All nine members of the expedition sat in a circle as they shared a meal. A small orb of orange light glowed dimly in the center of the circle, floating above a small contraption which had been placed on the ground. The machine couldn't determine the purpose of the orb, but the scene reminded him of the campouts he had with friends when he was younger. They would always build a campfire and talk the night away.
'How nostalgic...'
He watched with a tinge of envy as the party talked and laughed around the orb of light. They all seemed to enjoy each other's company. Even the three who were only there to carry equipment were included in the conversation and seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was once a time in the machine's previous life where he felt the same. There was a time where he cherished a group of friends and trusted in them...
Eventually, their conversation grew quiet.
The party retired to their tents and quietly fell asleep while leaving only one member out to keep watch over the camp.
The machine shook off the melancholy thoughts. Now that there were fewer prying eyes, he could test out a few things with significantly less risk. Currently, a smaller and simplified version of the interface was floating in the lower, left-hand corner of his vision. He planned to keep a close eye on it while performing his experiments.
----
[Level: 0]
[XP: 0/10]
[HP: 4/20]
[MP: 10/10]
----
First, he wanted to see if he really was the one who tore open the cart's cover. He assumed he had some kind of telekinetic power and wanted to see if he could perform more controlled actions. There was a small flap of burlap dangling from the tear which would be perfect for the experiment.
The party's first night guard was the duelist. Currently, he was looking down, distracting himself by carving shapes into a piece of wood.
The machine cautiously focused his attention on the flap of burlap fabric which dangled in front of him and tried to move it just slightly. To his surprise, it immediately moved up and floated there as if it were held with invisible strings. It felt like an extension of himself. It was just like moving his body.
The duelist carved away at the wood piece for a whole hour, entirely unaware of the movement happening around the cart. Small items were floating around, often times being lifted up to the eyes of the machine and being spun around in various ways before another item presented itself to it. At one point, there were even several items flying around in the air as if they were being juggled by a street performer.
[MP: 9/10]
It took something around an hour of manipulating small items to finally affect the machine's MP reserves. Once he saw the number drop, he gently set down the floating items and reviewed what he had learned so far. His "reach" was only about two meters away from his body. The closer an item was to him, the easier it was to move. He also still had to deal with the weight and inertia of whatever item he wanted to move. He could even move multiple things at once, but it took more concentration.
He felt like earlier, he had unknowingly been using this same force to move his body. That would explain why his MP was exhausted and why he collapsed to the ground when it ran out.
The duelist eventually changed shifts with another member of the party and retired to get some sleep. The next night guard was the little mage woman. Similar to the duelist, she brought something to distract herself. She sat where the duelist had been keeping watch before and opened up a book. Just like him, she was instantly distracted.
The night guard changed every now and then and the machine continued to practice his control over the strange force. He had used his ability to inspect all the small items which were placed in the cart with him and was growing bored again now that there was nothing new to discover. But then, he suddenly recalled how two of the carriers pulled the cart along while the third had been hauling around a massive backpack as well as a few smaller bags. Those bags were most likely placed beside the cart. He took a precautionary glance at the night guard.
The current night guard was the cleric, who had his eyes shut. The machine wasn't sure if he was silently praying or if he fell asleep...
Luckily, the machine could slightly feel items with his ability. The bags he wanted to rummage through were outside his field of vision, but he was confident he could find them if they were close enough. Using his mind, he reached down to the ground outside the cart and started feeling around.
He could feel small stones and pebbles on the ground as he lightly brushed the surface. He remembered how his body could feel the fine details of the ground's texture when he was dragging himself around. He couldn't feel nearly as much with his ability, but it should be enough to find what he was looking for. It only took a few moments for him to feel his strange force bump into something. He felt the whole surface of the item and realized he had found what he was looking for.
[XP +2]
----
[Level: 0]
[XP: 2/10]
[HP: 4/20]
[MP: 8/10]
----
The machine paused when the notification popped up. He inspected the interface, but found no explanation as to why he got the XP. He assumed it was because he learned how to search around with his ability, but he wasn't sure. It was possible that XP simply accumulated passively with time. Or maybe he accidentally crushed a bug without noticing and got some XP for it...
Returning his attention to the bag, he quietly unlatched the top and opened it up before feeling around inside. One by one, he would take an item from the bag and make it float in front of his eyes so he could inspect it more closely. He couldn't identify most of what he found in the first bag, but he continued to search through the others to see if he could find anything he recognized.
Opening one of the smaller bags, he found it was full of crystals and faintly glowing stones. The machine inspected them one by one. He found many he thought were beautiful and wanted to keep one or two for himself. Some of these looked like precious gems from his original world. There were rubies, diamonds and a beautiful blue kind of stone he thought was sapphire. He laughed to himself, realizing these could be anything. He didn't have any real experience with precious gems in his previous life after all, so he likely couldn't identify anything accurately. He searched through the bag while wondering if anyone in the party would notice if one of the stones went missing.
When he neared the bottom of the bag, the machine found something that somehow felt different. Returning all the others, he lifted one certain crystal to his face so he could better inspect it.
This one was quite strange. It was a metal that seemed to naturally crystallize into the shape of a cube. It was a metallic black with thin red lines which were more prevalent along the edges of the cube. It was quite strange, but beautiful. He felt a certain pull to it that he didn't understand. He moved the cube closer, attempting to move it under the cover of the cart so he could keep it close. This would be his prize from the bag of gems.
However, when he moved it under the torn opening of the cart's burlap cover, it brushed against the surface of his chest. The moment it made contact with his body, it melted like solder and was instantly absorbed.
[Gerenium aquired]
[Initiating repairs]