The rock exploded as her tool got another dent added to it.

Small particles of rock, fauna and most importantly the lead she had been looking for were left slowly falling to the ocean fall.

Sera picked it up before shoving it in her bag, closing the PID new material notification before it fully loaded.

PID Interface

Lead acqui-

Hanging onto a small hill Sera began drifting downwards as she fiddled with her PID.

“This should be everything,” Clicking a button her PID transformed.

PID Interface

Scanner Materials Required:

Sand (30g) Gold (10g) Lead/Iron/Black Iron (500g)

[Add resources]

Clicking the add resources button the familiar square appeared forming on the screen, “Hopefully there’s no wait like with the recipe module.”

Lightly dropping to the sandy dunes Sera quickly took her pack off and let it float in front of her as she took out the materials before grabbing a handful of sand and putting it all in the box.

Grabbing the coin and the piece of lead she had just gathered among the other ores she had harvested, her hands got to work.

With each resource added the PID crossed out the text until the lead was deposited then the option came.

[Craft Scanner]

Clicking the button Sera tried to grab the PID but was zapped the second her hands got close.

“Ouch, it could’ve at least said not to touch while crafting.”

Backing away from the PID as it began vibrating on the ocean floor Sera surveyed her surroundings.

In the distance lay The Temple, where Loretta the princess was trapped with only a few months before she would starve to death, even worse she was away from civilisation and there was something… out there.

Something elusive, something the other fish knew to stay away from, something big.

Her surroundings had softened from the shipwrecked black iron scattered everywhere and green lights and power leaks zapping the water and occasional fish to a more natural scene.

Looking over to the large seagrass fields that covered almost half of the seafloor she spotted her next goal.

Then the vibrations in the water stopped, looking around her quickly all Sera found was bright waters and beams of sun were beginning to hit the tower.

“Around midday… it should be enough time to try out the new scanner and check out that area.”

Swimming towards the PID Sera saw something resting ontop of the normally translucent blue window-

“The scanner! And it looks amazing,” Emitting a cute shrill noise Sera grabbed the scanner and instantly another menu came up.

Scanner Acquired!

The scanner is useful in analysing all forms of matter and can be used for the PID to interpret events more accurately.

A self scan is recommended for more accurate skill sets stats.

It looked like a white coloured small pistol grip with a glowing blue box on top, the blue only shone forwards and Sera found her arm aiming the gunlike object at herself.

“I know you should never point a gun at someone… but this should be fine.”

Pressing the button Sera nearly jumped out of her skin as the gun shocked her for a seconded before light blue grid lines showed over her body and moved in sync across it.

Within a few moments the grid lines got smaller and smaller until the disappeared into each other and a menu popped up.

Scanner Interface

User scanned!

Time until results are released 4-5 hours.

Her shoulders sank a little once she saw the scanner required time to work, but it didn’t mean she had to stay idle, and it meant she had a reason to go to that place.

Picking her pack up from the air Sera was about to put the scanner away in the pack but noticed her pouch could fit it as well.

Stuffing it in there with the PID Sera was happy it didn’t stick out much from her body, she knew how hard it was trying to swim in water while trying to drag something across it.

Like trying to escape a mental hospital in a blue gown while dragging an oversized teddy-bear through the surprisingly deep pond, good times but her clothing was annoying.

Almost completely unlike her current clothes which Sera had come to like and cherish as they didn’t appear to slow her down and didn’t require any cleaning!

“Could you even clean underwater? I bet she did somehow…” Sera looked down at her body’s clean looking hands before pushing off the seafloor, and swimming towards her earlier goal.

Which was close to the shipwreck but on the right side rather than the left, which was where the seagrass was and where she had just been.

Passing by another large piece of the black metal, Sera could help but think what her scanner would look like with a stronger alloy, she had tried ripping a piece of the black iron off.

But it wouldn’t budge and even worse every piece she found was either too large to use or like the grains of sand, much too small to be collected easily and used.

It was frustrating, but that frustration lasted until Sera put two and two together realising that being frustrated didn’t solve any problems, and instead took away the energy she had for thinking.

Being able to think actively was giving her a lot of epiphanies about life, was this how everyone was like all the time?

“I’m… behind.”

Sera slowed in her swimming, but it didn’t matter she had reached her goal.

Staring into the dark abyss Sera was having second thoughts ever since that thing had shown up in the edges of her vision.

It wasn’t all bad though, in the clear bright waters it was easy to see any fish come close and thankfully any that had approached were all less than an arm in size.

But down in the caves, would that change?

Sera looked down before pushing off the seafloor and slowly swimming into the cavernous underbelly of the ocean.

“I have to find new materials for the scanner especially if I want tools with better materials,” Sera thought of her scanner before she reached what seemed like the bottom of the cave.

