Chapter 16: The Devil Fruit

In the middle of my fall, I immediately surveyed the surroundings using GPS (Ground Penetrating Sonar) to find my safe landing. There is no way I'm gonna die from falling after doing so much.

After surveying around, I finally found an area where the cliff had a puncture. From this, leak water sprouted out like a flood. There were numberless waterfalls here, and these waterfalls led to a tunnel of water slides that will lead to the entrance of the true great dungeon. It was a miracle that Hajime was already falling toward the position of the waterfall for a safe landing despite not moving at all.

'Is this the so-called plot armor?'

As for me, I was falling toward a cliff with many stalagmites growing from the ground where I can see the massive Behemoth being pierced by many of them before his last breath.

Although I knew that I was falling toward danger, I still didn't panic as that is my true destination. Why? Because I want to see if the behemoth left his magic core and I also want to take some of his meat for research.

Although I can't throw a seed mid-flying, I can use my body as a place to grow my plant. This is possible for one of the plants I found called 'Deathweed'. Instead of absorbing nutrients in the ground normally, this plant absorbs nutrients from blood making its color be dark red as blood. Due to its unusual nature, it usually grows on battlefields or places with many blood accumulations like the dungeon.

I sliced my palm as I put a Deathweed seed inside my wound and grew this weed. I grew the weed to encircle my hand before making its launch toward the surrounding wall and penetrate them. After making sure the weed is secure in place, I swing toward the location of the behemoth before landing safely on top of his body like a spiderman. I also already checked using GPS that the behemoth truly died.

Of course, I practiced a lot secretly before as I know that this graphing hook will be difficult to master. This is the one and only maneuvering technique for going up from an enclosed space as I am still unable to fly. Of course, as I only train for like a few days, my skill is still very far from Levi with his 3D maneuvering gear.

After getting the core with the size of a basketball, I wrap them in my bag I created from the skin of the behemoth before going toward the direction of the waterfall. Unlike Hajime who hit his head and lost consciousness, I experienced the most amazing water slides I have ever experienced in my two lives! As expected, natural things are sometimes better than artificial ones.

At the end of the waterslide, I come to a river of about 5m in width as I can also see Hajime's body like a corpse at the edge of the river. Hajime's upper body seems to have been caught and stranded by protruding rocks located at the side of the river making him no longer moving with the current.

In the end, I take him away from that position as I put him in some obscure corner before leaving him alone. I am not gonna become a nanny for him in this place. I then proceeded to move to another corner quite far from his location before sitting down to dry my wet clothes from the water.

I plant a seed of fire-resistant wood to the ground before making it into the shape of 'Torchwood' like in PVZ. I then grow some other plant which I proceed to put inside the Torchwood imitation before sprinkling them with ethanol using [Chemical Production] skills.

How do I make the fire? It is simple. I simply created some Mercury(II) fulminate and put it beside many grass and wood I placed inside the Torchwood imitation. I then just give the chemical a shock by hitting it using a cane I created to create a spark.

As I probably explained before, Mercury(II) fulminate is usually used as a detonator for explosives and gunpowder in bullets. This chemical is very sensitive to friction, heat, and shock. Of course, besides those, I can also make this to just simply make a spark of fire.

The fire is then created as I dry my body and clothes for a few minutes before setting on my journey in this Dungeon. The first thing I am gonna do is to find the location of the [Divinity stone] from this floor. I am not sure if there is more as taking it from Hajime might indirectly cause his death.

To find the stone, I grow an underground root using my plant manipulation as I also use GPS (Ground Penetrating Sonar) in conjunction. This is combination magic I develop successfully to enhance the range of GPS from 1 km to anywhere where my plant networks are.

Using the GPS, I found some ore vein before finding the Divinity stone that probably will help Hajime's resurrection. After finding this stone, I continued searching for other possibilities. After searching for a while, I can't seem to find any more divinity stones.

'Looks like this stone is the only one. I remember this to be the one dropped accidentally by the creator of this dungeon, Oscar Orcus when he used almost the same artifact as Hajime to gather a huge amount of mana in the atmosphere and condense them.'

He can be called to be a master in magical technologies. Although his firepower loses to Hajime because of the lack of knowledge and sciences that Earth has, his aspect at pure magic is greater in magic as even Hajime can only make the Divinity stone but not the Ambrosia (the liquid from the stone that can heal every wound.)

'Since this is the case, I will just take some samples and for my own use and leave the rest for Hajime.'

I proceed to move towards the divinity stone location by drilling using my earth system magic while avoiding the monster in this area. After I get into the location of the divinity stones, I take some of the ambrosia leaving 75% of it for Hajime as I think I will make my own later. I also take some of the divinity stones for my experiment later on.

As I don't have [transmutation] skill, I can't cut it at all. Hence I just take some fragments around the stones which are probably left after being dropped or any other reasons. With divinity stones obtained, I will continue to the next phase of my plan in this dungeon.

