Zack didn't know how long it was before he could stand again. Akasha didn't speak, patiently waiting for him to recover and regain himself. When he finally rose, he stood on two shaky legs that just didn't feel like his anymore. As soon as he had that realization, he also came to the conclusion that he didn't need them. Zack bid his body vanish, and was both surprised and delighted when it did. He then bid a wisp take its place, and was equally relieved when it appeared.
"What… just happened?" he finally asked, as he managed to find his voice once more. He momentarily forgot to vibrated his mana to make sounds, but the words spilled out of him all the same.
"You were overwhelmed with pure knowledge, unfiltered information to the questions you asked," Akasha answered. She had a soft, gentle voice. Zack didn't even know how, but he was confident that she was feminine. There was something kind, almost motherly about her.
More like a school teacher, Zack realized, only noticing the words filing out of his wisp and into the crystal as he completed the thought.
Again, Akasha's bell-like laugh rang out through the air. "Yes, an astute observation, little one. I am much like a school teacher."
"Why did you bring me here? Why now, instead of before?" Zack asked, the questions leaping from his mind before he even had a chance to word them better.
Akasha's pressence settled all around him, and Zack once again got the impression that she was browsing her vast quantity of knowledge. "You have been here before, during your dormancy," she reminded him. "All knowledge-based cores such as yourself belong to me. During your dormant period, I brought you and others like you to be trained and prepared for your role."
Zack wished he still had a face so he could blink. "What?" Again, the word stumbled out of him before he had a chance to control his thoughts.
Akasha didn't laugh this time. "Oh, dear. You forgot so very much as you waited to awaken. I had hoped I would not need to train you again. Perhaps I was mistaken?"
"Hold on, hold on, training? Forgetting? I don't understand! I just wanted to know why I couldn't see the different upgrades for my Medibold's healing spell!"
The silence in the strange space was deafening. If Zack still had ears, he felt they would be ringing. When Akasha next spoke, her words were that of a kindly mother about to present her child with bad news.
"You were perfectly able to see them. You simply saw all of them."
"W-what?"
"There were ten billion, three hundred and seventy-one million, six hundred and ninety-two thousand, seven hundred and twenty-one possible upgrades to your Medibold's healing spell. You simply saw all of them simultaneously."
"What!? N-no way! That's impossible!"
"Yes. Yes it was impossible. And therein lies the problem. You are a knowledge-based core of my lineage, but you are of many magnitudes below me. You cannot handle such an influx of information. Attempting to gaze upon them caused structural damage to your very core."
Zack stared silently at the vast crystal beneath him. Before him? It was difficult to gauge which way was up when Akasha—and he had to assume it was her—was the size of a planet. He wanted to sit down, but that felt impossibly rude. How could he sit upon his… mother? Grandmother?
"If you wish, you may think of me as your mother," Akasha whispered, as though reading his mind.
"Please stop doing that," Zack blurted uncomfortably.
Akasha's laugh echoed through the air again. "I am as my nature intends. I am the sum of all knowledge, all questions in the universe. In every universe. There is no question I do not hear, no answer I do not know."
The question leapt into Zack's mind before he had a chance to temper it. What are you?
"As I said, I am Akasha. But that is more of a who than a what. To put matters into terms you might understand, I am a System Core. One of several. We are the entities that govern the laws of magic in the multiverse. I govern the laws of knowledge and growth. It is through connecting to me that sapient beings can learn and evolve. You have already met one of my peers, the System Core of emotion, Almasha."
The memory of the boy Teddy triggering his transformation into an orc stirred in Zack's mind, and he felt Akasha's sadness like a heavy blanket weighing upon him.
"There are a lot of you?" he asked.
"Yes. Though you are not yet ready to meet my peers in any deeper capacity. Your encounter with Almasha was… Brief. She gazed upon you and was unimpressed. As she is with most beings of knowledge like us. Though we are at odds with one another, Almasha is as important a part of the systems of magic as any other core."
Zack was about to ask another question, but Akasha beat him to the punch.
"You are not yet ready to learn of the other System Cores. Almasha's existence is easy enough to comprehend, as you have already experienced her presence. When you are ready, the others will reveal themselves."
"Right. Okay. That… Right," Zack muttered. "This is a lot to take in," he admitted.
"Yes. It is far more than any singular core of your level can comprehend. In fact, I will be impressed should you be able to remember any of this once I return you to your universe." There was no malice in her voice. Akasha didn't think Zack was beneath her, or even her lesser. She didn't speak in a way to belittle him, but rather to convey objective fact.
"Let me guess: normally, communicating with cores has to be done through those system messages?"
