The table was a dull grey, round with 10 chairs spaced evenly. Within those chairs were nine individuals, each seemingly confused as to why they were there. The chairs were numbered one through ten, filling these chairs were numbers two through ten. Number five looked around at the group, wondering how number one was able to assemble all of them. She was the only one present who knew what was going on and even she was confused. “I know you are all confused, but please remain in your seats. Number one should be here soon.” She exclaimed, hoping to quell the building tension in the air. Five looked to number six with pleading eyes, praying that he would resist his nature to destroy and remain amicable. He could be seen visibly shaking with barely contained hatred.
Number six was an anomaly amongst those gathered, being the only one who couldn’t resist his namesake. He stared straight into the eyes of number five, fire burning behind his gaze. “Do not fret my lady, today I will resist the urges. If not only as thanks to you for the help you have given me. But also out of respect for One.” He turned his hate filled gaze upon the rest of those gathered, wondering how long he could remain civil. With each passing minute he grows more vengeful. No one has dared to keep him waiting for a few millennia. He would give the room five more minutes of peace, not a second more. However, once those five minutes have expired he would release his flames upon those gathered before him. Number Six would watch the entrance with an intensity unrivaled by any being, counting down the seconds on his self imposed time limit.
Number Ten, the messenger and weakest among those gathered, watched with rapt attention. Although he was the weakest among his peers, number Ten took pride in being the fastest. He sat in silence, waiting for the meeting to begin and end. He had deliveries to make, unwilling to be late for a single one. He stood from his seat and approached the entrance. Waiting exactly five seconds before he opened the door to leave. Not willing to wait any longer, he took a step out the door. Only this was when Number One, arguably the oldest being in existence, grabbed his collar. “Please return to your seat.” There was worry laced within those words. Shock evident on the face of Ten, he returned to his seat. Pondering the thought of what could make One worried.
When he entered the room, One observed his colleagues and their surroundings. Noting that the normally brightly lit area was dimming. With worry etched upon his brow, he began the meeting. “I have gathered you all today for something of both the utmost importance and also the least important aspect of my existence.” A low gasp suffused the occupants of the room. Each number looking at the respected leader. Number One had never shown anything other than confidence in his life. However today, today he was worried. They witnessed the furrow of his brow and wondered what could worry such a man. Within the confines of his mind Number One thought, If we are to recover, they must accept my demands. Number One gazed at the group of beings before him, remembering the last time all the numbers were together. “It has been 658 years since we last met. I hope you all will forgive me for pulling you from your duties.”
Number One addressed the room, not making eye contact with anyone gathered before him. Unbridled regret within his heart, he addressed his peers. “Today marks the beginning of a new era. As you have noticed, I am not myself today.” He looked upon the table and apologized, “I am sorry. My powers are fading and I am dying.” He held up his hand to placate the group, “I have set into motion plans that will determine our fate. One of you will be taking my place as leader. However, we will also need a new member among us. To choose this new member I have designed a contest of sorts. None among us will be fighting or participating. However, you will each be granted a champion. How you choose your champion is up to you. The goal is a simple one, in a few hundred years there will be an assessment. Whoever’s champion is the best suited to join our ranks will be the new Number Ten. The champions sponsor will be promoted to leader.” He watched as everyone gathered before him processed his plan. There isn’t actually a time limit, but I need them to hurry. To long without a leader will be detrimental to our ranks. “Now, go find your champions. I will not be answering any questions. I wish to live my last few days in peace.” With that, he vanished, choosing to teleport instead of using the door.
Not wishing to delay their start, numbers two through ten left the room. Marking the end of an era of peace.
My name is John, I’m nothing special. Grew up in a big city, went unnoticed in a big school. Even at work no one pays me any attention. My family left me to fend for myself as soon as I was of age. I’ve never had a girlfriend or any friends really. The only thing I have is my computer and my job. However, even that is average. My life has been one average day to the next, no real change. But that all changes today, I’m finally getting the promotion I want and my bosses daughter wants to meet for dinner. Today marks the beginning of a new me.
I arrived at the office an hour earlier than anyone else. The only person in the building being the security guard. I stepped into the elevator, pressing the number 87. I stood against the back wall watching the numbers tick up as the elevator rose to my floor. I closed my eyes and imagined a better life, one with constant change and improvement. Thinking today would be the start of my new life. My floor was filled to the brim with cubicles, nothing special about any of them. I made my way to the edge of the room and approached my desk, sitting in the center of the massive floor. I sat down and stretched my arms over my head, preparing for a long day of nothing.
