As I get closer to the egg tunnel the explosions get bigger and I am soon covered in blood and burns. Most of the blood is coming from the rock shrapnel that hit me and the burns are from close calls. At this rate the near misses might just be enough to kill me, or they would be if I didn't have healing spells.

In the end I have to heal myself several times on my way to the tunnel. Mainly to keep the shrapnel wounds from slowing me down, if I slow down I die. Despite hundreds of explosions caused by the controller I finally make it to the egg tunnel.

Once inside the tunnel I stop and breathe a sigh of relief, but then my sense of danger spikes. Instantly I dive forward and roll as fast as I can, behind me a huge explosion goes off. The tunnel is filled with smoke and dust and when it clears the entrance to the cavern is gone.

Before I can get my bearings hundreds of worker spiders start attacking me. They seem desperate, even suicidal as they attack me, forcing me to draw Blitz. Even as I am cutting them apart they are biting at me, but their bites basically tickle me.

Once they are all dead and the area is covered in spider bits and ichor I am finally able to look around. After a short tunnel it opens up into a low cavern filled with bubbling pools of water. These pools are filled with floating spider eggs, thousands of them.

From the smell of minerals I am guessing this was a natural hot spring that the spiders modified. Other than the eggs in the pools there are also a few scattered around on the paths. My guess is that the workers dropped them when they were ordered to kill me.

Walking over to the closest one I crouch down and touch it with a finger. The life force inside offers no resistance and it sucked into me in seconds. I guess since the spider hasn't been born yet it can't fight back against my ability.

First I drain all the eggs on the paths, then I wade into the first pool and start draining the eggs one by one. After the first dozen I start feeling a bit giddy, but no other side effects present themselves. So I continue sucking eggs dry, when the first pool is done I move straight on to the next.

Then I change my mind, double back, and fish all the eggs out of the pool. After tossing them all into a pile on dry land I move on to the second pool. This time I toss them out as I drain them, mainly to save time, but I plan to destroy them before I leave.

When I am about halfway through the second pool my body feels strangely energized. When I stop to check I find that my body has extra life force flowing around. Taking the chance, before it gets absorbed, I grab some of the life force and shove it into the mana sack.

Mana Pool +5!

'That actually worked?!'

By the time I get over the surprise the rest of the life force has been absorbed by my body. So I frantically go back to draining the life force out of the eggs, trying to get back to having extra. By the time I finish the second pool I manage it and quickly shove the extra into the mana sack.

Mana Pool +5!

It isn't much, but it is something and it is worth the effort to keep trying. So I move on to the third pool and continue draining eggs as quickly as I can. I learn to tell from the giddy feeling when my body has enough extra life force for me to upgrade the mana sack.

Mana Pool +5!

Mana Pool +5!

The small improvements help keep me motivated but I am running out of eggs. Only the three pools were completely full of eggs, the other pools have less. Instead of just draining the eggs piecemeal I gather them up from the remaining pools and then absorb them all at once.

Mana Pool +5!

With that all of the eggs are drained so I pile the rest of them up, along with the spider parts. However, I don't start the fire yet, smoke in an enclosed space is a bad idea. Especially since I haven't found another way out of this cavern yet.

While I can probably break through the collapse in the tunnel, no way do I want to. After seeing how powerful the controller is I don't plan on going anywhere near her. While I want to kill her for Core's sake, I don't see how I can become strong enough in the time I have.

"Krenocia, how is my time now?"

Krenocia says "Huh? Oh! You removed the modifications?!"

"Nope, they are still here."

Krenocia says "Then what did you do?!?"

"I found a good source of life force. How much time do I have now?"

Krenocia says "A little over two years! What did you eat?!"

"A couple of thousand spider eggs!"

Krenocia goes silent and I can't help but chuckle, I definitely won this round. Now I need to find my way out, so I slowly move around the cavern looking for anything I missed. As far as I can tell, the only way out besides the tunnel is where the water comes in.

However, that is not an option, not only am I too big, but the heat would cook me. So I go around the cavern again, this time trying to sense other passages beyond the rock. I am hoping that if I can find one close enough I can dig through to it.

It turns out that I am in luck, towards the back of the cavern I manage to sense another open space about five feet away. Of course, my luck isn't all good, I start hearing sounds from the collapsed tunnel. It seems the spiders are trying to get through so my time is limited.

A race to see who can dig faster doesn't seem like a good idea, they have numbers. Instead of taking out my pickaxe I sit down and start meditating. With such a small mana pool it only takes me a few minutes to fill it up.

Then I use the mana and infuse it into the rock, I repeat this several times. Once the rock is saturated with mana I use my will to shape the mana and the rock. This allows me to open a tunnel through to the other side without a problem.

Before I crawl through the tunnel I set the pile of bodies on fire, then from the other side I close my tunnel. Unfortunately, while I am now in a new tunnel, I have no clue where I am or where the beasts are. Taking my best guess I pick a direction, away from the controller, and start walking.

The tunnel intersects with other tunnels, some too small for me to use, and I end up wandering randomly. Eventually I will run into something familiar, at least that is my hope. Along the way I run into several groups of driders, which I drain of life force.

The driders are harder to drain than eggs, but not by much, and they can't really hurt me anyway. After wandering around for a few hours I stop to eat some food and rest for a bit. As I am relaxing I realize that my mana pool isn't refilling, which is odd.