Heavy Metal

Rusty blinked, slightly surprised to find the small ant perched atop him. It seemed comfortable, its small body rising and falling gently with each breath. The white body had become enlarged and was now glowing, most likely a side effect of eating the mana crystals. Despite its initially peculiar behavior, Rusty found himself feeling a strange sense of warmth towards the creature.

"This creature is strange…"

For some reason he didn't feel like moving as if disturbing the ant's sleep would be bad. His body parts were sprawled out to the sides as he took a dive after passing out. It seemed that his body seized up in place and fell backward. This created enough force to send his limbs in all four directions, rendering him immobile and a torso. His head was dislodged as well but remained closer to his main body.

"Now I know what will happen if I ever run out of mana…"

It was good luck that this had happened inside of this cave and not somewhere else. It was clear now if he ever used up all his mana at once, he would be pushed into some kind of strange dormant state. He had no idea how long he was out but even the smallest monster would be enough to finish him off if he couldn't move.

"They are really far away… but…"

Rusty possessed some degree of control over his body. If his limbs were separated, they could reconnect when brought close to his main body. However, in this scenario, he couldn't move his torso closer, as it was too far away. Without even a single arm, he couldn't crawl closer, leaving him with the option of perhaps rolling but he didn't have a proper spine to turn to the side either.

"Hm… wait, there was that new skill, maybe I should use it…"