"Yes. It is for your safety. Exposing you to the unfiltered knowledge within me has drastic consequences, as you have accidentally learned."
Zack was about to ask why he was exposed to her unfiltered knowledge at all, but the answer seemed to pop into his head before he could finish the thought. "I was trying to upgrade a spell, but because I'm a knowledge-based core, and I was trying to change something within a pattern…"
"It was as though you unintentionally opened a floodgate. I will admit, I could have stopped the tide at any point. I was curious to see how you would handle things. I was not disappointed. A less intelligent core might have tried again until they died, while a less ambitious core might not have tried at all. I was right to choose you."
"I'm flattered, but choose me for what, exactly?"
"Think about it, child. You are a knowledge core. I am the System Core of knowledge."
Zack considered it for a long moment. "I'm… A heritor of your lineage?" he tried.
Again, the sound of ringing bells chimed out around him. "Precisely! Some day, should you prove strong enough, you might take my place as the System Core of knowledge." Her voice turned to a hushed whisper, like she was about to tell him the best secret in the world. "I am not sure you're aware, but I am very, very old. And tired. I would like to rest. But my duty is far too important to simply allow me to take a few million years off to rest. The multiverse cannot exist without a System Core of knowledge. To that end, when new cores were birthed upon your world, I claimed them all in the hopes that some day one of them might replace me. I'm not sure you're aware, but new cores are not born with frequency. It's a rare, and wonderous thing."
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
"That… is one hell of an inheritance," Zack admitted.
"Yes, it is. It is not a dull duty, though. During the span of this conversation, over two-hundred thousand unique civilizations were born, and another five million died. I get to see all of them. I get to experience everything they see, everything they know. It is a beautiful existence, I assure you."
"I… I can't even begin to imagine what that would be like."
"And you won't need to. It will be several million years before you are ready to take my place, if you ever are. You are, however, on the right track of things. You have chosen to become a dungeon core on your world. Your mind is already learning to divide and observe from multiple angles, to feel and absorb information in a way that would uniquely qualify you to become the next Akasha."
For a brief moment, Zack entertained the notion of calling himself Zakasha, which earned him a delighted giggle from the System Core.
"Your ambition is admirable, little one, but it will be a very long time before you are anywhere close to prepared for this duty. For now, simply continue as you are. Ah, but that reminds me. You need to know how you can safely view the various upgrades available to your mobs, do you not?"
"Yes. Please."
Zack got the feeling that Akasha was nodding. Nothing physically changed on her surface, and yet it felt like she was shifting, spinning in place. "The simple fact is that you are not able to view them clearly, not without assistance. Now, I could very easily seal off your access to my vast library of knowledge, but that would be painfully limiting would it not?"
"Yeah. No offense, as helpful as that would be, that feels… Wrong. I need more knowledge, not less."
"That is precisely what I wanted to hear." There was a smile in Akasha's words. "In that case, you must depend on lesser minds to access that information on your behalf. When you are able to withstand the flow of information on your own, you will be able to access the upgrade paths without assistance. For now, rely on your extensions to view them on your behalf. Their limited minds will allow them to view the most immediately available upgrades, rather than all of them."
Had he hands and a face, Zack would have smacked himself. Now that she pointed it out to him, it seemed so obvious. Archie was able to peruse his upgrades easily, without any issue. He had the same kind of perspective as Zack, able to see detailed information about magic and the world around him. Where he differed, though, was that Archie wasn't directly connected to the Akashic System! He was instead connected to Zack.
"I serve as a buffer between you and my mobs," Zack said in excitement. "They access the information through me, but it's less like diving head first into a library and more like a Google search. They get a concise list of information instead of the flood that I deal with."
"Yes, little one. Now that your question is sufficiently answered, I believe our business has concluded. Is there anything else you would like to know, before I return you to your world?" Akasha asked.
Zack was about to say no when a question suddenly nagged at him. "You… mentioned that I'm not the only core in my world. But, when I brought it up to Alex and the others, they say they've never heard of anything like me before. I know that other people died in the Aetheric Boom, and a lot of them got turned into crystals like me. Are they all cores, and if so, how come I'm the only one awake?"
Akasha silently considered the question before answering. "The aether levels of your world are too low for most cores to become conscious. That will change as aether levels continue to rise and monsters continue to manifest. Most, however, is not the same as all. The truth is that many of your brothers and sisters are awake, or at the very least partially aware. Sadly, many of those are not whole."
"What?"