But then came the next problem.

“Oh right, how am I going to see?”

Sera pushed off the ground towards the light and opened her pouch.

Her PID or her scanner?

The PID would provide some light, but it would probably help her lose her ability to see in the dark since it was a general light rather than a directed one.

Her scanner on the other hand was perfect.

It could act like a flashlight and scan new materials!

It would solve two problems with one tool!

It was almost too good to be true.

Her lips curved as Sera brought out the scanner, tucking her pouch back Sera began looking around in the cavern.

She first found out that the ground was still sand, but the walls were black, compressed soil or hard rock, there were some plants around but overall it was near dead down there.

Pointing the scanner around Sera found a white pointy object that looked like a bundle of crystal growing out of the ground.

“Woah, scanner you’ve really outdone yourself.”

Giving wide sweeps of her arms Sera got closer to the crystal until she was nearl ontop of i-

Black.

Her hand hurt and Sera quickly looked around, but she couldn’t see her scanner, in fact everything was dark as hell and worse it felt like a knot had formed around her arm.

At that moment her scanner came back, in the corner of the room Sera saw it was spinning from an impact, it crinkled back to life and had shown in her direction.

That was when she saw it.

Wrapped around her arm was several tentacles, but these tentacles were all black and laced with what looked like string and even worse they were beginning to wrap around her arm.

Screaming Sera scrambled to get the tentacles off her arm, but then the room got dark again as the scanner shone at the wall instead of at her.

Grabbing at the tentacles at her arm Sera tried to rip them off, but instead she felt like she got punched in the head, and even worse her other arm was now trapped as well.

Spinning around in circles Sera panicked.

Pulling and pushing she kicked her legs but couldn’t see anything.

Then the blue light came back as the scanner pointed back at the enemy-

A transparent bulbous headed octopus was staring right at Sera, its mouth opened at a small screech as it lunged for her neck.

It's teeth which were thin and point barely missed.

Trying to push it away Sera could only push the tentacles away from her body as the two still spun in circles, the light lasted for a moment longer until the last rays hit the wall again and Sera was in darkness.

Now knowing that there was a monster gripping onto her Sera screamed as she tried flinging the octopus off her, it was as big as her upper body and she was losing the fight when it came to strength.

My knife-I have to get to my pack.

Trying to pull her arms away she pulled but her thumb almost get ripped off until she finally bounced onto the sandy floor.

That was when she felt three knives stab at her arm-

Finally, the scanner was facing her again, and she saw the octopus was digging into her flesh.

“GET OFF-” Trying to headbutt it the octopus dodged its preys fang and wrapped tentacles around it’s neck, going in for the kill.

Sera kicked her feet-

Only succeeding in moving her and the squid deeper into the caverns.

Feeling her supply of oxygen get cut off the world entered an array of colours and the last of the scanner’s light was about to leave her vision as she saw a familiar white object to her right.

Screaming Sera slammed both her hands to the right just as the creature lunged for Sera’s head-

The tentacles tightened around her neck nearly unmanageably until they loosened completely.

Sera quickly pulled her hands away from the now loose tentacles and scrambled for the scanner which was only now reaching the ocean floor.

Feeling the pain in her shoulder Sera ignored it as she pointed the scanner at where the monster lay.

A beautiful bundle of crystals strutted out of the creatures head, the very same ones Sera had first seen when entering the cavern.

It was dead.

“J-jees-sus,” Sera’s voice was shaky as she unconsciously massaged her neck with her uninjured arm.

Swimming towards it Sera looked at its unmoving eye before bringing her hand to the crystal-

Then nearly having a heart attack as two menus showed up.

PID Interface

Ink sack acquired, harvest with a knife.

PID Interface

Quartz acquired, harvest with hands or knife.

As Sera saw the messages her shoulders finally loosened as she knew the fight was well and truly over.

Grabbing the quartz, the creatures blood was hanging off it, but Sera pushed it off with her hand, another benefit of living underwater.

… Then came harvesting the ink sack.

Sera wearily swam out of the caverns with almost the opposite look on her face, then when she had entered the caverns.

From brimming with the spirit of adventure and rosy cheeks to being on edge with a hint of jittery joints.

“I’m done.”

Looking towards the seagrass like a bed that hid her Sera set off.

“I need to lie down, think, sleep and maybe regret my life choices a little,” Making a sarcastic remark Sera tried to joke with herself but didn’t find her body acting as the straight man anymore.

The dunes began to darken as the last rays of sun began to leave even the tallest structures, even The Temple only had a small ray of light left on it.

“Can I really do this?” Her voice nearly unperceivable even to herself.

Sera slowly drifted to what seemed like an empty area of seagrass, but that one action turned out to change her entire adventure.