Joshua considered staying and fighting now that he had enhanced some of his abilities as well as had the octovine daemon at his disposal, but quickly dismissed the idea. He had no notion of how strong the goblin and kobold were, and had no desire to find out in a trial by combat.

He was injured enough as it was.

“I’m going down first!” the goblin shouted.

“No! I am.”

“No! I go first! You’re too stupid.”

“Let’s get out of here while they’re still arguing,” Joshua whispered to his familiar. “Maybe the fall will kill them.”

Though that didn’t seem likely. He’d survived, and he was in far from peak condition.

He quickly stowed his five remaining spirit shards in his inventory, then carefully hopped down off the ledge and into the underground stream.

With Sin perched on his shoulder, Joshua trudged through the cold, ankle-deep water which he didn’t dare try drinking despite his gnawing thirst and whatever his interface might have to say about having found a basic of life.

The arguing of the goblin and kobold faded until the only sound was that of Joshua’s plodding footsteps and the gurgling of rushing water. It moved quite fast now, so it was a good thing it was so shallow, otherwise he might have been knocked over.

“At least it’s flowing in the direction I want to go.”

He eventually reached a wall, the water flowing under it like the wall in the area he’d fallen into. This one was different in that it had a kind of stone aperture at just above head height.

He easily pulled himself up to get a look through.

Beyond was a cavern much the same as the one he was in, only far larger. It was considerably brighter as well, though he couldn’t say where the light came from.

He effortlessly hoisted himself through the hole and landed on the other side, glad for the barrier between him and the goblin and kobold. Maybe he’d get lucky and they would be too short to make it through.

From his shoulder, Sin flapped in annoyance at the jostling.

Joshua ignored the bird and took in his new surroundings. The air was fresher here, easier to breathe in.

Perhaps that was due to the size. The ceiling was higher, around thirty feet and formed of either stone with a lot of roots growing through it, or packed dirt. He couldn’t quite tell at this remove, but was hoping for stone.

As much as it had increased in height, it had widened even more: the area was now a good sixty or more feet across and completely covered with water. It only came up to his ankles, but he moved carefully in case it wasn’t all so shallow.

In addition to falling into some murky depths, he was also worried about what might be lurking in those depths. Or shallows for that matter. Because even if there were no giant monsters, the little ones could hurt him just fine.

A lesson he’d learned painfully from the unihorn rabbit.

So he was grateful when after a bit more walking he spotted a chest-high ledge running along the edge of the cavern.

He attempted to climb it, thwarted several times by the damp, slippery rock.

“What are you made of,” he grunted, “teflon?” He was a more-than-decent rock climber, but despite the ledge being shorter than he was, he simply couldn’t get a grip on the blasted thing.

Sin hopped from his shoulder onto the pathway and flapped its wings at him in either encouragement or annoyance.

After several more unsuccessful attempts, and with Sin hopping up and down like an eager or impatient child, Joshua finally managed to gain purchase and hoist himself up, flopping bodily onto the path just as his foot slipped once more. The bulk of his weight on the ledge, he didn’t slip back down and only banged his shin into the rock.

It was but a minor injury compared to the multitude of wounds his beleaguered legs had already suffered.

He rolled over onto his back and lay there for a moment, shin throbbing, staring up at the ceiling. Even though he was higher now and thus closer to it, he still couldn’t tell if it was rock or dirt.

“Whatever it’s made of, I hope it doesn’t cave in on us. That does not look stable.”

Sin sidled up beside him and pecked his arm.

“Ow,” Joshua muttered. He sat up. The path itself was rock, and not conducive to a nice little rest in any case.

Sin hopped onto his lap, then onto his shoulder, pecking at his head this time.

“I’m going, calm down. I’m the one who needs the healing potion, not you. And just where is this healing potion? I wasn’t expecting such a journey. I’m more hurt now than when we started.” He studied his legs, wondering if the water might carry infection. He hadn’t thought to use his spell to inspect it.

It had washed much of the blood away, and, with the increased light, allowed him to get a better look at the wounds.

He would have preferred not to see them. Cleaning did little for their appearance. Though they really were in less bad shape than he would have expected after being thrashed around by a wolf.

“I guess it was a small wolf.” He could see the bite marks on his right ankle and left calf muscle. These latter looked pretty deep, but at least he couldn’t see bone.

Oddly the rest of his body was still covered in the gore from Randall, not having washed away when he’d first fallen down the embankment and into the water, perhaps because it’d had longer to dry and crust onto him, or perhaps because it was from a god.

Either way, it was disgusting.

He glanced at the water below, casting Identify on it.

[Underground Tributary]

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Nothing about the water itself? Maybe I need to gather it in a glass.”

He really wanted to try scrubbing the remaining gore off, but he could wait. On Earth he would assume underground water was likely to be cleaner than that on the surface. But on Earth there weren’t humanoid butterflies, octopus plants, misty wolves, nor rabbits that would viciously attack a grown human.

Or any size human, for that matter, he was pretty sure.

Who knew what invisible fantasy-world parasites lurked in those shallow depths. It was bad enough he’d sat down in it while he was under the influence of the joy shard.

Sin squawked at him.

“Interrupted?” He frowned. “Whoa, did I just understand a word from you?”

Sin squawked.

“Concept, word. Same difference. Point is, I’m getting better at this. Or our bond is strengthening. Is that from the upgrade?”

Sin squawked several times.

