Particles of light started to dance around me, Sallera, and Tob.
Rudis Subtilis Manipulation has reached Lv. 11
Primus Manipulation has reached Lv. 4
Forced Mana Regeneration has reached Lv. 6
Mana Infusion has reached Lv. 6
Identify has reached Lv. 8
I read the skill upgrades I had ignored during the fight before moving on to the Dungeon reward.
Somani, you have been rewarded with [Spacial Pouch]
Initiating return to cell…
“Healing our injuries… Indeed, this Dungeon is special,” Sallera whispered weakly.
The light particles were entering Tob’s and Sallera’s wounds, and after a short while, they looked completely healed.
Then, the particles started to shine with a purple hue—space Mana.
Teleport us to our cells? Convenient.
Standing up, Sallera walked towards me before extending her arm.
I shook it.
“Our alliance ends here, Somani. Although our endeavours have been deemed useless, it’s been a pleasure to meet someone of your calibre,” Sallera spoke.
So… we’re really heading back to the cells.
Seeing that my gamble hadn’t paid off, I was a bit disappointed. Still, I tried to encourage the elf, as that's what Somani would’ve done.
“The pleasure is mine, and looking at the bright side, we won’t be returning to that stupid maze.”
Sallera gave me a small smile.
Looking at my points, they were above fifty. There should be no problem there.
Tob nodded. “I agree. Well, I guess this is where our small adventure ends. Hope we’ll meet at the next games.”
I snorted, but didn’t comment.
There’ll be no next games for me.
Before the particles dragged us away, I decided to gather as much info as I could from Sallera; she seemed knowledgeable.
“Sallera, Tob. What rewards did you get?”
“Off-putting Robe,” Sallera answered, while Tob smiled.
“You tell first.”
The particles intensified.
“Spacial Pouch,” I revealed, noticing how Sallera raised her eyebrows. Tob seemed to have no clue, like me.
“Mine are Ugly Gauntlets.”
Ugly?
I couldn’t help but laugh, catching Tob’s ire. Sallera didn’t seem impressed.
“You just wait for the next time we meet! Ugly or not, they’ll destroy my enemies!” Tob raised a clenched fist defensively.
“Anyways, Sallera, do you know what our rewards are and how to access them?”
The light particles were so intense now that they outshone the torchlights.
“Tob’s and my reward need a revelation scroll. On the other hand, yours is pretty standard, but extremely rare. It’ll allow you to store items. For your second question, Dungeon rewards are system-stored for the first withdrawal. Just think of the reward, and it should appear.”
“So that’s how it’s done,” Tob said.
The lights became blinding.
“How much can I store?” I asked quickly.
Sallera opened her mouth to answer as Tob focused too hard on his hands, but…
It felt like I was being… stretched?
A moment later, I was dizzy and inside my cell.
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Congratulations on exiting the Hunger Games through a side challenge!
‘We’re back,’ Somani commented.
‘Yeah.’
***
After settling down, I started contemplating and finalising the escape plan that had crossed my mind after the revelation.
It was simple, really, but dangerous.
I knew that I couldn’t take over hosts in this prison, as most of them were of a higher level than me, so I decided to create the hosts myself, or as I’d name them: Temporal Hosts.
The Temporal Host’s purpose was as a respite for my dispersing soul on its way outside, as escaping this dungeon in cell form—destroying Somani’s body and any regenerating cells until we reached an exit point—was impossible.
The prison was huge and complex, and escaping it wasn’t straightforward; I’d need to find my exit after traversing the three-dimensional maze formed by the prison cells’ layout, which could take days if not more.
These Temporal Hosts would solve this issue, filling my diminishing film with Mana—Somani’s regeneration was insanely fast and would eat at my film’s Mana even before the 30-second window for my soul to disperse was up.
The Temporals would also function as Mana Bombs that’d explode, temporarily destroying the Mana barrier of the prisons I had chosen to rest in and catapulting me towards the next Temporal Host. From there, I’d repeat the process of traversing the maze while creating a new Temporal Host.
But the real reason behind creating these Temporal Hosts was as a backup, so as not to lose the soul holding Somani and by that losing Somani himself.
Essentially, the Temporals would act as charging batteries—having cores and all. Inside them, I could keep Somani as a single cell indefinitely, as my film wouldn’t have to face the elements.
Unfortunately, this plan had two problems: First, I still wasn’t sure I could create this so-called Temporal Host. Secondly, escaping this dungeon’s boundary didn’t mean immediate relief. They’d try to catch me once they noticed my disappearance, which they would succeed at, given the power difference—this was the dangerous part, as they could decide to kill me for escaping.
How can I solve these problems…
A crazy idea crossed my mind, something that’d need all my skill to pull off.
***
The week of respite passed, with some minor inconveniences like the dream attacks resuming, but nothing else.
Thinking of these horrendous dreams as respite… soul pain really has no competition.
During these days, I spent most of my time observing how the slimy cells worked and interacted with each other; it was complex, but with [Rudis Subtilis Biomancy], I felt like I theoretically understood their build.
The first trials began after a week had passed.
I decided to do the experiment inside the slime’s body, as that’d hide it from any observing eyes.
My biomancy skill got my will: create a single slime cell.
The skill obliged, and Mana flew.
Like always, the Mana intangible in a certain way that eluded me. Taking a certain incomprehensibly small weave, the Mana turned red as a piece of my soul flew towards it and then…
Surrounded by the watery substance engulfing all cells, a cell, similar to the already existing ones, was born. It had a blue substance filling its insides as the nucleus was pushed to the periphery. The cell rods and sheathes weren’t connected to anything, until…
I formed another cell before getting into the hard part—connecting the slime cells.
I activated [Hive Mind], then, Intricately and carefully, I controlled each rod and made it enter the opposing sheath.
