Moonlit King.
It was more than I expected for a ceremony with bleachers you'd see in an abandoned football stadium, torches, and a wooden crown.
The moment Jod became king, Mafu made sure to block the connection off fully. He did not want Jod to suffer the same confusion that Toqlan and Mafu had suffered previously. The ceremony wound down, and then tables were brought out and a feast had been prepared.
That night, the people did not sleep until the sun grazed the horizon.
The atmosphere between the orcs and the other races had not been bad; the orcs were straightforward people, so there were no real arguments or conflicts happening between the races. The same was true for the beast-kin and humans, who were a bit too careful in their demeanor, as they did not want to move again.
Mafu realized during the feast what was lacking in the orc village. It was rituals and ceremonies. Common events that could bind everyone together. As it was now, there was a slight cold atmosphere between the different races who did not know how to interact with each other.
Mafu kept this in mind for the future. As the feast went on, Mafu went back outside the camp, where he could work on the next project in silence.
He had clearly shown that he was incompetent when it came to research. He wanted to see if he could make a mycelium mind that was good at research, better than him even. He had been good at research before becoming a mushroom but was still dealing with how different his thoughts were since his reincarnation.
He was not thinking slower, but it felt as if he was thinking multiple things at once. As a human, it was easy to focus on one idea and follow it to the end, but for him, he thought of 10 ideas at the same time and could not follow through on any of them.
Therefore, a Mind handling research projects was needed. He started to make it. Of course, as a personality, he chose for it to be absolutely loyal. He also chose for it to be inquisitive. When it came to interests, he made it interested in finding out secrets and discovering the unknown. As for the skill inclination, there was no stat called intelligence, so he went with perception.
Perception was the stat related to seeing, discovering stealth, and using information-based skills such as appraisal.
As for the name... he went with another name of a god of earth: Athena.
The mycelium mind started forming, but it would take a few days before it was fully formed and ready. He had placed it close by to Demeter, a bit away from his own Mycelium Heart.
---
Jod woke up the next day and felt more rested than he had in ages. As he had been up drinking and eating meat into the late hours of the night, this was surprising. He put his hands down to his sides and pushed his body off of the ground.
He practically flew off the ground and landed on his feet. He let out a little shout of surprise, and the people sleeping around him groaned in their sleep. Jod looked at his hands in amazement.
He quickly got dressed and walked out to get breakfast. Warchief Parek was awake early as usual, but he looked tortured. He had been up the latest of all and had probably drunk three times as much as Jod.
"Morning, King Jod!" he said with a pained smile.
"Morning, Warchief." Jod replied as he sat down with his breakfast.
"You don't have those glowing eyes anymore, eh?" The warchief joked.
"No, I have no idea what that was either; I haven't checked my status, as I fell asleep as soon as I got in the tent yesterday."
The warchief seemed to want to ask something else but decided he would wait. They both finished up their breakfast and went their separate ways. Jod started walking to Mafu and sat down next to him.
"So, this connection you talked about, when am I going to start feeling it?" Jod asked.
"I have been cutting it off entirely, as it will disorient you. It did not seem good to have you look like a buffoon yesterday. I will start letting it through now, as it is mentally hard to cut it off for long periods of time. Be ready."
Jod gulped. "I am ready."
The world twisted, and Jod was looking at himself as his upper body lost balance where he was sitting and was flailing about like he was drunker than yesterday. He tried to keep balance, but forwards was backwards and up seemed to be down, as he was looking at himself from the front.
His left cheek soon hit the dirt.
"You are seeing through me; you have to keep the connection in check and decide to see through 'you' again." Mafu's voice said.
Jod focused, and soon the vision came back to his own body. He quickly sat up and started wiping off the dirt off his cheek. Then he noticed the other part of the connection. It felt like he was cold and wet, as if his body was falling apart, and he smelled dead leaves and something other than him breathing.
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He felt despair, as it felt like he was dying. He tried to focus on himself and his body, and soon the feeling dissipated. He sat there for a few minutes taking deep breaths and making sure he focused on himself.
"What was that?" He asked Mafu.
"What was what?" Mafu responded.
"I felt like I was dying. I felt wet and cold, and it was like someone else's breathing was in my body." Jod said with horror.
Through the mental connection, Mafu's thoughts now rumbled by, but it was no longer a feeling. Jod could see pictures and discern the intent behind the thoughts. Mafu was looking for an answer to what Jod was talking about.
"Ah. That is what you are feeling." Mafu said, and soon he felt Mafu enter his body and share the breathing feeling from before.
"Yes, that's it!" Jod said quickly, as the breathing feeling unnerved him.
Mafu exited Jod's body and explained:
"That is the 'breathing' of the earth felt through my network." Mafu said simply.
"The earth breathes?" Jod asked incredulously.
"Well, no, it is a sort of breathing. The earth moves ever so slightly. The trees sway in the breeze, and the roots move the earth one way, and then they move the earth back. All of it is felt through my network."
Jod thought about it and realized why Toqlan could not handle it anymore. It was not meant for humans or beast-kin to handle. How could all those details be interpreted and felt by a single person?
