Progress, for a juvenile Aurelia Jellyfish, was measured in centimeters per hour.
Theo learned this the hard way. His determined pulse toward the crack of light high above lasted for what felt like an eternity, a relentless, rhythmic squeezing of his bell that burned through his meager energy reserves. The light grew no closer. The current in the underground pool, gentle as it seemed, worked against him.
[Vitality: Low. Sustained locomotion inefficient.]
Prime's analysis was a blunt, unhelpful truth. Theo stopped, letting himself drift listlessly. The hunger returned, sharper now. He had expended more than he had consumed.
Right. Engineering 101, he thought, forcing his human mind to analyze. You don't fight the current. You use it. You find a more efficient energy source.
His basic perception, slightly sharpened by Prime, scanned his surroundings. The pool was larger than he'd first thought. The glowing moss he'd eaten from was one of several patches clinging to the submerged cave walls. They were his stepping stones.
He ceased fighting the upward current and instead focused on lateral movement. A weak contraction, a slight tilt of his bell, and he angled toward the nearest cluster of blue glow, a few meters to his right. It was a shorter, more achievable goal.
This time, when he reached it, he didn't just eat. He analyzed.
[Target: Luminous Cave Moss. Primary Nutrient: Photoplasmic Cellulose. Secondary Element: Trace Arcane Particles.]
Trace Arcane Particles. The words sparked something in him. This wasn't Earth. This was a dungeon. That meant magic, or something like it. And 'Arcane Particles' sounded like experience points.
He latched onto the moss with his whole underside, his simple mouth working to dissolve and absorb. The process was slow, like trying to eat a sponge through a straw. But as the glow faded from the patch under him, the warmth that spread through his gel was more pronounced.
[Vitality: +0.01]
[Soul Load Capacity: +0.001]
[Prime Core Energy: +0.0001]
The numbers were absurdly small. But they were numbers. They were data. Theo, the engineering student, could work with data. A plan, fragile and simple, formed in his neural net.
He would farm the moss. Systematically. He would move from patch to patch, consuming, growing stronger by microscopic increments. He would turn this dark pool into his own personal farm.
Days blended into a cycle of drift, feed, analyze, and pulse. He learned to use the gentle currents to move between moss colonies, conserving energy. He learned which patches had the highest 'Trace Arcane Particle' yield. Prime's Basic Analysis became his only tool, his microscope and his textbook.
He also learned he was not alone.
The first threat came in a form he recognized, yet didn't. It was another jellyfish. But it was twice his size, its bell a murky brown, trailing longer, more numerous tentacles that gleamed with a faint, milky poison.
[Target: Cave Stinger (Adult). Threat Level: Moderate. Soul Density: Low. Predatory. Avoid.]
Theo froze, his pulsing halted. The Cave Stinger drifted on a parallel current, its tentacles fanning out, sensing the water. It moved with a languid, confident menace. It was an apex predator in this tiny, dark world.
And Theo was prey.
The human instinct was to flee. The jellyfish instinct was to curl inwards. Theo did neither. He held perfectly still, letting the current carry him slowly away, his translucent form hoping to blend into the faint background glow of the moss.
The Cave Stinger's sensory ring passed over him. It paused. Theo felt a primal chill that had nothing to do with temperature. It had detected him.
It pulsed once, a strong, deliberate contraction that brought it turning toward him.
Oh crap.
Panic surged. He pulsed wildly, jetting away toward a narrow fissure in the rock wall he'd noted earlier—a potential hiding spot. It was a race of pathetic, wobbly jets. The Cave Stinger was faster, stronger.
A tentacle, thin and whip-like, lashed out. It brushed against Theo's trailing tendrils.
Agony.
It was a pain unlike anything he'd ever known. Not a sharp, human pain, but a deep, cellular wrongness. A burning, paralyzing toxin invaded his system. His pulsing became erratic, spasmodic. He was losing control, his bell twitching helplessly.
[Status: Neurotoxin Detected. Motor functions impaired. Vitality decaying.]
The Cave Stinger closed in, its bell opening to envelop him. This was it. Eaten by a jellyfish. After being reborn as one. The universe had a spectacularly cruel sense of humor.
No.
The thought was a spark in the paralyzing dark.
I didn't survive a bullet to die as snack food!
He couldn't fight with strength. He couldn't outrun it. He had only one weapon: Prime.
As the predator's shadow fell over him, Theo didn't try to analyze the creature. He turned Prime's Basic Analysis inward, on himself, on the toxin flooding his system.
[Analysis: Neurotoxin Compound. Composition: Protein-based paralytic. Breakdown susceptible to rapid pH shift.]
A pH shift. He needed to become acidic or alkaline. He was a jellyfish. What did he have? What could he control?
His digestion. The moss. The Photoplasmic Cellulose. He had been breaking it down slowly, passively. What if he could force it? What if he could trigger a rapid, internal chemical reaction?