There are several things Hajime gets in this dungeon namely; various ore and metals, divinity stones, abilities from eating monster meat, age of god inheritance [Creation Magic], treasures and artifacts that the creator left, and finally a vampire waifu…

As for me, my priority is only divinity stones and abilities from monsters. Although I will also get the [Creation Magic] for concept magic and artifact from Orcus, it will not really enhance my strength a lot. However, there is also something that I need in this dungeon that Hajime doesn't bother to obtain which will be revealed later on.

My next phase of the plan is, of course, obtaining abilities from monsters. To do that, I killed some wolf since I can't beat the rabbit in speed nor am I confident in defeating the bear. After killing three of them, I gather them in one place for my experiment.

I don't want to simply torture myself to get sudden strength gain like Hajime until my hair turns white. If it only turns white like Hajime who got lucky, then it is still okay. However, If I got bald from obtaining a greater strength like a certain someone, I would not do so.

My experiment involves a special plant called Eevee trees that can grow into many other types depending on where it grows. After researching about this plant, I finally know that this plant actually absorbs elemental mana from the surrounding to grow. It can become a fire plant that produces explosive fruit if it absorbs fire elemental mana, it can become a water plant that produces fruit with many water content when it absorbs water elemental mana, and etc. Hence, what happens if it absorbs mana and nutrients from the blood of a monster?

Normally, it is impossible as the root of this plant can't absorb nutrients from the blood. However, I work on a project to transplant the roots from Deathweed to this plant which is successful. Although successful, I never tried to eat the fruit as I am not sure what the side effect is. This is why I waited until I got my hands on ambrosia in case of any mishaps.

I then put the seed of Deathweed inside of the lightning wolf and make it grow halfway before transplanting the neutral plant of Eevee into the roots of Deathweed. Although Eevee is considered a tree, it only grows to a height of 1 meter and strangely only produces 1 fruit every life cycle which contains several seeds. This is why I can just use [+Plant Growth Manipulation] to make the roots of Deathweed bigger to accommodate the Eevee trees.

After connecting the Xylem and Phloem using [+Plant Structural Manipulation] in conjunction with [+Plant Growth Manipulation], the plant has successfully been transplanted as I use [Plant Growth Stimulation] to speed up the growth of the plant.

After a few seconds, a tree with purple bark grew to a height of 2 meters in front of me. The tree then produces a flower that immediately pollinates itself due to my [Plant Growth Stimulation] which I discovered unexpectedly last time. A purple fruit immediately forms with some black marking on its surface.

'This… isn't this the devil fruit? The purple color might be due to lightning element mana from the blood which can range from red to purple depending on the frequency of light it produces. However, is the mark because of the monster blood as the black marking reminds me of the mark that Hajime got after becoming a hybrid.'

Although I feel weird, I still proceed to pick up the fruit with strange markings. I pick up a wooden vial containing ambrosia in my left hand as I bring the fruit in my right hand to my mouth. I then bite the fruit as I feel a weird taste flood my tongue making me awake instantly.

'!!! Eugh~! Arg! Bleuuueh-! Damn! It is okay if the shape is the same as a devil fruit, but please not the taste too! Well, the taste might be because of the monster meat tho-!!!'

I can no longer think of anything immediately as I can feel intense hunger assault me after eating the whole fruit since I don't want to waste any of them. I quickly grew some crops of fruit-producing plants on the ground as after they produced a mature fruit, I immediately picked them up and gobble them down due to my unbearable hunger coming from my stomach.

I can feel my body change as I eat more normal fruit and fill up my stomach. My muscles and skeleton grew thicker as I could feel the changes while eating. I can also perceive the existence of my mana and the surrounding mana after a while and if I want to, I can feel that I can manipulate them as I wish to. After a few minutes of just eating, grow a plant and eat more, I finally stopped.

'Hah...Hah… Hah… What was that? Why do I feel so hungry all of a sudden? Wait! Is it because the fruit containing evolutionary genes evolve my body which needs more nutrients and energy, causing my hunger.'

Normally, after eating monster meat and gaining the evolution genes from the monster, the energy is supplied by the meat contained in the monster. However, this causes some of the monster genes that are not compatible with the human bodies to also be absorbed causing what was known as gene collapse.

With a gene collapse, the body will not know whether you are a human or a monster causing your body to randomly grow and be destroyed like Hajime. Unlike him, I don't experience gene collapse and restoration but gene strengthening which is to improve the existing gene to the next level like a normal evolution. Of course, this evolution needs a huge amount of energy which caused my intense hunger earlier.

With my body full of black clumps and things that many will just say impurities which are actually just unused cells and leftover after the improvement of body and organs. It is just like a chemical reaction, when there is a product sometimes there is also waste or byproduct.

With my excitement, I finally look at the status plates that I brought with me to this abyss as I finally realized I don't actually need to train my cooking skills all this time...

To be continued →