Chapter 34: How do you talk to a hallucinogenic snail?

One second I was talking to Howard, the next I was falling through an empty, dark space.

I screamed but couldn’t hear my own voice. I couldn’t see the bottom to where I was falling down.

I realized I wasn’t falling down, I was levitating in the darkness.

I tried seeing my own body, but everything was just dark. I tried touching my own body, but could feel nothing.

Everything felt cold. In a way. Though it was not cold since I could not feel my own body.

I thought maybe I was dead and this was the afterlife. Maybe somebody shot me in the head from behind. One of Fernando’s guys was behind a nearby tree and hit me with a lucky shot.

“I wish I at least got to fuck Miranda once before dying,” I said. No voice came out, but I could hear myself mentally. And that was enough.

Many minutes passed, and nothing happened.

Instead of dread and anxiety, I was filled with slight annoyance and boredom. Then terror at the idea this might go on for all of eternity.

“So this is hell? This? Fuck me! Should’ve fucking read the bible or some shit. It’s not my fault I killed Alex! That junkie was going to kill me first! It’s not my fault mom brought that piece of shit into the house! Fuck you!”

Summon quest: Heal [UNDISCLOSED] of Zone 121220474372126948

Reward: 1 skill point

Failure: Death.

“Oh. Well, ignore what I said.”

This was new. Before the challenges were optional. But this wasn’t even a challenge. This was an order.

“Do I even have a choice? Can you at least give me a warning before you just yeet me out of the world next time?”

No response.

“Okay, so when will I heal this whatever? You gonna teleport me again?”

No response.

“How long do I fucking have to stay like this, oh great super system!”

No response.

“And why the fuck I only get 1 skill point for a quest where the failure is death? A quest which you are FORCING me to do!”

No response.

I mentally sighed, then shut up for a few minutes.

Additional information received. Directions: Use your two human legs to walk in front of yourself for about 2 human earth minutes. You will receive with your eyes someone shaped like what you call a “snail”. You will be scared. Walk over to it and use the [UNDISCLOSED] to heal me.

“What the fuck?”

This was the first time the system had ever acted in this way. And it felt like this message was from someone who was not the system, but using the system to transmit this to me.

“Tell whoever sent this that I understand,” I said.

No response.

“You’re a giant dickhead, you know?”

Without warning, I was standing in a forest with purple trees and purple grass.

I tried to look at the sky, but instead I saw that I was inside a kind of blue, translucent dome.

“What the fuck?”

Very far away, I could see a kind of slimy, slithering black mass crawling on the outside of the blue dome. Slowly growing. It looked like it was trying to get inside.

“Fuck this shit!”

I started running in the direction of the center of the dome.

I passed by purple trees and walked on purple, uneven grass. The ground was uneven so I couldn’t immediately see it. I stopped when I was almost standing in front of it. It was resting on a big rock.

Immediately, my heart rate increased and cold sweat ran down my back. I wanted to turn around and run away.

A purple snail with a rainbow colored shell on its back. Or not rainbow colored. The colors kept changing.

It was about the size of a football.

I looked at its face.

It looked like it was smiling at me. It was making strong eye contact. It felt like it was looking inside me and could see my past. Like it knew everything about me.

One moment, its face was a mix between a cobra snake and a lion. Then another moment it felt like the light on its face shifted in a hallucinogenic way and it looked more like a shark.

It had a very creepy smile.

Its shark nostrils flared, and it nodded towards its shell.

I walked closer, and saw that its shell had a very small crack.

It nodded again. The emotion conveyed from the hallucinogenic energy it was sending out was that it was annoyed I was taking so long to start healing.

I was still in shock over how alien everything felt, so I stood still.

A vivid image of me healing the spot on its back smacked into my mind. It felt like it was screaming into my mind the words “STAAAAART HEAAALING MEEEE NOW!”

I did as I was told. I got closer to it.

“Wait, I have to do a ritual of focus or I won’t be able to do this properly.”
The snail’s shark face didn’t change. It just gave me a cold stare.

I did the ritual. The clear, cold focus felt comfortable to me. It let me ignore how scary everything felt right now.

I formed the healing circle in my stomach and touched the broken part of its shell with my stomach.

It took me a few hours, but I managed to heal the crack fully.

The enhanced healing skill gave me no different feeling while I healed this time. And I didn’t have any point of reference to see if the time had been shortened or the effect improved.

After I finished dissolving the mana blueprint I decided to not collapse the focus ritual yet. I knew the consequences would be worse the longer I kept it going, but I couldn’t afford to be disabled while I was alone in danger.

Suddenly, the focus ritual collapsed on its own.

I felt fear come into my stomach and anticipated the backlash to hit me.

It never came.

“What?”

I looked over at the snail’s face. It changed from a shark to a mix between a snake and a crocodile. It gave me a big smile full of sharp teeth. It felt like it was laughing at me.

It collapsed the blue dome and I almost pissed in my pants when the black slime rushed towards me.

I looked at the snake-crocodile face while I was panicking. It looked like it was laughing at me.

I’m gonna die!

Just before the black mass hit me, I was teleported away.

I could have sworn that it did not have to collapse the dome before I was teleported away. It only did it to prank me in a playful way.

///////

Jack:

Knife Fighting: Rank 1

Knife Fighting: Rank 2

Python (programming language): Rank 1

Mana Generation: Rank 1

Sand to Glass Conversion Mana Blueprint: Rank 1

Healing Mana Blueprint: Rank 1

Origami: Rank 1

Enhanced Bodily Recovery: Rank 1

Speed Counting: Rank 1

Enemy Weakness Identification: Rank 1

Poetry: Rank 2

Blueprint visualizer: Rank 1

Mana Sense: Rank 1

Blunt Force Resistance: Rank 1

Pool: Rank 1

Mana Manipulation: Rank 1

Specialized Mental Sacrifice Ritual Focus Borrow: Rank 1

Typography: Rank 1

Enhanced Healing: Rank 1

Brian:

Shield Defending: Rank 1

Marksmanship (pistol): Rank 1

Right Arm Increased Strength: Rank 1

Mana manipulation: Rank 1

Mana Sense: Rank 1

Enhanced Propriosense in Toes: Rank 1

Enhanced Bodily Recovery: Rank 1

Flame Shield Dispel: Rank 1

Cryptography: Rank 1

Enemy Pattern Recognition: Rank 1

Airplane Pilot: Rank 1

Mana Generation: Rank 1

Blunt Force Resistance: Rank 1

Finnish: Rank 1

French oil painting technique: Rank 1

Lucas:

Insect Movement Control: Rank 1

Enlarged Penis: Rank 1

Mana sense: Rank 1

Mana Manipulation: Rank 1

Surfing: Rank 1

Arithmetic: Rank 1

Chess: Rank 1

Human Interpersonal Non-verbal Bodily Social  Behaviors Enhanced Perception: Rank 1

Blunt Force Resistance: Rank 1

Changing car tires: Rank 1

Water Mana Affinity: Rank 1

Walking: Rank 1

Mana Generation: Rank 1

Juggling: Rank 1