This process was insanely difficult, as there were millions of sheaths and rods. I could’ve created the cells already connected, but I wanted to understand the mechanism of how they interacted and moved, giving the slime its firm and paradoxically elusive build.
The cell walls facing each other had every rod and sheath united.
I tried to move the cells, like the slime did, by replicating a complex set of movements that had me contract and relax sheaths, but then…
The cell wall exploded, releasing the bluish liquid inside.
This is not going to be easy…
***
It had taken me no less than a week to somewhat understand how the slime cells interacted, hence creating their quirky movement.
During this time, I debated whether to forgo this experiment and maybe focus on creating a normal human system: bones, muscles, nerves.
I quickly shoved that idea away. It wasn’t that human cells were that much more complex than the slime cells, and I could say the weird way the slime cells interacted with each other could be considered harder than the simple way muscle strings functioned by contracting their long, thin string bundles.
What I feared about going through that route was the thing that controlled these systems, the brain.
It was complex, way too complex for my current capabilities to ever dream of recreating.
I could go with the path of controlling the muscles through biomancy, but to create a functioning life form, I’d need blood vessels to feed the muscles, a stomach to digest and give the muscles the building materials and much more.
A slime-based lifeform was way easier for a beginner like me. How to feed the cells? Inject the building blocks and air directly into the complex liquid engulfing the cells. How to move them? Already figured that out.
My end goal was this: create a fully functional independent living being, and the slime route was within current capabilities.
So, even though the mechanism behind how the slime cells moved was complex, it was still way less difficult to understand than, say, creating a flesh-and-bone creature.
I slowly rose from moving two cells, to four, eight, then much more.
As I controlled more and more cells, I started to think of them as a single form, not on the individualistic level, as that was impossible to comprehend even for [Hive Mind]. Meaning, for a form with 64 cells, I allocated a point's worth of mind power for every 8 cells.
This process quickly scaled until I hit the limit.
The largest batch of cells a point of BP could control at a single time was equivalent to the size of half of Somani’s head, or as I decided to call it, SH (Somani’s Head).
With my current capabilities—11BP or 13MBP—I could hope to control about 6.5 SH worth of slime matter.
Inside the Aqua Slime’s body, there was a separate slime almost the size of Somani, moving and squirming around. It wasn’t obvious at first sight, but if the observers were to focus too much, they could see it.
But why would anyone pay too much attention to a random slime?
I slowly morphed the separate slime to have four limbs, a torso, and a head, then I started moving it.
I made it make circles around the slime’s organs.
The movement wasn’t the most perfect, nor did they look functional, but I knew with more training, my slimy human—The first part of the Temporal Host—would one day see the day of light.
***
Somani’s fights returned, but I left it up to him as I focused on the second part of my slime body—the soul.
Gathering my will, I activated [Anima Replica] for the first time.
The skill promised a soul clone without side effects, except pain, and pain it promised.
My soul stretched, forming a double loop connected at a point.
The point snapped, and with it, the pain came.
AHHHHHHH!
It made me wish I did not exist.
Oh, darkness, take me.
My will crumbled as my vision disappeared.
My mind was under so much pressure just to comprehend the pain I was going through, and at that moment, the seed of a fear I hadn’t had was planted in me—the fear of pain, or more specifically, soul pain.
I don’t want… I don’t want to go through this!
An idea—destroy this soul to erase the pain and salvage myself from this miserable situation.
Yeah! yeah! yeah!
Reactivating [Manima Senses], I looked for my new soul, but there was no need to search as my vision expanded around every soul that formed me.
I made the new and the Aqua Slime soul fly away…
The Aqua Slime soul didn’t budge, reminding me that souls occupying hosts couldn’t leave their hosts as long as they were encased in their cells.
…I have to destroy the slime. I have to destroy my soul!
I took control of the body through biomancy and started exploding every cell.
The slime quickly lost mass.
But even as the pain ate at my reasoning, my instincts screamed: Stop!
Why would you want me to stop?! Can’t you see that this pain isn’t worth it?!
Myself, my crazed mind, or the new soul responded. I wasn’t sure.
Because that’s our purpose! To grow the All!
I didn’t stop tearing at the slime cells.
Why should I care to grow my All?!
My other self responded.
Because that’s the truth. The only truth we know.
The truth of what!
The inner voice speaking to me stopped, and I thought I had it, until…
The truth of life. Humans procreate, animals copulate, and cells divide. Everything wants to increase its number and its strength to continue living through any means possible.
I wasn’t convinced.
Why should I continue living if my life is this miserable? Why?!
The other me answered gently.
Because the other option is death.
Then I choose death!
The other me went silent, and this time, I was sure I had won the argument.
The slime now was half its volume.
Then… change your goal, suddenly spoke the other me.
What?
Your goal shouldn't be to increase your All just for the sake of increasing your All; instead, make your All your protector in the face of misery. Nurture your All so that you never have to go through this again!
I was about to lash out at my other self, but then… it disappeared, and with it, my soul pain lessened, or was it the other way around?
The pain quickly started to degrade as I stopped destroying my second host.
Nurture my All to serve as a protector against misery?
From the first moment of my life, I had been hell-bent on increasing my All, and for what reason?
Well, I had known that being bigger and stronger would mean existing longer, but did I really want that?
No, I don’t think so.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want a long life, no.
Living a long life filled with this misery? Let death take me into its cold embrace, but…
What if I tweaked my goal?
I didn’t want to stop chasing growing my All, that was instinctual, but what if instead of increasing my All for the sake of a long life, I make it… a long, happy life.
With the pain weaves lessening, and my new goal: Increase the All to live a long, happy life, I continued to the next part of creating my Temporal, adding the soul.
But first, let’s see how the slime body will behave outside the Aqua.