Meanwhile, at the outskirts of the Universe, someone new entered the playing field.
It was only one person, alone on their lonesome, but as they crossed the dimensional boundary into Ferras they left behind a beacon. Whether this was intentional or not is a mystery.
What wasn’t a mystery though was this person’s, this deity’s, destination.
It was heading right towards a planet newly awakened to mana. A veritable feast, a ripe field just waiting for harvest. And they didn’t intend for anyone to steal this opportunity from under them.
----------------------------------------
Alrighty then! My own Dungeon moon is as good as ever, the mini-Dungeon is operating pretty good as well, and Faellen and the Sipalians are still on their training regiment. What does that leave for me?
I could send another Dungeon Seed down? Possible, but I don’t really feel the need to yet and I’d feel more like a chore than anything else.
The same goes for working on my own Dungeon. I have to be inspired for me to know what to do. Not to mention that I could only focus on one half of my moon to not disturb the adventurers.
Hmm, let me check my list of Abilities real quick.
Create
Destroy
Control
Sense
Final Stop
Ignore That
Endless End
Mana-Cycle
System Core
Taste of Old Memories
Seed Dungeon
Wow, that has grown quite a lot from what I remember. Almost double from my starting amount.
And I can’t believe I’ve somehow managed to ignore probably my most important Abilities. Sure, I mostly ever only use the main Dungeon four, and a bunch of the others are completely passive.
But how did I forget about my two original End and Paradox Abilities, as well as my only UNIQUE one!
Could it be that Ignore That also has an effect on me? It would be quite paradoxical of it that sometimes I can perceive it and sometimes not… But no, that can’t be it. I’ll just have to accept I’m forgetful.
As for the other two… Endless End is a true mystery as my only UNIQUE, and it’s description doesn’t even give too much of a hint. I know it’s responsible for the brief time-loop I was in. But other than that, I don’t know much.
When it comes to Final Stop as far as I can tell it’s simply a passive? I’m not sure how to categorize it, but it seems to make sure nobody can breeze through my Dungeon just because they have a rare and overpowered element like Void.
But is that really all there is to them?
My original four Dungeon Abilities feel like much more in comparison.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
They let me Sense and Control things like actual space and a Universe’s energy. Not to mention that… yep, with a bit of effort I can Create and Destroy space too. And as for the Universe energy.
…
I completely forgot about the Universe energy. Hold on, surely I can still pull up the System message.
You have been invaded by: Universe Congealment [pseudo-UNIQUE]
Your Dungeon Barrier has absorbed Universe level energy!
Dungeon Barrier → Dimensional Barrier
Invader [Universe Congealment] is attempting to take over your Dungeon!
Invader [Universe Congealment] has been Destroyed!
Unable to add pattern to Create database.
Searching for workaround.
Workaround found: Remaining Universe level energy bound to User!
Workaround found: Universe Remnants integrated into Dungeon!
Alright, those are the notifications I received right as the End happened. Let’s see here…
Aha, there it is! I’m not able to Create the Universe Congealment, but in exchange I got its energy as well as- becoming part Universe? I’m not exactly sure what that means yet.
For now, I first have to figure out where that Universe energy is. If I remember it right, it felt… sort of… like… THAT!
Lazily floating around my Core, I feel it. A bunch of that same energy that was trying to prevent the spread of that spatial decay. Except that this one feels ever so slightly different. It feel more like me.
That makes sense, I suppose.
But now onto another experiment that I really should have tried a long time ago. If I can Destroy and Create something immaterial like space, what about energy?
And indeed, as soon as I mark a mote of my Universe energy for Destruction, it vanishes. Which causes an extreme explosion of mana to flood my Dungeon.
For a second, I’m shocked. Then I gather as much of it back to my Core and attempt to Create another mote of the Universe energy. It takes as much as it released, temporarily creating a mana vacuum near the centre of my Dungeon.
Alright, note taken. Don’t try to Create Universe energy until I learn how to consciously control Ignore That.
Let’s move onto mana. I’m not sure how useful that’ll be, but let’s see if I can Destroy and Create it anyway. If anything, it’ll be interesting what happens when I Destroy it, since that usually makes an equivalent amount of mana.
Warning!
We wouldn’t do that if we were you
Alright, that’s weird. And creepy.
Also, that message just now felt somehow* different again, just like… just like… just like when I entered the Wyld.
(*reminder that the colouring of the text is purely for ease of reading and in-universe it appeared completely normal)
I have to remind myself that System Core also mentions that my interests are its interests. Surely it has a reason for warning me not to do this with mana. I hope. I’ll just promptly, heh, Ignore That* and move on.
(*despite capital letters suggesting that this references the Ability, this was indeed a pun by the Dungeon Core)
So, back to Universe energy.
It’s obviously much more energy dense that anything else I’ve ever seen. I would even bet that if I converted all of it that’s floating around my Core into mana it would overwhelm the enchantments on my Dungeon walls and escape into space.
That’s a lot of mana considering that I’m the size of a moon now, with the corresponding volume to hold that much mana.
Which is to say, this all makes me wonder how I can use it in my Dungeon.