Did I mention how boring it was waiting for plants to start growing? Yes? Good because watching someone’s fingernails be removed would be more fun than waiting around so long.
Voice 1: “You are finally starting to see the beautiful blood harvest I am so proud.”
Voice 2: “If it has been decreed, then it shall be done.”
“I think you guys missed the point.”
Voice 1: “You are right we should use knives as well, I am glad my teachings are paying off.”
“Now you guys are just fucking with me, aren’t you?”
Voice 2: “Communion with a divine being is a most sacred act and would not be taken lightly.”
I will find the mute button. I will find it someday. I can’t spend an eternity listening to these buffoons. I need minions if not to defend myself then to at least distract the voices. Oh mighty plant god if you exist please hear my prayer. I am trapped in this unfair predicament and need your benevolence. As a mortal I bought organic foods surely that shows my devotion. Please just grow some plants in my dungeon. That is all I ask for, please show me mercy and grant me this wi—
Voice 1: “If you are done with your worthless prayers, you might want to notice the plant growing in your dungeon.”
…What? Did Plant God pull through for me? Sure enough there was something growing near the dungeon entrance. It was growing rapidly too, spreading out across the dungeon walls. On a side note as it is doubtful that both the ants and this plant have access to super steroids, the theory that my perception of time is slower than normal seems more likely. Regardless plant god just earned some good points in my book. What type of plant did the plant god give me?
One useful thing about the plant being inside my dungeon, is that the ambient mana I give off to the surroundings creates a small mana echo with the walls. This allows me to naturally sense objects inside of tunnels I create without having to actively use my mana radar. I probably would have noticed the plant sooner if I hadn’t been so distracted. Oh well, time to examine the plant.
Focusing my attention on the plant, more of the minute details emerged. Since this type of sight is based off of mana not light I can’t see what color the plant is. Might as well just assume its green. From what I can see, the texture seems fuzzy kind of like fur. Not much else is all that noticeable about the plant other than the fact that it seems to be able to grow on the walls just as easily as the ground. …Call me crazy but the plant is remarkably similar to moss. But there is no way, Plant God wouldn’t screw me over like that by giving me such a useless plant. Right?
The plant kept growing as I watched it.
(Sigh) Yeah Plant God you can go fuck yourself.
Voice 2: “Oh chosen one, you should know that amongst the hierarchy of gods a plant god does not exist. Also the plant started growing before you started praying.”
“I know, but it would be nice to be able to blame someone for once.”
Voice 1: “Vent your frustrations on the enemies you conquer.”
Okay moving on. Yes, in general plants are already pretty useless when it comes to having defenses but I was hoping for something more than moss. But we make do with what we have.
I am not sure if I can even make moss a minion but have to try. Since by its nature, mana seems pretty magical, I decided to try pumping the cluster of moss with mana. And then the moss practically exploded. Before it covered only a tenth of the dungeon walls, then it covered everything and spread out on the surface. Most of it then quickly withered away, leaving only a few patches of moss alive amongst a graveyard of decaying remains.
The feeling of having a plant suddenly explode outwards and envelop most of your body will give me nightmares if I could actually dream. I really need to learn to stop pumping things full of mana, it hasn’t turned out well so far. Traumatic experiences aside, there were some positive developments.
For the brief microsecond that the gargantuan field of moss was alive I did feel a bit of a connection to it. Even now, I still feel a connection to the patches of moss that survived. Its fragile yet the connection is growing slightly stronger as time passes. And there is a type of control offered through this link.
It is a part of me now. I can actually influence where the moss should grow to an extent. I can increase or decrease its mana density. And I can make it grow slightly faster or slower. I can’t get it to start moving around and attacking things but it’s a start.
Voice 1: “The moss now obeys the will of the Master.”
It seems like the moss now needs mana from me as more of the ambient mana from the dungeon is now being absorbed directly by it. Previously the moss was just gathering slight amounts of mana but now its saturated with mana. So mana is clearly the key to gathering minions, however quickly injecting something with mana will probably kill it before I can actually make it minion.
