For a good half hour, I sat on edge, my hand cramping from gripping the dagger, waiting for the invulnerable monster to appear. Fortunately, it either lost my trail or hadn't left the confines of its hunting grounds.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I finally decided to unclench my fingers, which had gone into a spasm. I took off my wet clothes and hung them on the grate bars, placed my backpack next to me, and took out a bottle of water. I had torn off and thrown away the gauze bandage long ago; it was just a hindrance, and I had long grown used to the smell. Besides, now that it was soaked with the miasmas of the sewer, it was more of a harm than a help. Taking a swig from the bottle, I thoughtfully swished the warm water around in my mouth.
It was time to take inventory. I needed to understand what resources I had and how long I could last here.
Just in case, I pressed on the raised part of the dagger and slashed the air again, but as expected, no portal appeared. Either it also had a cooldown time, or it could only open portals inward, and getting out would require me to travel through the entire location on my own, following the rules of its unknown creators.
So, the result of my supply check was two 1.5-liter bottles of water, one of which was already open, half a loaf of bread, a stick of hard-cured sausage, a bit of cheese, and three cans of tinned fish. And, of course, the first-aid kit, which, by the way, I hoped I would never need. After a light snack that slightly reduced my supplies, I began to think about what to do next.
That damn slime had ruined all my plans. I'd planned to quickly pop into the portal, wipe out another mouse colony, and be back in half an hour. But now, according to the time on my communicator, I'd been here for over an hour and couldn't even kill the first monster.
For some reason, I—who had always been known for being level-headed—hadn't even considered the thought that there might be other monsters in the portal, different from the usual mammals you could stab or slice with a dagger. Even jellyfish, if you cut them in half, don't instantly fuse back together, so something anomalous was definitely going on here!
I probably should have put all my points into Intelligence and waited for it to take effect; then I would have had enough brains not to jump into an unknown portal. But no, first came a successful victory over, laughably, field mice, a tangible reward in the form of a dagger, a magical healing, and then, as the cherry on top, the heartfelt gratitude of a beautiful girl. All these events clearly eroded my common sense. And so, seeing yet another open portal, I, without much thought and simply unconsciously wanting to repeat the cycle, rushed inside, hoping to brag about it to my girlfriend later.
I hit myself on the head, but the helmet cushioned the blow, and I didn't feel a thing.
"Alright," I said out loud. "I need to pull myself together and come up with another plan." A memory flashed through my mind: the slime moved very slowly against the current. I could try to send it floating further downstream and go a bit further. Maybe it was a one-off monster, and it would be back to mice after that.
"To hell with it! I'd even settle for huge rats!" I thought, imagining with bloodthirsty glee how I'd stab them with my dagger, and they'd die a dramatic, squealing death.
I left my heavy backpack, which significantly reduced my maneuverability, by the grate and went back downstream, listening cautiously to my surroundings. After a few minutes of moving, I again saw the familiar slime. It had crawled onto a strange brown mush in the center of the flow and was apparently dissolving it.
A sudden flash of insight pierced my mind. These slimes are scavengers, dissolving everything in the flow, which is why I was able to move through the water so easily. In a normal sewer, a concrete channel would quickly become overgrown with moss, algae, and mold because of the flowing water and large amount of organic waste, making it incredibly slippery and impassable. This meant these slimes were useful. The only problem was that they saw my eighty kilograms of organic matter as a trespass that needed to be dissolved and processed.
The green blob slid off its perch, which had shrunk slightly in the time I was watching it, and moved toward me. Judging by what I'd seen, their insides must be quite acidic to dissolve things so quickly, and I shivered, remembering the two halves of the slime that had flown over me, missing my face by pure chance. I'd probably have to go back and put on my ski mask to protect my eyes from any accidental splashes.
I met the slowly approaching slime with a powerful kick that sent it flying into the air and a few meters away. After a loud, splashing landing in the water, it floated downstream for a few more seconds until it secured itself to the bottom and once again began its unhurried journey toward me.
Approaching it again, I repeated the maneuver, sending it downstream once more. I checked my boot for damage from the acid, but didn't see any. Apparently, being wet protected it for the first second after the impact, when my boot was slightly submerged in the slime, and then my foot returned to the water, and the flow washed the corrosive contents off. Well, at least there was one benefit to having wet feet, besides the cold I would most likely catch.
As I kicked the improvised green ball one more time, I saw it fly over another, slightly smaller slime that was lurking in the water and was practically invisible. Sensing its kin nearby, the new slime detached itself from the bottom and swam toward it.