“Right, we were going to test your summon. I guess I didn’t finish enhancing everything either. Not sure now’s the time.”

He started to get up, then flopped back down.

“Ow,” he groaned as his butt hit solid rock.

Sin pecked at him.

“Give me a minute to catch my breath. I’m tired, thirsty, my legs feel like they’re filled with angry ants, and I can’t stop worrying about the fate of my intestines.”

Sin pecked him hard on the head.

“Ow! That one really hurt.”

Sin drew its head back in a threatening manner, beak posed to peck.

“Fine, fine, we’ll test out your summon. Geez.” He shook his head. “I guess I am curious to see what you’ll be able to do. I can do that while I rest a bit. I don’t want the goblin and kobold to catch up, but I guess testing it out won’t take that long.”

Sin huffed, in what sounded to Joshua like agreement, though it was always possible he was simply delusional.

“All right, here goes.”

As soon as he thought it, a purple light shot out from Sin, swiftly forming another bird.

It wasn’t a pigeon, it turned out, but some kind of colorful bird like Joshua had seen back in Randall’s garden, though much smaller.

The two birds took to the air and darted about, chasing one another playfully.

“Not quite the legion I was imagining,” he muttered. Louder, he said, “It’s great that you have a friend, but I hope it’s more fearsome than it looks.”

The small colorful bird landed on Joshua’s ankle, looked up at him, chirped once, spun to face his foot, then slammed its beak down against the top of his Croc.

Joshua’s Crocs were the kind without vent holes, but this was no obstacle for the tiny bird. Its beak penetrated completely through the rubber top of his footwear and straight into his toenail.

He cried out as he jerked his foot away, Sin’s familiar fluttering off and making a chittering sound that was suspiciously similar to laughter.

“You little bastard!”

Sin squawked angrily and the two birds merged back into one.

“Yeah, well I’m sensitive about my toes! I think you pierced a toenail.”

It hadn’t, but his big toe did have a bruise forming under the nail.

Sin squawked at him.

“Sure you knew that it wouldn’t. That was random luck.” He slipped his Croc back on. “Will enhancing my body heal me like leveling up in a video game?”

Sin fluttered away, not answering him.

“Even if it doesn’t, it should make me tougher. Can you use the shards while they’re in my inventory?” he asked his guide.

[Spirit Shard] × 3 used on Body Aspect

Body Aspect enhanced from ❬0❭ to ❬1❭

Body Aspect power increased.

“Why yes Joshua,” he told himself, “you can. Aren’t I such a helpful guide?”

Would you like to view the table of contents to [Divine Guide User’s Guide]?

Dismissing the message, Joshua stretched and did some cramped pushups. He thought he did feel a little stronger, but that might just be in his head.

And his toe definitely still hurt. The burning in his legs was reduced, but still there.

He sat down again and returned his attention to his guide.

Would enhancing Mind make him smarter? He wasn’t sure how he’d test that here.

He was interested to see what enhancing his Divine aspect would do.

Enhancing Divine Aspect from ❬0❭ to ❬1❭ requires 4 spirit shards.

You have 2 spirit shards.

You do not have enough spirit shards to enhance your Divine Aspect.

“Ah, right. I only had ten shards to start. That’s okay, the next quest should give me more.” Though the next time he planned on checking what all the enhancements would give him before using any, since it seemed that if he didn’t have the required shards his guide wouldn’t tell him.

A fact which surprised him not at all.

He went over his unenhanced spells again and decided to spend one of his two remaining spirit shards on upgrading his Map spell next, since while he wasn’t a fan of following the minimap around in games, he sure appreciated GPS in real life.

[Spirit Shard] used on Spell [Map]

[Map] enhanced from ❬0❭ to ❬1❭

[Map] will now show indicators for direction, corpses, nearby identified lifeforms, and points of interest. You may now manually add points of interest.

He brought up his map and tested out its new abilities. There was a compass at the top now, which he could move, showing the direction he was pointed in—currently north-ish. There were six total points, north, south, east, west, up, and down, which he found a little odd. Though, it wasn’t like it needed to work by magnetic field.

He could also put a marker that he could label by either touching the map, or with a thought. In the process of doing this, he discovered he could rotate the map in space, getting a side view like taking a slice out of the earth, showing how far underground he was.

“Whoa, that’s kinda cool.”

He wasn’t sure if the ability was new, or if he just hadn’t noticed it before.

The area above him was covered in a fog of war so he couldn’t tell if it was solid or if there were rooms above him, but he could see the surface, including the entrance he’d gone through, which was now labeled, simply, Entrance 1. The dungeon itself wasn’t labeled at all.

He looked between the entrance, and where he was now, gauging the distance on his map.

He’d fallen deeper than he’d realized. “Are dungeons not a separate dimension? What was that black wall then?”

Nothing.

He decided to use the last spirit shard to enhance his Identify spell. It was only one shard, and more information could be useful. At least more useful than increasing loot distance.

[Spirit Shard] used on Spell [Identify]

[Identify] enhanced from ❬0❭ to ❬1❭

Objects examined with [Identify] will now show additional information.

He examined all his items again, thankfully not having to remove them from his inventory to do so. Most were the same as he remembered them, but one stood out as having changed.

[Unihorn Rabbit Meat]

(edible)

The spicy meat of a [Unihorn Rabbit]. Erosive. Occasionally explosive.

“Explosive? That… should not be labeled as edible.”