If I simply let a lifeform stay in my dungeon for an extended amount of time, while I slowly inject it with mana I should be able to create a minion. However, that seems a bit too involved. I may have nothing to do right now; but in the future I might be too busy managing the dungeon to notice every lifeform that enters and then spend the time to convert it.
I need to passively infect anything that enters my dungeon with mana even when I am not paying attention. Actually I am making this too complicated. I probably already infect lifeforms with the ambient mana given off in my dungeon. If I waited longer that moss might have become a minion of mine all on its own. However, that only would work for stationary things like moss and other plants. My minion conversion process needs to be faster. But I like the idea of using the mana I naturally give off, since that finally makes that lost mana useful.
Voice 2: “The great light shall spread across the world.”
Voice 1: “You are learning how to subjugate and conquer… Excellent.”
So I give off ambient mana every time mana completes a circuit in my dungeon core, if I increase the amount of mana lost I should be able to convert minions faster. My mana regeneration might decrease but it’s pretty fast at this point so it can afford to decrease. So sounds like plan. My perception shifted to my dungeon core. Now more than ever I could feel mana pulsing through the core supplying the entire dungeon with mana. While the mana swirled around in a stream small amounts floated away. Maybe it’s the physicist in me, but it seemed wrong to make this process less elegant.
Instead of trying to make the mana circuit less efficient, I decided to try making the mana complete its rotation faster so that more mana would be lost over the same period of time. In theory that sounded easy, in practice that was not the case. It not only required me to manipulate the mana directly for it to move faster but also manipulate the fleshy interior as well so that it could match the increased speed of the mana. It was like trying to write words with both your hands at the same time.
It was messy but over time I started to get the hang of it. Mana started completing circuits through my dungeon core faster and faster. The amount of ambient mana in my little dungeon room increased. My sight of the room became clearer and more detailed. And I just felt more refreshed. I had noticed before that as I expand my mental abilities seem to increase as well but this was improving my mind in a different way. My mind felt more sharp instead of more powerful.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Because of that I was able to notice an abnormality almost immediately. The moss stopped growing. I examined it as much as I was currently capable and the moss seemed healthy. Since most of my attention was focused on operating the mana circuit on overdrive, I couldn’t examine it in detail. Fearing that something was wrong, I stopped increasing the mana circulation. That clarity of mind became hazy, the ambient levels of mana slowly decreased, and the moss started visibly growing again. Hmm… interesting.
Upon closer inspection of the moss everything seemed normal. Very interesting. I increased the mana circulation again and yet again the moss stopped growing. Using what attention I could spare, I inspected the moss. Again it the moss did not have any noticeable ailments, it seemed normal. It just wasn’t growing. I have a theory and if I am right, I think I just got lucky for once. I can’t test this theory until the ants start crawling around in my dungeon again, but I think I found a way to increase my perception of time. That would be very useful when managing my dungeon.
However, without any ants to confirm or deny this hypothesis, I am stuck twiddling my thumbs, waiting. Well not really, it takes a lot of concentration just maintain the artificial mana circulation. If I could automate this process, that would be great. And once I had that thought, I had to find a way to make that happen. I had to be golden.
Here I am on the pursuit of happiness. (Sigh)
Alright super mind time to get to work. If I grow larger my mana circulation will naturally grow faster. But that doesn’t help me now also I don’t even know how much of an increase it will be. Next option, I could try to convince the voices to help out. They might have very limited influence in my dungeon so they might not be able to handle the strain but they could at least reduce the burden. But I don’t know it feels like another Faustian bargain.
Voice 1: “What reason would you have to fear me? I just want to make myself Supreme Leader of All That Exists.”
“I am worried because: One you said that you want to make yourself supreme leader not me. And two it’s you. I don’t trust you… with anything… at all.”
