They kept Salazar in a closed off corner of the underground hideout , but he didn't care. He was completely focused on his new discovery.
Mana.
It was unlike anything he'd ever known. Now he knew why this world hadn't advanced far in the technological department. When you had something like this available to you, what use would technology be.
Although his mana was still weak, he didn't care. He continued to experiment with it , remembering the small lecture the Centipede Queen had given.
He forced the mana to fill his whole body, increasing both attack and defense by 2 and 4 respectively , and raising agility by 1. He forced it to gather at only one part of his body ; his arms , legs and even fingers or toes.
As he continued to experiment , the problem of his lack of information came to mind. In his former life, he didn't have that problem. He had connections everywhere, and with a simple call , could gain access to some of the worlds tightly kept secrets.
In this world , his lack of information could get him killed , as showcased today. If he had known that monsters like him, were under the care of the one armed giant, he would've gone there straight. In addition, if he knew what a variant monster was , it could've been an asset he could've manipulated to enter into the good graces of the giant ,essentially accomplishing his goals.
But , it was too late now, and he had to learn from his mistakes. That's what being a scientist is all about.
So, how can he create an information gathering network in a place like this. After a long period of deliberation , an idea slowly began to take shape in his head.
Mana was a type of energy that could be manipulated by ones own thoughts. In its purest form, it could be used to scan his environment, as he'd just recently discovered from his tests. Though, the effect wasn't as good as him using [All seeing eye] it still allowed him to 'see' what was taking place even without his eyes.
If that was the case , would it be possible to attach mana onto someone or something , thereby creating a magical spy camera which he could connect to at anytime, much like a Bluetooth device.
So , he asked 'Voice of the world' about it.
[Answer: It is indeed possible to attach mana to both living and non-living things. However , the remote use of mana to sense ones surroundings has never been attempted before. ]
Just because it had never been attempted before didn't mean that it couldn't work. This world didn't know about things like hover boots , freighter jets and so on but that didn't mean they didn't exist. He became pumped.
But what could he attach his mana sense onto to test his theory. He looked around. Rocks and weeds were the only things around him.
No, he couldn't use those.
Then it hit him. He was a mudman. Mud was made either from loam, clay ,silt or all three ,mixing with water. If he had to take a guess , he'd say that his body had certain amounts of all three.
So, digging into his own body, he extracted noobs of mud from his own 'flesh' if that's what you wanna call it. Doing so caused him to lose 3 Hp but he ignored that.
Looking at the blobs in front of him, he contemplated whether to use them naturally like that , or to mold them first. He decided to mold them.
But into what. He thought long and hard , and decided to mold them into the shapes of tiny spiders. Not only would they be inconspicuous, they were fast , and would allow him to gather quickly.
So, he began. Although he wasn't particularly good at it , and the shapes that were formed weren't exactly what he was doing for , he didn't complain.
Now comes the hardest part.
He inserted a strand of his mana into each 'spider' , each taking up 2 MP, and there were five of them.
Then he closed his eyes. He recalled that sensation, that jolt he felt when he first sensed mana in his body , and he released his a man around him, similar to what he does to talk.
With the mana around him, he attempted to connect with his mana in the spider mud clones. For a time , nothing happened.
He kept trying for a few days. He didn't know what sleep was , and only took breaks to eat when the Arthropoda brought him food. Luckily , the food consisted of monster flesh, which was basically a dead monster so he completed his ' must eat a monster every day ' task.
[ Mana manipulation increased by 0.5 ]
[Mana manipulation increased by 0.5]
[Mana manipulation increased by 0.5]
He didn't know how many times he had received that notification. And he didn't care.
Finally several days , he received one final notification. [Mana manipulation has leveled up]
With the increase in skill , he finally sensed something. His mana sense had become more heightened , and he managed to pick up on he traces of his mana in his mud husks.
[You have created a brand new skill. Would you like to name it ].
Yh. Thinking for a moment , he decided on :
[ Network
A skill created by the mud man Salazar Midgard. It allows him to split his mud man body to create clones that do his bidding. Unfortunately, due the hosts low level, the clones created do not have any fighting ability.
Requires 2 MP and 3 HP ]