There was a new noise in the stream.
Dot didn't notice it at first. He was busy syncing pulses with Wigglenoodle and trying to refine a new mana thread. The moss had started reacting to his presence, glowing slightly brighter when he passed mana near it. Like it wanted to help. Or it was curious. Or maybe it was just moss. Hard to say.
But then the sound came again.
Thunk. Clatter. Splash.
Metal on stone.
Unnatural.
[Object impact detected. Mana signature: weak. Material: Iron. Source: Upstream.]
Dot pulsed toward the noise. The signal came back strange. Echoing. Fuzzy.
"Seek, you getting anything?"
[Analyzing… primitive tool detected. Crude craftsmanship. Possibility: mortal item.]
Mortal? As in… human?
His core pulsed, not in fear. In something else.
Excitement. Curiosity.
The last time he saw a human was when he died.
Dot sent Wigglenoodle ahead. Slowly. Carefully. The eel zipped off like a scout with glowing fins.
While he waited, he practiced compressing mana into a tighter thread. It helped his pulses travel further and waste less energy. Seek had called it "thread shaping." Dot called it "learning not to sound like a foghorn."
Wigglenoodle returned minutes later. Not alone.
Trailing behind it was a bundle of something tied to a stick. A sack? A satchel? It was half torn open. Cloth floated around it like seaweed.
Inside was a book.
A real book.
Pages waterlogged. Ink smudged. But unmistakably a book.
Dot stared.
"Seek?"
[Analyzing language… match found. Ancient Arkaic. Early human dialect. Reading...]
Dot waited.
[Journal Entry. Traveler's log. Notes on monsters, terrain, basic spells.]
Magic. Real spells.
His dot-core buzzed with excitement.
He focused on the book. Seek projected a few translated lines.
"Day 7: River seems safe. Saw a glowing fish. Might be edible."
"Day 8: Found an old shrine downstream. Broken. Something's watching."
"Day 10: Storm last night. Lost one of the packs. Mana spike nearby. Going to check it out."
Dot pulsed.
"The pack. It's this one."
So someone had been here. A traveler. An adventurer maybe.
But where were they now?
Dot couldn't shake the feeling something had happened.
He turned to Wigglenoodle.
"Let's check upstream."
They didn't get far.
About ten meters past Grandma, the stone tunnel curved up. A slope. Not steep, but unnatural. A bit too smooth. Wigglenoodle tried swimming upward but struggled. No water flowed that way.
[Terrain shift: incline detected. Above-water path possible.]
Above?
Dot hadn't thought much about what existed outside the river.
Could he even leave?
He'd grown strong here. Safe. Comfortable.
But this traveler. The book. The iron tools. The mana storm…
Something was shifting.
He pulsed a single thread upward, reaching past the water's edge.
For the first time, the air replied.
Not with words. With possibility.
Dry. Still. And laced with faint, sleeping mana.
[New region discovered: Forgotten Crossing.]
[Environmental condition: dry cavern, low ambient mana, potential ruins nearby.]
[Warning: Core stability may weaken outside aquatic zone. Mobility: limited.]
Dot hesitated.
Then again, he was a dot. The world didn't get handed to him on a plate.
He had to float up there himself.
"Wigglenoodle, help me cheat."
The eel blinked. Then, obediently, spun in a spiral and generated a current upward. Dot clung to the swirling mana stream.
Like a balloon full of hope and terrible ideas.
The surface was weird.
No currents. No soothing bubble sounds. Just rock, dust, and the slow tick of dripping water.
Dot hovered barely an inch above the ground. His body flickered slightly. He wasn't supposed to be here.
[Warning: Elemental mismatch. Aquatic bias at 89%. Duration: limited.]
"Yeah yeah. I get it. Hurry up."
He drifted forward. The cavern widened. Moss clung to the edges but most of the space was dead stone. The mana in the air tasted… old. Like a library that hadn't been cleaned in centuries.
He found something.
A pack. Torn. Leather.
Inside, bones.
Small. Human.
Dot didn't pulse. Didn't move.
Wigglenoodle curled tightly around him.
The adventurer hadn't made it.
There was no battle. No burn marks. Just a broken leg. A snapped rope. And time.
Too far from help. Too unlucky.
He wasn't sure if it was the echoes in the cave or the memory of his own death that hit harder.
But something settled in his core.
Not sadness.
A promise.
[Minor Title Acquired: Keeper of Lost Echoes]
[Title Effect: Increased mana sensitivity in ancient ruins. Greater affinity with lost relics.]
Dot hovered closer. A final pulse.
Safe. Rest.
The air didn't respond.
But it felt quieter now.
Back in the stream, the world felt gentler.
He had returned changed.
He could feel the river respond to him faster. The moss curled toward his energy. The fish didn't dart away. Even the shrimp paused beside him longer than usual.
Wigglenoodle did a loop-de-loop and slammed into Steve.
Everything was, somehow, fine.
[Core Progress: 13%]
[New Passive Skill: Echo Sense – Detect remnants of ancient mana within 10 meters.]
[New Option Available: Upgrade Class Path – pending prerequisites.]
"Wait, class path?"
[Affirmative. Based on accumulated affinities and environmental interactions, class seeds detected.]
Dot's metaphorical eyebrows rose.
[Available Seeds: Mana Core, Rune Beacon, Echo Heart, Micro Sovereign.]
He paused.
"…These all sound insane."
[That is correct.]
He didn't pick yet.
No rush.
The water still flowed. His core still pulsed. Wigglenoodle still brought dumb pebbles. Life was fine.
But he had touched the outside world now.
And it had touched back.
Something out there was waiting.
And this time, he wouldn't face it alone.