I focus and start my mana control exercises, they are a bit like breathing exercises, especially now that I have this new body. I am actually pretty sure that mana is pretty much my blood now, this does make what I am planning to do a little scary, just a tiny bit. I use my awesome dungeon powers and transform the corridor into the outside, from a simple square corridor it becomes…a very rounded corridor, it’s all for better mana flow, or rather a more uniform flow.

I’m not the only one doing stuff though, Bob just went to kidnap another dwarf skeleton and I’ve used mana to create a few mobile palisades of bone, they are to be put at the sides of my entrance, I am also going to have my soldiers there just in case someone decides to attack while I am concentrating. I also have a few skeletons with bone chisels and hammers doing some rough engravings, and the skulldwarf is using his beard as a brush, using the blood as paint and doing some finer details here and there. I had to actually make a few stairs of bone to get them to paint and engrave the ceiling.

So what exactly am I doing? It’s a pretty simple plan actually.

I can manipulate mana inside of myself, I also absorb and attract mana passively, mana exists outside and enters my dungeon. I expand based on the mana I control and absorb.

So I am going to use a special, and pretty simple array, to pull in mana faster. That’s what the skeletons are working on, by the way. I seem to be able to absorb rock in large quantities and area, but I can’t do so in the small and precise way needed to make my array engravings. So I have the skeletons do it.

After the engravings are done, then, I am going to spread my mana around and pull it back in with all my power. If I do everything right, which I will, it’s a simple array for a reason, I am going to get a lot more mana than normal, thus expanding faster.

It takes almost ten hours for everything to be complete, I am not sure how I know that, I think it’s a dungeon ability? Able to roughly tell the time? I guess that’s better than not being able to, still, It does piss me off a tiny bit how I have no manual for all of this.

Anyway everything should be in order and ready to go. Bob returned a long time ago of course, and brought in another dwarf. I paired him with the first kidnapping and necrotic mana washing victim and decided to call the pair “Brothers Grim”. Bob did in fact also help with the engravings, his claws were actually pretty good at it. Well, good enough I guess, certainly better than human nails.

The design is done, there are a LOT of swirling patterns all over my room and the corridor, and, in the wall right in front of my entrance there is a triskelion-like swirling symbol. Fun fact about the skulldwarves: Their magical beards are actually quite good as a brush, it can even give the paint a temporary magical enhancement, nothing crazy it’s just slightly magical so it works better for arrays. Should a normal human look at it directly they would probably get a bit woozy, maybe even a bit of vertigo. It is actually already affecting the environmental mana.

Right, the palisades are on both sides, as are a few of my troops, just in case something happens. Oh, right. One last thing. I call in a lone skeleton, he is at the end of a small hole in a side of my core room, the room itself spherical, and has swirling patterns engraved on it.

This is a special room, I put a skeleton there and then push mana into it, the patterns inside make the mana move around a lot more than it normally would. I do this in hopes that the skeleton will awaken some form of mana control, or something similar. It’s generally what’s done in my world to awaken a magical ability in animals. Sadly it’s been mostly in vain, the skeleton did get a bit stronger, though just from absorbing the mana. It did get a different evolution though.

Mana Absorbing Skeleton LV10

{Mana Rich Marrow}

{Mana Breathing}

{Expel Mana}

The only real visual difference from the other skeletons is his eyes. All skeletons have a light inside their sockets that looks like a pupil, this one’s entire eye sockets have a faint purpleish glow. He also can’t cast magic, so really it’s more of a fashion thing for now.

I decided to call him Merlin, in hopes of his magical future. I also hope that being so close to all the mana that is about to move around me is going to help this little one with using magic.

I can’t really communicate with my skeletons, or rather I cannot teach them complicated things. Whenever I tell them to do something it’s not really with words, or atleast, they don’t understand the words, rather I’m pretty sure they just get what I want them to do, not my specific words. I am sure of that because of this little guy, I’ve already explained to him how to use magic, what he must do to start and all of that. But he clearly can’t understand some of it. If I ask him to move one of his hands he will do it, If I tell him to expel mana he will do it.