It was a insane gamble. He focused every shred of his will, not on moving his body, but on his internal processes. He imagined his gastric cavity, his simple enzymes. He commanded them to accelerate, to break down the remaining moss in his system all at once, to create a surge of metabolic byproducts.
It was like trying to lift a car with his mind. He felt a terrible, internal pressure. His translucent bell flushed a sickly green.
[Warning: Uncontrolled metabolic surge. Risk of self-dissolution.]
The Cave Stinger's bell made contact, starting to engulf him.
Theo pushed harder.
CRACK.
An internal, silent rupture. Not of his soul, but of a metabolic barrier. A wave of hot, acidic byproducts flooded his system, neutralizing the paralytic toxin.
[Status: Neurotoxin Neutralized. Motor function returning.]
[New Substance Synthesized: Crude Digestive Surge (Acidic).]
He could move! But he was half-swallowed. He didn't try to pull away. Instead, he did the last thing a prey should do.
He pushed forward.
He jammed his entire bell, now pulsing with a frantic, acidic energy, deeper into the Cave Stinger's underside, right into its own digestive zone.
And then he released the remainder of his forced, acidic surge.
The effect on the Cave Stinger was immediate and catastrophic. Its rhythmic pulsing seized. Its bell convulsed, twisting violently. It released Theo, recoiling as if burned. Where Theo's acidic bell had made contact, the predator's brown tissue sizzled and turned necrotic, a spreading patch of decay.
Theo jetted backward, putting distance between them. The Cave Stinger thrashed in pain, its movements growing weaker. It tried to flee, but the damage was internal. After a minute of pathetic, dying spasms, it went still, its tentacles drifting limply.
It was dead.
Theo hung in the water, trembling not with fear, but with exhaustion and shock. He had won. He had killed something. Using science. Using desperation. Using Prime.
A new prompt, different from any before, shimmered in his mind.
[Victory over superior lifeform confirmed.]
[Soul Harvest Protocol: Unlocked (Basic).]
[Initiating Harvest of: Cave Stinger (Low-Grade Soul).]
From the carcass of the dead jellyfish, a faint, wispy silver light seeped out. It was beautiful, ethereal. It drifted through the water toward Theo and was absorbed into his bell.
The sensation was… profound. It wasn't warmth or cold. It was expansion. It was like a cramped room suddenly having a wall removed.
[Soul Load Capacity Increased Significantly.]
[Vitality Restored and Enhanced.]
[Prime Core Energy: +1.5]
[Evolution Points Gained: 5]
Evolution Points. The term rang in his being with cosmic significance. This was the currency of change. This was how he would stop being a helpless blob.
But before he could even look at what he could do with them, another prompt followed.
[Prime Core Energy threshold reached.]
[Dormant Function Unlocked: Basic Synthesis.]
[Function: Deconstruct a known biological sample and synthesize a usable trait. Cost: Evolution Points.]
Theo turned his perception toward the dissolving carcass of the Cave Stinger.
[Biological Sample Available: Cave Stinger. Notable Traits: Enhanced Nematocysts (Stinging Cells), Robust Motor Nerve Net.]
He could take its sting. Or its slightly better nervous system. He had 5 points.
The choice was clear. He had won by a trick, by a desperate chemical attack. He couldn't rely on that every time. He needed a weapon.
He focused on the Enhanced Nematocysts.
[Synthesis of Trait: 'Enhanced Nematocysts (Grade F)' requires 4 Evolution Points. Confirm?]
Confirm.
The points vanished. A strange, itchy, restructuring sensation flowed through his tentacles. He felt them grow marginally thicker, the cells within rearranging, becoming more complex, more potent.
[Trait Synthesized: 'Sting (F)'. Your tentacles now deliver a paralytic neurotoxin comparable to a mature Cave Stinger.]
He had a weapon. A proper, biological weapon.
He looked at his last remaining Evolution Point. And he looked at the Robust Motor Nerve Net. It wouldn't make him faster, not directly. But it might make his control sharper, his reactions quicker. More efficient neural pathways. For an engineer stuck in a jellyfish, efficiency was everything.
He spent the last point.
[Trait Integrated: 'Rapid Response Net (Grade F)'. Neural signal speed increased by 15%. Control precision enhanced.]
The change was subtle but immediate. His perception of the water currents sharpened. His control over his pulsing felt less clumsy, more intentional. He was still a jellyfish, but he was now a slightly more dangerous, slightly more responsive one.
He drifted over to the remains of the Cave Stinger, the creature that had tried to eat him and had instead given him his first real power-up. With his new, more precise control, he extended a tentacle, tapping the carcass.
"Thanks for the upgrade, buddy," he thought, the human irony thick in his non-existent mind.
He was no longer just surviving. He was farming. He was learning. He was evolving.
And high above, the crack of light seemed just a little less impossibly far away.