> The difference between dungeon-born monsters and those that wander the wilds is well documented. In a dungeon, many monsters form uniform templates even between dungeons and thus both classifying and identifying skills work well. In comparison, wild monsters are unpredictable and more dangerous due to their unknown capabilities. The following section is left to list the similarities and differences between monster parts as catalogued by our guild. Remember all you have to do is join us and you have access to the advanced guild only version. Don’t worry; setting your allegiance "For Life" isn't long at all when hunting monsters, and the benefits are enormous!
An excerpt from the most popular primer bestiary “Useful Monsters and Where to Find them”
Indecisive Earth closed the chat and tried to review the basic information that had been included all the way back in the tutorial.
First, mana can be attributed by treating it in different ways but intent matters just as much. If your intent is to make something dangerous it will result in more dangerous effects than it would otherwise. If you were cold and used Fire mana inside your body with the intent to warm yourself, it would be regulated somewhat by your purpose “of providing warmth” – thus not burning you as it could and should without that purpose smoothing things over.
Second, most living creatures used mana differently, but each had some form of converting their attributeless personal mana into an external much stronger and stable attributed form.
Apparently, attributeless mana was hard to use for nearly every living race...something about it turning into random attributes when pulled out of the body if people didn’t focus hard enough...Dungeon Cores didn’t seem to have this problem at least in their influence...conversely the concept of a spell – binding mana to a purpose and releasing it to fulfil that function outside of one’s body – was both less useful and harder to grasp for Dungeon Cores.
Maybe because the area in our influence is our bodies and cutting off control to let it work as a spell is unintuitive…
Either way, Indecisive Earth focused on drawing some mana into an area in the center of his room. Looking around for inspiration he vaguely knew what it should look like but the “concept” in his memories was flat and static. Theoretical instead of practical, it kind of left the actual conversion "as an exercise to the reader" as it were.
Pulling his attention over to the wall by his core he focused his sight as much as he could. Harder and harder he focused until the rock seemed to collapse behind his scrutiny.
There was more to the dull-looking rock wall than he first noticed, with minuscule faint sparks and flickers of Red (Fire?) mana flowing along the grains. Even less often, sluggish swirls and darker drops of (Water? I think that’s water) mana moved past.
Additionally, the whole stone was covered in sharp lines of grey and brown. They made up less than a fraction of a percent of the total area, but they were absolutely everywhere in the rock. They didn’t move around as the other types did instead seeming to be bound intrinsically to the rock in a much more fundamental way than the other types.
There were so many types of mana he wondered why he hadn’t noticed them until now. When he was actively focusing and using his own mana it blazed and filled an area where he directed it even without concentrating. In comparison, the background mana took more effort to see and gave off a different feeling.
Turning to the center of the room, he focused on the look of what he had guessed the Earth mana was. Instead of a misty clear blob, the mana should have flat slices intersecting.
Pushing and kneading the mana it quickly shifted in colour appearing more and more solid. Seeming to fall into place, it quickly matched what he saw it should look like as soon as he gave it a slight push in the direction he wanted.
Not exactly the same as the environmental mana his new construct was closer to his attributeless mana. Instead of cris-crossing lines, this attempt at recreating the mana was a uniform grey brown. More like attributeless mana with an “Earth flavour” than a complete match for the environmental stuff.
Next shifting focus to the nearest wall he pulled a chunk off his new source of mana and tried to feed it into his expansion. It took some blind fumbling around to figure it out at first, but he managed to start the process.
By default, expansion seemed to be just him pushing instinctivly outwards and it was only the comment about using attributed mana in his chat group that led him to try and do more. By default, his “pushing” was actually almost vibrating the edge of his influence with several small pulses of attributeless mana appearing and passing through the boundary of his domain pushing it outwards slightly more and more with each pulse.
Focusing and trying to manually do the same was similar to how a flesh and blood creature might feel when having to manually breathe or blink. The speed at which the waves appeared and pulsed seemed to be near the upper limit of his concentration. Trying to allow more time for waves to appear and crash through the barrier slowed down expansion and trying to pulse faster just made the waves break apart into uneven lumpy sheets that pushed random bumps out into the earth instead of a smooth wall of influence.