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But if I ask him to try and shape the mana into a more concise and dense form while using a specific visualization technique? Bang! It’s like he hit a brick wall. I am somewhat certain it’s mostly on me, whatever way I communicate with others in this form is clearly not as straightforward as normal human communication. More testing needed.

But first, it’s time for an expansion!

I start focusing, slowly moving the mana around me, I concentrate on moving all of it, at the same time. I slowly pull it towards myself, making it denser, and I can FEEL the mana from outside slowly filling in. I can feel the mana trying to disperse, thin itself again, stabilize.

Little lights start appearing around me, mostly purple tones, the mana around me is necrotic after all. The lights are just the mana accumulating, it’s nothing dangerous or impressive yet.

I start pulling it in faster now, and pressing it against my body. I can see the swirling engravings start shining, just faintly, from the mana passing them.

It’s not just little lights around now, right now my body is shining with a small aura of purple light, the closer to my body the shinier. The entire room is bathed in purple light now.

I take a quick look at Merlin and see he’s staring all around the room. I check in with the other undead and see that all is fine, no untoward visitors or anything. All right, time for phase two of the plan.

I urge all the mana around me to move away from me and into the corridor. All of the purple lights around me bolt to the corridor, the light around my body disappears. The mana leaves my dungeon in the form of a large multi purple colored light show, leaving trails of its light in the engravings all around the room, it hits the symbol just outside my entrance and starts spinning! I can feel my control widening!

The mana starts scattering spreading across the left and right side, I let it slip away for a few moments. All right this should be the hardest part. I then use all of my willpower to pull it back. And then something goes wrong. The mana should’ve come back, and then because of the symbol it would’ve pulled a bit more back with it. And yet something I didn’t expect happens. My pull is too strong, stronger than ever before, way stronger than I expected.

Instead of just pulling a bit more mana to me, all of it is yanked with such power that it creates a huge vacuum of mana, I lose control of the mana. For a moment, my little dungeon is completely manaless, with two exceptions: Me, and the engravings, which for some reason are shining deeply. Then I see it, the engravings, for whatever reason, have a thin layer of dark crystal growing on them!

Mana is suddenly pulled in, rushing in to fill the vacuum of mana left behind, as it enters it is boosted by the engraving, and as soon as it touches my body it’s absorbed! I am absorbing it faster than it can fill! And I can’t stop it, it feels like I’m trying to stop an ocean wave with a shovel. It’s like my core and my mana control are distinct beings, I cannot stop my core from absorbing the mana!

Worse yet. I can feel my domain increasing in size, making me pull in even more mana!

My body is shining! This is not like before! This is not just my surface shining, this is my entire truck sized body glowing like a Christmas tree being hit by divine judgment!

My surface cracks! There are crisscrossing hairline fissures all over my body, and worse, before I can even process the damage done to my body a glass-like liquid starts to bleed out from the cracks. As soon as it is out of my body it catches fire! Soon enough my entire body is covered in this weird viscous, apparently flammable, liquid.

I take a closer look at it and realize that the liquid is not flammable, rather, what I’m pretty sure is happening is that it’s so hot it’s igniting the air around it? What the hell, why is that coming out from my insides? Am I really that hot?

Before I can even answer that question, just as suddenly as it started it stops. The strong pull that my body was exerting on the mana stops and I am able to regain control of the mana around me.

My broken and cracked surface suddenly starts moving. All the little loose pieces fly away! They separate into three groups. All three groups explode into dust; two of those clouds of sparkly dust rapidly join together into two small spheres. The two spheres and the last group of dust fly away, in the direction of Merlin. The spheres then enter and fit right into his eye sockets, while the dust is just… absorbed by him, his body transforms, going from the normal skeleton white to a deep dark purple color. I should probab—

Core Refinement Successful

Congratulations! You have successfully triggered a core refinement!

You have gained control of a special room!

You have gained {Engraving}

A minion has been evolved as a reward!

A new minion has been created!

All of your abilities are stronger!

Hidden Quest Completed!

You have successfully gained control of the skulldwarf mining room!

Control over the skulldwarves gained!

A new minion has been created!