I have discovered what I’m sure was to be the first of my many frustrations with this bizarre system I’d been entangled into: mana regenerates at a glacial pace. I’ve been assuming that this is entirely thanks to me having a single unit of wealth to contribute to my regeneration.

It had now been about a full day since that coin plummeted into my lucky ‘hands’—and I had gotten a whopping five mana to show for it.

MP: 5 / 25 ( + )

Lovely.

Even without a frame of reference to base my assumptions off of, I was all but certain that five mana had to be the arcane equivalent of the table scraps a wizard might throw to their dog. Still, I wasn’t exactly in a position to complain about it.

After all, I had found something that I could interact with.

The architecture of my room showed nothing at all that I could do anything with. Nor did the rats, the crow, myself… but, of all the things that I checked, the berry bush sitting right on the precipice to my collapsed shelter had something new. Well, not the bush per se; rather, its fruit.

Mogo Berry Category: Plant Resynthesis Cost:

10 MP

-Out of Range

An edible berry with a tart, floral flavor. Unhealthy to eat in large quantities.

I had exactly zero idea what 'resynthesis' might be, but given that it was something that I was apparently capable of doing I was more than eager to try it.

Given how things were going, the answer seemed obvious. I’d wait for my mana to build up. Then, the next time one of those berries fell down here, I’d see if that brought it into close enough range for me to interact with it.

The wait itself went entirely uneventfully. More mouse-gazing. One time, the crow came down and perched on top of one of my walls and started squawking obnoxiously, strutting about as if it owned the place. That was pretty much it. By noon of the second day, I had ten mana. It took until early morning on the third day for me spot one of the berries coming loose, tumbling down and landing in the cracks between my floor tiles. Jackpot.

I gave it a quick check to confirm my suspicions.

Resynthesis Cost: 10 MP

With it in range, I was all good to go.

Without an ounce of hesitation, I reached out to try and make it happen, still unsure what the result of this action would even be. What was resynthesis? I had no idea just yet, but I doubted I'd find out without blindly tossing myself at it at least once. I saw the core—my core—light up somewhat brighter, illuminating the room in a faint blue hue, beams shimmering down onto the berry and enveloping it in brilliant light. From the corner of the room, one of the rats peered out from the burrow for a moment before deciding it wanted nothing to do with whatever this was.

Mogo Berry Resynthesis In Progress

Choose one of the following paths of ascension:

➤ Toxin Production

➤ Thorned Stems

➤ Enhanced Maturation

➤ Improve Fruit Production

➤ Tangling Roots

Even after my own light faded, the berry itself seemed to resonate with energy, a humming glow emanating from its core as I weighed my options. Poison, thorns… what use could I possibly have for those right now? If I took those, the only thing that would suffer would be my mice—my only source of entertainment! Those were off the table. As for an enhanced growth rate or rate of production… did I really have that much of a need for more berries? Lastly, tangling roots sounded risky to take for similar reasons as poison, though the wording was a bit ambiguous. I could see it being useful for... defending the perimeter of my room, if I ever really needed it.

After a bit more deliberation, I eventually settled on [Enhanced Maturation]. At the very least, if I could find some way to make it useful, I wouldn’t have to wait entire seasons for the bush to sprout. With my choice confirmed, the berry seemed to sink down into the cracks in the floor, frail roots taking hold as a single sprout popped up where it had once sat, the glow fading away entirely.

Core-Touched Mogo Bush Lvl: 0 Traits: Enhanced Maturation Fully Matured In: 15 Days Force Level-Up Cost: 15 MP

Ah. It would seem that I was a gardener now. Well, I wasn’t going to complain—it would give me something to do between episodes of Rat Adventures.

Interestingly, I noticed a pop-up appear next to my core as I finished, lingering only for a split second.

[Botany I] added to Core.

Now that raised my curiosity. Somehow, I’d actually improved myself as well just by experimenting with this? That certainly showed promise.

[Botany I]: The bearer of this skill possesses a passing knowledge of plant-life and can more easily identify species of plants. No chance to fail when identifying previously-encountered species, reduced chance to fail when identifying a species for the first time. Unlocks additional options when performing resynthesis on flora.

Hm. A bit of a shame it came after I’d finished this experiment, but perhaps it could come in handy for the next one. Still, fifteen days was one hell of a long time to wait--all the more reason to be thankful for choosing an improved growth rate--who knows how long it would have taken without it. And as of now, I still had two mana leftover.

Hm.

I glanced down at the sprout, mentally grimacing as the thought came into my head that my mouse-friends might try and eat it before it even matured. I wasn’t certain—they’d never shown any interest in eating any part of the plant besides the berries. Still, I didn’t have any way to defend it, so I’d just have to have faith for now.

With that, I went back to counting the pine needles in the trees above, watching the clouds roll past slowly.

This place had a sickening sense of loneliness to it at times like this, where even the animals weren’t stirring. But at least I had the lovely weather and the old, reliable sun gliding gently overhead.