“Do you want more?”
“Who’s there?” I casually asked.
“Do you want more?”
“More what? Do you need something?” I addressed the room, thinking someone else came in early.
“From life, do you want more?”
What an odd question. I wonder who’s here. I stood from my desk, looking aroun to locate the person talking to me.
“Do you want more?”
Huh, that’s odd. I can’t tell which direction the voice is coming from. Might as well answer. “Of course I want more. My life has been average.”
“Good, I choose you then.”
“you choose me for what?”
That was when I saw it, a lone helicopter. It was a news helicopter, white with a blue streak on the side. “Why’s it flying so low?” I wondered. Then I noticed it was heading straight towards my building. Turned around and attempted to run, falling flat on my butt. I scrambled to get my feet beneath me in a vain attempt to save myself. I succeeded in getting to my feet only to hear the sound of glass shattering. Time seemed to slow as I watched the blade coming for my head. I couldn’t move or think in this slowed state, only watch. So that’s what I did, I watched. The blade inched closer, not deviating from its mission to end my existence. I tried and failed to close my eyes as the blade got ever closer. When time resumed it’s normal course for me my last though was, at least I didn’t have an average death.
I opened my eyes and gazed upon the blank wall in front of me, confusion displayed across my face. “I know I died, is this purgatory?” I wondered aloud. Looking around myself I noticed that I was just standing in the middle of a small, nondescript, gray cube. With my confusion rising I sat down to think over my position. “this is odd, I don’t think I did anything in my life to deserve this. But, then again, I didn’t really deserve anything. I guess this is what happens when you have an average existence.” I decided that if I’m going to be stuck here I might as well try to sleep. I chose to lay on my back in the middle of the floor and drifted into unconsciousness. My mind was slowly filled with dreams of all the things I could have done in life, further pointing out to me that maybe I deserve purgatory.
An unknown amount of time later I was awoken. I groggily opened my eyes to the sound of my name being called.
“Wake up john.”
I just realized that is the same voice I heard before my death. Curiosity taking over my thought process I addressed the voice. “Who are you, why am I here?”
“You are here because I chose you.”
“Okay, but why? I’m nothing special. And who are you?”
“That is true, you are completely average. I find that amusing and so I chose you.”
“Well, what have you chosen me for?”
“I have assigned you someone to help guide you. I don’t really feel the need to tell you. All you have to do is agree.”
I was wondering if I should agree when I realized two things, the voice doesn’t sound Male or female and it still hasn’t introduced itself. “Before I agree to anything I need to know a few things. Who are you? Why does your voice sound genderless? And what exactly am I agreeing too?”
“I guess I should tell you. I am called Number Five. As to why my voice is genderless, it is so mortals can’t discern anything about us. Your choice is either the void or rebirth.”
“You know, you are aggravating. Obviously I would choose rebirth, but that doesn’t tell me anything.”
“Thank you for choosing rebirth, we won’t speak again for a long time.”
“What!?” I exclaimed, clearly exasperated by this Number Five. “You haven’t answered any….” I faded into unconsciousness again.
The darkness was all encompassing, I couldn’t see, I couldn’t move and I could barely think. How long I drifted in the abyss I don’t know. All I could do was think about my past experiences and pray that I wake up soon. As the minutes or years, I couldn’t tell which, went by I could feel my mind racing towards insanity. If I don’t wake up soon my mind will break. I kept thinking that’s this was like many books I had read, so I expected to wake up at the last second. So, I maintained my sanity. A while later I started to notice that I couldn’t remember my childhood as easily. I began searching my mind for memories, noting that they were disappearing. I panicked, realizing that this isn’t a fairytale and that I need to hold onto something. So I picked the one thing I couldn’t dare to forget. A single name, Number Five.
I felt myself falling, the distant sound of a woman screaming and a group of people chanting in a language I couldn’t understand. I was confused, all I’ve known is silence. I could hear the chanting increase to a fervent pitch, the females screams ending abruptly. The chanting stopped as well, while I felt something dragging my soul into the confines of a small object. “I’ll have to investigate my new home later. I’m tired.” I exclaimed to myself. I could feel unconsciousness taking hold of me again. Apparently having your soul played with is exhausting.
