Mike groggily opened his eyes a few hours later. While the heat was bearable it was still too hot to sleep well during the day, and that, in conjunction with constant echo of birds hunting for him, led to a bunch of repositioning, tossing and turning. Despite this, he was bone tired from the previous nine days of grueling work, and allowed himself to be lazy for most of the daylight hours.
As the dimming surroundings of the cave, he noticed the two fox cubs sleeping next to him. He had given them each a small bit of water upon returning the night before, and both had promptly eaten and gone to sleep. As far as he could tell, neither of them had stirred since, which was definitely odd. Figuring that they also must be exhausted from crash landing in a wurm infested desert, hanging on the side of a cliff all day, and sweating it out in a small burrow, he allowed his concern to drain away and focus on the tasks at hand.
With water and food taken care of for the foreseeable future, he turned his attention to creating a more comfortable home. Adding additional distance from the entrance would decrease the oppressive heat of this Zone, in addition to making the noise of the birds dimmer. In addition to distance, they would need more space. The thought of crawling and laying down for the next few weeks was enough to tempt him to brave fighting a couple of thousand giant birds.
As night began and the birds outside ceased their hunting, he felt safe in continuing to dig, despite the sharp noises it made. Deciding to prioritize distance first, he created another full switchback that night. At regular intervals, as he took a load of the debris and threw it out of the shelter, he checked in on the cubs. His concern grew as the night wore on, but he forced himself to give them until morning since their pulse was strong, their noses were cold, and they just appeared to be sleeping. His progress slowed when the darkness in the tunnel became absolute, even with the entrance unblocked. After smashing his thumb several times in attempting to use the chisel by feel alone, which seems impossible with Damage Premonition, he gave up for the night, deciding to take some time to solve his light problem the next day.
Returning to where the foxes lay, he used Analyze on them for the first time, and was surprised to find that they were both Level 55–a dramatic increase compared to the last time he had checked at 5 Levels in two days. Willing himself to see the energy around him, he quickly located their cores, and say that the usual buildup of energy surrounding them was much denser than ever before. In addition to the exceptional core-space, he noticed another bright spot inside of each of them, about the size of a golf ball, which he deduced was the cosmic water they had both consumed. As he peered closer, he noticed that they were actively channeling the energy coming from the water and to their cores, something he had never been able to see before when they were only consuming the wurm meat.
Realizing this was a wonderful opportunity to look at how the foxes managed to gain Levels from cosmic energy, he closed his eyes and spent the rest of the night watching the process.
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Five hours later, Mike’s eyes opened as the sound of birds stirring made him realize that he had forgotten to close up the cave entrance. A grin was plastered on his face at the fruits of the previous night’s efforts. At first, he hadn’t noticed anything different about what the foxes were doing, the energy was sucked into their channels and pushed to their core where the energy was stored until it reached a sufficient density. He had been unable to figure out how exactly the energy merged with the core, even after witnessing it a few more times, so instead he had focused back on where the energy was being siphoned from the water. After careful inspection that took over an hour, he had found something very interesting: a fractal, not dissimilar to the fractal that appeared and sucked energy out of him when he Leveled Up a skill, was included in the channels that surrounded the foxes stomachs. It appeared to him that that fractal alone was responsible for moving the energy, and it finally made sense how they were able to gather the energy passively.
Now the only question that remained was: How was he going to create that fractal within himself?
In true form, he got in a comfortable position, drank a bit of water, and turned inward, figuring it would come to him as he was in the process.
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An entire day wasted. Mike had explored every angle he could think of short of cutting himself open and physically carbing the runes into his own body–and he had only talked himself away from that option because he was unsure whether or not channels even existed on a physical level. He had never noticed any in the many wurms he had butchered, so he was leaning towards the theory that they didn’t.
Disgruntled, he turned his efforts to creating a light source so he could expand the tunnel further. Fire wasn’t going to work–not only was he lacking wood, but without a secondary airshaft and due to the low ceilings, he was more likely to smoke himself out than anything else. His next thought was reflecting the moonlight using Quicksilver mirrors at every corner, something that wasted a good deal of his time, but proved ineffective by the 3 turn. Genius had struck when he asked himself why he had used all of his Blasting Stone, which had glowed naturally, causing him to realize that he now had another glowing substance: Pristine Solar-Lunar Water.
Taking out one of his smaller jars, he placed it in the cave next to him, causing the space to fill with a dim light. He had no doubts that he was using something precious for a very mundane task, but he was proud of that–people often overlooked tools in survival situations because they were unable to see past the monetary value of items, something he hoped he would never be guilty of.
By the light of the water, he continued carving his way into the cavern, completing another switchback before beginning to form the first actual room in the structure. By the time the sun was rising, it was still a far cry from being anything different from the rest of the tunnel, but given a few more nights of work, he was confident it would turn into a very comfortable home. Closing up the entrance to the cave, he lightly carved his skill patterns into the rock ceiling above him with the light of his tiny water lamp while he allowed his mind to empty and sleep to take him.
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Mike was startled awake to the sound of crashing rocks followed by squaking coming from the tunnel’s entrance, which echoed loudly throughout the entirety of his burgeoning home. Cursing quietly, he stowed the Cosmic Water, which he had been stupid enough to leave out when he fell asleep several hours prior. The draw of the energy must have alerted the scouting bird to its location.
Not knowing how he would manage to silence the bird, but knowing that he needed to, he quickly made his way towards the tunnel's entrance, where light and heat were streaming in. The wurm skin covering had been pulled away, in addition to about ⅓ of the rocks, making it very easy to see the large bird responsible for the mess. With a wingspan of almost 10 feet, and talons easily three times the size of Mike’s hands, the predator had no problem grabbing rocks and throwing them at the sand below.
His brain cranked through options rapidly: Do I cave in the tunnel, no good as the bird would remember the incident. That means that killing the bird is necessary. How do I kill the bird without dying myself or being seen by other birds? How do best cook it when it is dead? Wait, focus, that surely isn’t applicable!
The tunnel continued to widen, and without anymore time to think, he simply acted. Activating Footsteps of the Wind, he launched himself out of the cave entrance as the bird began picking up the next rock. Completely unprepared for the very dense man to emerge at high speeds, it had no chance to counterattack before Mike latched onto its body, activating sonic sounding and causing it to burst in a plume of feathers.
Mike was blasted backwards into the rock face, his hands barely managing to grab onto the edge of the tunnel above him. Pulling himself back inside, he unloaded a bunch of rocks from his spatial storage bag that he had been saving for just such a situation. Usually, filling a small tunnel opening with rocks is easy, but thanks to Footsteps of the Wind being on cooldown, he was somehow failing. Thankfully, Autumn and Ash broke from their concentrated leveling to come and assist him, giving him the stink-eye as they returned to their places.
“Yep, I definitely coddle the two of you.” he growled to their sleeping forms.
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Junior Adminstrator, now known as Acting System Administrator to their subordinates laughed along as System Assimilator regaled the congregated spawn with how the anomaly was using Cosmic Water to see in the dark, causing one of the more overly ambitious lackeys to guffaw so uncontrollably that their tentacles slapped those around them. It was clearly all for show. Still, Junior Administrator was thankful to their cousin, and laughed along with the rest. This was far easier than being under that old vet.