Walking down the passageway this time was much different than the last. Firstly, he didn't hesitate at the wall of Soul mana, but Fang freaked the fuck out when they were in range of it. Apparently, a wildly low Spiritual stat made for easy manipulation. Who knew?

After that initial roadblock, it was much less eerie this time around. He easily dispelled almost all the Darkness mana by full-blasting infrared light down the tunnel. Clever noted that Dei's eyes started glowing when he did that, and it was much easier for him to dispel the now-mundane darkness.

Halfway down the tunnel, Dei could see watery tendrils feeling their way out through the hole in the door, and he guessed that Fendrascora could now sense them, so he sped up his pace.

Finally he was back, and stronger than ever. Fang had been updated about the situation a long time ago and, while she was irritated that she'd have to share the Soul mana, there was a whole lot of nothing she could do about it, so she was forced to deal with it. She couldn't even process the Soul mana he was giving her right now faster than he could make it as she could only eat around five per day, and he could make twenty per day, but for some reason she wanted more.

'Greedy plant,' he thought.

Standing before the hole in the door, Fendrascora's limbs retracted when he was close enough to look through. He couldn't phase through the door this time, so he'd have to widen the hole, but he could at least look and see Fendrascora this time.

Popping his head through, he saw how she was much more active than last time. She'd spread out the Soul mana he'd given her much more throughout her body, leading to her being more stable, and was now actively feeling around her room. Dei guessed that she could actually see now, as she'd lived most of her life in darkness anyway, and would have formed a type of Darkvision. The only thing holding her back from seeing before was the Darkness mana which blocked sight. Now that he was dispelling it, her old sight was kicking back in, and she was no longer blinded.

She looked almost exactly like how he'd sensed with his Spirit Sense, but he looked over her again now in more detail.

For one, the base of her body, the pool of water at the bottom, was not a still pond. Instead, it was composed of hundreds of overlapping tendrils that looked like a pit of snakes, all moving and writhing. There was also her main body in the center, a humanoid-esque figure, again composed of roiling water, sitting atop a raised hill in the center of the lake. She was mostly clear, but the orange light from Clever's glow bounced off her slightly, showing moving reflections that resembled sparks flying around in the air.

Clever wanted to leave Dei behind to check it out immediately, but Dei insisted he wait until Dei could find a way through the door. Clever sent back something along the lines of "I need to practice my beam anyway" before jumping to the ground and opening his mouth.

Dei sent a [Meaningful] to Fendrascora, telling her to get down, before taking a few steps back himself.

Clever was conscious of his surroundings though, and only fired into it at an angle. The beam itself was also slightly smaller than before, and Dei thought Clever might have tried to legitimately hold back, saving some of the heat for himself.

Before Clever had a chance to cool, he'd already reversed time on his body, the door now gone and a gouged out line of stone red-hot and melting to the floor.

Dei initially wanted to say something about Clever being reckless, or that he should've asked Dei first, but realized he was just being demanding. Clever didn't really have to answer to Dei, and he was conscious enough of his surroundings to wait for them all to get back. If they weren't far enough away, Clever would likely not have even fired in the first place.

Besides, it got the job done faster than whatever Dei might've come up with, so he shrugged instead.

He glimpsed Clever escaping around the door frame right before Dei lost sight of him, and caught up quickly. Clever's small galloping form approached the edge of the pool with Dei right behind him, and Clever studied the lights refracting off of Fendrascora's twisting body.

Clever sat down at the edge of the pool, observing the glow bouncing through Fendrascora.

While he did that, Dei greeted her with a message from [Meaningful], opening a line of communication with [Identify] too.

"It took me a lot longer this time around, but I made it. How are you holding up?" He asked, though he could sense some of her emotions through the link. She was slowly losing hope that he'd return when he wasn't here, but was now more sure than ever that he wouldn't leave. If he came back once, he'd return again.

"Better than before" she responded "Balancing the Spirit mana in my body gave me something to do, and it was a new experience, so I am stronger again." Upon saying so, she gave him access to seeing her level. He didn't forcibly Identify much this time, as he wanted to respect her privacy more, but the checkup on her recovery was good to know.

[Corrupted Damaged Crippled Embodiment of the Flow - Level 22]

"It was not much for a month, but any power is good. I do not want to be level one again, it feels so fragile." She said, pausing a second at the memory.