Four days went by without much happening. The rats, much to my relief, only spared a passing interest for the rapidly-sprouting greenery to the side of the room, disregarding it when they failed to spot anything edible around. Of course, now I had reached a bit of a dilemma.

It was nearly sunset, and a quick examination confirmed my fears.

[[MP: 24 / 25 (+)]]

I only have a little bit left in the day before I capped out my MP.

It wasn’t some grave, existential danger or anything like that. Rather, I’d been holding out hope that I might be able to do something, do anything with it aside from just flushing it down the drain breeding the perfect berry bush. And, if I didn’t act soon, I risked capping out, at which point I’d effectively be wasting any additional MP I might generate.

Maybe I could take a look at what leveling up my plant-friend would actually do before committing to it? It wasn’t the end of the world if I messed up and had to wait a couple of extra days, anyways. It’s not like either of us were in a rush to get anywhere.

Urgh. Frustrating.

I shot a quick look towards my core again, waiting for the timer to tick upwards, only to notice that it already had.

MP: 25 / 25 Criteria for Ascension achieved. [[Ascend]]?

Oh. That sounded far more promising, actually. I scratched any remaining thoughts I had about working on the plant, giving a quick approval to the process, watching my mana drain from full to empty in a single breath.

At the center of the room, the core would shift, seeming to swell outwards as silvery liquid spread across its surface, reshaping and fortifying the gem as it trickled into place, solidifying like ice after just a few more moments. The entire process hardly felt like anything at all to me… at first.

Ever since I’d ended up like this, I hadn’t really felt anything close to pain. Dizziness and vertigo sure, but never outright pain. Yet, this ascension came close to it. I could feel my entire existence being stretched, molded and changed to fit some new archetype, bigger than I had been before with all of the growing pains that came with it.

Ascension from [[Sliver of Coalesced Will]] to [[Shard of Coalesced Will]] completed. Maximum MP increased to 50. Durability increased. New Feature Unlocked: Manamite Creation New Feature Unlocked: Self-Synthesis

Criteria for next ascension tier:

MP: 50 / 50

Minimum Wealth: 5

Minimum Level: 2

When the process was finished, I actually felt… exhausted. As if all of my weeks of going sleepless had suddenly caught up to me.

But I still couldn’t actually bring myself to drift off, and bit by bit the grogginess melted away as my consciousness returned to my room. The sun was long-gone from the sky now, hinting that I might have been out for quite a bit longer than it had felt like for me. Still, things felt different now.

Where previously, I had to actively focus to summon any sort of menu and keep it open, now they seemed to simply follow my gaze. Wherever I was most focused, translucent windows containing small tidbits of the world around me would pop into existence, fizzling away the moment I moved on to something else.

I'd unlocked two new features as well. [Manamite Creation], from what I could gather from reading its description, was a way of interacting with the world around me which was exciting to see. Primarily to gather resources, from the looks of it. [Self-Synthesis] seemed to be a way to alter parts of myself or add new pieces. Which, considering that ‘I’ seemed to encompass the building and the core at the center… well, perhaps there was room for me to be a botanist and an architect. At the very least it would give me more to do.

Hm. Perhaps if I managed to develop some method of fine motor control, I could actually make a garden for myself. That would be nice. I couldn’t help but wonder just how far I could potentially take these skills.

Ah, oh well. I was still at exactly zero mana, so it could wait until tomorrow.

Besides, Ratticus was out of the burrow right now, so I was far more eager to see what he’s up to.

Yes, I gave them names. Frankly it would be silly not to after how much time we’ve spent together. Er. Maybe "together" wasn't the best way to phrase it, considering it was more of a parasocial relationship. I still felt a bit guilty as well; I gave them all rat-themed pun names before finding out that they were actually mice. It was a bit hard to tell most of them apart though--only a few really stood out from the others.

Ahem. Now, Ratticus was the fattest rat by far. Mouse. Fattest mouse. I assumed he was the… alpha, or patriarch, or father, or something along those lines. While the other mice always gave him a wide berth, likely out of respect for his size, I just couldn’t take him seriously. For one, as mentioned previously, he was excessively large--almost cartoonishly so, its belly dragging along on the ground. Since we all lived in a sinkhole, this meant that he had to climb out to go out scavenging with the others and I’ve witnessed him falling down several times. It never gets old, like watching a turtle stuck on its back.

There were a few other mice of varying sizes, as well as their young which are probably the cutest things I’ve ever seen. I can’t see inside their burrow, to get an exact head count, but there had to be at least a dozen adults. Getting a number on the young was basically impossible, considering how seldomly they poked their heads out of the burrow.

It was great entertainment for the night. Still, I found myself checking my mana reserve throughout the night frequently, almost on instinct. I guess I’m just anxious to try more stuff out.

I felt a bit unnerved to see [Resynthesis Cost: 30 MP] when I examined one of the younger mice, though. The option didn't seem available at all for the older ones. Still, that was almost a week’s worth of mana just to even try, so I put that off for now. Besides, there was something unsettling about potentially modifying a living, breathing creature. Changing a plant was one thing, but this... how far did it go? Considering that money existed, people surely existed as well.

