Chapter 111

I Reincarnated into a Single-celled Organism!

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Chapter 111

The entranceway to the immortal ruin was blocked with a giant stone block. There appeared to be writing all over it, and I felt a tingle that suggested it had something to do with mana. Unfortunately, I still had almost no knowledge of mana. The sleeping Destiny didn’t seem likely to know very much either. I found myself surprised to be thinking that I wished Erika was here. Her vast knowledge about mana might have been able to not just get passed this door, but give valuable information about this entire ruin. Unfortunately, she wasn’t present, and even if Destiny knew, I had no intention of bringing her along on this particular expedition.

I had already decided I was going to go along with her plan. I might have more to learn by joining a family. Well, if it didn’t turn out to be useful, I would just leave and find some other path for my investigation. However, that didn’t mean I was going to leave them all the potential treasures within this ruin. I was no saint. Thus, while she was sleeping, I’d invade it and take anything I found valuable. I’d leave them some stuff behind so their expedition wasn’t a wash. I could do that much for all the help Destiny had given me so far. At the least, I wasn’t so bad a person to screw others over a couple of items.

After examining the door for fifteen minutes, I came to the realization. I didn’t know how to open the door. Frowning slightly, I started to check over the doorway again. That’s when I noticed a small breeze. This deep in a cave system, I really shouldn’t feel in breezes unless there was a pressure differential like there might be one on the other side of the doorway. I searched for the source and eventually found a small crack.

It must reach the other side of the door.

After thinking about it briefly, I stuck my hand into the crack, and then my hand began to melt. A glob of flesh slinked into the crack, looking like twitching. If someone says this, they might grow slightly ill, but I was already used to such things. Biology wasn’t always pleasant to look at. Once enough cells had moved along with the flesh, I turned my free hand into a blade and then chopped off my arm.

I could have forced my entire body into the crack, but such a thing would have taken considerably longer, and if there was something genuinely dangerous on the other side, I would be at risk. Thus, I had only sent enough tissue to accomplish my goal. The tissue continued to wriggle through the system of cracks. The wall was not thin, and it took some time to navigate, occasionally bumping into dead ends. Eventually, the material gushed out the other side, opening up into a large space. At that point, the tissue began to reassemble.

It rose as the cells were placed back into place, and soon I appeared on the other side. However, my body was only about one foot tall. It was a miniaturized version of me, only containing about 1/10^th of my cells. In reality, I just didn’t have enough cells right now. My body still didn’t have the proper number of an adult male. In the absence of cells, I swelled them up with water to make the difference and left larger spaces in such areas as the stomach.

It was the level of tweaking I had to do to make a viable body that wasn’t the size of a toddler. I would have had to give up half my body just to make a second adult clone, and that was already pushing the limit of my abilities. Of course, every time my body leveled, I doubled the number of cells, so I’d eventually be able to create more clones. Leveling as a human wasn’t particularly easy though, especially as someone who had already gone through 9 evolutions. I had only gained one level after my interrupted tribulation, and even after killing dozens of bandits, I hadn’t gained another.

As the body inside of the barrier regained its senses, I looked around to see a massive antechamber. I started running forward, and then there was a snap and something flew over my head. I watched an arrow that was likely aimed at someone much taller than me. It seemed like this place did have traps after all. Destiny hadn’t been wrong about that. However, they certainly hadn’t been created for someone one foot tall.

I continued to scurry forward into the immortal city. I struck other traps, but either the damage wasn’t enough to injure me or my weight wasn’t enough to trigger them, so very few had the power to even slow me down. From the best I could tell, this place resembled one of the mansions of the families in the cities, albeit underground. It was a small, fortified compound. It wasn’t until I found some words printed that I understood for certain.

“Avogadro’s Valley Institute .” I spoke out the words as Translation did its job.

This seemed to be the location of an abandoned organization. I said abandoned because there were no corpses on the ground and the buildings all appeared to be intact. Had this place faced some great battle or cataclysmic event, I would have expected more of it to be destroyed. I began to check building after building, but as a location that had been abandoned, it looked like the people who left took everything in the institute with them.

I was growing somewhat disappointed until I reached a building that was larger than the rest. If I had to put everything into perspective, this was probably the main headquarters for the institute. if there was anything of value that remained, it would be in there. I continued, running up into the large building. Even though the door was quite big and I was tiny, I still had 1/10^th the strength of a level 10 evolved, so I pushed open the door without any trouble.

I entered inside, and for the first time, I did see signs of battle. There were burn marks on the walls, collapsed columns, and most of all skeletons. It looked like most of the people had left, and the only ones who remained were the handful within the institute, likely staying to protect their legacy or something like that. I continued forward. I checked a few of the corpses, but the bodies were already nothing but skeletons. Even their clothing had decayed into ash. As for weapons or goods, the few I found were rusted through and of no value. Just how much time had passed for things to be in this state?

“Hmm? Mana?” Like the entire facility in the first place, I wouldn’t have detected it if my mana sense didn’t far exceed my mana capacity.

There was a location deep underneath the headquarters which seemed to still have some mana. Considering everything else seemed to have been dead and drained long ago, it stood out. Perhaps, back when the institute still existed, it might have been a secret room that was impossible to detect given everything else that gave off mana, but since it survived the longest, it now stood out to the current me.

Even though I could sense the room, finding it was a different thing altogether. I searched throughout the institute, and while there were some weapons and scrolls of some value that had been overlooked or ignored, none of them interested me all that much as the mana signal deep below. Eventually, I found a hidden chamber, but only by discovering the cracks that led to it. I squeezed my body into the crack and then made my way down to where the mana signature was.

My body fell from the ceiling, or might be more accurate to say that it dripped down. Once I was all the way through, I reformed my body, and there I was able to see a room. It wasn’t quite what I expected. Rather than gold and jewels, it was surrounded by random dried plants. I was less enthused, but I couldn’t help but remember back to the excitement the son of Lord Maxwell felt when he found random flowers and plants strewn throughout the immortal subspace.

This institute had to have a reason for storing such herbs and hiding them so well. They had to be of some value. Besides, it wasn’t like space was limited. My Luminal Space seemed to be as large as that immortal subspace. The little me ran along touching herbs, sucking them into the liminal space for me. Once I had cleaned up most of the room, my eyes couldn’t help landing on the only thing in the room that wasn’t a plant. It appeared to be a large book. The book was ancient, and I realized it was the thing giving off mana.

Rather, the mana had been preserving it, preventing the book from decaying. That said, most of that mana was gone, and I had a feeling that if I attempted to open the book, it’d immediately decay into dust. At this point, it felt like a light breeze would be enough to destroy it. Thankfully, I didn’t need to open a book to read it. I gently touched the book with only a few cells and then pulled it into my luminal space. Then, I activated Transcription and Translation. Within a few minutes, the entire contents of the book was in my mind, word for word.

“A receipt book?”