The mana slimes are cute today!

They aren’t doing much, just chilling, absorbing mana and growing their cores. This really feels like fantasy now! I mean sure, giant crab humanoids, lizards and undead are cool, but I have seen that back in my world, these though?

Sure, I have seen slimes, but never like these little guys. They are very pretty, and I have seen quite a bit of pretty slimes, but what really separates them is the way they are interacting with mana.

Slimes are generally thought to eat trash, garbage or detritus of all kinds, which is not wrong, but also not the full picture. Slimes are not omnivores, they are ultravores, meaning they can eat and take sustenance from pretty much everything, which includes things like meat, veggies and stones but also mana itself, of course this does not mean that they just actually eat anything and everything they find around. Just like most animals that eat carrion prefer newer, fresher meals, so do many slimes have preferences for their dietary needs.

The pure mana crystal slimes seem to prefer mana, but the way they ‘eat’ is interesting. They absorb the mana with their bodies and run it into their crystal cores, the mana then moves and is purified through and around the crystal, which in turn makes the crystal grow ever so slowly. I have seen them actually try different methods of moving the mana inside their bodies for maximum efficiency, which makes sense, since their cores all have minutiae differences.

What further interests me is that they are specifically absorbing elemental mana, not purified typeless mana, meaning they are absorbing my dense necrotic mana and spewing even denser pure mana, technically the mana their higher tier mana by product is lesser than what they absorbed, but that can change, the purer and denser mana just tends to thin itself, but if you create specialized items you can do some pretty cool things.

I will probably let them grow a bit before doing anything though, I have about…fifteen of them, all generally the same size. I do wonder if these slimes mate, or if they just clone themselves, maybe both? I remember reading once that some slimes can actually spontaneously create unique reproductive organs suited for specific tasks. What was that? I think it was some magus that created a slime that could eat away someone’s age? Damn I can’t quite remember, which is weird since my memory has improved, probably because it is not stored in a normal brain anymore, but my old memories are still… well, human memories, not perfect, except for the parts that were seared into my brain with magic.

Ugh,I tend not to think about it but… I wonder what killed me, sometimes. It’s just idle curiosity, when I first came here I thought I was being trapped into some weird illusion. But I am pretty much sure I died and came back somehow. I do not think this is my planet, because there were not any actual dungeon cores there, the mana was thinner and there were no floating letters around, it could simply be that I was shunted into the future, though that seems unlikely. But what if— nah, nope. These are just useless thoughts, what can I do about them? What could I use this information for?

I can use my mind for some else, something more useful for now.

My domain has greatly expanded, it is now not only my core floor, but also the spiral down into the greenhouse and the base there, my domain ends just at the giant skull carved into my entrance. The very greenhouse has changed greatly, both its surface and underground. My dwarves have actually found some special clays that I am pretty sure can be made into pigments, which is something I want for multiple reasons.

Kaiman is working hard, he is actually teaching many skeletons how to bone shape, already quite a few of them have gained things like {Remold Bone} and soon enough I may have more boneshapers, I have told my skeletons that if they want to… change their bodies or equipment they can come to Kaiman and his crew. Up until now most changes have simply been focused on making them better fighters, making bone thicker or giving them a barghest bone, Meli herself got a knife and a spearpoint of it.

What I really want though, and what I hope to achieve with getting more paints, is simple visual modifications, maybe a skeleton wants to paint their helmet black or red, or paint their shields in some other color, I want to see if individually will sprout from them.

I have already seen it happen, Gorger is the easiest example, and Bob too, both of them having their cravings, Gorger for flesh and Bob now for blood, also him wanting a cat, and getting one for Kaiman unprompted by me. There are others, like the Grimm brothers who seem to only care about working, creating stuff.

I do have some further plans to… incentivize that, but for now I simply tell them to get some of that stuff and set it apart, and also let me absorb it. I can probably recreate it once I absorb it, though unlike the other materials I have skills for it’s probably going to cost more.

