Time is strange now. It moves, but not in seconds or minutes. It passes like the slow melt of snow, or the grinding of tectonic plates.
I waited.
I floated in a void of instinct and thought, my consciousness suspended in a rough gemstone no larger than a clenched fist. About ten centimeters wide, my surface was jagged, dull at the edges, crystalline veins pulsing faintly with a soft black light. Mana thrummed within me like a heartbeat, steady and full of potential.
I lay buried in dense stone, deeper than any light could reach.
But I was not helpless.
Driven by something both alien and familiar, I reached outward—not with hands, but with will. The mana within me pulsed once, twice… then erupted.
From my core, something grew.
A tendril of dark, viscous matter slithered outward, carving its way into the surrounding stone. It was not flesh as I remembered it, but dungeon flesh—a living conduit of my power, black as night, slick with condensed mana.
It moved like a root, pressing against stone, flexing and digging. I learned to push it, to bend it, to feel through it. It became my nerve, my tool, my muscle.
Slowly, I dug.
I shifted the stone away from my body, forming a small chamber. It was rough at first—jagged walls, uneven surfaces—but it was mine. I condensed the excess rubble, shoving it into the deeper recesses of the earth, thickening the chamber's outer shell for protection.
Hours passed. Then days. I dug upward, sideways. I sent tendrils through the cracks, branching, splitting, fusing again. Stone was not passive—it fought me, resisted my intrusion. But mana was stronger.
I created tunnels, simple and curved, echoing the shape of roots beneath a great tree. I made alcoves and nooks, lined the walls with mana-slicked flesh to absorb ambient essence.
Then, one day, something shifted.
My probing tendril struck open space.
A hollow. Not natural—but forged. Rough walls, collapsed support beams, ancient rail tracks choked in dust and time.
A mine.
A long-abandoned shaft, once carved by intelligent hands.
But more than that… the stone whispered. Fine veins of mana-stone lined the broken corridor. Their presence sang to me—a hum of power, waiting to be harvested.
My awareness expanded with a lurch. I extended more tendrils, probing further down the tunnel. I tasted rust, old iron, mold, and… something else.
"Why can I even taste…?" I grumbled to myself.
Residual mana lingered in those odd veins. The mine had once been alive with energy. Now it slumbered, forgotten for unknown ages.
The energy, the tunnels—they would be mine.
I poured more power into the tendrils, sending them down the shaft and across the mine's broken lattice. I mapped every crevice and traced each corridor in the area.
But this effort drained me.
The deeper I pushed, the more mana I consumed. Each inch of flesh cost me. My thoughts grew sluggish. The light within my core dimmed.
Eventually, I could go no further.
And so I was forced back into my mind unknowingly.
My tendrils stilled, resting but still there. My will faded like the tide.
And for the first time in this world, I slept.
Deep in the earth. Surrounded by stone.
Protected by darkness.
And waiting to grow.