“It might be true that no man is an island," she said, "but you know those peninsulas that are just connected by a really thin neck of land--a sandbar, even? And sometimes, when the tide is high, they get cut off, almost completely. I wouldn't say that there weren't people like that.” ― A. L. Buehrer

  Some checking around leads me to believe that expanding my area of control also requires the expenditure of mana -- with every 20 cm cube costing me about 25 mana. It didn’t seem to matter what was contained in that cube, so I continued to claim cubes along what seemed to be the main tunnel, subsuming the creature’s burrow and converting that matter into energy. And I quickly had a 1 m long tunnel extending past at least one side passage, and a mana level of only about 3 mana.

  Perhaps I shouldn’t push too fast; there’s no telling what happens if I hit 0, or if I might need it for something else.

  Vibrations transmitted from further up the tunnel suggested to me that my actions weren’t going unnoticed by the burrow’s residents. Fortunately, they seemed more interested in fleeing the popping pressure changes and my encroaching aura than anything else. I still found myself hoping to catch one unawares and commit violence upon it, but I did have other priorities, even if my hunger stat was starting to creep up – though remaining in single digits for the time being. Judging from the rate of rise in the tunnel, I was headed mostly up and a bit to what I’m arbitrarily calling North (assuming a pattern for the magnetic field like that of Earth).

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  No real changes to the soil yet, though I’ve picked up roots for some new flora, additional microfauna and invertebrates, and bits of feldspar, mica, and quartz, yielding some new blueprints with no immediate use. I also picked up a pattern for the local atmosphere, which tracks closely with what I remember from Earth – mostly nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%) with traces of a bunch of other things – a moot point for a living rock, but still interesting.

  The most interesting thing is the name given to one of my new plants – Sky Island Clover. Ordinarily, I’d assume the clover is named after an island named Sky or some tall plateau, but given that this is a fantasy world, I’m holding out hope for that classic trope – an island floating in the sky. Makes sense that those would have distinctive species, right?

  That might also explain why I continue to have a sense of motion perpendicular to the local magnetic field, too, despite my relative immobility. If the sky island moves with the prevailing winds, or from some other locomotive force, that would cover it. It’s not fast, but it’s noticeable – maybe 2 km/hr in a generally western direction?

  Having exhausted my ready mana, I am concerned with the math. I have about 74 hours left, which would let me restore my mana fully about 3 times. I’m pretty sure I can reach the surface, but there’s no way I can make a path as big as I need in that time frame. I’m going to have to hope something changes when I hit the surface!

  I’ll try to have faith that the gods that placed me here didn’t set me up for immediate failure!