'Should I follow them?'

Lucas wondered, he didn't know if it was due to the fact that they seemed capable of communication or it was just sheer curiosity but the thought seemed enticing at the moment.

'No. That would be too dangerous, I have no reason to assume those creatures are not going to be aggressive towards me. I can barely move around reliably and have no clue where I am, I would just be setting myself up to get attacked or worse.'

With this rationalization in mind, Lucas tried to think up his next plan of action. Hunger still gnawed at him and he still had no concrete idea on what to do about it.

'Okay, let's start slow. Since I've gotten better at moving, let's move in the opposite direction of those creatures and try to figure out this hunger problem. At least then I will be killing two birds with one stone, right?'

His amorphous form rippled in affirmation at the thought. He extended a tendril beyond his small outcropping, he did so slowly and methodically before piercing it into the wall. It went in rather easily to his slight surprise. The rough and sturdy wall felt almost comfortable on his tendril's grip.

After getting used to the sensation for a few moments, he reached out a second tendril and repeated the process. Before he knew it, he had eight tendrils in the wall and stuck to it. His form rippled as he thought to himself.

'I can do this, it's just like a flip. Rough start, rewarding end.'

After he psyched himself up, he proceeded to move across the wall like an unholy spider. His pace picked up little by little until a few minutes later, he was practically dashing across the wall.

Each step of his tendril was eerily quiet but the vibrations they produced fed his senses with the information he needed to move around properly. As he got used to it, he felt a familial rush. That feeling he got only when he raced across his city with no care in the world. The urge to yell despite his lack of vocal cords.

'Let's take this up a notch!'

He internalized giddily, his former confidence in himself shining through. For a brief moment, he forgot about his rather grim situation.

He dashed forward with as much velocity as he could muster, his body molding itself into a smaller shape as he willed it to. His eight tendrils moved across the wall with remarkable precision.

When his speed peaked, he suddenly put as much power as he could muster into his tendrils and pushed hard on the wall, shooting himself horizontally across the wall like a cannonball.

As he felt himself gliding just barely above the surface of the wall at such high speeds, a wave of mild euphoria hit him and something ephemeral rippled within him.

'This is what I'm talking about!!'

With that internal roar, he generated a much thicker tendril, waited for the precise moment when he began slowing down to pierce the wall with an audible crack. He then used it as leverage to swing even further while conserving as much momentum as he could.

After a few swings, he caught himself on an outcropping and took a rest. His mind reeled at what he had just done.

'How did I do that?'

Lucas was stunned at what just happened. Just a few moments ago, he could barely control his own body. But now he was zipping across the walls like some superhero?

'Maybe it's some mimic instincts or something that's helping me adjust? Or maybe I'm just a genius at parkour? Hehe, probably both.'

If he could smile, he would be grinning to himself. The feeling of racing across the wall lifted his mood tremendously but something suddenly brought him back down from that high.

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'Argh!'

Lucas' form spasmed as he almost fell off the outcropping he sat on, his hunger quite literally was piercing through the core of his being.

'I have to eat something.' Lucas thought grimly. 'But what am I going to eat?'

The question stumped him. Even though he knew he was not a human anymore, it didn't erase eighteen years of experience he had as one. That was not something you could just ignore.

'What did that voice say again? "Let your instincts guide you?" Well... they have definitely helped me move better, let's try applying that to getting food.'

When he reached this point in his thinking, he tried to focus his senses on the cavern below. If he could pick up the sound of anything small, he would go down and eat it. Simple.

He didn't know if it was the numbed emotions or if he was still not processing all the events that had happened to him properly but, he knew he had to eat something, and getting picky would literally lead to his death. He would think more when he was satiated first.

With his resolve made, he sat and focused on his hearing. Minutes passed like a breeze. During this time, he heard a myriad of distant sounds. Some of them were things he could recognize like water dripping on a rock, creatures moving around, and fighting.

Other things though we're not so familiar. Sometimes, he could hear a faint cracking sound. Almost like the static of a television, when he focused on it, it would be gone.

The cavern tunnels also seemed to stretch oddly, sometimes sound would randomly take slightly longer to travel. The occurrence confused him but he put it to the back of his mind.

Other times he would hear a faint vibration with a very peculiar rhythm to it. He had heard it's tranquil melody before but now it grew louder as he paid more attention to it instead of fading away. It was all-encompassing and soothed his mind in a way he didn't know was possible.

As he listened to its rhythm, every other sound slowly faded away. After dozens of tranquil minutes, the sound suddenly shuddered before it vanished. Lucas heard a chime in his head as he received a notification.

{Spirit sense [Level 1]—> Spirit sense [Level 2]}

'Woah...'

The notification didn't even register in his mind because when the sound changed. Suddenly, his senses erupted with clarity. The faint vibrations turned into vivid echoes, painting every crevice of the cavern in more intricate detail. His entire perception of the world had shifted in an instant.

'What just happened?? Woah... this is going to take some getting used to.'

As he 'looked' around, he noticed something about his 'sight' had changed. It was now more detailed but completely monochromatic, that is, his perception appeared completely black and white.

As he tried to adjust to these developments and understand what had just happened to him, he opened up his status screen and took note of the most significant change.

'The [Spirit sense] skill just leveled up. Was it because I was paying attention to my senses so much? Well, at least I can see now. I can run and I can see what I'm running towards. That's some progress at least. Now I just have to get used to it and finally get something to eat.'

Though he had more questions on how his [Spirit sense] skill worked and how all his other skills worked as well, he knew contemplating on it at the moment would get him nowhere. Besides, he had a much more pressing concern.

He felt almost hollow due to his hunger. The rush of emotion he felt from the dash across the wall had long since faded, now he had to get his first meal in this strange new world.

Gingerly, he began moving along the cavern wall. His tendrils gripped the stone with ease, each movement confident yet recognizably inhuman. He felt his body adjust naturally as if it were always meant to move this way.

As he moved, he noticed something fascinating. Every time a tendril struck the wall, it sent out a pulse—a subtle vibration that rippled outward like a stone dropped in a pond. These pulses temporarily "illuminated" his surroundings, painting the cavern in strange, monochromatic clarity.

Fascinated, he paused to focus on this phenomenon. The world around him was stark in its simplicity, the simple colors of black and white gave him much more detail than he thought possible. The vibrations he made—no matter how faint—revealed the terrain with eerie precision.

'Is my new sight… related to sound? Like how bats do it? But I thought the skill had something to do with my Spirit? Whatever that means…'

Curiosity overtook him, briefly distracting him from the ache in his core. He experimented further, sending deliberate pulses out with more forceful tendril strikes. The echoes painted sharper outlines of his environment: jagged stalagmites below, distant outcroppings, and faint movements of creatures scurrying far beneath him.

The more he focused, the clearer everything became. Minute noises in the distance appeared like faint beacons in his monochrome vision. The drip of water was a gentle flicker; the scrape of unseen creatures was a darting blur. His surroundings were a symphony of motion and sound, and he was starting to feel like he belonged in it.

'This is incredible,' Lucas thought, feeling genuinely moved.

Tick Tick

Suddenly, a loud ticking sound grabbed Lucas' attention. The sound was sharp, rhythmic, and close. Unlike the faint background noises, this was something deliberate—alive. His tendrils tensed instinctively, digging into the wall as he honed in on the sound.

There. He could see it now—a small, darting form moving along a ledge not too far from where he clung. It emitted those rhythmic ticks, each one drawing him closer like a moth to a flame.

'Here goes nothing. Let's see what I'm made of.'

A mix of fear and anticipation coursed through him. He knew it was time to hunt.

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