I awoke to the sounds of hard wooden wheels bouncing along a stone road. The vehicle was bouncing quite a lot. I strained to listen for more but I could only hear within a few feet of myself. Wondering what was going on I tried to look around, noting that I could see everything within a sphere of two inches. All I could see was a cloth bag that I was inside of. I strained myself trying to see more, to no avail. The extraneous effort of just trying to see left me drained. So, not being able to change anything, I decided to sleep. I forced myself awake when I felt a new material near my body. I glanced at it and saw that I was still in the bag. So, I reached out and listened. I could hear the faint sound of chainmail clinking against metal armor, the sound of footsteps crunching in the dirt accompanying it. I wondered what was going on around me, this was a confusing situation. I’ve known darkness in the void for my whole existence, what are all these new sensations? And why do I know what I’m listening to and seeing? Those questions and more filled my mind as I continued to bounce against the metal wearing person. I decided I’d stay awake this time and attempt to gather more information, even though I couldn’t understand the language being spoke around me.
What felt like a few hours passed and I heard the sounds of swords clanging against one another. I could hear people screaming and dying. “I want out of this damned bag so I can see what’s happening.” I was frustrated. I listened more intently when I heard the man carrying me start to do battle. I knew he was a man based upon his deep gruff voice. I heard several loud clangs followed by the sound of shearing metal and a wet sucking sound that I can only assume was a sword leaving his body. The man carrying me fell to the ground and slowly bleed to death. His blood started soaking my bag and I didn’t want it to touch me. I tried to punch it away, however it kept creeping closer. I got flustered at this fact, I don’t want to be dirty. I pushed all my willpower into making the blood go away. That’s when a small portion of not only the blood but the man’s life energy entered my body. It was intoxicating, so I tried to replicate what happened and ‘ate'' as much blood a life force as I could. With only a minuscule amount being absorbed I felt stuffed. I passed out from overexertion.
Again I awoke to something new. I looked around and realized I was no longer inside my bag. I could actually see around myself. Although, I could only see about a foot in any direction. I could see that I was sitting on the floor of a small enclosed room, one foot in diameter. I couldn’t tell where I was, but it felt as though I was underground. How I knew this I don’t know. I gazed around my room, noticing that all I had as far as a view was just dirt and a few rocks. “how did I get here?” I wondered.
I looked around my new home, thinking about ways to make it more welcoming. I decided that I didn’t want to be in the middle of the room. So I tried to move to the edge of the small enclosure. I realized that my new body didn’t seem to have a way of moving. I got frustrated and angrily pushed my will at the wall in front of me. A small indentation appeared and I felt something fill me up. Then realizing I was starving I attempted to eat more. I focused on the small hole I made and tried to eat more. I expanded the hole to a centimeter across before I was filled to the brim. Realizing that I couldn’t eat anymore I decided to look at myself. I began inspecting my body for the first time since I started this new existence. It was pitch black in my new home, but I could see as if it were the clearest summer afternoon. My new body was about a centimeter across, perfectly spherical and the color of a lush evergreen forest. I was amazed at how beautiful I was. So I looked closer, inspecting every millimeter of my surface. I noticed several microscopic flaws and one rather large crack along my body. I look like a gemstone, I’ll refer to myself as such. I looked over my body, horrified that I wasn’t perfect. So, I thought of ways to fix it. I exerted my will on the microscopic imperfections and attempted to see how they could be fixed. After an hour of doing nothing I relented and tried something new. I looked within myself and tried to find the source of energy that I used on the wall earlier. After searching my internal structure I found nothing. Confused and frustrated I searched deeper, looking past my physical body. I found the barest traces of something within myself. I pulled upon the mysterious energy I felt and to my surprise it responded to my will. I looked back at my surface and used the energy within myself to begin repairing my gem.
I felt my power empty as I fixed myself. I was very proud of the progress I made. I thought I’d be perfect now, so I took a mental step back and looked at myself again. I noticed that I had only fixed a few microscopic impurities. I looked at what was left to fix and tried to start again, only then seeing that I had no more energy to pull upon and realizing that I was starving. I couldn’t focus on anything but my appetite, so I began eating at the wall again. Noting that it tasted bland and earthy, I ate until I was full. I had chosen a new spot to eat from and made another centimeter wide divot in the wall. I started to feel the energy within me fill up again and decided to watch the process. Gazing within myself I looked upon the energy transfer from what I just ate. It was a murky brown color, I didn’t like it. I attempted to remove the gross stuff from it, however I had already eaten it. “I’ll have to try something else when I eat again.”