Voice 1: “Details details, you shouldn’t get so caught up in them. I will handle them for you. Let’s just kill people.”
“The devil is in the details and you certainly act like a devil.”
Voice 1: “Look I will be simple. I will help you… If you let me set up 23 torture chambers. It’s a bargain for you. I mean you are going to do what I want anyway regardless. This way you get a bonus.”
“(Sigh) Useless. Alright Voice 2, your turn. Can you help a dungeon out? Please tell me you won’t be as insane as Voice 1.”
Voice 2: “Even if I wanted to help, the Voice 1 entity tried to kill me early on in an attempt to gain more influence. I lack the ability to access the dungeon. However, you follow in the paths of divinity. It is not my place to interfere.”
“Yeah that sounds like something Voice 1 would do. And I will give you credit for finding a way to be just as useless without being as insane.”
Voice 2: “I am blessed to receive praise.”
Next. I am pretty sure by using something similar to the window creation ability. If I could store the data on how to increase my mana circulation, then it would be easy to automate it. However, there is no way I could store that much complex information of one filament even if my mana control was 100 times better.
…
Wait.
Wait a second.
Wait a goddamn second.
One filament?
Ooh I have an idea. I can feel the sparks of enlightenment going off.
I stopped the artificial mana circulation, to focus on this thought. As my mind dulled, the idea became hazy and less defined. Yet the seed was still planted. The idea was still there. And the more I thought about it, the more excited I became.
Why just use one filament to store information? Why not spread out the information across multiple filaments.
How did I not think of this before? Probably because my mental faculties weren’t high enough yet. Even still I am a physics major and in physics you always break a function down into smaller components. If I break down this artificial mana circulation process and distribute the information, I could definitely automate the process.
Starting from the least complex amount of information I could abstract about each step in the process, I started storing the information across filaments while using a “master file” to organize all the data. I eventually ran into a problem when I realized I didn’t have enough filaments to store all of the information. So I problem solved.
I made the artificial mana circulation less efficient to reduce the amount of information I needed. This meant the mana would not rotate as fast but it should not be too significant. Then I experimented with the filaments testing the maximum complexity of the data I could store on each filament. And it payed off.
Over half of the filaments I had were used. Thousands of filaments all acting in concert to store an idea. Precisely 4815 filaments, according to the master filament. Time to see if the work was worth it.
I sent a pulse of mana into the master filament starting the process.
Mana spread out like spider webs as each filament was activated and spread out to other indexed filaments. Once all of the filaments were activated each began the role it was assigned. Soon mana started to move as if I were consciously directing it. Small little threads of mana pricked the flesh inside the core, signaling to the muscle like tendrils when to contract and extend. The mana picked up speed and started circulating faster. Thinking became easier and my thoughts sharper. Ambient mana in the dungeon increased and my surroundings became flooded with mana. The moss growth rate slowed down to a crawl, then a snail, and finally just seemed to stop.
The artificial circulation was working again but this time it only took a fraction of my awareness to keep the process functioning. All I had to do was keep suppling mana to the master filament and the rest was taken care of. And I could easily automate that part too. So I did, using just 16 more filaments I didn’t even have to worry about supplying mana. The mana circulation at nearly the same level I had before but I didn’t have to spare one drop of my concentration to keep it active. This is where I get to say I am awesome and give myself a high five.
Now if this was the old muddled minded me, while in the throes of my celebration I might have missed the relatively slow ant that crawled in the entrance. But my mind was new and improved. I noticed it immediately once the mana radar could detect the ant. And words cannot describe how refreshing it was to watch the ant zip by at around 50 miles per hour instead of the normal Mach 3. Soon I will learn how to get proper minions.
Prepare Little Ants. I am coming for you…
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And that’s the chapter. A bit longer than normal but hopefully still enjoyable. Please leave any comments questions or criticisms if you feel so inclined. Thanks and see you guys soon.