He had to experiment. After all, if he thought about it hard enough, he could liken himself to a character from a video game. If he killed monsters, maybe they dropped some stuff, or it could be a case of him having to scavenge for stuff himself. Whatever was the case, he needed to figure out how everything worked so he could plan for any future ventures.
Aaron walked out of his newly-enlarged base, his arms trailing along the floor, getting slightly in his way since he had to walk awkwardly to stop then from hitting into him. 'Wait a god damn second.' Aaron thought to himself, placing all his weight into his arms and lifting the rest of his significantly smaller body into the air. 'Monkey see, monkey do, eh? Well, moreso apes, but who cares?'
Aaron started making incredibly fast progress with minimal effort, now not having to worry about this oversized arms. He blitzed past a few small-scale conflicts as he wandered throughout the huge space that he found. He noticed a good few humans, clad in armour, amidst the skirmishes, but there were significantly less monsters now than there were before, but there were a disproportionately small amount of monster corpses. Maybe something had eaten them? Maybe the humans had something to do with that?
Aaron caught sight of a large injured spider, having seemingly just killed one of those husk-like creatures. There was green blood spurting from two of its legs, and a few of its eyes were black, as if they were dead. It was conveniently facing away from him. 'Perfect'. Aaron said to himself, rushing over to the spider, using his arm to slam downwards, but the spider turned just in time, sacrificing it's two injured legs to jump out of the way. The green blood splattered on his arm, slowly dissolving the outer layer of bone. Aaron watched as the spider's legs suddenly regenerated, as if there was no damage at all. 'I need that, now.'
It was now a race against the clock to obtain that regeneration skill before the acid-like blood dissolved his bones to nothing. His ribcage was still in pieces, so if anything got there, he'd be doubly screwed. He rushed up to the spider, wildly swinging, but it kept avoiding his attacks, and once it got far enough away, it started spitting the same acid at Aaron, getting some on his legs, head and a small bit on his ribcage. Aaron knew that if he didn't do something soon, he'd be absolutely screwed.
[Limited Adaptation]
[Adapting to Acid Formation And Manipulation (Strong)... Failed]
[Adapting to Acid Liquid Generation (Average)...Failed]
[Adapting to Acid Magic (Weak)...Adapted]
[Acid Magic (Weak)]
[The user may form and control acid using magic. They may not control acid not formed by their own magic. This may change at higher levels of mastery.]
'Better than nothing!' Aaron mentally yelled, happy to get an offensive skill. He thought about forming a ball of acid, and as he did, the notification for [Magic Conduit (Weak)] appeared in his mind, forming his acid with no issues. He fired it at the spider, but, predictably, it jumped away. 'Alright then, let's just do it faster!'
Aaron conjured up multiple smaller, faster balls of acid, and fired them rapidly over an area so the spider would have less place to move. It avoided most of the shots, but some of the acid hit their back left leg, messing up its balance and causing it to fall to the floor, belly-up. Aaron took this chance like a homeless person to coins on the foot and rushed up to the spider, putting his skeletal hand on the open wound, praying that [Limited Adaptation] would activate. However, he had no such luck, and the spider's leg regenerated in the gaps between his bones, however small they were, and broke off the leg again in order to escape. Aaron cursed himself for not securing the spider more securely, but that was no matter. He conjured more of the acid this time around, but the spider seemed to be able to learn from its mistakes. It turned around and shot string straight at Aaron's head, covering the area where his eyes might have been. Aaron lifted his right arm up to pick it off, using his left arm at an angle for balance alongside his right leg. This is when the spider struck. It fired more acid at Aaron, hitting his left arm and his torso once more. The acid had fully dissolved through one of his ribs, and the other areas weren't doing well. He needed to find a way to get that regeneration skill. Aaron pulled off the string, and, using his arms, swung himself towards the spider, firing a rain of acid down. It wasn't the strongest acid, but it definitely did some damage. It hit a few of the spider's legs, and Aaron grabbed the spider as the outer layer of the skin on their affected legs dissolved. He squeezed the spider as tightly as he could, trying to force it to regenerate many small injuries at once so he could get the regeneration skill. He squeezed until the spider's skin tore, let it heal, and repeated that process at least twelve times. After around twenty minutes of cracking open the spider like an egg, and letting it heal, he finally got what he wanted.
[Limited Adaptation]
[Adapting to Regeneration (Strong)... Failed]
[Adapting to Regeneration (Average)...Failed]
[Adapting to Regeneration (Weak)...Adapted]
[Regeneration (Weak)]
[Allows the user to regenerate small wounds at a moderate pace, but large wounds like broken bones take a considerable amount of time.]
'And that's all I need YOU for!' Aaron said, crushing the spider with his bare hands, covering himself with the acid. The acid and his regeneration counteracted eachother, and, soon enough, the acid dissappeared.
'I thought for sure I was screwed there.' Aaron sighed to himself, looking to see if anything had dropped from the corpse of the spider. He found a blue orb and a plain metal sword. 'How did this fit into that small body?' Aaron pondered before picking up both and heading back to his base. The corpse wasn't important, or at least he didn't think so.
He passed by a load of one-on-one fights between all kinds of monsters, from large cyclopses and zombies to plants attacking spiders similar to the one he killed. 'There was definitely less here earlier.' Aaron noted, trying to see if he could make a system of time while down here. It wasn't too important, but would be helpful. He took note that there were a good few more human-like corpses here now than there were earlier.
He made his way to his base, tossing his stuff down towards the end of his tunnel, but what he didn't expect was to hear a small eep come from the end of his base.
There was someone in here.