Once the energy was filled back up I began repairing myself again. Making more microscopic progress before I was starving again. I looked around my room and picked another wall to eat. This time instead of just devouring it I focused on storing it so I could clean it. I pulled the material into myself and waited to fill up. Once I was full I started to try to separate out the pure energy. I succeeded relatively quickly. I pulled the murky brown residue away from the energy I could see. It turned to a kaleidoscope of beautiful colors once it was cleaned. I hesitantly tasted the pure energy, it still tasted earthy. But I noticed a freshness to it that it didn’t have before. I also noticed that it only filled me a tenth of the way up. Curious, I repeated the process, making several more pockmarks along my walls. Once I was filled with purified energy I attempted to fix myself more. Noting that the fixed section was not only bigger, but more dense as well. I was astonished at this, to think that my gem needed so much more work. I decided that I needed to fix myself from the inside out, I began to purify and replace my gemstones material.
After what felt like months I looked at my hard work. I was ecstatic, I looked perfect. I went from a beautiful forest green to perfectly clear. Not only that, but I was also a perfect sphere without a single imperfection. I could feel that my gem was practically unbreakable now. Tearing my eyes away from my gem, for the first time in weeks, I looked around my room and noticed it was significantly larger. Well, compared to before. I turned my room into a cube, each surface being roughly a foot and a half across. I noticed that it seemed brighter inside the room. That’s when I realized that I was emitting a soft glow. I thought it looked neat, but I couldn’t figure out why I was glowing. Shrugging my mental shoulders I looked around my room again. I decided that I would clean the floor up a little, I wanted it to be smooth. I began the process of absorbing material and purifying it, absentmindedly munching on the energy while I did this. My capacity had increased a hundred fold when I finished my body, so the dirt and pebbles I was eating didn’t satisfy my appetite in the slightest. Once I finished cleaning the floor and making it smooth I had only filled my energy by a small amount. I wanted more, I needed more. In my haste to get more sustenance I made a rather rash decision. I abandoned my cube and just started digging straight down.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
As I slowly ate my way down I felt the ground start to harden. It was a wall of rock, so I chewed through it. It tasted the same as the dirt above me, although it was more filling. I kept going for several hours, slowly filling my stomach with energy. When I was about 62% full I had the biggest scare of my life. The floor I was eating through gave out and I plummeted into an underground river. Freaking out, I thought I was going to die. I splashed into the water and began hurtling downstream. The constant fear of death made me feel like I was going to go insane. What felt like years of torment came to an abrupt halt as my gem got stuck in a small crack overlooking a waterfall. I began to relax, until I noticed the debris piling against my gem. The crack was filling with debris and began to block the flow of water. My mind was reeling as I concluded that I was going to be crushed. The crack was finally blocked off and the pressure started to build behind me. I panicked and started fusing the crack shut to protect myself. I didn’t realize until it was too late that I had made a mistake.
The sealed water behind my new wall built up pressure exponentially until it obliterated my wall and launched my gem away from it. I flew through the air and screamed within the confines of my gem. I finally landed in a pool of water. I thought I was finally safe, until I felt a current pulling me down. “I miss my cube.” I exclaimed as I was sucked down into a new stream. The new stream wasn’t as fast, so I ended up traveling for quite awhile. The stream led down an incline which was rolling my gem around. After an eternity of nauseating tumbling I felt my gem come to a stop. While I wasn’t looking I had arrived inside a small cavern. I only knew it was a cavern because of the echo of my bouncing and stopping. Around myself there wasn’t anything but a small puddle and rock. I used what was remaining of my energy to make a small wedge to roll myself into the puddle. I liked the cool refreshing water, so I chose the puddle to lay my gem. I thought I’d be safe if nothing could see me in my puddle. So, with stealth in mind I made a small indentation for my gem where I would sit still at the bottom of my puddle. I slowly settled into the divot and thought about what I just experienced. “well, I’ll never make that mistake again.”
With that, I decided to have a small meal and ate some of the pebbles on the floor near me. I wanted my new home to be clean. I could see 3 feet away from my gem now. So, I cleaned everything I could see until the floor was free of debris. Then, feeling satisfied with myself I chose to take a break and drifted into unconsciousness.
