I think I made a mistake in following the cave system deeper into the ground.

As I traveled past the dead creatures, I thought that I would find out just how deep the cave systems are and where they end so that I would have an idea of my current surroundings.

But, as usual, the universe decided to throw a curveball at me and laugh in my face after.

Lying in front of me is a massive boulder inscribed with various scribbles I cannot identify. They looked vaguely like Cantonese characters but were beyond anything I could identify. This might be because my Cantonese is extremely poor, barely being able to speak a few words and sentences at most.

The reason that I am interested in this boulder, however, is because of the literal hill of corpses lying in front of the boulder. Due to how the bones were piled up, I can't really identify what most of the skeletons lying about belonged to, but among this pile are certain sets of half-decaying bodies and scattered skulls that anyone should be able to identify.

Human bones and dead bodies.

Normally, such a sight would cause me to flee in terror, but, I think that my new body and instincts are slowly acclimating to my new consciousness and slowly desensitizing me to such carnage. Already, the feeling of disgust I was feeling after seeing the animal corpses from before and the pile of bodies in front of me is slowly diminishing into disinterest, leaving curiosity as the only emotion I feel. The curiosity to understand what this place is.

I don’t know if this boulder was placed by humans, which is highly debatable since even the largest of the human corpses that I can see, the half-decaying one, was only as large as my pinky finger and the boulder is at least twice my current height, or something else entirely. But what I do know is that whatever is beyond that boulder must still be alive. If I am lucky, maybe even sapient enough to have a conversation and give me information about my current location and situation of the world.

With a decision made, I placed my palm on the boulder and started absorbing it into myself. But, unlike everything else that I have absorbed until now, something strange happened.

The strange script that was engraved into the boulder suddenly lit up with powerful light and I felt a lot of the energy within me being sucked out of my body.

In a panic, I mentally clamped onto my energy and started to pull back on it, trying to reverse the flow. After a struggle that felt like it lasted for an eternity, I felt the pull on my energy relent. But, as a consequence of my actions, the moment the pull left my energy, it started to flow in reverse and immediately started absorbing the energy from the boulder itself, causing the script on the boulder to start dimming rapidly.

Surprisingly, the energy I absorbed from this boulder was somewhat similar to what I felt from the LED crystal when I absorbed it the first time, but it also had a strange feeling to it, like there was something else underneath the energy, something foul and corrupt along with what felt like various traces of emotions originating from different sources.

Thankfully, it seems that my body is easily able to filter out this energy and turn it into my own just like with any other energy that I have encountered until now with the trace emotions that I identified as fear, anger, and despair being muted and filtered out as well.

Reassured with my discovery, I continued to absorb the boulder into my body, slightly increasing my size while all the energy within the script was absorbed into myself within minutes.

In the end, the boulder completely disappeared into my body along with the energy. But, I noticed another anomaly.

The strange script that I saw on the boulder are now clearly stored in my memory. I am able to recall them very easily and on instinct just like anyone would do with their own name and I am confident that should I need it, I can easily draw that script perfectly, even if I had no idea of what it actually means.

Another strange discovery about my body. Seriously, why the hell was my previous self so dumb and did not even think to experiment with our body to see our limits?

Shaking my head to get rid of those thoughts, I walked into the cave and was immediately hit with a wave of heat and radiation thanks to the massive pools of lava flowing throughout the place, given that the lava was not stagnant and seemed to be flowing in a direction, this must be a massive magma tube or there must be few other chambers connected to this cave where the lava is flowing to.

Now that I think about it, lava should produce some levels of radiation and radon gas thanks to radioactive materials underground going through radioactive decay.

The question is, can I absorb radiation and gas just like I can with inorganic materials and mimic them?

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Time to test it out.

I experimentally dipped a tow in the lava to see if it would hurt. Surprisingly, I felt nothing. Comforted by this fact, my inner child compelled me to jump into the Lava as one would into a swimming pool, a compulsion that I followed without hesitation.

With a gigantic splash, I sunk into the lava, my massive body combined with a density that was probably more than Osmium at this point allowing me to sink into the super hot liquid rock.

Immediately, I focused on feeling my surroundings according to my memories, and surprisingly, it was very easy to identify the various energies and particles in my surroundings.

This body seems to instinctually detect the various wavelengths and atomic structures of everything around me which is very helpful in my current endeavor.

