A moment later, the rectangular rock formed above the wasp, and gravity did the rest. The wasp wasn’t swift enough flying away and was crushed under the weight of the stone. Breck quickly reabsorbed his creation and found that the new pattern he created had been imprinted in his mind with the others. His mood saddened when he realized that he didn’t get any of the essence back that he used in the pattern's creation. What’s the expression? Can’t get hung up on sunk costs.
“Sir! That was amazing.” Jeeves sounded truly inspired.
“Thanks. It used up a lot of my essence though. I’m running on empty and I’m feeling hungry.” Breck thought that was odd since he had no stomach. Luckily, he knew exactly what was on the menu. Moving his focus to the squished wasp, he started his absorption process. Unlike the grass or water, the wasp was vastly more complicated and stuffed full of essence. He licked his mental lips as he drank it all in, condensing it the best he could. A flood of new information, concepts, and essence types filled his body and mind. He didn’t even know where to start. “Jeeves! Did you know there was a venom essence?! And it tastes… kinda spicy.”
It intrigued Jeeves. “No, I did not. Please tell me more so I can collect the data.”
“Nerd.” Breck did his best tackling a mental whispering under the breath but he openly shared the information. When he was done sorting and sharing everything, he reviewed himself. He was full of essence and at a rank of beginner six! That one creature, and the shaping of a pattern, contained enough knowledge and essence for him to jump several ranks at once. Before I try creating an army of evil wasps, I better expand my influence.
When Jeeves noticed Breck expanding, he called out for him to stop. “Sir. I believe you have expanded enough downward for now. It would be more beneficial if you expand outward on the surface only and not waste your essence.”
“And…” Breck waited. And waited. “You're going to make me say it, aren’t you?” Still no response from Jeeves and Breck sent him the mental image of a nuclear explosion before emphasizing each of his next words. “HOW DO I DO THAT!?”
“Sorry, Sir. I forgot about our earlier conversation. When expanding your influence, rather than pushing essence out in all directions, you need to focus on the areas you want to expand into.”
He’s the only one you have to talk to. He’s the only one you have to talk to. He’s the only one you have to talk to. Breck began chanting his new calming phrase in his mind before trying it. Pushing his essence outward to capture territory, he focused only on the ground and air above him. Seeing a lot of essence being spent capturing the space above, he cut off his essence to prevent it from going higher than ten feet. He didn’t quite reach his max but expanded his influence to seven feet.
“Excellent, Sir,” Jeeves chimed in. “Should we try to create a living creature now with that wasp? Shall we create your first monster?”
Breck grinned. Living creatures had exponentially more essence inside of them than the surrounding environment. It was time to create his first monster and use it to expand.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Boneless Dungeon
Gore went flying everywhere as Breck was unsuccessful at creating another wasp. “These new essence types are hard to control. Venom essence takes just the right amount of water and earth corruption. Did you know there was corruption?”
Jeeves mentally nodded. “Yes, Sir. All essence has a purity rating which can affect its attributes. For example, pure air essence is pleasant to breathe but corrupted air essence would be equivalent to air pollution and smog. What I didn’t know is when you became able to modify an essence’s purity.”
“Absorbing that wasp taught me a bunch about essence. It was the venom in particular that gave me information on corruption. In order for me to complete the wasp’s pattern, I have to add each of its essence types in the appropriate spots. I keep messing up the venom though and it's causing the whole pattern to become unstable.” Another wasp formed above a glowing symbol on the ground but it exploded, adding to the surrounding carnage. “Darn! Thought I had it that time.”
“Hmm… take me through your process. Maybe I can help,” Jeeves suggested.
Breck sighed, annoyed that it wasn’t working but started explaining himself. He mentally projected the wasp’s pattern to Jeeves and took him through the process step by step. “So first, I fill the primary body of the wasp with earth and life essence.” He projected an arrow to three large stars in the constellation. I then create the wings using a super thin layer of wind essence, hardened with earth corruption. The body at this point has taken shape, and I create the stinger. The last part is to add the venom essence, and this is where things keep going wrong. I mix water essence and earth corruption together, the combination I learned to be venom, but LOOK!” The pattern’s lines started vibrating and fading. Fearing another explosion, Breck cast the image to the ground nearby and watched as a wasp formed. When the abdomen formed, purple liquid exploded outward and coated the entire creature. Another failed attempt joined the growing pile.
“I think I know what you're doing wrong. I accessed your knowledge of the creature and found something of note. Repeat the process but stop before you add the venom.” Breck did as requested, holding the almost complete image of a wasp in his mind. “Good. According to the data, the wasp has its venom held within a sac to protect itself. From what I observed, when you added the venom essence it spilled over the entire pattern which caused the instability. Try to create a thin membrane of earth corruption, fill it with water essence and then use that to create your venom.”
