Lamenting the lack of any rewards, Jen closed her Path Screen, before carefully making her way over to where Rocky was penned up. A few moments of concentration was enough to refresh her globe of light. She had no intention of running into Rocky in the dark again.

As she drew near, she was glad to see that her method of pinning him in place with rocks was effective, she started to worry when she noticed the complete lack of movement. Worried that her long rest might have starved him in some way, Jen picked up her pace.

Rocky did show some signs of life when she drew near, his tentacles eakly reaching towards her globe of magic, but they flopped down soon afterwards. Encouraged by that response, Jen knelt down next to him, looking over him carefully to get a better understanding of what physical symptoms might be showing.

Her actions soon caused her Identify Skill to trigger, but she waved it away. While she had hopes that one day it might show the target’s physical status as it appeared on her own Status Screen, for the moment the information it did give was less than helpful. Instead she trusted her own senses, comparing Rocky’s current appearance against her memories in the hopes of spotting any changes.

It was subtle, but Jen thought that overall, Rocky looked a little faded. There weren’t any drastic changes, but his coloration seemed a bit more faded, the embedded crystal a bit duller. Even if the mushrooms had a sufficient energy supply to grow, it seemed likely that whatever changes had occurred when Rocky had evolved into a Lesser Myconid were big enough for that to no longer meet his needs.

A small pang of guilt went through Jen. Intentionally or not, she had created Rocky and was responsible for his well being. It would cut into her mana supply, but she could afford to feed him the twenty or so mana it had taken to advance him the first time. A small part of her wanted to use Plant Growth to conserve her mana, but she rejected that idea straight away.

Saving a few points of mana wasn’t worth the risk of harming her only source of social interaction. Maybe once she had a far far better understanding of the mechanics behind her spell she would revisit her decision, but for now, she’d just view the mana expenditure as an acceptable cost.

Reaching out her hand, she made contact with Rocky’s cap, and began to push her mana outwards, using Mana Control to funnel it into her pet. She split her attention between her Status Screen and monitoring Rocky’s condition visually.

It took ten mana before results began to appear. The roots, once lethargic, began to move more energetically, waving around and reaching towards her, the source of the revitalizing magic. Color seemed to flow back, the faded spots once more becoming defined. And once those changes were finished, the crystal began to gleam. Seeing this, and remembering the System message that mana crystals could be used as a power source, Jen continued to feed more energy, wanting to give herself as much of a buffer as possible. While she had no plans to fall asleep for that long, she was interested in heading out once more to explore her surroundings.

After spending 18 MP, the dull glow from the crystal seemed to level off. Jen patted Rocky on his head a few times, before grabbing one of it’s exploring roots and shaking it a few times.

“I’ll be back before you know it.” She said, both a message to a plant of questionable sentience and a promise to herself.

Her next destination was the mushroom cracks. After a quick stop at her bed to grab a couple of handfuls of moss, Jen was off to figure out just what had changed to earn her a level in Farming. First though, she took advantage of the first empty hole she came across to relieve herself, using the moss to clean up before dropping that in the hole as well.

Once more making a light, she moved onwards, inspecting the various solitary mushrooms that had originally been nothing more than markers to track her progress. While some were upside down or on their side, already beginning to wither, others seemed to have adapted to their new homes, small root networks already holding them in place.

Wanting to encourage this new growth, Jen cast Plant Growth on the most promising candidates, watching as the mushrooms quickly grew in size. She didn’t know how exactly mushrooms made more mushrooms, but she hoped that she had sped up the process in some way. Barring that, the fact that the now large mushrooms were still planted would keep them alive and fresh if she ever needed to grab a large meal.

Her last stop was the main crack where the mushrooms grew. Picking smaller mushrooms seemed slightly odd to Jen, but with her ability to rapidly increase their size she knew it increased her carrying capacity, even if it did mark a diametric change to her earlier gathering habits.

Jen bit her lip to let out some of her nervousness. She wanted, no needed, to push herself to make her skills grow more quickly. So far her exploration had all been done with safety as a priority. Moving slowly, always having a way back, not casually heading out of earshot of her dripping source of water.

Jen wanted to change that, to explore without the safety net she had created. She had just slept for an extremely long time, and with her new ability to maximize her food supply, she felt confident in her ability to survive long enough to find her way back if she got lost. More than that, She had left markers at both the central column and by the underground river. Finding her way back just meant reaching one of those landmarks.

Jen knew it was risky, that there was a chance she might wander far enough away to sabotage her navigation system. But that pressure was necessary, was the drive that had caused her early levels in Echolocation and Listen to come so quickly.

With one last look around, Jen marched out into the unknown, determined to get stronger, or to get lost trying.