I awoke to the sound of something tapping on my gem. I lazily expanded my senses and was startled to see a beautiful light next to me. All I’ve known is rocks and water. I looked upon the light, seeing that it was a soft blue. The strange little light emitted a soft glow, not bright enough to light the surrounding area. I gazed upon it, thinking that it reminded me of the sky. The strange little light seemed to be trying to touch me, I could feel something prodding at the place I hold my energy. I looked within myself and saw a line of blue touching my energy. I tried to push it away, I didn’t want my energy to be dirty. However, as soon as I made contact with it I felt a snap and the line solidified. I was stunned by what just happened and lost focus, knocking me out of myself. This frustrated me, “What did you just do to me?”
“finally! I’ve been trying to talk to you for hours. Why’d it take you so long to form the bond?” she had such a beautiful voice, soft yet commanding.
“Huh? I don’t even know what just happened. What’s a bond? Who are you? What are you? Where’d you come from?”
“Whoa, slow down.” She giggled at my barrage of questions. “let’s introduce ourselves first. My name is Emily and I am a wisp.”
“Okay, I don’t know my name or what I am but it’s nice to meet you.”
“Interesting, well how about I name you?”
“sure, why not?”
“Hmm, how about Asher?”
“I like it, my name is Asher. Now, what am I?”
“You are a dungeon core.”
“where did you come from?”
“I came from outside.”
“Wow, real specific aren’t we? I’m hungry, give me a few minutes to eat.” I stopped listening to her and looked around for something to eat. I couldn’t see anything laying on the ground so I decided to dig a little. I started carving a circle around my puddle until there was an inch deep furrow around it. Feeling satisfied enough to wait for more food, I turned my attention back to Emily. She didn’t seem very happy.
“Answer me you glorified piece of jewelry!”
“Why are you so upset?”
“You’ve been ignoring me for ten minutes, I wasn’t done talking to you!”
“There’s no need to shout. Besides, I told you to give me a few minutes.”
“You can talk and eat at the same time. Considering that I’m talking in your mind.”
Now that she mentioned it, I did notice that I could only hear our voices in my mind and not out loud. “fine, I’ll try to talk at the same time in the future.” I noticed that after I said that her light dimmed. “so her light dimmed when she calmed down.”
Her light flaring back up she started yelling again. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!”
I interrupted her, “Before you start insulting me again, why did you hear that?”
“I’m in your mind now dummy. I can hear everything going on in there.”
“Hey! Don’t insult me. You’re the first thing I’ve ever talked to. How am I supposed to know anything?”
“Oh right, I’m sorry. Well, let’s move on. The reason I’m here is to teach you.”
“Teach me what? And why?”
“You are a dungeon core, every one of your kind is assigned a wisp. Our job is to teach you how to use your power and to make sure you don’t go crazy at first.”
“Okay, well what should I learn first?”
“Do you know what mana is?”
“Nope.”
“Mana is the energy that’s in everything in this world.”
“You mean the white stuff in the rocks? It was brown at first, but that was gross so I cleaned it.”
“what do you mean cleaned it?”
“When I eat the rocks around me I take the brown stuff out of the energy and keep the white stuff. It tastes better that way. And it looks prettier.”
“Well, what you are doing shouldn’t be possible. All mana has a certain type of color to it based upon its element. No one can separate it, not even other dungeon cores. Tell me something, what’s the first thing you ate?”
“I think it was blood. Some guy had me in a bag and he got stabbed. The blood came into my bag and when I tried to get away from it I accidentally ate some and then fell asleep.”
“That explains it. Most living things in this world can access mana. They each have different affinities for it that determines what type of mana they can use. Most creatures are born with a certain affinity. This works little differently with dungeon cores however. A dungeon core has a starting affinity and can earn more later on with experimentation. The starting affinity for a dungeon core is determined by the first thing it eats. It would seem that the first thing you ate was human blood. Humans are filled with every element in existence in varying amounts. So, when you ate his blood you earned a starting affinity with all the elements.”
“So, since I have all the elements I can make the mana pure? I’m going to call the brown stuff elemental energy. I’ll further classify it when I know what element type it is. What else can I do?”
“You can absorb everything, and create anything you absorb. However, in order to do this you have to break it down and memorize the pattern. I don’t know the specifics though.”