"Well, lets work on fixing that. You need a lot of new experiences, and you've just happened to run into a rather unusual human that has all you need to restore your body. I can supply you with both Spirit mana and new experiences, starting with your pool" He told her as he took his mom's satchel off and started rummaging through it, pulling out a familiar plant which he was utterly unequipped to take care of.

[Floating Lily Sprout - Level 119]

They'd leveled up slightly during the time he had them, but were ultimately in quite an unhealthy condition. He had to keep them in a perpetual state of drought with the water he had for them, which put too much stress on their stems.

After explaining what they were and how they worked, he asked if she wanted them.

"I won't lie, I didn't think about how it would be your body in the lake, so I might have to bring in some water. Do you want them?"

"Yes!" she said enthusiastically "They are wonderful flowers, and they have a connection to the Flow! Because they need constant change to thrive, they resonate with me greatly! I am tempted to surrender some of my body for them to live off of… It would help them too, yes? To have a more magically concentrated source of water to draw from?"

It sounded to Dei like she was trying to justify it to herself, but he didn't say that "Err… I'm not sure? But I mean, Fang drinks from my blood here, so you wouldn't be the first in the group to have a plant living off of you. If you want to, go for it, but it won't be necessary if you don't. I'm going to be bringing more water anyway."

"I've decided. They will live in the pool with me."

"Well, whatever makes you happy and gets you more experiences," he told her.

There was a bit of a pause in the conversation after that. Dei gave her the lily sprouts, and she became focused on studying them. He saw that a portion of her body turned more fluid, and let her do her own thing.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Instead, he studied the surroundings.

Clever was still looking at the reflecting glow of his orange skin bouncing off Fendrascora, Fang and the red blade sat next to his satchel a few feet from the edge of the water, and the rest of the room was bare.

He found that he wasn't as afraid of Fendrascora anymore. Now that he'd risked his life a few times, a completely crippled Embodiment was not all that scary. Without the fear to block the way, it was a lot easier for him to trust her, if only a little.

His connection to Soul still wasn't perfectly happy, but its decay slowed. Right now, he wasn't talking to Fendrascora either, so it wasn't getting any worse. It appeared that only directly socializing with someone counted against his contract.

He wanted to study the room's magic a bit more, but he'd need a hand for this. Clever seemed preoccupied, so he picked up Fang instead.

"Hey, I want you to tell me about the magic levels and different types of magic in the area while I mess with them. Could you?"

"Hmmm" Fang replied "Maybe. I want something out of it though."

Irritated, he said "What else could you even want? I'm literally giving you everything a Flesh Trap could ever desire. I didn't ask anything for my blood, should I have charged you for it?"

"...I will help."

'Greedy plant.' "Thank you. Now, let's study the mana in the area. Its pretty clear that Darkness mana is coming from somewhere, but where?"

Fang went quiet for a bit, and he assumed she was studying the room around her. With her high Magical and Mental stat, she'd be perfect for looking through everything. Magical stats supposedly helped pierce the defenses of others, so she would be able to more easily pierce any cloaking mechanisms too.

"It's a feature built into the walls and stone, I believe. It is odd, I've never seen anything like it. It reminds me of one massive organism, drawing magic from its soul and using it in a Skill. Except… it has no soul, and no Skills. It emulates them, though. Peculiar. Either way, Darkness mana is flowing through the walls. It's being vaporized rather quickly from your Light mana, but it's there."

He suspected she was, for the first time, running into enchantments. Dei himself had never seen anything like that, but he knew what they were from stories from earth, and they clearly existed in this world, as Shaman staffs were powerful artifacts that granted power. Was the stone potentially enchanted to produce Darkness magic?

Looking at it a bit closer with his Tremor Sense, it was making it a bit fuzzier, harder to see. It wasn't at the level of Darkness mana where he was completely blinded, but vibrations were just barely dampened.

When he walked down the tunnel, ambient noise was cut off. Was it just enough to prevent excessive reverberation? That way, small noises wouldn't reach Fendrascora?

But why not make it as strong as the Darkness mana pervading the area? There were many reasons he could think of, such as limits on the enchantments, materials used, magic power source, or the caster's own abilities, but none of them really mattered. The important aspect of this was that they'd figured out there were enchantments in the walls, and not just some random hole that Darkness mana flooded through.

"Fang, just to be sure the Darkness isn't coming from tiny holes in the walls? Straight from the smooth walls themselves?"

A pause, then she responded "Correct."

"Now, what about over here?" he asked, leading her to the melted section of the wall that Clever blasted. The stone was not perfect here, textured and melting.

Another pause. "No, there is no mana coming from this section of the wall."