What he was already doing instinctually was already “optimal” for attributeless mana. Focusing deeper in on the creation of pulses he willed them to gain the feeling and strength of Earth. This process was not nearly as simple as it sounded – by default, he was creating faint pulses a few cm away from the “membrane” that was the edge of his domain – and while creating a pulse further back, so that it had enough time to shift to Earth mana before hitting the membrane was “easy enough to do”. Trying to transition to expanding as instinctively as he had been was hard – nearly impossible at this stage. It was only his specialization just barely gave him the boost that made this possible.
That being said, while the result he wanted to achieve was difficult, the change was incredibly apparent. Instead of a slight growing that would only extend a bit out from his tunnel, each wave was a flat sheet that visibly dragged his influence outwards when it hit. A side effect of this method of expansion was that the smooth round extensions were replaced with sharp corners and flat faces. Though harder to switch to, the longer he used it, the less attention he needed to direct towards it and finally after draining his store of magic nearly completely, it reached the point where he was “hands-off” enough to focus on other stuff while doing so. Switching to his chat while waiting for his mana to refill he sent a quick message directed at Amy.
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Indecisive Earth: Hey Amy, that was some solid advice. It was really hard to set up instinctively but I finally got it going.
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Amy: Wait what do you mean by setting it up instinctively...I’ve been using this method for weeks and I have to focus the entire time it’s a pain but still faster.
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Xero: Earth affinity ✌️ I told you I don’t need to focus much on it and I don’t even have as strong of control as someone doubling down. Hey don’t worry I figured out I can use Air mana to do a similar thing in empty spaces and filled a whole cave system I broke into in no time at all. Really Earth and Air is the best combination you guys a dungeon is nothing but air surrounded by earth.
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Abe: And explosions. Checkmate bitch. Fire is the best.
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Xero: Dammit we’ve talked about this.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
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Indecisive Earth: I’ve been meaning to ask how are you making explosions? I thought fire burned stuff.
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Abe: Finally a true comrade. Okay so first you gotta make a shell out of anything you have on hand. Then pack mana into it and push it tight before the mana begins to expand so that if the shell breaks it really packs a punch. Fire’s the best to pack in obviously and you really want to have it burst.
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Indecisive Earth: Why would it explode?
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Abe: Forgot you were a newbie. Time for Lessons with Abe the smart and knowledgeable elder.
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Xero: “Smart” 😑…
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Abe: Listen Mana creates Matter. Using magic generates stuff from nothing. Earth creates earth, Air creates air. When you initially create something out of mana and attach it to something it will create matter and then once your control is complete and whatever you create collapses it will release that extra matter into the surroundings. Tis why packing it into a space gives a nice punch when it is punctured.
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Indecisive Earth: ...I guess that makes sense? I haven’t really noticed it much but if you say that's what's happening I guess it makes sense.
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Amy: Honestly we don’t really know a lot about mana. I think once we advance and can talk to older cores they might be able to fill in some questions we have. As far as we know we can change unattributed mana to attributed mana and doing so makes it stronger. Also if we want mana to persist for a while- when making a monster or material for instance we can only mix mana with a single element-doing so anchors it to the world for a while. Trying to force it into a combination splits the elements...Feel free to try but we haven’t managed it yet. Oh and also PSA- This is important.
Amy: If you use a lot of mana in a single area it starts to increase the density of the natural mana in that area. Like I had a dedicated spot where I made all my monsters and after a while of experiments - the stone around it started...doing stuff. IDK it was dripping weird and matching some of the monsters I was making and it was only after I focused that I realized the mana was much higher. I also couldn’t figure out how to lower the density just move it around so now I have a lil empty cave full of gooey stone until I figure out what to do with it…
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Xero: 🧪🧠🤯
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Abe: What does that even mean.
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Amy: Xero did you try any of my suggestions to save space?
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Xero: 🤷 I compressed a bunch of my storage onto my walls using sheets of different elements and Earth mana so I got some wriggle room. I’m nearly at the 3-floor goal. Soon you’ll be free of me 👀.
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Amy: Wonderful. I can finish my last floor at any point I’m just waiting for the newest Cores: Abe and Indecisive Earth to settle in before moving on.
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Indecisive Earth: Abe’s new too?
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Abe: Nah I’m your big bro I have plenty more experience than you and don’t you forget it.
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Amy: Abe is 2 days older than you as far as I can tell. Myself, Xero and 9 are around 3 weeks older than you. Hopefully, I can pass on as much information before we advance and give the mantle of mentor onto you Indecisive Earth. Okay Technically Later has been around longer than me. I think he was part of the previous batch but we don’t talk about "Later" and I can’t tell if he’s close to advancing yet or not.