Could I...?

No, no. That didn't feel like a morally-right thing to do at all. I shook the idea from my head.

The next afternoon, I decided to see how far I could stretch five mana for working on my room. Attempting to use [[Self-Synthesis]] had provided me with quite a bit of interesting insights into how I could expect this feature to work. I’d need materials as a substrate, which I only had one way of gathering--[[Manamite Creation]], the other new toy I'd been granted.

Manamite Creation Spend mana to form an small arcane construct tied to your will. While it lacks intelligence or agency, it will follow the broad strokes of orders. Any material it consumes will be added to your [[Virtual Hoard]]. While there is no upkeep cost, maintaining large numbers of manamites requires focus and training. Losing consciousness will result in deconstruction of all active manamites.

Oh no--a tooltip within a tooltip. I sighed, rolling all of my eyes in unison, mentally preparing myself for the possibility that I might end up having to venture down a rabbit hole of links and new information.

Virtual Hoard A non-physical mind-based storage space for bulk materials. Items within can be used by skills directly, or summoned into existence with a mana cost based on bulk.

Oh. That one was actually fairly self-explanatory. That was a relief. Honestly, it could even be called simple--if I wanted work done, I needed workers.

I cracked my metaphorical knuckles and got to work at creating my first manamite. It wasn’t a difficult task at all really—a bit like taking a handful of fine sand and folding it into a paper airplane. Maybe not the best way to explain it, but it felt intuitive at least. The first one took me a while to make, slowly coalescing into a form almost resembling a ghostly firefly. It twitched for a few moments, drifting through the air before simply plunging into one of my walls, vanishing within. So I made another, and another. At a single mana each, I could make five of them a day, so that was what I did.

Eating the stone below my room didn’t seem like a particularly wise choice and I didn’t want to disturb the burrow holding all of my sleeping nocturnal friends, so I chose to move in the opposite direction instead. I ordered them to comply, and they simply did without any resistance at all.

Like little blue worker ants, the tiny creatures flitted around just outside my walls, ripping and sawing at the bits of earth and stone they could get their mandibles on, loose pebbles and soil vanishing between their jaws in sizzling puffs of cyan smoke. Like maggots digging into carrion, they feasted, pushing the walls backwards at an agonizingly slow pace. I’d need a large amount of these to accomplish much in any sane amount of time.

It reminded me of the process of digestion in a way, minuscule layers of stone melting and being absorbed into my walls, accompanied by a fairly simple but repetitive pop-up message every few minutes.

0.1 Raw Stone added to [[Virtual Hoard]] 0.1 Loose Soil added to [[Virtual Hoard]]

Without a unit of measurement, this was effectively just an abstract without any context to work off of. Hopefully I'd get a feel for the numbers.

Examining my core, I found quite a bit more information than I’d ever seen before, my tooltip’s robustness becoming… strangely satisfying to look at.

SHARD OF COALESCED WILL LVL: 0 CATEGORY: ELEMENTAL MP: 0 / 50 ( + ) MANAMITE HOARD: 5 / 200 Nascent heart of a world-born entity, crystallized from soul energy. Exerts control over a localized area.

Virtual Hoard:

➤ 12.2 Raw Stone

➤ 9.4 Loose Soil

I was certain I’d be grinning ear to ear if I still had a mouth. It was all starting to come together now. After a few hours of waiting for my reserves to regenerate, I had my next goal: actually building something. But what? My manamites paused for a moment while I tried to think of something practical that I could use. With only stone and soil, I didn’t have a whole lot of options to work with, though.

I eventually chose to make something simple: a bin. Something that would be hard to screw up, but that I’d still be able to find a practical use for—namely, getting a nice place situated to store my wealth. The mites danced along to my thoughts as I led them to the foot of my stand, the five of them working in unison. Coughing up bits of raw stone, they stitched them back together with a scary amount of precision, though it was hardly perfect.

The mites did their job perfectly, I should add. It was my fault that it came out a little jagged. Whenever my thoughts fluctuated or shifted away from the task at hand, their work suffered as a result. It might have taken a few hours, but eventually they’d managed to produce something resembling a bowl, made entirely of flawless stone. Then came the next part: getting my single coin into it.

Getting the mites to grab something and not immediately consume it was a bit of a challenge, a bit like telling a dog not to eat any treats when it was already head-first in the bag, but eventually I managed to reel them in enough to obey. Two of them dutifully grabbed the coin on opposite ends, scurrying over to the bowl and dropping it in with a satisfying ‘plink’ as it slid to the very bottom. Perfect.

I had a place to put my money. Now all I needed was money to put in it, as my status of [Wealth: 1] was so keen to remind me.

Money required civilization though, right? Still, if the crow had found a coin then there had to be something of the sort around here. Probably close by in some sense; I doubted the crow would fly for miles and miles just to bring a single shiny to its nest.

Truth be told, I had an idea on that front—it would just take a bit of time to execute. If I couldn't move on my own, then I just might need to start looking into other ways to expand.