Chapter 18 - Mushroom jungle

He was in such a rush to escape the dead ant's tunnel that he decided not to mark his way as he descended a different set of tunnels in the opposite direction.

He was quite confident he could still make his way around as his evolved self had not only a better body but also a better mind. His better memory and navigational skills helped him navigate the tunnels, and speed was his number one priority right now.

The sounds of clicking and tapping could be heard down the tunnel from whence he came so he boosted his legs with mana to run even faster. He was bolting down the large tunnels with the speed of a runaway train but was still careful about what lay ahead. The last thing he wanted was to run into another giant spider or any red-cored beast for that matter.

Luckily for Adam, the next encounter he had was with several small black-cored bats the size of a bird of prey. They were hanging upside down on the tunnel roof and didn't attack when he approached.

He had nothing to gain by attacking them so he cautiously passed them by. The tunnels were getting even more uneven and damaged as he went. There were holes in the walls and floor as if giant moles had been randomly tunneling around.

He saw a few other black-cored creatures of various spices, some that looked recognizable and others completely alien to him. He noticed that many of the mana beasts had either sharp claws or sticky frog-like feet. They didn't seem to ever leave the caves so the lizards must have been the only ones to venture outside.

That thought didn't reassure Adam but actually made him even more vigilant. If all the creatures down here were fully adapted to the environment then he would be at a severe disadvantage against them. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for but he told himself that he would know it when he saw it as he continued down the tunnels.

Nothing significant happened to Adam for a few hours as he explored different paths and encountered several weak creatures every now and then. He had come across a few areas that were more open and contained pools of water. He still had his pond water so he wasn’t inclined to drink any, but where there’s water there’s life. It was in one such open cave that he discovered his next target.

It was a large open space with roots and fluorescent mushrooms all over the place. He couldn’t even see the stone walls any longer as the entire space was like an underground jungle. This was it, as long as nothing was too strong then he would be able to hunt here for a while.

The mushrooms were mostly fluorescent and had different shapes. Some were as tall as trees with other smaller mushrooms growing on them. The entire cave had an alien aesthetic to it, which was logical considering where he was.

His first prey was a grey-cored rodent-looking creature the size of a dog. It looked pretty agile so he wanted to deal with it in one blow. He summoned a mana blade but stopped before he threw it forward.

He was hiding next to a clump of mushrooms on a small hill overlooking the rodent, which seemed to be chewing on an unearthed root. He didn't think he could sneak attack the rodent with his blade considering how easy it would be to avoid it when it was launched.

The giant ant was much less agile and much closer but he still missed the mark. He could aim the spell with great effect to a static target but he couldn't readjust the projectile properly when it was launched.

While thinking about a way to gain an extra boost of speed for the blade, his mind jumped back to the time he escaped from the life-sucking broccoli tree. Back then, he gathered a ton of mana at his feet and exploded it outward to propel himself forward. It wasn't a very safe or effective method but it definitely sped him out of the way.

He figured he might as well try it as he modified his spell. His mana blade was in the rough shape of a long cone similar to a needle. He had rounded the blade in order to get the strongest penetrative power possible. He could give his mana various effects with his thoughts, such as strengthening his body or condensing it into a solid.

This time, however, he gave it two different properties on the same spell, that of condensing into a solid spike and adding a hollow section at the back of the spike. He filled that hollow cavity with as much gaseous mana as he could. It would usually simply dissipate into the environment but since it was confined in his construct, he was able to control most of it to stay put. He was trying to emulate a rocket for the process of acceleration mid-flight.

He was doubtful that it would actually work but he might as well give it a try since he had come this far. He aimed the spike at the rodent and threw it forward. He felt his connection to the stored mana start to fade as the construct flew away from him. He almost instantly activated the blast function of his miniature rocket and was surprised to see that it did indeed work as intended.

The small white spike the length of his hand had been jam-packed with as much mana as possible in both the dense spike and the rock fuel reservoir hidden inside. The sudden release of mana from the rear propelled it forward at a tremendous speed.

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The creature immediately noticed the blast of mana and surprisingly didn’t run away. Instead, it started to dig into the ground at an unbelievable rate. All this took place in under a second as the accelerated spike slammed down into the rodent's body.

Half of the creature was already underground when the large needle struck and he would have missed if not for his higher vantage point. The creature died on the spot, as a large hole could be seen starting in its lower back with the spike presumably still lodged somewhere in its body. He assumed it must have struck its heart considering the rodent's angle.

He approached the lifeless body and struggled to extract it from the ground. The beast resembled more of a hamster than a rat as its body was rounder with a short tail. It had five small claws on each foot but its ability to dig as fast as it did was what was truly shocking to Adam.