“I’ll try it and tell you how it’s done. That way we can learn together. I’m happy you aren’t all knowing. That would be boring. I’m going to try it now.” I already knew how to create rock. But, I didn’t understand it. “can you get me a small rock? I don’t want to dig anymore.” Emily bobbed up and down in what I took to be a nod and flew off. I focused inward and tried to separate my thoughts from what she could listen to. I concentrated and was able to form a switch along our bond that would make it so that I had to project my thoughts to her to talk. Hey Emily can you hear me? When she didn’t respond I realized it worked. Now I could think to myself again. After that success she reappeared with a rock floating under her. She dropped the rock next to my puddle and I started to concentrate on it. Instead of just eating it like normal I tried to focus on its structure. I broke it down a molecule at a time learning the pattern holding the rock together. I learned a lot more about the rock that way. That particular rock was a piece of limestone. I could see everything about that specific rock now and new that I could re create it now. I looked over and Emily and excitedly described what I did and what I learned. “I just learned how to make limestone! I need more rocks! I wanna learn all the types!”
She giggled at the obvious joy in my voice. “someone is excited about learning.”
“I am definitely excited. But there’s more to it. I need more knowledge. I want to know how everything is made.”
“Well good, because there is a lot you still need to know about yourself. I promise that I will help you become the smartest dungeon.”
“Yay! What’s my next lesson?”
“I want to teach you how to suffuse the air with your aura and how to absorb ambient mana. This will be how you expand your influence and territory. For now let’s focus on absorbing the ambient mana. I want you to focus on the air around you and try to feel the mana in the air. Once you do that and start absorbing is we can move on. I expect this to take a while, so I’m going to take a nap.”
“Goodnight, I’ll work hard.” Why do I trust her so much? I watched as she settled onto the ground and her light dimmed dramatically. I watched her sleep for a few minutes. Then I decided to get to work. I concentrated on how my mana felt and tried to sense it in the air around me. I mentally searched for what felt like hours with no success. This is boring. I wanted to give up. But, Emily would get mad if I quit. So I kept searching. I mentally smacked myself, I had been searching for pure mana this whole time. I needed to feel mana with some elemental energy in it. I once again expanded my senses and immediately felt the energy. Feeling like an idiot I decided to go ahead and start absorbing it instead of lamenting over my stupidity. I pulled the mana in and found a new type of elemental energy, air. The element of air was almost clear in color. I began separating the mana out and eating it when Emily woke up. “Good morning! I did it. I’m pulling in air mana right now.”
“I’m impressed, it only took you a few hours to figure out.”
“Thank you, now how do I expand my influence?”
“You use your mana and start pushing it out into the air. Don’t focus on creating anything, just push out your mana. As it leaves your body it will infuse with your aura and expand your territory and your senses. When you gain more territory you will gain more ambient mana to use. I want you to be able to fill this entire cave that we are in.”
“Okay, I can do that."
"I want you to fill the entire cave before we do anything else. While you start that I’m going to go look outside and see what we have close by.”
“Be careful!” I shouted after her. She left without another word. Without waiting a moment more I began trying to push my mana out. I looked within myself and grabbed a tendril of mana. I pushed it out around me and all it did was disappear. I panicked because I didn’t want to waste any mana. She said it’d have my aura in it. But what if I have to combine the two first? I again reached in and grabbed my mana. Then, pushing it outside I imagined my aura expanding with the mana. As I did this I could feel the energy in my core decreasing rapidly. When it was empty I had only expanded my influence be a few inches. I went back to pulling in ambient mana. After I was full I noticed that Emily was back. I decided to try something new, I tried to split my mind. I focused on splitting a portion to expand my influence while I addressed Emily. It worked flawlessly and I told Emily about it.
“I figured out how to expand my influence, although you were wrong about how it works. I had to actively combine my aura and mana to get it to expand. Also, I discovered how to separate my concentration so we can talk while I work!”
“That’s awesome! I’m proud of you. How long will it take?”
“Its going extremely slow. I need to expand how much energy I can hold.”
“Well then I guess it’s time for your next lesson. There are several things you can do to get a larger pool. You can build storage devices that will hold any extra that you get, I wouldn’t recommend doing this yet. The next option is to improve your core, starting from the inside you would build a pattern and attempt to condense your mana while it maintains the pattern. This will not only give you more mana but it will also come to you quicker. And the final option won’t be available for a long time. You would need to undergo an evolution.”
“I want to know more about the storage and the evolution. But I will wait until I need them. For now can you explain how to create the pattern and what pattern to use?”