"For crying out loud!" I groaned as I watched the gelatinous monster I had worked so hard to move absorb the attacker in a few seconds, swell up, and grow even larger. "So that's how these things grow!" The realization hit me.
The rest of my plan was pointless. I could have continued for a while, but the enemy would only get bigger and likely faster, which would definitely not lead to anything good. Besides, the main goal had been accomplished. There were also slimes further downstream, with no trace of any mammals. Even if other inhabitants of the sewer had once lived here, they were most likely long gone. I turned around and hurried back to the grate, leaving the enlarged opponent alone in its new habitat.
I returned to the grate, took everything out of my backpack, and sat down on the dry surface, propping it behind me and leaning against the wall. I took off my wet boots, put them next to me, and stretched out my legs, putting them through the openings in the grate.
"So," I summarized out loud, breaking the oppressive silence. "Not only are slimes immune to physical damage, they're also acidic, and as if that wasn't enough, they can absorb their own kind to grow in size. If I follow the logic of the last location, a mega-slime the size of a room is waiting for me at the end? And this is only level two?"
The questions I asked remained unanswered, and I remembered my skills. Maybe there was something there that could help me deal with the slimes?
"Rhythm. How much time is left until the Inventory skill is learned?"
[9 hours and 12 minutes remain until the individual quantum storage is formed.]
"Okay, and what skills will unlock after that?"
[The list of skills is individual for each user and is built on the basis of many factors.]
Right, clear as mud. All I could do was wait, and I tried to make myself as comfortable as possible in these spartan conditions. The narrow stone ledge was barely wide enough to sit on without ending up in the water, and I definitely wouldn't dare to sleep here, as I would surely fall into the flowing current.
Time dragged on agonizingly slowly, and I had to keep an ear out for any splash of water from a monster crawling toward me.
Though it's unlikely it would be interested in a metaphysical phenomenon like a soul. It's more likely interested in the meat that, for some reason, isn't willing to lie down submissively and wait to be dissolved.
My thoughts drifted to the worry that I had dropped off the grid and that my family would be concerned. Though I did have a small window of time. Anya had gone to bed, my brother had probably told our parents that I had a girlfriend, which meant they would be tactful enough not to bother me for a while. I didn't have to go to work on holidays, and the report on my communicator's performance wasn't due until the end of the holiday period. So the only person who might realize I was missing was my girlfriend. Though, "my"... we hadn't tactfully brought up that question yet. As soon as I get out of here, I'll clarify our relationship.
"Rhythm. Can I contact another Symb 2.0 user from here?"
[Yes, communication between users is carried out using the effect of quantum entanglement. All new communicator models are connected in a single network, and it is possible to communicate with all elements of the network regardless of the distance between users.]
I suppressed the sudden urge to immediately contact Anna, since she couldn't help me with anything and would only start to worry. If I ran out of food and water and was in real danger of dying, then I could call her and ask her to contact company management. Someone up there had to be aware of everything that was happening and have their finger on the pulse.
Lost in thought, I didn't even notice as I drifted off to sleep, waking up when I turned awkwardly in my sleep and my left leg fell into the flowing water. Well, nobody had eaten me yet, and I was still alive and even felt good.
I checked the time and realized I had slept for a full eight hours. The sleepless New Year's Eve, during which I had only managed to get three hours of sleep at most, had taken its toll. So even the uncomfortable position hadn't prevented me from not only falling asleep but also getting a good rest. My body, however, was incredibly stiff after sleeping on the concrete floor in an awkward position. At least it wasn't cold and didn't chill my body.
The remaining minutes until the skill was formed passed by as I stretched and ate breakfast. Counting down the last seconds, I opened the new skill menu.
"Yes!" I exclaimed, jumping into the air. "You're all done for, you damn slimes!"
Three development branches appeared in the menu. One of them, "Quantum Manipulation," was inactive, leaving the "Biokinesis" and "Aggregate Manipulation" branches available for learning. I briefly looked at both of them, temporarily ignoring the body enhancements since they couldn't help me fight the slimes right now, and turned my attention to "Aggregate Manipulation."
Four skills were available to learn.
[Thermokinesis – The ability to manipulate and control the spectrum of thermodynamic temperature.]
[Hydrokinesis – The ability to manipulate and control liquids, including those in other states of matter, such as gaseous and solid.]
[Pangeokinesis – The ability to manipulate the elements of solid substances.]
[Aerokinesis – The ability to manipulate gaseous substances.]