"How do you handle it?" Jod asked.
"I was born in this world, in this way. It is like me asking you, "How do you handle breathing?" Mafu said, with a slightly jovial tone.
Jod thought about it and asked another question: "Were you human in your previous world, or something else?"
"I was human, the same as you, but without skills or mana or the system."
"Then how do you handle being a mushroom?"
The rumbling thoughts again, impressions and feelings flowed through Jod, making him lightheaded.
"I just do. If you became a tree tomorrow, would you lament your fate, or would you try to make the best of it? For me these feelings are my normal now, and they do not frighten me as they seem to frighten you. Maybe it is my mushroom body that handles it; I do not have the answer to your questions."
"I see..." Jod's thoughts drifted off as he tried to think of himself as a tree.
A few minutes later Mafu interrupted his thoughts.
"What skills did you gain as a [Moonlit King]?" Mafu asked.
Jod looked through his new skills. He had been on the cusp of level 50 in his old class. Now he was level 43. He had the [Royal Blood] and [Royal Command] that Mafu had told him about.
He also had two other skills:
[Light of the King] the Moonlit King shines a light from the heavens, granting +10 in all resistances to all allies in a 50-meter diameter. Reduces all enemies' resistances by -10. The effect is doubled if used under a full moon.
[Dark Judgement] Judges one target, dealing heavy damage. Damage increases the more evil acts the target has committed. Double damage against targets with the "light" affinity. If the target dies, all the allies of the target will be inflicted with fear for five seconds.
"Oh, those are useful," Mafu responded when Jod explained them. "They are because of your previous class, right?"
Jod wondered. Maybe he had both dark and light affinity to begin with, and the class he got was because of that? He always thought it came with the class, but it could have been the other way around.
Anyways, the more skills the better, even though he had fewer skills now. Jod remembered his strength this morning and was eager to try out his strength. He said goodbye to Mafu and went towards the training grounds.
He took a wooden training staff out of a crate next to the entrance and walked up to a training dummy. He wound up for a swing, and as the staff hit the training dummy, both the staff and the head of the training dummy exploded into a thousand wood splinters.
Jod stood there, stupefied, while the orc warriors training looked on in amazement. Yet again, Jod looked at his hands. He checked his stats, and his strength was not that much higher than when he was a Moonlight Sentinel.
He read through his skills again and stopped at [Royal Blood].
[Royal Blood] the Moonlit King gains stats, scaling with how many creatures belong to or are subordinate to the Fungal Fief. While in the Fungal Fief, damage inflicted and force applied are tripled, while damage taken is reduced by 40%.
Mafu was looking through Jod's thoughts, and Jod heard a slight "ooooooooooooh" from him in the background. Jod was more or less invincible if he was fighting in the territory. Jod smiled as he started trying to control his strength on the target dummy.
A few hours later, four more target dummies were reduced to splinters, but Jod had learned to control his power.
---
The Mind of Athena had been formed, and a smooth female voice sounding like she was in her 30s or 40s spoke:
"What are the tasks I should be focusing on?"
Compared to Demeter, this was not in any way close to Mafu's voice, and it was definitely an improvement.
"Use the fungal pool and the research systems available to me to gain new skills and improvements for the fief. Determine what we should focus on, and get my approval before starting research."
"Okay." Athena answered, and the wisp that was Athena's vision started flying around the territory, inspecting what needed to be done.
Mafu felt that a lot of his mental load was released with the new mind and continued to focus on new decomposables and watching the borders of the territory.
---
A few days later Athena had decided on what to research and talked to Taressa. It was soldier ants. It was research that Mafu had put off since the soldier ants lost the psychic attack of the normal ants. In his mind it had not been worth it, but Athena was his research mind, so he trusted it.
The orcs and humans were horrified as they saw the ants spread out and start to kill each other. The Warchief came running to ask Mafu if the ants had become Hollow.
"No, this is preparation for new ants." Mafu answered in a simple manner.
The warchief made sure that the orcs in the watchtowers were informed, and soon the slaughter was over. The cost for the soldier ants was the corpses of normal ants and some resources that Mafu had gained through extracting from the ground.
The mycelium had kept spreading, and Mafu suddenly felt a feeling of disgust. It came from the east side of the village. He quickly arrived at the spot and saw a gray and black ooze on the ground. It covered the ground to the east.
From it he got the same feeling as the Hollow. It was artificial and cold; all his feelings told him that it was not natural. He focused on spreading the mycelium himself, recalling the ants that had spread it in this area.
As soon as he touched the ooze, he connected with something. He saw a vision of a cave, with ooze bubbling out of it. Orcs, dwarves, and even a giant were standing in the entrance. They all had grey skin, and their eyes seemed dead.
This was the Hollow. He felt reprehension, disgust, and hate. This was the enemy.
Suddenly, he saw and felt a jolt in the cave, and many gray orcs ran out of the cave towards the village. Maybe a hundred of them; it was too many to count.
Mafu raised the alarm with the people in the village and prepared for the first real battle of this war.