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Abe: You mean Pass the mantle of eldest onto me. Duh
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Amy: It will be your job to inform any new cores of any information we’ve collected outside of the tutorial and help make sure they feel welcomed. Don’t worry I think you can handle it.
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Indecisive Earth: Wait wait wait this is all happening so fast. I just got here. I haven’t even designed a monster yet let alone made a floor. I'm not someone you can trust with that responsibility right now.
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Abe: You can count on me!
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Xero: Clueless isn’t he 🥴
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Amy: Don't worry it's not that much of a responsibility. We are just trying to stockpile some information between generations that wasn't included in the tutorial. A core named Jay gave me a bunch of info and I'm passing it onto you. Hopefully, you can pass that information onto any noobies and they will continue the chain.
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Indecisive Earth: How long until you leave us?
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Xero: Do you know how a floor works?
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Indecisive Earth: How would I? I mean I know what a floor is but how do I know if I’ve made one?
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Amy: Damn I knew I was forgetting something. Listen, for the most part you’ll know when you get there but here's a quick rundown. Once you’ve dug a large enough area and spent a large enough time working in it you’ll find that your influence feels like it's splitting- don't resist it! You can spend who knows how long waiting for separate floors to form naturally or...you can help it along. The easiest way to look at it is there's a density difference between floors. All the denser mana in one section and all the weaker low-density materials and stuff in the other. Technically you can set it up in a different way like the weird columns Immortal Spring Of Certainty seems to be making but let’s ignore the insane.
Amy: The Best and Easiest way is to build upwards and pull stronger stuff down while pushing weaker stuff up. It will help you down the line because you can’t really set up alternating densities. 1, 2, 3 or 3, 2, 1 works fine but 3,1, 2 is not stable and will damage you if done badly...mana might be pulled from 1 to 2 and then as it’s pulled from 2 to 3 seep back into 1 before reaching 3 spinning faster and faster between 1 and 2 until the boundary is shattered.
Amy: Anyways to help the process along you can manually push and pull denser/lighter stuff into opposite sides of your influence. You can also feel out the split and try and strengthen it by nudging it into an area that feels more like a boundary. It’s really hard to make a Floor Boundary across the middle of a cave but push it to an archway and it grows much faster and stronger. Plus side is once you set up your floors they will automatically distribute mana...filtering any strong mana in your weak floor bringing it down to your stronger ones stacking endlessly.
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Xero: You don’t need to write an essay on it- Jay did a much better job of explaining things- he spread stuff out.
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Amy: Well I’m not Jay. Ugg honestly I give up. I’ve done my dues and passed on all the relevant information. I even waited to finish my advancement till you and 9 could join me- And they ranked up a few hours ago. I’m already level 11 I only needed to be level 9 to meet the level requirement. I miss Jay as well Xero and at this point, I’m going to go first just to meet up with him again. You said you’re nearly done? Well good. Catch up to us then it shouldn’t take you more than a few hours to join. Good luck noobies I believe in you guys.
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With that final message, she stopped responding. Her name greyed out to indicate she was no longer paying attention to the chat. Then, a moment later it faded completely – all semblance that she was or had ever been a part of the chat gone.
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Xero: 😮
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Abe: Oh damn m8.
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Xero: 👀 I just said Jay was better. What's her deal?
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Abe: “I just blew up the wall to speed up digging- wHy did rOcks fly eVeryWhere”
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Indecisive Earth: Honestly you could have put a bit more tact into it. She said she told us everything she needed to but I’m sure I could have found more questions to ask before she left.
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Immortal Spring Of Certainty: Oh marvellous simply marvellous. That catty little core is gone, she was always thinking she's better than us and not truly understanding the demons that dwell within us mortal shells. Ahhh yess. Freedom.
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Indecisive Earth pulled back from the chat making a point to close it instead of just turn away and ignore it.
He felt weird that drama had appeared in the group. He was what – nearly a day old and already people were leaving. Indecisive Earth wasn’t fully invested in the group and didn’t yet have any strong opinions on any of the Cores previously… but he “was” curious about everything and Amy “had” responded the most to his questions, so her leaving had given him a sense of loss.
Conversely, as Xero was the one who had driven her away he felt slightly annoyed by his continued presence in the chat. He’s leaving soon anyways. I’ll experiment until he’s gone. Chat's for help and friendly advice...not whatever that is.