He had assumed it was a mouse-like creature rather than a mole. The ground was very tough to dig and extracting the body took longer than expected. His efforts were in vain however as when he finally managed to extract the rodent, he discovered that the projectile was a little too effective.

The head of the rodent was pierced as the mana blade traveled throughout its entire body and exited by its skull. He was confused since the amount of damage done was far above expectations, but then remembered that he had recently evolved his core so the amount of mana that was packed into that one spell was far greater than anything he had ever done before.

The disappointing thing was that he couldn’t see its core anymore. The projectile was surprisingly well aimed considering it was a hail mary, but it unfortunately destroyed the mana core and caused the stored mana to dissipate.

Mana cores were very interesting to Adam since they could become solid and liquid without issue. When it was in the process of advancing, the core would become a strange liquid but when he extracted one from a corpse, the core could be mistaken for a simple rock. Adam had absorbed a number of cores by now and was still no closer to truly understanding them.

They were obviously more than simply condensed mana as the core could control the mana that it had devoured. A core will shrink when it is absorbed until the entire thing simply disintegrates, so he was truly confused as to how it actually functioned.

These questions were added to the ever-growing pile of things he wanted to find out as he looked around for another creature to hunt.

The mushrooms seemed to be not only the main source of food but also a shelter for the mushroom jungle inhabitants. Most looked to be some sort of rodent or another, he would see them scurrying in and out of the large mushrooms.

He didn’t have a very good chance of winning a fight against a creature that could disappear and reappear anywhere via the abundant mushrooms, so he continued deeper into the underground jungle.

The fluorescent light emitted by certain plants made his enhanced vision look very different from before. It was like having hyper-detailed night vision when he looked in a dark area but his modified vision seemed to disappear when he looked at the glowing plants while still being active around it. It was a very weird sensation but also very convenient as his vision was never obstructed by the changing luminosity.

He was carefully walking along when something moved under his feet and he jumped back out of reflex. He first thought that the ground had given way but realized it was so much worse when he saw a red color emerge from the ground. Something reached out towards Adam and cut into his arm. It was only a small cut but he jumped even further away with mana-enforced legs.

Where he stood only moments ago was now emerging a human-sized creature with glowing red skin. Adam was terrified when the creature emerged from the ground as its head was formed of a mound of red tentacles that resembled hundreds of snake tails. Its entire head seemed to be a huge mouth as it had no obvious eyes or ears. Its scaled body was long and thick with six arm-like limbs protruding from its torso. It had no feet as far as he could tell but rather a huge snake's body that continued into the ground that it was crawling out of.

The arm it had used to strick at him moved towards the creature's head before it revealed a disgusting purple tongue that curled around the claw and liked off the blood it had gotten from the shallow cut. Its many tentacles then stopped wiggling around in random directions and all locked onto Adam.

This was a true eldriche monster and it had decided to make Adam its target. The only thought that appeared in Adam's mind was run. He couldn’t fight thing horrible creature, just get away from that thing, run away and don’t look back.

Before he could even consciously think, his body was already moving away from the monster as fast as he could. His legs were moving so fast that they looked like a blur as he ran through the mushroom jungle, occasionally smashing into the plants but always regaining his footing and running on. Wounds began to accumulate on his body as some of the plants acted like broken glass when he smashed into them but he kept going.

The creature hadn’t chased him as far as but it had first emerged from the ground so he kept an eye on the floor to avoid any further surprises.

After running away for several minutes in random directions, he slowed down and took stock of his surroundings once more. He had run to a completely different part of the jungle where the mushrooms looked very different and glowed with a yellow light.

The terrain was very uneven so running further in would be harder and he didn’t know if he might run into something else if he continued running aimlessly.

He caught his breath as his mind kept going over and over the horrific creature that had attacked him. His hands were shaking as the memory of the monster invaded his mind. It hadn’t chased him when he ran and simply watched as he ran for his life.

Out of everything he had seen so far, this was the scariest monster he had ever seen since it didn’t act like a wild animal. It didn’t charge at him with wild abandon but simply like his blood and stared at him with its many creepy tentacles.

Adam looked down at his body and a sense of dread overcame him. He knew that a diet of blood was possible as the spiky viens back in the jungle had drained the lizard dry. This creature didn’t have eyes but its tentacles locked onto him as soon as it drank his blood. Could it track him through his blood?

He had considered the small cuts and bruises he sustained from running away as a necessary sacrifice to get away from that thing but what if he was wrong, what if these cuts were glaring beacons for the monster to follow?