by Dakota Krout
My army of silver-clad Goblins stood in formation, Dani was flying around nervously while Grace followed, roots were everywhere… this is why I needed to become better, stronger, more powerful, so that I could protect all of them. Sure, a not-so-small part of me wanted to grab power just to have power, but what I was seeing right now was my drive, my motivating factor. I re-formed the hill around me, which I’m sure was a relief to the Silverwood tree. This was the first time the Goblins had ever seen my actual Core, and they were acting entirely too reverent.
The Goblins in the ranks snapped to attention, glaring around like someone had tricked them into sneaking a peek. I chuckled and let the metal holding me sink downward. Now, I was still suspended in the air but was also in the center of the Runescripting. I was about to become the power source as well as the receiver of all the power and corruption that would move through here. With a deep sound of inhalation - since I didn’t actually breathe - I connected my Mana directly with the activation sequence of the incredibly dense Runescripting.
Power began to flow out of me, moving along the lines of precious metals, corruption-transference minerals, logic gates, gemstones… if you could see it, the activation was a beautiful sight to behold. I tried not to get bored, but I had expected something like what had happened in the past. Boom! Power flows like crazy, instant results! I was getting spoiled. As the last portion of the new Runescript was activated using my Acme Mana, my literal worldview began to expand and not in an existential way. As my Mana began to filter through the myriad of powerfully scripted Runes that formed the ley lines, I could see the area that the ley lines moved through in a way similar to the influence of my dungeon.
I could also get a hazy view of the areas the ley lines weren’t directly impacting. All of this information was just too much for my mind to process, so I needed to follow a single point at a time to really understand what I was seeing. I could describe everything about it, the earth, minerals, underwater rivers, and the ocean… but what I was able to understand and comprehend in a moment was simply too much to voice. It was also… hard to hold all of that information at once, and so I funneled it into my soul space. The concepts, the design of things, the very fabric of the world’s surface… all of that was grabbed by the model inside of my soul which subtly altered everything.
The flaws, the deep mysteries hidden from view, the fantastic sights, it was all replicated. At least, it was reproduced in the same way an artist might replicate their sight with a pencil. Everything was mutable and could be changed for now. I had a feeling that this may not hold true if I ‘solidified’ these sketches with corruption. My thoughts were jerked out of myself as I felt a sudden strain. The final few ley lines already in place were now fully empowered with a thin layer of my Mana. I was drained beyond belief, but the connection to the world was worth it. There were a few… let’s call them holes, in the lines that we hadn’t noticed on the map, but once I had restored my Mana, I should be able to simply shatter whatever was blocking me in those spaces.
Now came the easy part, depending on how I looked at it. With a single thought, I turned the lines from ‘outgoing power’ to ‘drawing in power’. What do you think happens when a universal receiver and a perfect conductor for all forms of power opens itself to overabundant ambient energy? That instant gratification I had been missing before decided to grace me with its presence. I was forcibly returned to my standard dungeon view as the unbound Essence and Mana in the world started to pour into the ley lines and through them into me.
“Cal! You are alright! Did everything go okay? Are you hurt?” Dani zoomed around frantically.
“What, Cal!” she practically shouted at me.
“...Yes?”
I smiled at her excellent reaction.
“If it were anyone else, Cal, I would tell them it was a nice dream and to go back to bed.” Dani glowed brightly and happily. “Coming from you, I say… let’s do this!”
Chapter Forty-four
“Cal! I’m gonna… argh!” she shouted into the air, making a few of the Goblins in the area shake with laughter that they worked very hard to hide.
<‘Argh’? What are you, a pirate?>
“Why do you need to take every serious situation and turn it into a giant joke?” Dani groaned as she settled back onto the Silverwood tree. “Would you like to explain yourself to me? To us, I guess?”
Fair enough. It looked like there were plenty of people trying to listen in. I expanded my speech to include them.
I could keep speaking endlessly - as I didn’t breathe - but I thought it would be best to let them imagine a few grand scenarios on their own.