“I can not tell you what pattern to use. You have to create that yourself. Just focus on the pattern you want and keep that pattern in your mind while you condense your manna into the pattern. Then you hold it in the pattern while moving it throughout the pattern in a constant cycle. You hold it like this until it stabilizes. Then you’ll have an increased pool. You can even add more to it later. Also, I would recommend having a full pool before you begin.”
“Thank you. You’re so smart. I’ll do it a little later, I feel like it’ll require all my attention. But, for now, tell me what’s outside our cave.”
“Okay, but don’t wait too long. I want you to get stronger so we can start hunting. As for what’s outside. The entrance into the cave is at the bottom of a valley. We have a forest above us and grasslands on the other side. There’s a river in the valley and a bunch of bushes. Other than that I don’t know. I only took a quick peek to make sure we weren’t in a desert or some other barren location.”
“Interesting, tell me more about what I can do as a dungeon while I expand my influence more.”
“I guess I can do that. As a dungeon you will be making traps, different rooms, new animals and plants. You will make different items and enchantments. You will make loot for adventurers. Your traps and monsters will kill people and animals coming into your dungeon. And in turn you will make items that will bring more people inside. However you have to be careful, if your dungeon is too easy they will try to break your core. But, if it’s too hard they won’t come in.”
“Why do I want them to come in?”
“I won’t tell you yet. You need to get stronger before you worry about that.”
“Okay, I’ll trust you.”
“Good, now fill your pool and start building your pattern.”
I agreed and let my split concentration join back together while I absorbed more ambient mana. It took an hour to fill back up, but once it was full I dove into my core and tried to come up with a pattern. I thought about using a basic infinity symbol but thought that making something more complex would be better. So, with an infinity symbol as the base I started crafting a new pattern. I made it bigger and more complex until I could feel that it would use all of my mana. The pattern ended up being two parallel lines with the infinity symbol bisected lengthwise. The top half of the infinity symbol connected to the top line on the left and the bottom line on the right. The bottom half mirrored this starting on the bottom line on the left and connecting to the top line on the right. The middle of the symbol crossed over the lines for the top half and under the lines for the bottom half. This pattern was in the center of my core. Only a few inches long. It was wrapped around in a circle with five of the infinity symbols. I was really proud of this pattern so I started moving my mana into the pattern. As it filled I also began trying to compress my manna into as dense of a line as I could get it. I had to compress my mana into the patter millimeter by millimeter, forcing it to be as dense as possible. Once I had my entire pool into the pattern I focused on making it flow throughout it. Speeding the flow up until I was on the cusp of losing control. I held the speed and pattern for hours, waiting for it to stabilize. My mind felt like it was going to fracture under the stress and fatigue this caused. But, after an eternity of pushing through I made it. The pattern stabilized. I pulled out of my core and tested the efficiency of my pattern by pulling on the ambient mana. My pattern latched onto the mana coming in and pulled it in faster by a factor of one hundred. I had to forcibly stop it from pulling on the air so I could attempt to separate the elemental energy out of it. The process was extremely slow. I grew frustrated by this and decided to make a few new pools. I reached into my core and formed four empty pools, I labeled them earth, air, fire and water. I thought that would cover all the elements. I then connected all the pools to my pattern and to an inlet line. I then forced my pattern to pull through the pools and forced the pools to exclusively pull elemental energy. It took a few hours of holding my new design before it started working on it’s own. But, after that I could feel the air and mana filling up. Testing it further I absorbed some stone, watching as the earth was separated from the mana automatically. It was slower than the pattern by itself, but I didn’t have enough of each element to start a new pattern.
“Hey Emily, I’m finished.”
“let me look.” She reached out through our bond and inspected my work. I heard her gasp loudly “how in the hell do you have pools of elemental energy?”
“I don’t know, I just forced it to work. It took a while to set though. But its pulling in mana like crazy.”
“I can see that. Well that’s an incredibly efficient pattern. So, good job. But it took you forever. I have been waiting for the last week for you to finish.”
“A week!? I thought I was in there for a few hours.” She didn’t respond to that. She only floated away and out of the cave. I mentally shrugged and started expanding my influence while my pattern automatically refilled. I was able to expand ten times as fast. But, it would still take about a week to fill the cave. I wonder if I can expand into the rock. I decided to test that. To my surprise I could expand into the rock quite easily. I chose to start expanding in a sphere from my core. It would take longer, but it would be worth it.