Breck skimmed the knowledge he had on wasps briefly. What Jeeves was saying made a bit of sense. Getting excited, Breck did as instructed. When the new sac was formed and full of water essence, he added the correct amount of earth corruption to form the venom. To his pleasant surprise, the pattern wasn’t showing any signs of instability. Gingerly placing it on the ground in front of him, he held his gaze and watched with anticipation.
A wasp formed from the glowing symbol and, to their combined delight, it didn’t explode. “YES!” Breck shouted across their mental connection. Jeeves smiled in response. Noting the wasp was slightly smaller than the one he originally absorbed, Breck examined it. “Wait. Why is it only at beginner zero?”
“Everything you summon will be at the lowest rank unless you provide it additional essence,” Jeeves explained.
“Wait. So if I want a beginner one wasp like the one I originally absorbed, I would need to use the same amount of essence I received when absorbing it?” Breck deflated for the third time that day.
“Not exactly, Sir. There are several elements to consider when using your personal essence. As you have experienced, Dungeon Cores can compact their essence and control its purity. This will allow you to create things while using less essence than originally required. This is a compounding effect with your rank. The higher rank you are, the less essence it should take to create something. You are also forgetting about reabsorbing. As long as your creation dies within your area of influence, you should be able to absorb most of the essence you used for its creation back into yourself. Don’t forget about allowing things to grow naturally, like the grass you formed earlier. As it grows, it will instinctively gain ranks and essence that you will absorb for a larger net gain.”
Jeeves put Breck’s mind at ease. I guess I’m not so screwed after all. He reviewed his creation again. The wasp was standing on the ground where it was originally summoned, not moving. “Hey, Jeeves. What gives? My wasp is just sitting there.”
“The wasp is your creation. You will need to will it to do something,” Jeeves happily answered.
Breck focused on the wasp and mentally commanded it to hover. After a brief delay, the wasp flapped its wings and took off. Hovering in the air, it turned to face Breck’s core. “Is there a limit to what I can tell it to do?”
Mentally nodding, Jeeves replied, “yes. This is a basic creature and can only follow simple commands.
It won’t be able to adapt to your orders or think on its own.”
Hmm… Breck thought. Let’s try this. He sent mental commands to his creation and watched as it flew in a wide circle around his core. “We now have a defensive wa…” Breck’s train of thought was cut short when he felt an invader in his area of influence. “Jeeves, we're under attack!” He screamed at this wasp to attack the intruder and it took off, stinger at the ready.
The wasp flew as quickly as its wings would take it before plunging its abdomen into the suspect. Venom surged outward and infected the frog. Wait. A frog!? That's what set off my intruder alert. The frog didn’t take its death lying down. With a quick jump and snap of its tongue, it had Breck’s wasp in its mouth. With just a few chomps, Breck felt his creature die. Acting swiftly, he absorbed as much of its essence as he could. Interestingly, the frog seemed to absorb some of the essence that was released as well. This must be the frog trying to rank up. Oh well. It's a moot point. Focusing on the green invader, Breck could see the venom doing its work. The frog’s veins had turned purple as pain wracked its body. Foam was forming at its mouth as it fell over dead.
Snack time! Breck focused on the frog and absorbed every bit of essence he could get his hands on. New knowledge permeated his brain as he categorized it for future use. Information filled in some dark spots surrounding his knowledge of water essence and Breck now knew how to create gills. That's neat, he thought as he watched a new constellation form the pattern of a frog.
He mentally exhaled his delight at the taste of his prey. “Mmmmm… Not too bad for our first fight. What do you think?”
“I think you handled that fairly well Sir. And you appear to have ranked up as well. Do you want to try creating a frog now?”
“That's an excellent idea.” Breck pulled up the pattern for the frog and reviewed its requirements. A little water essence here, some air essence mixed in for good measure… A dash of life essence and… Breck threw the pattern on the ground and watched on with excitement. He continued to watch as the pattern sat inert. It’s not even glowing… "What gives Jeeves? I’m positive I’m doing everything correctly.”
“This is very odd. Please allow me to review my available data for an answer. This could take a couple of minutes.”
I miss the Internet. With no additional instructions, Breck took his recent influx of essence and used it to expand his area of influence. After a few hours, he now had domain over an area that was ten-feet high, three-feet down and twenty-feet in all other directions. Proud of his work he checked in with Jeeves. “Can you see all this space we have to work with now? I can feel a ton of creatures running around my influence. With a few more wasps and frogs, I should be able to get a ton of new essence.”
“About the frog, Sir. I believe I have found the issue. What do you remember of your death?”
“My death?” Breck thought. “I remember it being really dark and the sensation of falling.” He mentally shuttered. “I remember the immeasurable pain I was in. I felt like I broke every bone in my body. I shouted out for the pain to stop and then everything went dark. To be honest, I don’t remember a lot about that day. When I try to think about it, my mind gets foggy.”
“I’m reviewing your initial requests of this world and I found a few key items. For starters, it appears that you summoned me into existence with you. I would like to thank you for doing that.” Not remembering, but not wanting to hurt Jeeve’s feelings, Breck nodded. “Besides summoning me, you gained certain traits or skills from your initial requests. Some of those traits are being passed down and applied to your creations.”