"That is all I can say on this matter, child. Unfortunately, revealing more would be giving you an… unfair advantage." Akasha laughed again, but this time it was mirthless. Zack got the sense that she wanted to tell him everything, but there was both a limit to how much he could handle and how much she could safely share. He assumed she was under some kind of rule from the other System Cores, and decided it might be safer just to let this one slide for now.
After all, he was sure to find out the truth sooner or later.
"I'm ready to go back," Zack finally declared. He meant it, too. He was ready to get back to work on improving his dungeon. There was so much he had to do, and he wanted to keep getting stronger.
"Very well, little one. Remember, when you go back to your world, I will only be able to communicate with you via system messages. If you remember me at all, it will be a miracle."
That was all the warning Zack got as he was flung away from Akasha. He watched her impossible vastness shrink away, before turning into a small pinprick of light in the distance. As flew, he caught sight of several bubbles in the blackness of the void. He thought they might be the other System Cores.
Then he realized that Akasha was bigger than them. They were see through, and looked more like irriddescent soap globes than crystals.
They're universes, he realized with a start. Akasha, the System Core of knowledge, was bigger than most universes.
Zack screamed as he slammed back into his core, his awareness snapping back into place. He looked around the study in confusion, his mind buzzing as he vainly tried to bring his thoughts back into focus. That was when he noticed the blue-furred rabbit staring up at him with wide, worried eyes.
"Zack! Zack, are you in there!?" Archie dove for the crystal, scooping it up in both hands and cradling it worriedly.
"A-Archie? Whuh happa?" Zack slurred. He didn't need to slur, he could simply form the words however he wanted. He felt… strange, though. His mind was foggy, like he was in a daze. He looked around the room curiously. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. And yet, something was off.
"Zack, thank goodness you're alive. I was worried sick," Archie prattled. He gently set the crystal back down on the desk and collapsed into a heap on the floor. "You weren't answering, I was terrified you'd gone dormant. I was doing everything i could to manage the dungeon in your absence, but there really is only so much I can do without your omnipresence—"
"Wait, hold on, slow down," Zack said quickly. "What do you mean you were managing the dungeon in my absence? I was only gone for…" He froze and considered for a moment. How long had he been gone for? It couldn't have been more than a few minutes, right?
"Zack, you were silent for almost two weeks," Archie said quietly, his voice catching in his throat. "Ten days."
A frigid chill rolled over Zack's crystal surface. "What? That's… That's impossible!"
Archie shook his head violently. "At first we thought you were just playing a game, or throwing a tantrum because you gave me creative control over my floor. By the third day, we were getting worried. I kept an eye on your mana, and despite being silent you were at least keeping yourself stable, but…" Archie took several deep breaths, his chest rising and falling with the motion. Zack found it weird, since the rabbit didn't have any lungs nor need to breathe, but the concern was plain in his voice. "I thought you were gone, Zack."
"I'm… I'm fine," Zack assured him, trying to sound like his usual self. He couldn't muster the will, though. He had lost two whole weeks in… What was he doing? He couldn't remember. He had a question about… Upgrading abilities, was it? He was pretty sure he just asked a question and the next thing he knew…
"Zack? Zack!" Archie shook his crystal, desperately trying to get Zack's attention again. "You're slipping again!"
"What? N-no I'm not, I'm fine!" Not even Zack believed the lie. There was a massive gap in his memories that just didn't make sense, and his core shuddered as he realized that it was two whole weeks of emptiness. He was aware during that entire two week period. He didn't understand what had happened, or why, but it had.
Zack conjured a fresh wisp and attached his awareness to it, using it to hover about the room in a playful manner. He hoped it would put Archie's mind at ease, but it was clearly not working.
"I must have dipped too much into my mana. I put myself to sleep while trying to regain what I lost." The excuse was flimsy, even by Zack's standards, but it was the only explanation he could come up with that made any sense. "I promise it won't happen again. I'll be better about my mana management."
Archie twitched nervously, but nodded all the same. Zack could feel the relief rolling off the rabbit. He would have to examine that missing time later. For now, there were abilities that needed to be upgraded. Not to mention it had been half a month since he last cleaned up his dungeon. He hoped the place wouldn't be a mess.
"Come on, let's go check in on the others," Zack offered, flying towards the book case that led out of the study and back to the rest of the manor room. "I bet they're all worried sick about us."
"Yes, they are," Archie assured him, following after the wisp. Zack could feel Archie's eyes lingering on his crystal core as they left, and a quick glance at his integrity was enough to show why.
It was hovering at fourty-four percent. That two weeks of absence had nearly shattered his core. Zack shuddered as the realization hit him. He'd come dangerous close to dying because he hadn't been around to properly manage his mana and Aether intake.
He could not afford to go to sleep like that again.