As David continued expanding his influence while not eating the stone… well, maybe just taking tiny nibbles, he began to feel that the stone was getting less and less stressed. While he didn’t quite remember what that meant, he felt it was something good.
On the other side of the hair wide tendril of aura, it was getting quite dense, resulting in level up of his dungeon aura skill as well as three mana per hour, which allowed him to work non-stop on his expansion, although the bloating due to excess mana was uncomfortable.
Unnoticed by David, however, not all of his mana was going to the expansion process. Due to him constantly being over double capacity, his “crystal” slowly repaired itself, sealing the cracks and slowly raising its capacity.
As hours and days wore on, three Davids turned the cavern onto a dense web, but despite all that, the mana still flowed through, almost unimpeded due to that same web supporting and making the wave stronger at the same speed as it was stopped by them.
Satisfied by his work, David mentally high-fived himself and checked his mana, only to discover-
Mana Points (MP)
11/3.4 (26)
Rate: 0.1/hr (23/hr)
(0.1/hr + 23/hr) - (0) - 22/hr [Overflow]
‘So, it’s single point precision? That’s inconvenient.’
Being happy with his gains, if a tiny bit disgruntled with the system, the three Davids decided to help the forth with his tunnel, by thickening the hair this path he made into a full on vein. You see, David has been complaining that it’s hard to work due to lacking mana, but with him being overcharged, the only reason could be the hair thin channel.
And so, all five David’s working together, the extension went by quickly, with him eventually reaching another cave.
‘No, that’s not right. Why would there be wind in a cave, and why is it so warm? Let me take a look’
Triggering his [Vision], David was shocked. No, it wasn’t a cave, it was the Surface.
Something in him revolted. He shouldn’t be here, he shouldn’t see this, but with the combined might of six of him, it was suppressed.
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A bit unnerved by the event, David let himself relax and bask in the glory of the ravine in front of him. He could only see the top of the lip, as he himself was ways away on what was probably a big hill or a mountain, but the lush forest surrounding the canyon was mesmerizing nonetheless.
Shaking off the stupor, one David went to find and deal with where the strange feeling came from, while others continued their work, only for the string he was extending to the surface to disintegrate. It was slightly uncomfortable, but nothing he couldn’t ignore.
While thinking, David chewed on some rock facing the sun, the temperature raising it to 7/10, when his tendril shrunk further. Confused, but quickly understanding his situation, he went back and decided to finally try to create something.
If the outside fried his tendrils, he could just make more rock. David understood that he could also just burrow underground, but he ignored that in favor of finally having a reason to play with matter creation. For some reason, the idea of both eating and creating matter, made him perversely happy, like he was doing something forbidden.
Staring at an empty space in front of him, he tried willing stone to appear, but nothing happened. Trying a couple more times, David had an idea. He tried to not just will something to happen, but to manipulate the mana himself.
Another David came to help manipulate mana while the first one observed the empty space with human eyes. At first, he thought nothing happened, but when he looked with mana-sight, he saw the veins simply venting mana, creating ripples and disrupting the flow.
Feeling slightly stupid, he tried doing the same thing while thinking about the stone he wanted to make. Right before his eyes, small grains of stone formed in midair, slowly growing in size over the next couple of minutes, until in front of him was a perfectly smooth pebble.
As the pebble clattered on the floor, he went to examine it with both his senses. Although his human sight just saw a pebble, his magic one did not. If the stone around him was a material filled with some mana, this was just solid mana. Feeling curios, David Chomped the stone.
‘Bland, too wet, feels like it shouldn’t be solid. 2/10’
Feeling disappointed, David went to fill in his previous chomp out of the hill, spending enough hours for it to turn dark, only for it to begin disintegrating as soon as he was done. Feeling dejected, but slightly better due to how beautiful the moon lit world was, he went back to the drawing board.
Four David’s spent two whole days making and eating stones, until one had an idea. He pulled up the system’s definition of stone, and tried to make mana go through the system before going to the empty space.
Surprising all of them, when mana went through the system, it became heavier and more viscous, and when it reached the designated area the grains fell instead of staying still until the stone was formed.
David looked around at himselfs, and took a cautious bite. 4/10
A round of mental cheers went through the not-crowd.
Although the stone was quite a bit worse than the natural one, being filled with cracks, uneven and weak, it was actual, real stone. David slowly filled in the spot he bit off, and although it wasn’t as perfect as he wanted it to be, it was good enough for his tendril to once again be at the surface of the mountain.
----------------------------------------
David wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Despite holding back the weird feeling, he didn’t know where it was actually coming from. When he was assigned to find this thing, he expected to quickly deal with it and go back to more exciting stuff, like creation of matter that he unfortunately missed.
Wandering through the endless landscape of blurry memories, half formed ideas, and for some reason shards of shining diamond, held in place by endless strings of yarn, he kept following the feeling. Eventually, he found a giant diamond, almost hidden from view by yarn, acting as a spindle.
He could feel the gem radiating malice, but it wasn’t solely towards him. It hated its bindings, it hated him, it hated the outside, it hated life. Deciding to get it over with David touched the gem, and understood.
‘Well, sorry buddy, but you’re too blood thirsty for my tastes. Calm down and Then we’ll talk about who the dungeon truly belongs to.’