Day 70, 4:05 PM

  The first floor is overrun. Forget a bunch of beginner-friendly land lobsters, nearly invisible orb-weaver threads are criss-crossing the trees. Some are torn where stronger monsters passed through them, some are still standing.

  I consider the scene indicating hundreds of orb-weavers, and the dungeon is unlike the one we visited before. I glance at Lucy and Gila; the girls are afraid. The situation is exactly what I didn’t want it to be, risky, dangerous, and unknown. Absolutely not worth the risk of clearing the floor.

  “Edna, how about you handle it?”

  She gives me a smug look, then sings of the train bringing disintegration, and a wave of fire turns a wide cone fifty yards ahead of us to ash. She destroyed the trees and monsters alike, leaving nothing but a black clearing.

  Well, that saves a lot of time. Edna graces me another smug look, and I ignore it. We can go dungeon delving once we have stabilized the place.

  I expected a stampede of bugs, but nothing approaches. The orb-weavers have taken complete control of the floor. Probably a lot of floors, since they aren’t very keen on moving.

  “How many firewaves can you cast?”

  “Two per hour outside, three or four down here.”

  “And if you use more controlled fire magic?”

  “Depends. Honorable Alchbert’s Wave of Fire is the most cost-effective spell for dealing with swarms and was staple for dungeon purging back when mages used to do it.”

  The first thought to mind is that I’m glad you don’t have to say the spell’s name when casting it. Firewave is an incomparably better name.

  “It looks like you’ll need to cast it around ten times, so we have to stay here for around two-three hours?”

  “Sounds about right. You two can try to master your voice here, and, Griff, I’ll teach you the new spell while I’m recovering mana.”

  I escort Edna to the edge of the forest, she unleashes another firewave, and we go back to the entrance, ignoring the storm of ash behind us.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to start a fire and just burn down the floor?” I ask.

  “Too much smoke.” She shakes her head “It would impact visibility, some monsters might survive and use the cover to attack us, better to turn it all to ash. Cleaner, offers no cover, and anything weaker than a minor abomination will die instantly, but they don’t start appearing until the fiftieth floor.”

  For the first time since I have reincarnated in this world, I have missed something obvious that she saw right away.

  “You’re right,” I acknowledge, then we go into the spell.

  “Spells which rely on outer mana the most are detection spells. If you’re skilled enough, you can cover a vast area with hardly any mana of your own. They do require finesse and practice, but the good thing is that once you cast the spell it remains with you as long as you will it and as long as you supply it a trickle of mana. I keep my area of awareness at around one hundred yards away from me in all directions. That’s the distance at which the passive rate at which I draw outer mana and the amount I’m spending are at an equilibrium. In the dungeon, I could make the area larger, but there’s really no need. In fact, I shrank it to ten yards as soon as I cast the first spell because I can use my eyes to spot any hostile creatures now that the plant-life is gone.”

  Edna first weaves her hands and fingers like she’s searching for something, and I mimic the gesture. My reproduction is perfect, as usual, and then she starts to sing. The hum of her voice is gentle, almost demure, and I can feel the fear of crushing a frail glass bead she is trying to find on the floor. A lot less poetic scene overlaps with it, in which I’m patting my pockets in search of lost keys.

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  The song ends.

  “Let your mana flow a tiniest trickle. If you let it gush outside your body like you did before, you may face sensory overload from seeing too much all at once.”

  “Thank you for the warning, I appreciate it.” I think that was the first time Edna’s told me something bad would happen before it happened. And best of all, it’s even actionable. I can just increase my mana output as I get used to the sensation.

  Edna’s confused for a moment, then gives me a nod. I repeat her song, more in search of car keys than for a transparent, fragile marble, but the song is good enough for my first attempt. The difference in the melody’s imagery tells me I lack finesse. My expanded consciousness translates things for me in ways that would probably baffle a normal, more sane mind, and not for the first time, I have a feeling doing magic involves a dose of insanity or at least mild mental instability.

  To see half-visions while hearing a hum and to taste colors with your eyes as you follow mana are phenomena which lie beyond sanity. The sphere spreading all around me is similar, but much more mundane. I close my eyes, and my world grows tiny. The textures of everything half a foot around me press against my mind. As does the objects’ heat, smell, and taste, I know their colors and the sounds they are making.

  Just about everything smells of ash and is fairly unassuming. I double the trickle of mana, and my world grows. There is a pleasant, fleshy scent, mixed with an almost imperceptible note similar to roses.

  Edna’s skin is soft, and she is shockingly naked beneath her clothes. Her body is lean and fit, with well-defined muscles and as much fat as she needs for her lifestyle, to keep her warm, to pad her rear and make chairs more comfortable. I already knew her arms were weak, but her legs are freakishly strong; she could probably crack a giant lobster between her thighs.

  In a blink, I sensed all of her body. She’s an art piece, a flesh automaton she sculpted to house her mind and soul.

  I can’t help but wonder about that approach, but then I realize I had her reshape me, too. My fate is such that I will keep possessing dead bodies, possibly for all eternity. Maybe it would be better to treat them all as suits.

  “Edna, do you know what you really look like? Or what you would really look like if you hadn’t manipulated your body to appear the way it does?”

  “I would look dead. I’m two hundred years old. Now, get back to work. Once you get a feel for the spell, you have to cast it again, seek the way to improve it and repeat the process until you succeed.”

  And so I did. I repeat the song and my fingers feel for the invisible lost items two dozen times, thinking about what I’m doing right and what I’m doing wrong while Edna reduces the entire floor to ash.

  “Next floor,” she declares, and we repeat the process.

  “I leveled!” Gila shouts, beaming with pride. “I got it!”

  She picks Initial Mana Ambivalence because she doesn’t know which affinity she has, and she’s afraid she might lock herself from black or green mana. Both interest her greatly. The former because it might be useful in her chosen profession, the latter because she wants the ability to alter her own body.

  I can feel Edna’s indignation. Blood susurrates through her vessels at a nearly audible hiss, her heart beating faster. A woman who aspires to become a seamstress is outdoing her in her class progression.

  Can’t say I blame her. I’d be depressed too. In fact, Gila’s determination to be a seamstress is depressing. She has a class with all the cosmic power a human of Everrain might wield, and she wants to make frilly dresses.

  Lucy congratulates her, but her voice is strained. Unlike Edna, I don’t know what’s happening with her body. Being too close to the girls and feeling their bodies with all my senses seemed perverse, so I didn’t do it and opened up a bit of distance between us.

  I join in on the congratulations, and we head for the next floor, where Edna vents her frustration on the innocent death spiders.

  Gila is preparing camp and food for us, while Lucy is still singing her song, trying to get it right. I move a dozen yards away from them and contemplate the difference between feeling for impossibly fragile invisible marbles and feeling my pockets for keys.

  At some point, though, my mind drifts, or at least a part of it does. I contemplate a difficult question, how do you find invisible marbles which will shatter if you touch them? They are scattered across the floor, I know that part of the imagery, so how would I do it?

  I could blow and listen to the sound of rolling? Maybe take a piece of paper and drag it along the floor until I pick up the marble?

  No. The second one, while possible, isn’t the image from Edna’s song. Blowing should work, using the air to do the more manual job of feeling the floor and moving around for me aligns with what I want to achieve.

  I change the song slightly, and a level up notice appears.