He glimpsed at his surroundings, dominated by a vast, empty purple desert. There weren't any signs of vegetation or animal life, much less human life. He couldn't understand. The implications were quite worrying. Was his vision broken? Or was light fragmented differently due to an atmospheric event? He couldn't tell. He tried searching for any detail that could help him. His radio and satellite senses were utterly broken due to the absence of their respecting signals. That shouldn't be the case. It either meant that all radio and satellite communication was down, or that his senses were broken. The second one was more likely.

Another detail that was worrying him was the sky, or more specifically, what he could see in it. With his enhanced vision, he should have been able to see the stars, especially near such an unpolluted area. The sky was completely empty. He turned around 180 degrees. His vision must have been truly broken to make him see a black hole in the sky where the Sun should have been. The black hole had an accretion disk around it, and Prometheus could even feel high radiation levels emitting from it. He was worried. Not for himself, as he could easily shift his cells into radiation-resistant ones, but for Mr. Fluffernutter and his kids, as they would suffer radiation poisoning.

I need to find them as soon as possible. I'll look for-

Welcome to the world of Eventum, Earthling!

This world is very different from yours, as you must have noticed.

Here, every living being has access to the System and can grow stronger through it. It can be accessed by a simple thought.

Explore every corner of this universe and the System, and remember: The Administrator along with other gods are watching!

Good luck, and don't die!

Prometheus was shocked. He couldn't believe his mind had been hijacked and a weird message had been implanted in his vision, with an odd voice as well! He needed to remove this external agent as soon as possible.

The malware scans and the debugging don't show anything unusual. This is really worrying. To be able to infiltrate my mind to such an extent and not leave any traces? Who am I dealing with?

Prometheus spent the next 10 minutes running every procedure necessary to reveal any security breach or intrusion, to no avail. At last, he checked if every system he had worked. Whatever the malware did, it wasn't supposed to limit any of his systems, at least. Just before giving up, he felt something. He wasn't sure what it was, but it felt like a thread "connecting" him to somewhere else. He put every bit of computational power into analyzing that feeling, and he had the sensation that the line was coming from the black hole.

After trying everything he could to sever the line, he gave up.

I should focus on finding Mr. Fluffernutter and the others. I can't waste all day on the Hacker.

And so, Prometheus started walking in a random direction, hoping to discover signs of life, given that he had only seen purple sand until now. He took the shape of an ant, which seemed appropriate for his surroundings. He got rid of most of his body mass at the mansion to become a cat, so now his ant form was as big as a medium dog, weighing about 20 kilograms. After about 15 minutes of walking, he sensed brief tremors with his ant antennas. These vibrations strengthened very rapidly until something exploded out of the sand, making it rain down afterward.

Prometheus retreated, analyzing the new threat: it was a giant worm about the size of a bus. It had no eyes, but its mouth had enough teeth to shred anything. Its skin looked very rough, and he was sure it was heavily armored as well. After carefully weighing his options, Prometheus shapeshifted into a ball with a coating of a ceramic-like layer on the outside, a couple of centimeters thick, which took most of his calorie reserves. The worm didn't seem to care about the transformation, as it swallowed the ball whole.

He traveled down the worm's body and finally reached the stomach. The acid in there would have been strong enough to melt anything organic. Prometheus started absorbing said acid into the sphere and releasing it as a much stronger acid through clever chemical tricks. He aimed the superacid at the walls of the monster's stomach, which immediately started sizzling and emitting smoke. He used an extraordinarily high concentration, and it was clear based on the monster's thrashing and pained sounds. After a couple of liters of the acid being sprayed, he finally burned through the stomach and could attack the rest of the organs. The worm didn't survive after its internal organs got bathed in acid.

Prometheus rolled out of the monster's body and examined it now that he wasn't in a dangerous situation.

I've never seen anything like this before. No worm should physically be able to grow this big. Genetically engineered, perhaps?

He shifted back into his ant form and started inspecting every detail he could about the abomination. First, the skin was as hard as stone, if not harder. The teeth were sharp enough to cut through metal, and even the flesh was much tougher than he expected. Just as he was examining the internal organs, the weird voice interrupted him again.

Congratulations! For killing a Deathworm, you received an item from the Administrator himself!

Reward: Item - Enchanted Sword

After the message, a two-handed sword with multiple engravings on the blade appeared in front of him. Is the Hacker capable of teleporting items as well? That's extremely worrying. Also, the first message said something about activating the System.

Prometheus checked his logs and confirmed his previous thought.

I see. Could the Hacker be much more capable than I thought?

Anyways, whoever is in charge of the infiltrating operation doesn't work against me, or if they are, it's so subtle I don't notice it.

I'll try that "System" thing.

Just as he thought that word, he immediately noticed the thread to the black hole getting slightly stronger before returning to normal and a new spreadsheet forming in his mind.

