Chapter 26

Snake Report: Day Twenty

I have officially managed to reach the level of the Giant-Skeleton's height. If I were still a human, I think it would be fair to guesstimate this is about thirty feet up from the ground level I started.

Today I made a tiny balcony to confirm this, it's quite a sight. The Giant Skeleton and the terrifying ancient door make for an interesting view, while I overlook the floor that shall not be touched.

Still, hard to believe it took me this long to get here.

Operation [Earth Manipulation that can pierce the heavens] is ridiculously difficult. I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew with this one. I mean, it's a good plan for someone who wants to avoid another early death, but time-consuming is an understatement.

Hissss...

On the bright side, I've gotten very good at recognizing my limits. When I'm running out of steam, I now recognize it without instinct screaming at me, and I stop early. This has been nice, if only for the sake of having energy left-over to explore a bit.

Explore?

Yes, I know. Not fitting to the mold for someone so fear driven, but having far too much free time is abrasive after days and days of magically molding rock and stone.

It also helps that I have some actual motivation to look around.

Back in the original Tiny-snake-lair, back when I did little more than hide in the ground and wait for the Mushrooms to kill me, there was a glowing rock.

I never did anything with it. It just sort of glowed, looked pretty, acted as a light-source.

Well.

There are more of them. A lot more.

If a careless burrowing snake happens to break one, while digging upwards towards the heavens, this will result in a flash of light, and a sickly-sweet scent that might make someone panic and think they're about to die.

But they won't die. Not even after hissing in terror and wriggling like they're going through death throes.

Nope. Not dead.

As a bonus, this not dead individual will also recover a large amount of magical stamina: Enough for another full day's work.

Basically, I'm looking for crystallized magic- A monster dungeon's equivalent of mana-potions. I think this is a pretty groundbreaking discovery, pun very much intended.

It's a big deal.

I've managed to find a bunch of them now that I'm actually on the lookout. They seem grow along the cave walls, of the large Giant Skeleton's lair. I didn't realize because of all the glowing mushrooms that were acting as camouflage, but there are a lot of them.

Getting them is tricky though.

It's not a matter of motivation. I can see clearly that these stones are worth the trouble. One broken crystal is a full day of magical energy. I can double my progress, carry on with operation [Earth Manipulation that can pierce the heavens]

But this is a more difficult respawn, a New Life Minus. More specifically: Minus the hands, the Fingers. The Thumbs. When slithering through a freshly made tunnel, there is only one method for a tiny-snake to carry a crystal.

My mouth.

In this manner, I made another mistake.

Upon discovery and collection of a rather large looking magic crystal, snake instinct betrayed me.

I swallowed it.