making myself as you, then bam, I was me trying to help you finish my body."

"So no feelings of wanting to kill me and be the only Thalor?" the original asked.

"Who would want to be a tier-one apprentice? I could kill someone and take their place. That way i could be way better than you," the clone joked.

Both knew instinctively that they were both equally him, just that one was older. Deep within them, there was no confusion about what they were. It was like when a fungus reproduces asexually; they were connected, and they knew that if they extended a strand of themselves to the other, they would sync minds. So there was no chance of deviation—why would he kill himself?

Both looking around their surroundings for the first time, they really took in how much fungal mass was used to create the clone. About half of it was gone, turned into the clone.

Looking at the remaining mass, they turned toward each other at the same time and smiled. "What do you say we make this a party and add a third?"