[NunuNote: Thanks to OfcSoccer4 Magic Castle Gift you are gonna get 2 more Bonus Chapters today!!]
With both options before him, Lohan realized that although one was very tempting, he would have to choose the other.
’If I choose the digging technique...’ Lohan pondered, as his human mind raced to decide which to choose. ’I’ll be like a powerful car without GPS. I’ll be able to move quickly through the earth, but I’ll be blind. I might end up digging straight into a pocket of toxic gas or getting lost in dead-end caves.’
He recalled that his [Superior Magic Core] and his [Structural Stability] had already given him a solid foundation for replicating physical movements.
He could train the act of digging, just as he had trained the human hands, the Corgi’s paws, or the fox’s tail he had replicated to use the movements of the Explosive Rabbits. But spatial orientation underground was something he wasn’t sure he could learn on his own.
That was a biological instinct refined by millions of years of evolution of that earthworm species.
Realizing this, Lohan hesitated no longer and made his decision.
[Feature: Memory Absorption Activated!]
[Selected Technical Memory: Underground Spatial Perception and Orientation (Elite).]
[Synchronizing synaptic patterns with the vital core...]
Suddenly, the darkness in Lohan’s mind "lit up."
The resonance broke, and Lohan awoke in the Boss’s room.
Emerging from the Worm’s memory and regaining control of his own body, he sensed the structure of the guild tree above him as a mass of varying densities. He could sense where the fossilized rock was most fragile and where the amber deposits were densest.
The Worm’s "GPS" was now integrated into his [Parallel Processing Core].
He was lying on the floor, his blue gelatin pulsing with a soft light.
Lisa was just ahead, watching him with her golden eyes half-closed, ready to act should he show signs of mental collapse.
"Halon? Are you back?" Lisa asked via mental link, her tone laced with curiosity and concern. "You were stuck there for quite a while... did you get what you wanted?"
Lohan didn’t answer immediately. He rolled over to the [Astral Chest], sensing, even through the fossilized wooden floor, exactly how the tree’s natural tunnels connected with the layers of earth below.
"I got something much better than an attack Skill, Lisa," Lohan transmitted, his mental voice coming through crystal clear. "Those worms... they didn’t come here by chance. They sensed the glow of the chest and the tree’s core beneath the earth. Now, I can sense it too."
Lohan formed a bluish hand and touched the ground. Without him having to make an effort, the system triggered the notification.
[New Digested Matter - Resonance Excavation Lv 1]
[Allows biomass to vibrate at high-intensity frequencies to destabilize the molecular bonds of minerals and soil, transforming solid rock into a fluid medium for instantaneous displacement.]
"Watch this," Lohan said.
He activated the excavation.
Thanks to Evolution, Lohan instinctively knew how to dig the hole, but the precise power and control would still have to be trained bit by bit as he used it.
But for a simple demonstration, this was enough; Lohan sank into the floor of the Boss’s room as if he were stepping into a bucket of water.
Beneath the ground, Lohan didn’t feel lost.
He "saw" Lisa’s position through the vibrations of her paws on the floor above him. He sensed the approximate location of Pip and Elle at the tree’s entrance. He moved five meters beneath the Boss’s room and emerged right behind Lisa, without a single miscalculation.
Lisa jumped in fright, her tails bristling. Instinctively, she formed a ball of white fire in her mouth, ready to attack the source of that sound, but upon seeing the blue sphere emerging from the ground, she held it back.
Lohan vibrated the gelatin, satisfied. "Sorry haha, the digging process is so satisfying, like I’m swimming in the earth!"
The problem was that, looking down, he realized he’d left a hollow hole where he’d passed through the tree’s bark. Fortunately, the tree was already dead, so they could fill it in later, but considering the holes the other worms had left, that would be a job to be done anyway.
"One more hole or less won’t make a difference..." Lohan consoled himself.
A few minutes later, after consolidating their gains and organizing Pip and Elle as the new sentinels, Lohan began to feel his mental fatigue reach its limit.
"Lisa, shall we continue our hunt tomorrow? After everything we’ve been through today, I think it might be better for us to get a good night’s rest; I’m even worried about how our changes in the real world will turn out..." Lohan remarked, his voice slightly slurred.
The process of reliving the worm’s memory had exhausted him more than he’d expected, and considering they wanted to hunt, something that demanded absolute focus, Lohan preferred not to take any chances.
Lisa closed her eyes for a moment and nodded, realizing she was tired too.
"Okay, Halon, but I want you here early tomorrow. If you’re not online, I’ll keep calling you until you can’t sleep anymore!" she replied with a smile that was also a bit weary.
Lohan then said goodbye to Lisa and began the process of logging off.
When he opened his eyes in the real world, the suffocating darkness of his apartment in the Lower Zone greeted him. The air was saturated with the usual metallic smell, but something was... different.
Lohan got out of bed, feeling Level 11 Mana coursing hot through his human veins. He closed his eyes and, instinctively, focused on the environment around him.
The shock was immediate.
With his spatial perception absorbed from the worm’s memories, there was no learning curve or adaptation period, not even for the real world!
With his eyes closed, Lohan "felt" the thickness of his bedroom walls. He felt the vibration of a delivery drone passing three blocks away. He felt where the electrical wiring ran inside the walls and the density of the metal in the locked door.
He reached out into the darkness and touched the wall. He knew exactly how many centimeters of concrete separated him from the outer corridor. He realized that if he decided to use his Mana to vibrate his human arm right now, he could even pass through the wall just as he had dug through it in Elysium!
’This is insane...’ Lohan thought, opening his eyes, which now glowed a pale blue in the dim light. ’Qualitative Memory Resonance doesn’t just give me knowledge... it gives me the life experience of the prey right here in this world! This is a cheat on top of another cheat!’
Then, looking at his own body for the first time after evolving to Level 11, he was shocked by what he saw.
Aesthetically speaking, judging solely by his physical and visual appearance, no major changes were apparent; he still looked exactly like the same Lohan from a few hours ago. But when he began to examine his insides, the structure that should have been entirely human, like everyone else’s, was now turning into something completely different.
"Is that... biomass?" he asked himself, shocked.