The dungeon has been parasitized

Chapter 63 Self-Awareness

pat.

A stone shattered into several pieces under the crab's claws and fell to the bottom of the water.

Wow, what powerful pliers! They're sharp, hard, and incredibly strong.

Klein is testing the abilities of his new general. Although he is not as agile as Shadow Wolf or as strong as Thunder Crocodile, Rock Crab is known for its powerful, brick-like flight and its sturdiness.

Fortunately, the Thunder Crocodile wasn't pinched by the pincers, otherwise I wouldn't have had the magic to restore it.

The few seconds of gravity reversal caused Klein to consume half of his magic power, and the subsequent accelerated growth and three parasitic invasions almost completely drained his magic power.

However, since the controlled monsters use magic with their own magical power, they are still relatively safe for now.

However, Klein now has something more important to confirm.

That is—parasitism, and this skill level has reached LV3.

After parasitizing three powerful monsters—Shadow Wolf, Thunder Crocodile, and Rock Crab—the parasitism skill, its most important attribute, has finally been upgraded.

It's really not easy... Fortunately, the more powerful the parasitic monster, the more experience you gain when you level up. Otherwise, it would take forever to level up.

Klein opened the panel and looked at Parasite LV3.

[Parasitism LV3: Allows the parasitized monster to possess self-awareness, but ensures absolute loyalty.]

self conscious……?

Klein looked at the rock crab beside him and, using the latest parasitic ability, gave it self-awareness.

The moment the ability was granted to it, the rock crab, which had been standing motionless at the bottom of the water, suddenly became lively. Its bulging eyes looked around and finally settled on the thunder crocodile.

Or rather, it remained on Klein—it opened its pincers toward Klein and bowed forward.

So, this means the monsters can now act on their own? How is this different from the [Seed] settings?

Klein thought for a moment and then gave it instructions.

"Pick up two stones."

Upon receiving Klein's instruction, the rock crab blinked twice, then lowered its head, grabbed two pebbles with each pincer, and casually picked them up.

Klein's eyes lit up.

In other words, it has developed its own thinking ability!

If it's the "command" ability of the [Seed], Klein needs to set detailed instructions such as "first lower your head, then extend your claws and clamp the stone."

That's a really good ability!

It's like a pillow being delivered when you're sleepy. Before, because there were fewer monsters to control, I could manage them myself, but now that there are more monsters, I'm facing a situation where I can't control too many by myself.

Even if you can command the monster's behavior, you can only set all the steps yourself and let the monster carry them out; you can't let the monster decide what to do on its own.

Now you can let your monsters act on their own, for example, let them follow and protect Yanami, or let them patrol near the plantation.

"You can patrol this area."

The command was given to the rock crab, which shook its pincers and began patrolling the area without complaint.

Next... let's see what's below.

Without the rock crab guarding the area, Klein was finally able to see what lay beneath the large hole where the river disappeared.

Rumble...

The sound of the water colliding grew clearer and clearer. Klein looked down and saw a waterfall filled with countless droplets of water vapor.

The water flow was cut off by a large hole, and then it became a cave waterfall, which plunged into a clear water surface.

Something below looks familiar...

"Wararuru, wararuru hoo..."

"Woo-la-la-la, kawa-la..."

Huh? What's that familiar language...?

Fishman?!

Could it be that below is the lake of the fish-men?

I listened carefully to their conversation for a while, but I couldn't understand it at all.

Klein wasn't sure if this was the same merfolk tribe where he had been captured before, and he planned to go down and check it out, but of course he wasn't foolish enough to jump down himself.

Activate skill: Accelerate growth

Having used up his last bit of magic, Klein grew a vine that stretched towards the bottom of the waterfall. The sound of the water crashing against the surface grew louder and louder as he slowly passed through the gaps in the water flow, until suddenly the view opened up.

This is the lake where Klein once visited; the fish-man tribe lives here.

Below, you can still see the familiar altar, with the same fish and sheep offerings as last time, and a murloc priest talking to other murlocs.

I never expected it to lead here. Speaking of which, there's an injured dragon underwater.

All the passages here are interconnected, leading from the plantation to the swamp, then to this lake, and back to the plantation, all originating from the cave river above the waterfall.

Perhaps the water flow carved out these interconnected and interconnected channels.

I wonder if the seeds I left earlier are still down there...

Klein sensed the seeds within his mental energy range and discovered two more of his own offspring near the altar.

Klein moved the plant to a nearby location, allowing the offshoots to sprout and emerge for observation.

On the altar stood the priest who had previously sacrificed Klein, and beside him were four fishmen.

These four fishmen... look somewhat familiar.

Klein observed carefully and found that they seemed to be the three fish-men who had been fishing earlier, as their fins were the same color.

Together they dragged over a fishing net, which was covered with many vines.

Ah... those were my vines, weren't they? I didn't clean them properly back then, and they might have been washed onto the fishing net by the current.

"Wah la, hoo hoo hoo."

One of the mermen grabbed Klein's vine and was saying something to the priest. The priest listened quietly to his words, then gently lifted a vine with his staff.

He examined it carefully for a moment, and finally shook his head at everyone.

"Kawa na".

At this moment, another fishman stepped forward, holding half a fish in his hand—the fish had been cut vertically in half.

The priest examined it carefully, then pulled some thin vines from the fish's body, the roots of which pierced into the fish flesh.

Wait... wasn't that the fish I used to live on?!

Klein had previously parasitized several fish, all of which were caught. One was sacrificed in a lake, while the rest were stored in a river.

It seems they've noticed the offshoots inside the fish.

The priest compared the vines on the fish with those on the fishing net, and his expression became solemn.

Next, another fishman stepped forward, and Klein recognized him as the same fishman he had fought underwater.

"Wararuru, wararuru ah!"

He pointed at Klein's vines and began to speak, looking somewhat agitated, but Klein had no idea what he was talking about.

Wait... I seem to remember that?

As the fish-man spoke, he gestured with his hands to indicate his legs.

Klein had seen this once before, and it looked like it was entangled underwater.

First, they showed me the fishing net that was entangled in my vines, then the fish parasitized by the same vines, and finally one of the fish-men described to the vines how he got entangled...

Even if Klein couldn't understand what they were talking about, he could roughly guess what they were saying.