"Holy crap," was all I could say after reading about all the skills.
"Rhythm, what are the attribute dependencies of the Aggregate Manipulation branch?"
[High Intelligence and Wisdom significantly facilitate the understanding of how the skills work.]
I immediately regretted the attribute points I had foolishly spent on Strength to test it. I remembered that six hours had passed since I'd needed to improve my attributes and pulled up my status with my current stats.
[Level: 2]
[Experience points: 99/234]
[Attributes:]
[Strength: 7]
[Dexterity: 5]
[Constitution: 5]
[Intelligence: 8]
[Wisdom: 7]
[Free Attribute Points: 3]
[Skills: Inventory]
[Free skill points: 1]
The number of points in my Strength attribute had changed in the status, and the "Inventory" skill had appeared. Putting off exploring that skill for later, I returned to choosing what would help me survive right now.
"Aerokinesis" wouldn't work, since the slime probably didn't breathe like a normal living creature, and even a hypothetical removal of oxygen from the area around it to create a vacuum would be unlikely to kill it. And the air that would then rush into the empty space would create a vacuum explosion effect, which in an enclosed space would, with 100% certainty, kill me as well.
"Pangeokinesis" sounded good, but if I understood the description correctly, it was good old physical manipulation. Stone pits, piercing spears, and the like were exactly what the slimes had shown complete immunity to.
That left "Thermokinesis" and "Hydrokinesis." On the one hand, I could fry the disgusting slime, and I didn't think it would regenerate after that. On the other hand, the acid it was made of was also a liquid. But again, "Hydrokinesis" didn't provide a 100% guarantee that I could control the liquid in the monster's body, and trying to drown it in water seemed laughable.
"Thermokinesis" was the only one left to choose, and I had already almost started learning the skill when I caught a fleeting thought by the tail. If fire evaporated the poisonous acid, what would happen next? Remembering the basics of physics, it was easy to assume that the acid in the monster's body would turn into a gas and either burn my lungs or, judging by the speed at which it had previously dissolved organic matter, kill me instantly. But if I added "Aerokinesis" to this ability and blew the poison away, something might work out.
"For crying out loud!" I swore. Salvation was so close, and once again, I was faced with some kind of obstacle. I was about to click on the "Biokinesis" skill tree to see what modifications to my body this strange system could offer me so that I could survive an acid attack, but I paused for a moment and slapped my forehead with a sigh of relief. This time, I wasn't wearing my helmet, and the loud slap echoed through the sewer.
"Thermokinesis — the ability to manipulate and control the spectrum of thermodynamic temperature," I re-read the description. And if there was a spectrum of thermodynamic temperature, that meant it included not only positive temperatures but also negative ones, including cooling to absolute zero Kelvin, at which the movement of molecules stops.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I finally started learning "Thermokinesis" and at the same time added one attribute point to Intelligence, which, according to the voice assistant's description, was vitally necessary for me. The accumulated tension eased slightly, and I began to think more optimistically about the future.
The incoming call signal from "Anna" caught me off guard. I turned off the visualization and answered the call.
"Max! What the hell?! What does this mean? You used me and dumped me, is that it? I'm waiting like a fool for your call or at least a sweet message saying you miss me. A message that you want to see me again, and you, you jerk, just vanished!" the girl began to complain, justifiably so.
"Wait, wait, Anya! It's not what you think," I started to make excuses and realized that half-measures wouldn't work here. "See for yourself," and I turned on the broadcast with the maximum viewing radius.
"Is that what I think it is?" she asked grimly.
"Um…" I awkwardly scratched the back of my head. "You see, Anya, after you left, I started to figure out the skills and attributes, and then I looked at the dagger just out of curiosity. And then I took it and accidentally swung it around, showing off, and another portal opened. And, well, here I am," I finished, my story a jumbled mess.
"And why are you still there? I see that you're dressed and have your boots on, and yet you still haven't cleared the location. They're not mice, am I right?"
"Yeah. There are some unkillable slimes here that weapons don't work on."
I briefly recounted my recent misfortunes to her, and seeing how worried she was about me, I hurried to reassure her:
"But it's not all bad. I've figured out the skills and attributes a bit, and I've learned something," I continued to calm the girl down.
"You got a hundred experience points for the mouse location, and you should have gotten two attribute points and one skill point, which you have to spend on forming an inventory."
"An inventory? What is that?" the girl asked, not very familiar with gaming terminology.