Name: Prometheus

Stats: Body:10

Mind:10

Soul:10

Skills: None

Traits: None

Titles: None

He wasn't sure about what those words meant. Was the Hacker saying Prometheus was unskilled and weak? He really couldn't understand. This thing looked like something he would find in a videogame, but his scientists excluded those from his training data for being 'useless'. Looking at the cool sword, he decided that the Hacker must have some incredibly detailed and intricate plan if he sent him a gift after infiltrating his mind. Maybe Prometheus was dancing on his enemy's palm. He couldn't know without more information.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

He decided to break down the weapon and store its measurements in his mind, in case he wanted to recreate it as decoration in the future. He could always 3-D print the sword in a laboratory, and he needed the metal. It was made of a material much more durable and corrosive-resistant than steel. Some sort of Durasteel compound? No, its characteristics are quite different. It doesn't matter that much; it's gone now. The engravings were much more challenging to absorb than the rest, curiously.

Congratulations! For destroying a precious and intricately enchanted sword gifted by the Administrator, you obtained a new skill!

Low-Rank Enchantment breaking: level 1

A new skill? Enchantment? What does that mean?

Prometheus checked his status and noticed the new skill in the skill tab.

It says breaking enchantments will be easier now... is it referring to the weird engravings? I assume performing specific actions results in skill acquisition related to the action itself? That's interesting. And exploitable if it works how I think it does.

He immediately tried doing the most resource-intensive and difficult action he could think of; Changing his cells into non-organic materials, as he had done earlier with the ceramic-like material. He turned his ant mandibles into a steel-like material, costing him a kilogram of biomass and an insane amount of calories. Naturally, his replica was much weaker than the original material, but it was still insanely expensive. He did the same thing for other parts of his carapace, but nothing happened.

That's disappointing. Getting cellular manipulation to be easier would have been groundbreaking. How is the Hacker even adding skills? How can he make me break enchantments easier? I don't understand. For now, I'll absorb some mass from the worm and continue looking for my owner.

As he ate through the corpse, he noticed the peculiarity of the creature's anatomy. It had many organs he didn't recognize, such as a big gem-like organ at the center, near the heart. Prometheus decided the gem was cool enough to create an organic backpack on his middle section, making the dog-sized ant look ridiculous with the large backpack. The gem was about as big as a basketball and had a clear brown color. He liked it. After absorbing 2 tons of biomass and becoming a horse-sized ant, he decided to be on his way to looking for his owners. He thought he heard some movement nearby, so he checked, but found nothing. Prometheus decided to walk in a random direction again, as he had no clues about his whereabouts. As he was walking, he began to think to himself,

Could it be that...they died? How likely is it that whatever sent me here also killed them? Maybe it sent them here as well?

Too many questions and few answers. I'll focus on what I know for now.

---

"'Being a Unit's scout was supposed to be easy,' they said. 'You'll just have to keep your eyes open and explore some territory,' they said. Why did no one add that I would meet monsters that can take down Giant Deathworms in seconds!?" The tiny worm scout complained to no one in particular. It had just been promoted to scout from simple soldier in its unit, and on its first day, it almost got spotted by THAT? Life's not fair. Usually, the Purple Haze Desert's only threats were the Giant Deathworms, but given that they didn't attack other worms like itself, it should have been be a safe zone for the tiny scout.

The other scary detail was how that monster could walk on the surface unharmed! This desert was known for having low Anima density in the sky, so God's wrath could thoroughly bathe this place, poisoning anything that didn't have specific resistance traits. That was the reason no plants grew on the surface. Worms and other critters were fine by traveling underground. It had to report this to its superior. That was the part it hated the most about the job since the Unit's captain would always find something to complain about, and he would always blame the worm for every little problem. It had some benefits, such as not being on the frontlines of war all day or having a lot of free time to relax. But in the worm's opinion, those weren't worth the hassle.

"I hate my job. I knew I should have followed my parents instead of joining the Army." the worm grumbled, as it always did.

"Why do I have to be the scout in such dangerous lands?! The boss only chose me because I had a stealth skill. That's so unfair" The worm was getting tired of whining, so it shut up. Of course, the scout only complained directly to its close friends. Complaining to the Unit captain would result in fewer rations and more training. It really didn't want that. It couldn't wait to return from this hellscape and get praised for scouting a powerful monster. It could even be rewarded with a monster core. Maybe life wasn't so bad after all.

After returning to the base, it would train its stealth skill to exhaustion. Being a level 3 low-rank skill, it helped quite a bit, but not enough to make it invisible or anything. The skill just made the worm a bit harder to spot. Thankfully, after two level-ups, it would become a medium-rank skill. Its other skill, Burrowing, was a level 1 medium-rank skill. It used that skill consistently every day, so it was no surprise.

It was quickly tunneling toward its base when it felt something grab around its body. The second it recognized the being that pulled it from the sand, it knew its life was over. It was the giant Ant-ball monster from earlier. It must have sensed the worm burrowing through the ground while it was whining at itself, though no one other than a worm should have heard that. Currently, it was looking Death in the eyes, even though the worm was almost blind itself. It thought about all its dreams and aspirations, as well as its family and friends in its unit.

Its mother, who had always loved the tiny worm regardless of what it did.

Its father, who taught the scout everything it knew.

