Waking up, I can see that there is a fluffy web blanket on me.

This likely was made by Gong. That was really sweet of her.

I wonder where she slept for the night…

It appears that once again; I am alone in the room. Seeing that there have been no other changes to my surroundings, I direct my thoughts back on how to handle survival and fighting situations.

Using my scanning ability to figure out the best way to move, I find a pleasant variation on my ability, which can visualize a motion in action. It still looks like a shadow of my body performing the action; however, I am making the movement more subconscious, rather than mostly visualized.

After a few minutes of this, I get the slightest of headaches. I decide it would probably be best to use this in short bursts, but every day, so I can build the ability further.

With these kinds of abilities and the changes I can make to them, this only reaffirms my decision to appear a natural genius. If I can make it seem and feel as if I am just reacting or intuiting any actions, it will make it seem less like something I can consciously control.

Moving to my taming ability, I use my low-tier scan just beyond the walls of this room to see if there are any creatures nearby.

I find multiple clusters of insects within the walls of the room.

I attempt another plan of mine.

Let’s see, if I can try to connect to all of these at the same time… There, it worked!

Successfully, I tame them all and have them draw out of the ‘woodwork’. Like an emerging slime, a stream of tiny insects crawl from beneath the walls and floors. Behind them, larger insects accumulate and dig their way out.

It comes to around a half a person’s worth of insects. However, it’s really slow…

Ah… I was really hoping for a flood of insects to quickly come out of the ground and swarm onto anyone attacking me. However, it takes about a minute for them to move around 3 meters. So, it’s unlikely that I’ll be able suddenly have them shoot out from the walls. Wait a second though…

Coming up with an idea, I attempt to extend out my intuitive level scan for about a 1000 meters worth of distance throughout the cave.

A couple of meters deep into the cave walls along the path, I tame every insect and tell them to come out of the walls.

Then I sprint. Moving along the path, it’s frightening to see them flooding out of the walls, as I run deeper into the cave. Anyone chasing me would run into the converging insects.

Having a bit of fun, I try to reenact a Christian biblical move, of the waters closing on an Egyptian troop, as they chased people through the parting of the Red Sea.

The waves of insects begin to close in on me, even as I run away from them.

Now this is what I was talking about! I can defin -OOOF-

Before I can reach the end of the 1000 meters, I am suddenly tackled by Gong. She goes into full attack mode, spraying all around in a 360 motion, a sticky webbing. This stops nearly all of them in their tracks.

Sensing my intent, the rest stop in their tracks. Holding me closely to her chest, it is clear she is defending me. My face muffled into her chest; I try to speak. It is actually quite difficult.

Before I can coherently finish, her grip loosens as she sees that there isn’t any real threat.

A familiar scene awaits me as I move away from her.

Fingers on the bridge of her nose, “Don’t say it. Let me guess… You were practicing your taming, and it got out of control?”

Ah. Should I lie and say yes, or should I just own up to it?

Sigh.

Yeah, I should just be honest.

“Not… exactly. I was doing a bit of testing, that got out of hand. However, I have full control over them.” As an example, I have one of the more prominent bugs lift its body and wave.

With a stare, she says nothing. It gets more awkward by the second.

For what seems to be a constant reaction with me, she sighs.

“I honestly don’t know if I should be happy or frustrated with you, most times. Like thunder from a clear sky.”

Looking at the clear holes in the walls, above, below, all around, she directs her attention back to me with a smile. “Definitely frustrated.”

Ah shit.

After a long morning lecture, I end up spending the rest of the day collecting all the bugs out of the sticky web. This was not only for cleanup, but to save the bugs for my tiny army.

None died to asphyxiation, since they didn’t need to breathe, anyway. I’m pretty sure I may have accidently crushed a few, though. After a while, I could get the others to pry the rest out.

While I did that, to correct my clear pin-holing of her cavern’s walls, Gong reinforced all the walls with more webbing, to prevent it from destabilizing.

She seemed to have done it relatively quickly, but was focusing on a small portion of the wall for almost the entire rest of the time. When I sneaked a peek, it looked like doodles.

While doing cleanup, I had explained my idea to her, which helped ease her annoyance. It still pisses her off a little, so she ordered me to include her in any future ‘experiments’.

Especially ones that are done in the caves. After I finished, she revealed what she was doing. While stabilizing the walls, she left quite a few of the holes open. “The idea you had wasn’t actually that bad. Especially in a space like this.”

Just as I feel hope from her words, she brings me down. “Well. If you wanted to collapse that entire portion on yourself and them.” With a pause, she continues

“However, it’s not all bad. I can see what you meant earlier about how this can be a good way to attack or escape. Did you prepare these immediately or last night?”

“Mostly in the moment, I tamed them a little ahead of me and had them come out the walls.”

With another look that said, ‘you really don’t know what you’ve done again,’ she says “And all the bugs were not in sight when you tamed them?”

Realizing the point she’s trying to make, I quickly defend myself.

“So you know, I was planning on getting some kind of material that can naturally draw insects to me, to make this more believable.”

“Riiight, I’m sure that’s exactly what you had in mind as you started with this. Well. This is a good example of what you were talking about. Even I felt a bit worried by that many bugs. If I couldn’t cast my web at them… well, I would have been overtaken in seconds. That’s not even considering when the victim isn’t aware of them.”

She thinks to herself, but gags at an apparent thought.

“Honestly, Ai’s idea of having them swarm in… uncomfortable places isn’t a bad idea. At the least, it could give an opening, where you could take them out.”

With a quick look back up the pathway to the main room, “It looks like you are on the right track on your mindset, to becoming a crouching tiger, hidden dragon. While it seems you will act as an oblivious genius, they shouldn’t know that you also have this many cards in your hands.”

I would hope so. Even with my abilities, facing against cultivators wouldn’t be something I could come away unscratched with.

“You might have wanted to experiment more, but we have some things to discuss together. I originally was heading this way to come grab you. Ai has been looking over her books and wants us all to come up with some kind of plan. Send those bugs back into the walls for safekeeping and let’s go.”

As we walk up the cavern path behind us, the insects recede into the walls like water into dirt.

Leaving only the small dark holes behind.