The dungeon has not contacted me yet, which is making me more than a little nervous. If he has not contacted me by tomorrow I will contact him myself.

As I did not have access to a tutor quite yet I spent my time today improving my body. Mostly that consisted of figuring out what the best design I already know of would work for what I need, and then smoothing out the edges a little.

Today’s focus was magic, both with mana and Solar Energy. The first thing I did was add a mana heart into my body, similar to the one I used in the Ents, only much better. It is a rather straightforward organ, doing everything a more mundane heart does, only for mana.

I also tried to create something that would work with Solar Energy as well, but It’s likely going to take me days to modify something so that it will work properly. The device that produces Solar Energy makes things a bit complicated there.

I also included structures designed to assist in certain kinds of magic, and even ones that assist in the manipulation of mana directly. It was during this process that I realized that my fine control of plants had diminished somewhat, which makes sense as the same structures I built today were part of my monster body. What made less sense was the fact that my fine mana control was still worse after creating these structures, just not quite as bad.

Also, as a side effect of this, I no longer have any issues with either external mana manipulation or normal mana production. I can now absorb ambient mana, but the process is just so slow to be worth doing anything beyond passive regeneration. Whatever was preventing me from doing either of those things was part of my monster body and has since disappeared.

Not that being able to use external mana manipulation matters at this point, It’s different enough from internal mana manipulation that everything I know about that is actually a detriment, as I keep expecting it to behave one way only for it to behave in another. It would take forever to get good enough at it for it to be useful. And besides, I haven’t needed it yet, and anything I could do with it, I can do better through my trees.

Azrezel asked me today why I was working on my body, especially if I was so convinced that I was going to die in the near future anyway. I had to think about that for a moment. Honestly, the real reason is to keep my mind off of that whole thing. I mean, I could do other things, but that was what I was working on before the event. Had I not built up tons of Fate in one go this is what I would have been working on anyway, so might as well continue.

Besides, I should be able to remember this body post-death and maybe even rebuild it.

I think I need more friends. Other than Azrezel the only people I can hang out with right now is my dad and Junior, neither of which I can really hang out with as a peer. Askos has already left to start taking lessons under one of Par’s generals, but I would be able to interact with him as a peer either.

It’s not like I have a large pool for candidates either, most of the people around here literally worship me, not exactly the start of a strong friendship. I could try hanging out with the scholars, but they aren’t all that interesting individually. It would be like trying to make friends with a faceless mob.

Maybe I could try to hang out with one of the true immortals that frequent here, I’m pretty sure they don’t worship me and they have treated me as a peer in the past. Unfortunately, Emericus went back into seclusion after he finished cleaning up the disease, I probably won’t see him above ground for a while still. Maybe I could try talking to the nuclear fire users?

I’m honestly more nervous about this than about the threat to my life. I’ve dealt with having my life be threatened countless times in the last couple years, and I’ve even died once before, but I’ve never had to go out of my way to try and make friends.

I think I will try to talk to them next time they visit.

Anyway, Good Night Diary.