The Goblins cheered softly, needing to remain on task, but the Attendants went wild. Clapping their hands, dancing in place, hugging… they really wanted to leave their humanity behind. I could help with that. After all, to err is human. If I didn’t need to have that beaten out of them, all the better. I hadn’t even thought to offer to mutate them; most species tended to have an inherent superiority complex, and the thought of leaving it behind should be abhorrent. Maybe I really did get lucky with the people that Minya had gifted me? At least the ambition for power was something I could respect. Perhaps the majority of them simply had no way to get started?
I cut off my words to everyone but Dani, feeling almost shy. I didn’t often speak to large crowds.
“You did fine, Cal. Wow. Who would have guessed that you were a shy public speaker?” Dani teased me lightly. “By the way, holy roots! No wonder the Elves have never figured out a way to safely move one of those things; they must be tied to the earth so tightly that it's near impossible to budge, even with earth magic!”
I jokingly taunted the tree. It was doing a better job acting now, and it didn’t react to my teasing.
“You saw what, Cal?” Dani seemed worried that I was going insane. She must have been listenin
g to the old rumors.
“What?” Dani didn’t get a chance for a follow-up question as a torrential flood of Essence sprayed into the reservoir below me. The flow of power was so extreme and so filthy, that I almost cut off the portal reflexively. I stopped myself and took a deep, calming moment to myself. Four million liters of liquid Essence filled the reservoir to capacity in under a minute. I may have made a mistake; I may have overestimated my abilities while underestimating the amount of power that would be coming.
I had only ever used standard Essence or Mana to power the Runes in the ley lines, and filling it with a perfect superconductor in the form of the ultimate type of Mana was giving me… different than standard results. Oops.
Liquid Essence merging with mixed Mana types was squirting in a high-pressure stream through my portal, and in a few seconds, the mass of power had almost reached the ceiling. There was now a column of liquefied energy encasing my tree in a perfect pillar of swirling, crackling candescence. Fortunately, I was held in place, or I would have been floating around the room screaming by now. I had made the drowning noises as a joke, but Dani seemed to be freaking out about it.
No lungs? No need for air? All that means is that there is no need to slow down when eating! I opened myself entirely to the energies around me, bypassing the need to cultivate properly and simply swallowing the power. The hole in my soul expanded by a tiny degree, and the pillar that had surrounded me and my shiny tree became a whirlpool. Oops, looks like a few Goblins died. Lightning had formed as friction caused the air to charge, and it seemed that the silver armor my legion were wearing had been a great path for the lightning to play. Well, we had to learn somehow. The screaming humans were getting on my nerves though.
After making my offer, I ignored everything else and focused on draining the power into myself. It was an uphill battle, as more power continuously flowed into the area, but I was making progress. When the glorious food - that is, the mysterious power of the world - was back to a manageable amount and flowing into me and not the room, I took a look at where it was actually going. Diving into my soul space, I took a look at the forming world. I was still absorbing a hundred thousand liters of Essence and Mana every few seconds and adding it in directly, so I found the results to be disappointing. Only a single cubic foot of the world was solidifying per five seconds.
What if I tried to direct the power to turn into air instead of earth for a while? I did so and found that I was fortunate to be incorporeal. A cubic foot of air formed from the convergence of Essence and corruption that was so dense it created solid air; solid like a rock. What happened next shocked me. Not actually, I didn’t form lightning, but it was somewhat startling. There was a massive, explosive, decompression of air. The ground that it had formed over was blasted apart, and for a half-dozen feet, the earth was churned and tossed around. Well. Oops. Glad I did this now instead of later. Changing the point of air creation, I started in on making an atmosphere for my burgeoning planet. The various corruptions went to their respective areas to sketch out molecules and such - of course - but the Essence to create and solidify them was being fully devoted to making an atmosphere.
I watched as a solid cube of air decompressed and filtered out to fill about a hundred and thirty feet of space. The density wasn’t anywhere near high enough to be breathable, but a few weeks at this rate… who knows? I left my soul space and returned to reality, happily telling Dani all of the details. She was impressed and nodded along as I explained everything, or at least, she acted that way.