Right onto other stuff I want. The gigantic hole to my side, the one that goes incredibly high up and down. I am going to put that into my dungeon territory, the area between my core floor and the greenhouse that is. That way I can probably create some form of elevator to both, a service elevator. The giant undead crab is pretty much ready to go, the only problem is that I noticed that… it is too big to pass the spiral down, meaning I couldn’t get it down and show it to the crabs. I could make it bigger now But I think making the elevator now is better, since it can be used in the future, especially since I still want to explore it.

I focus deeply, I tell my capable minion’s to help, the ones that can exude their mana outwards, joining it with mine, I feel a few of the quartz that I have and break them, transforming them into energy and push it all out, through the cavern hole that connects them to the hollow pillar. It leaves and I feel my mana control slowly weakening, I persevere and keep controlling it, guiding the two clouds to one another. Slowly, I feel like I am trying to weave with oil instead of thread and yet the momentum is too big even without my input they start moving to each other, the two clouds of energy meet and my control reaffirms itself.

I gain control of it, the small area between the two. I think I should name this place, from now on this gigantic hole that goes downwards and upwards shall be called…’Hollow Tube’.

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Sure that’s good enough. Now then I can start constructing my elevator.

An intruder has been teleported to the Greenhouse!

Oh, shit. What now? It isn’t calling this an ‘invasion’, but it is calling it an ‘intruder’, also pretty nice that the system is calling the place a greenhouse. I wonder if the other two see it too, or if they have their own names for it.

Anyway I see it, it is a… large humanoid, I can’t—wow, they are fast as fuck, my skulls can pretty much only see a blur moving, they seem be in the middle of the greenhouse, which is now a really weird mix of woods, actually now that I take a good look at it, that little patch of trees is right beneath the little fake sun, meaning there is a lot of light shining straight down that mix of foliages, the trees there are a mix of mine, with their dark bark and leaves, the crab’s, which is a deep green and dark bark too, the lizard’s with their lighter bark and leaves and the beetle’s region, with lighter trees too.

Even though the area has all of our foliages it is actually completely ownerless as of yet, none of the four auras from us getting that far into the center yet.

I am unsure where they got teleported in, but right now they are running away from the dead center of the greenhouse. I send more skulls around the area so I can see it better. From the blurred image I think it is indeed a humanoid, a torso for sure, two arms, two legs and a head.They also seem… weirdly muted? In colors, it’s like whatever they are wearing blends in very well with the environment, their life signs are also very low, my undead would probably think he is some dying animal if not for the fact that they are seeing this being running faster than anything they’ve seen before. I think, yeah, if this invader stands behind a tree most undead will have a hard time distinguishing his weak line sign from the trees, effectively camouflaging him in certain distances.

Oh? I see some movement from the lizard side, and the crab side actually, though they are mostly just gathering up and opening fire, more like water and mud actually, on nearby drones.

The lizards on the other hand, they decide to stay on brand and are clearly planning to attack, there are at least a few hundred there, probably something like 250 or so?

The force doesn't seem that strong though, mostly your motley crew of geckos and iguanas, it is kinda interesting, it’s been a while since I have seen a salamander from them.

The way ahead of the blur explodes in a shower of trees and dirt, a huge serpent’s head comes out, no not out from the ground, I watch as the flying dirt amasses itself as if going back in time, into the snakes head and body, two more come out behind him each of them are taller than the trees around them, the snakes trap him in a three pointed triangle formation, the blur stops moving and I finally take a good look at them.

The blur is a large humanoid…cat? The large humanoid has what appears to be cat ears on top of their heads, every other part of their body is covered in armor, which seems to be primarily leather with some animal fur on the shoulders and back, their entire head is covered by the cat cowl, I cannot see their mouths either.

The serpents open their mouths and— I feel two things happen, first is the large amount of mana coming from the snakes, and a spell suddenly comes from them, they do not cast the spell, it simply comes out from their bodies, if not for the fact that my drones are now more sensitive to mana I would not have caught that.

The snakes spit green venom, which transforms into bright green snakes mid air, they also at the same time regurgitate a shower of lizards of all kinds.

There are three snakes, and each of them just spit about 200 reptiles, and the other Lounge of lizards is coming right behind, or well to the side. Should I help them?

