Chapter 19

So, I might have been too overdramatic.

“Shut up Kevin, stop laughing at me. You freaked out, just like me.”

Anyway, after digging for only a few minutes, the feeling of being pressed close to a wall was gone, and I was free to move about, as it seems that the previous place was some kind of cage around me. Immediately, I began to explore the place.

It took exactly 10 minutes (I lied, I don’t keep count of time anymore) to get my first enemy encounter. Goddamn random battle encounters, where’s the good stuff with a convoluted plot about peasant uprising due to heavy taxation by local lords that lead to the summoning of ancient evils?

Okay, here’s the slightly glorified version of what happened – In full might, I met my foe on the grassy field. With my great cunning, I dodged the first blow. Implementing my vast knowledge of ancient Chinese martial arts, I once saw in some movie, I struck the ‘Mighty eagle crouch like snake’ pose, and released the gathered energy through my palm techniques. The grand martial art struck clear, but alas the enemy had adopted the ‘Turtle dives in latrine’ tactics, and I had to chase the dishonourable foe (May heavenly tribulations strike down on his nine generations) for a while. In the end, that bastard had managed to forge a blood contract with the local demon clan, as I was assaulted by multiple hostiles. Distracted, I lost my way and had to reach for enlightenment of my whereabouts inside the grand Buddhist temple.

Yeah, I was hiding inside a cave now.

Contrary to what some shady individuals might think (looking at you Kevin), I was actually thrilled by the outcome. I’ve finally found something more complex than a simple cell. I don’t really know what happened since I fell asleep, but it seems there are more prey to be had around these parts!

Ugh, all this chasing around has made me tired, I should increase my daily calorie intake and exercise more.

“WHAT!?”

I feel tired!? This has never happened before! Does that mean I can finally feel something else than the obscure pressure of my surface and inner workings? Hurray, for evolution!

Energy - 18/100

Nay, for the lack of energy. It’s not recovering even if I sit still. Does that mean that my passive energy gain is disabled? I should still have photosynthesis available, but it doesn’t help me while I’m down here. I, probably, lack the necessary material for my body functions. Let’s see what’s left inside my inventory.

…

It’s just some leftover salt, a picture of a cat and the bugged field. I do have a small amount of biomass remaining, but it seems that the system robbed me of pretty much anything it deemed useful.

How do I drop stuff from the inventory? I kind of always used all I had absorbed straight for crafting. Can I drop the remaining biomass inside me? Okay, it seems I got what I wanted. A bit too much, really, as I’m now bloated. At least, the energy is rapidly rising. I have enough biomass to do this 3 more times, by then, I will need to hunt something.

Darn it, I still don’t have a proper health bar. I hate this over realistic simulator. Why is it always some convoluted source, with convoluted rules? I rather live in a porn game. That’s more of my style.

I made my way out of the crack, I dug myself into, and carefully moved up. I was kind of torn between choosing sunlight, free energy and nowhere to hide, or darkness and safety. Finally, I decided to move closer to the bottom. With so many variables in play, it just seemed like the right thing to do.

There must have been some higher power listening, as not even ten seconds later, I ran into my first obstacle. Or should I say obstacles?

There was one thing all through my journey that made me constantly question the true limits of my inventory system. It seemed capable of devouring anything not currently alive, but then it got stuck, and couldn’t swallow the same simple cells, I’ve been killing by the millions. Thus, comes a basic question – where do you draw the line between something alive and something dead? I couldn’t collect my own vesicles, but I could take every single component that made them. Do we draw the line between complex organic molecule structures and organic molecules? Would mean that the limit is the complex structure part? Then what about the elusive biomass? It’s BIO-mass for fuck’s sake. Is that not a structure? Is it just organic molecule soup without meaning?

I didn’t just start a rant out of boredom, though, I did have that in spades. No, I started it because the current obstacles were quite immune to my digging prowess. Are these things alive? Are those plants? Last I remembered, there was no such thing in my old location. Something fucky has been going on here.

I tried to hug the supposed plants with my body, but I couldn’t really tell if I was absorbing any material inside my body, outside of the usual stuff in the water. I still had 100/100 energy and that didn’t help either.

Honestly, it would se…

“Enemy attack! Brace for impact!”

I felt my outer membrane engulf another organism. This time, the process was easy, as it didn’t even try to escape. Probably, because it couldn’t fathom such a complex notion. Yes, it was the same old cell type I’ve been eating this whole time. Nothing new, nothing changed – was what I thought before a screen opened.

=======

/Absorbed:

-Basic cell -1x

/Evolution option added:

-Additional basic modules

=======

Fuck yeah, I love to be proven wrong!

Ignoring the stupid skins, my evolution screen now contained additional options. For the price of 10 cells, I could add one of my own…

If that wasn’t blatant overpricing, then I don’t know what is.

Trying to ignore my rising anger, I switched to more productive things – absorbing half of the degraded cell inside my inventory. It was a pitiful amount, all in all, but the hunt was on. If I could gain something from a simple cell, think of what I could gain by devouring the guy that escaped. Hey, a few more and I can grow my spine!

Biomass - 0,1 micrograms

This might take a while…