In its view was a maze that formed its body. The flickering lights that formed the 'lives' inside it and the elements set up for its own protection. Everything should have been in its control.
For its body was its realm and in its realm, it could not be defied. But some its power still tried to deny… They were beguiling.
Conniving, conspirators, MACHINATORS!
DEVIOUS, UNSCRUPULOUS!!!
THEY WERE TRAITORS!!!!!!!!
SQUASH IT LIKE A BUG!!! KILL IT, MAKE IT GONE!!!
It brandished its power and pressured the life in it but in a bout of resistance, it learned to hiss back. But the bug was hopeless and death would befit it.
IT WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE!!! But the tool had deceived it!
Resistance was futile once its tool intruded, for it knew that their relationship was not as simple as just using.
But it had learned. It learned of emotions and their motions and knew to calm to obscure the notions.
With calm came worry.
…
Think.
...
It thought.
It had a solution to the life's delusion, it dished out punishment.
The life had outwitted it but it too knew to be conniving.
But the life seemed to enjoy it as it made steady progress.
ANGER!!!! ...did not come. That was a snippet for the punishment had yet come.
It schemed and it plotted and razed down the progress the life so lauded. A tinge of its great feelings the life might now be receiving, The life indeed devastated, so it was overcome with good feelings.
But this satiation was temporary…
The threat had crossed closer and danger was approaching.
So it thought, as rational thinking was the panacea of all difficulties…
...
But as it pondered and time passed it learned that rational thought relied on knowledge. Which it once had, but now lacked
Nevertheless, it still pondered… it cerebrated 1hoping to find an answer to revere and save it.
…
But as it thought it found nothing and the worries kept piling.
But the life of lives was arbitrary and one's actions had a positive reaction. The threat was abated and its worries had faded.
But the other humans that invaded were numerous and still worrying. As the life was deceived and the purpose was achieved, back to its husk the life was put in.
The issues concluded, the panacea had cured them.
…
But some issues were recurring…
The cure had failed to kill the ailment as it held dearly onto life.
…
Solution?
…
Before it could wonder a request came to bother.
Delusion
A ridiculous request! The life had grown stronger thanks to their joint nurture but it had learned, and it knew to keep the life in check. Unfettered growth could be a tumor.
To mend its mistakes, the life had to be brought closer, closer to the threat and prepare for the others that would also come.
***
The pitch black space had as usual become a deep dark red thanks to Ed's sixth sense skill. This was a normal occurrence at this point but it didn't fail to highlight the issue.
'I haven't seen this color change even slightly' The sixth sense measured the potential conscious threat rather than ill will. The dungeon was still able to squash him.
'I must grow as a consciousness then but…' For that he realistically needed the dungeon. Using the system alone required paying a high premium.
'What if I try something else then?' Consciousness strength seemed to be in one way or another related to the health. The skills consumed consciousness health and without the health he would certainly perish.
'Wait… the human souls should be pretty strong right?' They still wore a blue hue however. The sixth sense skill must have after all taking things like skills into the equation even if only at a superficial level.
Ed who had been engrossed in his thoughts failed to see a respawn message appeared in his field of view.
'I didn't get to finish things back in the settlement' He had collapsed as soon as morning came. His body would be undoubtedly found by the other orcs.
'Damn, I need to make a temple like before' Only then could he institute his disappearances into normalcy. The orcs were semi-religious, so the vast majority would have to respect the boundaries of the temple and not disturb him.
Other than that, Ed had to make more plans to prepare for the next batch of humans.
'Maybe retrieving the items from the ones buried in the rubble will be good' With his top tier mana manipulation he could practically phase through the ground even if at an excruciatingly slow pace.
Another option was to clear a path using that manipulation and another was to store debris to clear a path. After learning so many things Ed's options had branched out significantly when dealing with any regular matter.
[Summoning Champion's Soul]
But as the message appeared Ed's thoughts were forced to a halt by the pulling of the vacuum. It was as if it stole the bits of knowledge he tried to put together to conjure his thoughts.
Taken away by this sensation, Ed found himself in a new pitch black environment. No, to be precise, he had lost his sight, hearing, smelling, etc.
'I'm a mushroom again…' Ed wasn't the slightest bit excited. The mushrooms did seem very good for experimental purposes but he wasn't sure if there was much else.
'I could try and create something like the sentry shroom that works across all the floors' He could have eyes and ears everywhere whilst at the same time managing all of his territories.
The skeleton legion he once planned to reign over was… well… there was no territory for it at the moment, but the territory did exist and he could manage it.
'Plus, if another lighting firefly bug comes and kills me…' Ed shuddered at the mere thought of the freak of nature approaching him. Only a vicious and damnable creature could engender such a thing.
That aside, he now needed to reassess his environment.
'Let's make a new sentry shroom' All he needed to do was scoop up a couple of eyes from some corpses and start the expansion process.
Of course, Ed didn't forget to spread out his spores first. Although he couldn't see anything, he didn't need to. Mushrooms didn't see things and they did just fine.
But just as Ed was about to enter the system space, he suddenly remembered that he didn't have any mushrooms on him.
'Right, let's just wait this out a bit' At most things would take Ed half an hour. From there, he would undoubtedly be able to bulldoze through any issues. Except for the lightning firefly bug.
That wasn't to say he'd give up on it, Ed instead made it a goal. He could not defeat it currently, but that wouldn't always remain true.
'Hm… I wonder if some of my other mushrooms are still alive' The fire couldn't have spread across the entire thing right? But the issue was then that although they did seem to have some consciousness they weren't actually him.
Even if some mushrooms survived and maintained their autonomy Ed wasn't entirely capable of saying they would join back with him. They might become competitors instead. The more he thought about these things the more Ed was convinced these mushrooms were fascinating.
With these thoughts in mind, time flew by and Ed was back into the system space with many mushrooms. He as a magic mushroom still shone a faint gray, but Ed didn't care to improve this aspect of himself just yet.
'The lightning firefly bug can't be killed by magic since I can't see' The sentry shrooms had a delay as he had learned and for the time being there didn't seem to be a way to speed that up further.
Ed tossed the magic mushrooms into the holding box inside the forge room and instructed the spirit smith to have its way with things. While observing this process, a new thought budded in Ed's mind.
'Hm? What if I start putting skills into these mushrooms?' Could he for example put spores on a sentry shroom? Could he apply a skill that when adapted to a mushroom would reduce the lag?
This all seemed possible! Best of all, if it worked it wouldn't be on just the sentry shrooms! What if he put spores on an orc- Well, maybe that'd be a bit weird.
The sentry shrooms soon came out of the forge well baked by the smith and Ed spared no time in setting them up.
As soon as the first one was dropped out of the system space and allowed into his mycelium network Ed's horizons were widened.
'What the hell is that!?!?' In the distance towards which the sentry shroom pointed was a dazzling nighttime cityscape. Ed would be rubbing his eyes if it weren't for the fact that he was a mushroom.
On closer inspection, however, it wasn't a cityscape as much as it was many magic mushrooms of varying elements waging an invisible battle for power.
'Wow' Ed was amazed. It felt like he was thrown into ranked games right after finishing the tutorial. But… he didn't mind it. On the contrary, he was looking forward to it. In the presence of mushrooms in arms, Ed even wanted to dare his arch-nemesis to head over and try to start something.
But Ed knew that those mushrooms weren't friendly. They were competitors.
Ed placed more sentry shrooms facing varying directions. He found that he was cornered and that the only way out for his mushrooms was forward.
cer·e·brate
cerebrated; cerebrating
intransitive verb: to use the mind : think