Infrared radiation was the easiest to identify thanks to my knowledge from my previous world. Then, using that as a benchmark, I compared the various wavelengths of the energies I was feeling and filtered out various other forms of radiation including Gamma and X-rays. Aside from this, I am also sure that I am feeling a few particle radiation sources, most likely from some kind of radioactive materials submerged beneath the lava.

It did not take me long to find and absorb a sample of all kinds of radiation that I was feeling in the lava. And just like I predicted, I was not able to directly radiate the energy from my body with just a sample of the different kind of radiation and particles.

Looks like I will need to find the source of the radiation itself, such as Uranium, Thorium or other such materials so that I could replicate the material itself, which should then allow me to direct the radiation from these materials after I replicate them.

However, this experiment is not a complete failure.

Thanks to this experiment, I was able to tune my senses in such a way that I am now able to instinctively sense the different kinds of radiation that I have felt under the lava.

It is also thanks to this new development that I am now able to sense a powerful source of infrared radiation from somewhere in the distance, beneath the lava.

Given that I am in fantasy land and my luck likes to play Russian roulette with me, I have a very big hunch that the source of the radiation is most likely the creature that was responsible for the bodies outside the cave.

But, before I go to see the source of the radiation and find out if my luck has truly turned for the worst in this world, I have one final experiment to conduct.

Closing my eyes, I concentrated on my right hand while imagining it turning into the gas that I recently absorbed. My instincts easily provided me with a mental image of the Radon gas’s atomic structure so that I could replicate it.

Unfortunately, this experiment was also a failure since I failed to turn my arm into the gas.

It would have been really cool and extremely convenient for me if I could turn my body into any type of gas I absorbed. This would mean that I could spend some time identifying the various gasses present in the atmosphere until I identified hydrogen. Then, I could turn myself into a cloud of hydrogen gas, allowing me to float up to the top of the chasm and escape.

With the experiment done, it is time to see what exactly lives in this place.

----------------------------------------

Deep within the chamber filled with magma, a massive humanoid being made out of stone walked through the flowing lava.

Thanks to its massive size and power, the lava failed to harm it, just like another creature that called this place its home.

Suddenly, as the creature approached a patch of the lava that was flowing slightly differently compared to the rest, the massive flow of molten rock bust apart as a massive serpentine form shot out of it aggressively.

Within seconds, the serpentine form wrapped itself around the humanoid. Its scales glowed just like the molted rock that it lived in while its body was lined with spikes that seemed to be made up of glowing red crystals. Combined with the four tiny limbs that were just starting to grow from its serpentine body and the tiny horns that resembled that of a reindeer and the long tendrils emerging from its snout, there was no doubt about what this creature was.

A FucangLong. A dragon of hidden wealth and often associated with the element of Fire.

At least, a serpent that is in the process of turning into a FucangLong.

The serpent is so large that it was able to completely wrap around the massive humanoid form that was large enough that a human would only measure up to be as large as its finger.

Once it was done constricting its opponent, the massive serpent of fire immediately started slowly moving around the body while also contracting itself. Its scales started to shine brightly as the temperature around it started to rise astronomically while the spikes started to grate against the humanoid.

This action, combined with the fact that the serpent was contracting its body, putting enough pressure to shatter even the pillars of the imperial palace that were made from the most durable material known to the world, should have been the end of the humanoid., just like any other creature that was foolish enough to wander into the den of this ancient serpent that escaped the Age of Calamity and survived to this modern age.

And yet, the Humanoid was not some ordinary creature.

As the Serpent continued its normal hunting strategy, it suddenly felt agony across its body as massive spikes made of glowing blue crystals erupted from within its confined prey. The spikes of crystal completely pierced through the powerful body of the serpent strategically and at even intervals, making sure to pass through the center of its width all across its body down to its tail. This ensured that the serpent could not move even a single inch unless it wanted to go through agony the likes of which it had never experienced.

The two beings stayed like that for some time until the Serpent’s body finally slackened with its head rolling to the side.

Satisfied with its work, the Humanoid retracted the crystal spiked into itself, allowing the body of the serpent to fall into the lava.

And then, the Humanoid stared, stupefied, as the supposedly dead body of the serpent jumped to life and swam energetically in the lava, quickly retreating from the humanoid and heading deeper into the lava cavern, displaying its powerful vitality as a beast that was on the cusps of turning into a dragon.

The moment the Humanoid realized that it had been deceived by the serpent, it roared in anger and embarrassment while shouting unrecognizable words before it started running towards the escaping serpent.