“Good work, Cal!” Her bright words made me as bubbly as my puddle had been. Oh. Now I’m sad again. “This is really interesting! You have somehow reached ‘foundational’ cultivation without getting to the A-ranks, though I have to say I don’t doubt that will be reached soon.”
“No, you are thinking ‘fundamental’ energy. In a sense, though, yes, your foundation is a conceptual source used in the A and S-ranks. You use the concepts and things stored there as images that you can then impose on your Mana, allowing you to reach greater heights. It is rare to find anyone in the A-ranks that is willing to discuss this information, so a lot of this will be trial and error for us. What you are doing now is called ‘building a foundation’ and has different connotations for different cultivators. It is as varied as the types of Mana themselves.”
My goodness, Dani is smart. I should just take a few years and get all the knowledge she has in her head moved into mine.
Chapter Forty-five
I almost feel like I’m cheating. This type of power delivery system is slowly but surely increasing my power, and I’m not having to do much for it. Actually… you know what? No! I deserve this. Did anyone else set up a world-spanning power collection array? This is the result of hard work, and I should just reap the benefits of all the effort I had to put in to get to this point without concerning myself with minor details.
I had been playing with my inner world, trying to see if there was anything I should or could be doing better. The forming world mirrored the real one, at least superficially, but did I want it to be an exact replica? Maybe… maybe not. For instance, the fact that almost all of the landmass was concentrated into a single massive area, followed by the rest of the world being underwater was kind of dull. Once you were past land, it was just blue as far as you can see. Sure, there are volcanic islands, but… I wanted my world to be more interesting.
I spent a few days fiddling with the mechanics of my soul world but didn’t really come up with an answer to my restlessness. Dani got my attention with a ping of Essence, and I returned to reality once again. She was impatiently waiting on something, and when I had no idea what to say she made a frustrated noise and jumped into it, “Ugh, I gave you three hours to play with yourself, but you can’t just sneak into a dark corner forever. Now, what should we do to help in the war down there?”
“The war, Cal. Come on; I know that you didn’t forget about-”
“Pretty sure, Cal.” Dani paused a moment and seemed to squint at me. “Are you telling me that you thought you left Grace and me alone during a war for three days? You were fine with that?”
“Well…” Dani let the word draw out ominously, and I felt physical relief when she allowed the subject to be changed, “we need to figure out a way to do something, but you should really look at the battle before we make a final decision.”
I watched as a monstrosity formed, finishing its growth at a hundred feet tall and half as wide. The power radiating from the creature was palpable even through the projection I was using, and I gasped as it began to move. Son. Of. A. Biscuit. Then it started doing that infuriating ‘I’m way more powe
rful than you and thus too fast to be seen’ thing. It had left the ground, shattering a quarter kilometer of earth with the force needed to counteract gravity. It appeared on the other side of the battlefield, a half dozen brilliantly shining High Elves forming a barrier in front of its descending weapon.
That must be the Elven leadership, the S-rankers that form their top level of government. I winced as the shockwave of the blow reached Mountaindale, causing the entire mountain to tilt dangerously.
“Go down! Their blocking is deflecting the force upward; look at the clouds!” Dani directed my attention to the clouds that had been gathering due to the massive releases of Mana and Essence in the area. A half second after I switched my point of view, the cloud imploded like a pillow punched through a hole in a wall. The gathered power scattered, clearing the sky and allowing the bright light of the sun to wash over the area once again. Yikes. Down it was. We dropped for a moment, just enough to get below the current shockwaves being produced. Really, there was no need for all the screaming coming from the humans on my surface; they landed with hardly any broken bones!
The battle between the S-ranked Elves and SS-ranked demon thing would have been over in short order if the Elves were doing anything except defending. To have a minute chance at victory, they would need at least ten S-rankers fighting against this thing in perfect synchronization. I wanted it to continuously focus on the Elves and others rushing toward it and ignore me completely. Sadly, Dani didn’t seem to agree with my assessment. “How can we help destroy that thing?”