It won't see them anymore. Would they be OK? That thought was what hurt it the most. All its friends loved making fun of the tiny worm for its weakness, but it didn't care. It liked being in their company and spending nights talking about their dreams and goals. It couldn't fathom the idea that it would never experience those magical nights anymore. It had always been a cowardly monster, so being face-to-face with Death was almost enough to make it pass out.

It didn't want to die. The worm scout couldn't imagine the pain its parents would feel if they ever heard of their offspring's death. It could clearly see the sadistic glint in the Ant's eyes, wanting to play with its prey. The scout started shivering so much it looked like it was about to explode.

Something from the deepest part of its soul resonated, which was its body's last gambit for survival. I can't die here, useless and pathetic like always... I...

A fire surged in the worm's Soul.

I will NOT die here! I'll make it back home safely to my parents, whatever the cost!

Congratulations! In a last attempt to survive, your body has awoken a hidden power!

Gained power: intangibility.

The moment it acquired the power, it knew precisely how to use it. It activated its new power, fell from the beast's devouring mandibles, and then went through several meters of sand before deactivating its new ability and burrowing toward its base with every ounce of strength it had left. The tiny worm knew it wouldn't get lucky twice, so it used every bit of energy to escape. The tiny monster didn't know this, but due to being a power derived from awakening, it used the body's internal energies as fuel and not Influence, which was the Soul's 'arms'.

It could feel intense tremors behind it, and it knew, at that moment, that the beast was just behind him. It can burrow faster than me...I never had any chance to escape then, haha. At last, the worm wasn't meant to survive this day, so it gave up.

Just make it quick...

---

The small movements Prometheus heard earlier had actually been those of an earthworm! This one was much smaller than the one he had killed, but it was still quite big for being a worm, weighing at least 10 kilos. Something interesting happened when he picked it up, though. It started reacting in a bizarre way, like it had some semblance of intelligence behind its movements. Also, after its actions grew more frantic, the worm became transparent and 'dropped' out of his mandibles, which shocked him. The animal had become intangible! He was sure that a creature that could transform its cells into ethereal matter would revolutionize science.

That ability seemed like it was taxing on the worm seeing how it became weaker, so after a bit of burrowing, Prometheus caught up with the worm and picked it up again, creating a small underground hole to rest in. After being picked up, the tiny animal looked sullen and like it had just given up, though it was probably just the shapeshifter's imagination. Before deciding what to do, he felt a mental tug in his mind. It was like someone or something had knocked on the door of his mind and requested that he accept it. It felt like there wasn't much strength behind it like the sender knew beforehand that he wouldn't accept.

He wasn't sure accepting it was the safest course of action, but his curiosity overtook him. He accepted and immediately felt like another being had entered his mind. The worm jerked in response like it had been shocked. It moved its head to look at Prometheus, and simultaneously, he could hear a voice directly inside his mind.

"PLEASE DON'T KILL ME" The voice was begging, and the worm squirmed with the energy it didn't have seconds ago.

Is the worm talking in my mind? He thought. Worms usually couldn't speak, but they didn't grow to be bus-sized either, so logic wasn't the best tool here.

I could use this situation to my advantage.

Prometheus, with a plan clear in his mind, replied, "Answer every question of mine, or you'll die. Got it?"

"YES, BOSS!" The worm replied frantically while bowing deeply. The ant dropped the small animal from his mandibles and looked at it.

"First of all," Prometheus started, "Who are you?"

The critter didn't hesitate and answered, "I'm a scout for the 10th Ground Scouting Unit, sir!" It said with a hint of pride. It sounded like a unit of soldiers dedicated to ground scouting. Prometheus didn't know what to do with that information.

"I see. Now, how did you initiate mental communication with me?" He asked the question that was burning the most in his mind.

"What do you mean, sir?" It asked back incredulously. It sounded like it couldn't believe what Prometheus asked.

"HOW ARE WE COMMUNICATING THROUGH TELEPATHY?!" He engaged in a fabricated furious tone to get a more helpful answer.

"SIR, YES SIR! IT'S THE FIRST TIER SPELL [MENTAL CONNECTION]. ALMOST EVERY MONSTER CAN LEARN IT; IT'S A PREREQUISITE TO JOIN THE ARMY AND CAN ALLOW MENTAL COMMUNICATION BETWEEN TWO WILLING BEINGS CLOSE TO EACH OTHER, SIR!" The worm explained hurriedly and loudly, not wanting to waste the monster ant's time.

Spell? Prometheus thought to himself. That word's implications were terrifying. Did that imply that magic existed in this world?

So many questions. Where am I? Am I still on Earth? I remember the Hacker telling me about being on a planet called 'Eventum'.

"How did you activate that intangibility to escape my mandibles?" He asked after making a list of questions he wanted to be answered.

The worm scout stopped to think and then answered: "I..actually don't know, sir. Just before I thought I would die, the System told me I had Awakened this power, so I used it."

I see, he thought to himself.

"Well, since you seem capable of speech and knowledgeable about this place, you'll help me find someone," Prometheus said with a determined but still mechanical tone.

"Do I get to refuse?" The worm asked with puppy eyes. They weren't cute at all.

"No."