Breck sent the mental image of a slowly nodding head. “And what are these traits and skills that I’ve gained?”
“The only ones you aren’t already aware of, like your essence absorption ability, are: nightvision, call for help, fall resistance, physical attack resistance, boneless and tongues. These are automatically transposed onto your creations and cannot be removed.”
“You lost me… Some of those sound self-explanatory but others are a bit confusing. Like, what is tongues, boneless or call for help? How do those affect my creations?” Breck questioned.
“Tongues is the ability to understand and speak new languages if the creation can speak; boneless requires everything you create to not have a skeletal system made of bones; and call for help allows your creatures to summon aid from others around them. Most dungeon created monsters don’t work well together, but it appears the call for help trait will have your summons fight better as a team. Is there anything else I can help clarify?”
Breck took a long, deep breath. In fact, he took several. “All that is great, but are you saying what I think you're saying? I can’t create anything that has bones?” He asked with a bit of panic in his voice.
“It would appear so, Sir.” Jeeves calmly replied.
“You do realize that almost everything in existence has bones, right?”
Jeeves nodded. “We will have to think of some creative ways around that.”
Breck’s next words were shouted in anger. “YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME! I’m a… I’m a… Boneless Dungeon!?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Anthronoid
It had been three days since Zach left Solaris to complete his quest and he was running out of supplies. He held up his hand and moved some essence into the ring Alcot had given him. A small spinning triangle formed in the air above the ring. It spun rapidly before abruptly stopping and pointed slightly to the left. Zach adjusted his course to align with it and continued down the beaten pathway. A rumbling in his stomach drew his attention.
Time for lunch, I suppose. He looked around for an appropriate place to stop. Close to the road was a wide tranquil river. He opened his water skin and turned it upside down. A few drops fell to the ground, and he smiled. Guess I need some water too.
Zach scurried off the busy road toward the river. It didn’t take long for him to reach his destination and he filled up his containers with fresh crisp water. When they were all full, he sat against a stump on the ground and rummaged through his pack for food. He set some bread and jam aside before leaning back and relaxing. I should probably try to absorb some essence. Shutting his eyes, he focused on the surrounding area and pulled all the available essence into him.
A flood of various essence types and corruption passed through his body. He did his best to hold on to the essence but corruption kept latching on and it forced him to let the essence go in fear of absorbing the corruption along with it. He continued to focus for an hour before he stopped and sat up straight. Darn! I gained almost no essence again. I’ll never rank up this way.
“Haha.” A man with a slightly higher pitched voice called out. “Are you attempting to absorb essence >>click<<?” Zach turned his head to see a figure draped in a dark robe standing over him. The darkness cast from his drawn hood shrouded the man’s face. When he spoke, he made several clicking sounds similar to the ones you would hear when hitting your tongue against the roof of your mouth.
“Um… yeah?” Zach confusedly replied. The man gestured to the ground next to Zach. He nodded, and the man sat next to him, his head lowered to aid in obscuring his face.
“Do you want assistance >>click<<?” the man questioned.
What could it hurt? Zach thought before nodding.
The man sat up straight, crossed his legs and put a gloved hand on each of his knees. “This is the lotus position >>click<<. This position helps aid the natural flow of essence through your body. Do you know what essence types you are most linked to >>click<<?” Zach returned a raised eyebrow and a look of confusion as an answer. “You are really new to this, aren’t you… >>click<< Do you mind showing me again how you collect essence >>click<<?.”
Zach closed his eyes, but the man tapped his leg and gestured at his position. He got into the lotus position, and the man nodded for him to continue. Closing his eyes again, he pulled essence into himself. Again, corruption latched onto the more pure forms
of essence and he cast them out, only gaining a sliver of usable energy. He opened his eyes and faced the stranger before speaking. “I would just continue this for an hour or so every couple of days.”
“I see >>click<<. You must be a low rank >>click<< if you’re gaining essence at such a slow pace. I noticed more water and air essence entering your body. If I had to guess >>click<<, those would be your primary essence types. That means you need fresh air and water to gain the most out of essence absorption. While I can’t share my technique with you >>click<<, I can give you some good advice. When absorbing the essence >>click<<, your body will handle your primary essence types easier and naturally gather less corruption from them. Try again, but this time focus on the water and air around you >>click<<. Ignore the rest of the essence that tries to enter you and cast it aside.” The man nodded for Zach to try again and so he did.
He closed his eyes but reached out for the river and air around him. He could feel the cool breeze against his skin and hear the water lapping against the stones surrounding it. Clearing his head and blocking out the other sounds and sensations, he absorbed everything he could feel. Essence flowed into him like normal, but this time, the energy was primarily water and air in nature. It absorbed far faster and easier than before. Better yet, there was less corruption. “This is a major improvement and there's a lot less corruption.”
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