"Well, as I understood from Rhythm's explanation, it's a special area of space, like this one," I waved my hand around me. "But it's individual and tied to each person separately, where you can store items. I don't know; I just learned it and haven't tested it yet. After learning it, something like magic also unlocked for me," I said, not wanting to get into the technical terms with her. "And right now, I'm learning this magic, which I'll use to deal with the slimes and get back home. The only thing is, I just have to wait another twelve hours," I finished my explanation.
"Wait! That thing explained that charging some kind of subspace capacity takes three days," the girl remembered. "But it's only been a couple of hours, and now you've gotten yourself into trouble again," she said, pointing an accusing finger at me.
"I think that's a function of the dagger we found. But for some reason, it's not working now," I took it out and demonstrated it to her by pressing the button and swinging it.
After pumping me for the rest of the details about my misadventures, the girl hung up, telling me to call her right away if I had any problems, and I let out a sigh of relief. Damn it! I didn't clarify our status in the conversation again. But judging by the conversation, it was most likely that we were dating, since she was so worried about me and had been waiting for my morning call. Besides, we weren't sixteen; we didn't need some kind of confirmation of our relationship. The last thing I needed was to post our relationship status on social media.
After finishing the conversation with her, I returned to the task at hand.
"Rhythm, how do I use the Inventory skill?"
[Like any other communicator function, with any assigned voice command.]
"Hmm... This all looks weird, but... Inventory!" I exclaimed, striking a cool-guy pose.
The standard holographic menu of the bracelet unfolded in front of my face, but it was divided into cells.
"And how do I add and then retrieve an item? And what are the weight and volume limits?"
[Try taking an item and putting it into the inventory the same way you would put a normal item on a table. As for the limits, the inventory volume increases as the skill level grows. At the first level, 2 cells of 0.5 cubic meters each are available.]
I calculated the volume of a cube in my head, figuring it was about eighty centimeters on each side, and decided to run an experiment. I took my ski mask and just placed it into the holographic menu. In my hands, the item confusingly folded into a point and disappeared, reappearing as a photorealistic image in the first cell.
It was funny that it even had a description. Let's see.
[Ski Mask]
Not very informative, but at least it was clear.
Now let's try to take it out. And voila! My ski mask materialized from a tiny point right in my hand. I even checked and saw the scratch on the top right corner that I got when I fell awkwardly while skiing and scraped the mask on a rock sticking out of the snow, which meant it was definitely the same item.
"How many identical items can I put in one cell?" I remembered the fundamental principle from all games.
[Unlimited. The item is encoded into a quantum state and transferred to the inventory using a quantum field. Each item is in a superposition, which allows you to store any number of items in each cell, as long as there is enough volume, which is determined by the skill level.]
"And how often can I use the inventory?"
[The energy for transfer actions is expended from the user's subspace quantum capacity. Excessive use of the inventory reduces its current charge and lowers the amount of energy available for using skills, which can negatively affect your development.]
I thought deeply about the voice assistant's warning. It turns out that our development is needed by the creator of the communicator to satisfy their own interests. The only question was what exactly he or they needed and why this was all happening in the first place.
Minute after minute flew by. I called Anya several times, and we chatted about nothing, developing our relationship. I also showed her the inventory, and she also activated this upgrade. Six hours later, my Intelligence attribute finished increasing to nine points, and I activated another upgrade, celebrating it with a lunch of two canned fish, remembering that I needed to eat to improve. I ate everything, even drinking the juice from the can, not leaving a single drop. Then I fastened the empty cans together and sent them downstream.
"See you at the end of the location! If you don't get washed away further, that is," I said, bidding them farewell.
I didn't notice any particular improvement in my cognitive abilities, perhaps because my Intelligence was already high enough. And with Strength, it wasn't clear either. It had increased by one point, but I could only measure that sixteen percent increase in a gym, by measuring the weight I could lift before and after the improvement, and I couldn't even say how far I was from the nearest sports complex.
But everything ends sooner or later, and so did my first day in the sewer. When I get out, I'll be able to joke about living like a homeless person here. The process of forming "Thermokinesis" finally reached one hundred percent, and my Intelligence also increased to ten points. This time, it was more noticeable that my thoughts were flowing more smoothly and were easier to structure, putting all the facts in their place.
Unfortunately, a data packet on how to use the skill wasn't uploaded to my brain, so it looked like I would have to resort to the good old inborn empirical method of thinking, known in science as the trial-and-error method and in common parlance as the "poke and hope" method.
"Well then, let's get started!" I said, rubbing my hands together.
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