"Now, what is the power source? You said it's drawing mana from its soul, without an actual soul. Can it draw in ambient mana, or is there a heart around here? Something that we can pull out to deactivate it."

Again, Fang focused on searching the surroundings. "I don't know. It's like there are a bunch of tiny sort-of souls powering it in different places. I can show you one" she said, then sent him a barely comprehensible message of where it was. Dei could tell that the "translation" feature of his Identify that read the intent behind a thought was putting in some work to turn plant-sense into human-sense.

'Actually, how does Fang see?' He wondered idly, but now wasn't the time to ask.

The closest point was actually right near his left foot, so he bent down and studied the stone.

'Yep. It's grey.'

Next, he tried digging into it with his fingers. For the very first time, he was met with resistance from stone. Normally, it came up like mud. This was closer to dried clay. He could still dig into it, but it would be much more difficult. He guessed that the stone was also magically reinforced, on top of being enchanted to release Darkness mana and suppress vibrations.

Scratching it didn't work, so he tried punching it instead.

When all he did was hurt his hand without even breaking the stone, he tried, again, to rethink his strategy.

'There was a tiny pickaxe in mom's belongings, but I don't think it would be strong enough to break this kind of stone. I think it was more for digging out the crystals found around, not whatever kind of magic material this is. Still, worth a try.'

After getting the small pickaxe, he thought about how he should go about this. He didn't want to just slam it into the stone with all his might, because he didn't want to accidentally break it.

"Does [Digging] work on tools?' he wondered, pulling up the description.

[Digging (Major) - Passive

Slight in-born hyper-specialized earth affinity gives +600% digging speed]

'It doesn't say only using my hands.'

He tried to hit the stone with the pickaxe without using all of his strength, just some of it.

The vibrations reverberating through the handle made him drop it. The pickaxe itself was made completely of dark metal, with a leather wrap where the handle was supposed to be. Rubber wasn't exactly a tool they'd discovered yet, and this particular pickaxe didn't take advantage of a wooden handle.

'The earth affinity absolutely did not work. It was easier to use my hands, and made more progress too. This didn't even scratch it!'

He thought about the problem more. His earth affinity didn't just "help him dig," it made the stone softer underneath his hands. What if he put his hand against the stone, then hit the pickaxe against the stone next to his hand?

Trying it, he was happy to see that it worked. The rock was easily shattered, and a massive chip was pulled up. Still… he didn't want to keep slamming a sharp piece of metal against the floor right next to his fingers.

Since he could hit the stone next to it though, and still benefit from the affinity, that meant it was proximity based. Stone near his hands was softened, but if his hands were too far away, it didn't work.

That meant using the handle wasn't the best way to take advantage of the pickaxe. He grabbed the pointy side of the metal top at its base, which kept his hand close to whatever he was mining. Using it this way, sort of like stabbing something with a dagger, he was met with real progress.

The stone was completely annihilated, chunks of it coming up with every swing.

So lost in his moment of triumph, he forgot what they were even there for, and dug too quickly. He heard a shattering beneath the final swing of his pickaxe and paused.

Fang sent him a message that the node which gave the room energy had been extinguished, and Dei shrugged. There were supposedly hundreds of these things according to her, so one destroyed wouldn't be a huge deal. He was only digging them up to study them more, and remove the power source of the room.

Removing some of the larger stones from the small hole he'd dug, he finally laid eyes on what they were looking for: a Crystal. Fang said that there was a residual mana type, but she couldn't tell what it was because it was fading too quickly. She wanted to get a live one next time to study, and he had the same thought.

Guiding him to another point just a foot or two away from the first, Dei was much more careful to chisel the stone, getting frequent pointers from Fang to direct his efforts. When he was closer, he stopped using the pickaxe, and started rubbing the stone away, bit by bit. It wasn't as smooth as the surface stone, so it was much easier to get a grip on it with his bare hands. Still, it took several minutes to finally see a faint glow.

Even more carefully, he slowly but surely dug around one of the tiniest crystals he'd ever run into.

At long last, he unlodged a small crystalline brown stone, the size of his pinkie fingernail.

[Skill Leveled Up: Good Samaritan (1) -> (2)]

"Ah shit."

* * *

Somewhere far, far above, on the surface sat an abandoned house in the middle of the forest.

The owner hadn't been back in quite some time, and it was unclear when he would be back.

In the house, a small device blinks red. Though Dei does not know it, there is nobody to check the device. Nobody is hunting him, at least not yet.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.