Before the lizards can even hit the ground, the cat pulls out a bow from nowhere, it literally appears in their hands, the bow has a texture of scratched glass with glowing swirls on the limbs, while the handle is bare of both the scratched texture and the swirls.

The archer’s arms blur, as a spray of arrows is shot at ludicrous speeds, all the lizards hit the floor, dead and looking like bleeding pincushions, the bright green snakes turning into venom, the giant snake is likewise full of arrows in its body as it sways,as if drunk then the snake turns into dirt and crumbles apart, but not before I again feel a spell coming from it, and the two others.

The dead lizards on the ground twitch, and I see their bodies change, grow larger with red spikes coming from their elbows, knees and shoulders, and a single black scale appearing on their foreheads. The group at the back also changes, and worst I see a large chameleon gain wings and take flight.

The two other giant snakes crumble down on their own, becoming dirt, the hunter seems…calm, their bow disappears and in their place a new bow appears, the new weapon seems to be a longbow, this one seems to be made from some kind of metal and is fairly unadorned, with the exception of a black handle. The kitty hunter pulls the bow and aims… up straight at the skydome.

As the lizards run towards them in completely berserk rage the hunter releases three arrows so fast my drones could barely see it beyond a large blur. The arrows fly upwards and suddenly become nine. They curve back towards the ground and accelerate. The arrows multiply again, a single arrow becoming a shower of them, and each of the other eight arrows does the same, in less than three seconds after the hunter released the nine arrows, more than a thousand fell down on the ground.

The arrows passed straight through the bodies of the lizards and impaled deep into the ground, it didn’t matter where they hit, they passed as if the animals were not even there.

The chameleon does not care, it arrives just as the arrow rain kills hundreds of lizards and it flies face first into the hunter.

The dashes forwards, jumps and passes beneath the giant chameleon, through another drone skull I can see an axe appear in their hands and they slide through the chameleon and cut the belly of the beast open.

The beast however is not dead, nor is it scared of the hunter who just gutted it. Literally, I can see the guts of the chameleon falling from its open belly while it charges again into the hunter.

The hunter ignores the falling gut chameleon and simply shoots a ridiculous amount of arrow at the last attacking form of the lizards, killing them all just as easily as the last ones.

The chameleon attacks again, and the hunter vaults over their attack and their body in a single leap. I watch as they simply stare around, as if waiting for something. They look around and then something appears on their hands. They checked it fast enough that I could not clearly see what it was, before it disappeared.

Like a mirage a giant gray cauldron appears in the sky, right on top of the carnage, the cauldron has a boiling red concoction inside of it. The cauldron has four feet each stylized into different reptiles with their mouths open. The blood of all the mutated lizards starts flowing out of their bodies and into the mouths of the cauldron. I watch as the cauldron is filled and disappears, just as suddenly as it appeared.

All that there is now in the battlefield is the hunter, the chameleon who is still alive, and the bloodless corpses of lizards, the arrows disappeared too.

The chameleon soon dies, it just drops dead. I watch as the hunter pulls out a set of knives and starts carving the beast. It’s a weird process, they seem to have some dimensional item, they cut off parts of the chameleon and they simply disappear. Soon I see the inside of the animal be completely hollowed, only the skin and the bones remaining, the hunter was stupidly fast. All that is left is a really macabre onesie.

I tell one of the weaker drones to, slowly, hover towards them. I wish to initiate contact.

I sent the weakest one because their shots seemed fast enough that, at close range, none of my drones could dodge.

My dungeon upgrades have increased my {Minion Sight} range, so I only need to get about 10 meters close to see the intruder in color. They are very red, their clothes are entirely shades of dark red. And they are really big, it was obvious from a distance, but now I can see just how big they are, tall and broad shouldered with large hands. I see their eyes are also entirely light yellow, with a large pupil in the middle, like a lion’s eye.

… Right, both of them are into a staring contest. I have sent Merlin to the greenhouse, his skill {Writing of The Dead} should help him with communications. For now though I just want the hunter to see the skull, and know that not everybody here is a maniac attacking everything in sight.