While Alex showered, Zack used the opportunity to experiment. Based on the conversations he had with his friend, combined with his own personal experiences since waking up, there were a few fundamental truths that he was able to glean.
First of all, Zack was able to see detailed information about everything around him. In an effort to make sure that this wasn’t some fluke, he tested it out by inspecting several different objects around the living room.
[Television (Non-magical)]
[When connected to the proper networks and systems, televisions are able to transmit pixels of light to form complex images, giving the illusion of motion.]
[Absorb this object to acquire its materials.]
[Would you like to learn this pattern? Yes or no?]
[Refrigerator (Non-magical)]
[A storage device capable of maintain low temperatures. Can be used to store food for prolonged periods of time. WARNING: this unit is presently damaged.]
[Absorb this object to acquire its materials.]
[Would you like to learn this pattern? Yes or no?]
Zack selected yes for both devices, and understanding not only of their construction but also of their complex mechanics appeared in his mind. Like the rabbit, it was as though he were viewing them inside a 3D modeling program. As a test, he attempted to overlay a copy of the television into the world around him. To his surprise, his awareness seemed to shoot out of his body, affording him a better view of the living room. With ease, he selected a place to drop the television, and exerted a small amount of mana to create it.
Molecule by molecule, the copy took shape. It was exactly like a 3D printer, but instead of plastic fillament, Zack was using his own mana. This was the second truth he’d been able to glean. He could use mana to create objects. Initially, when he made the suggestion to Alex, he hadn’t been wholly certain if the power would extend to things or if he could only use it to make creatures, like his rabbit.
It didn’t take him very long to make the TV, either. After a couple minutes of channeling his mana, there was a perfect copy of Alex’s TV sitting in the middle of the living room. As a further experiment, Zack added a tiny horn to the top of the screen, identical to the one on his rabbit.
“I’m getting sick of thinking of you as bunny or rabbit. I guess I should probably give you a name, right?” Zack mused, turning his awareness to the animal in question. As if it could sense him, the bunny looked straight into his disembodied awareness, its nose twitching curiously. “Yeah, I’m not good at naming stuff. I’ll just call you Thumper for now, okay?”
To Zack’s surprise, the act of naming the bunny dipped into his mana reserves. The animal glowed for a brief second, and when it faded it had blue stripes lining its body. Mentally frowning, Zack pulled his attention towards the rabbit, and received a new status window for his troubles.
[Thumper, Dire Rabbit]
[Level 1 Monster, Beast]
[Dire rabbits are exactly like normal rabbits, but dire.]
Curiously, Zack quickly checked the TV.
[Dire Television]
[Level 1 Object, Electronic]
[Dire televisions are exactly like normal televisions, but dire.]
Zack snorted a laugh, though something about the item descriptions gave him pause. Obviously the addition of horns was what caused them to become dire, but what about their levels? What determined those?
Rather than try to struggle and guess, Zack decided he should attempt instead to use the third truth. He had something called the Akashic System, and though he didn’t fully understand what that meant, though he had a feeling it was connected to the first truth to some degree.
“System? Um, Open Sesame?” Zack tried. He waited a few seconds with baited breath, but wasn’t too surprised when nothing appeared in the air before him. He tried again, this time returning his awareness to his core. “Password!”
Unsurprisingly, that didn’t work either. Rather than fight to guess, Zack decided he’d be better off trying something that was more likely to work.
“Stats sheet!” This time, the words appeared at his command.
[Status]
[Name: Zack]
[Core type: Unassigned (Please choose an assignment)]
[Level: 1]
[Integrity: 100%]
[Mana: 6/30]
Zack flinched at his mana values. Again, he got that nagging sensation that if he let his mana drop too far, he’d go back to sleep. There wasn’t any information available on his status page about how to recover more mana, though.
“Um… Assist? Help?” Zack tried.
Nothing.
“How do I get more mana?”
That didn’t work either.
His frustration mounting, Zack was about to start cursing and hoping for the best, when an idea nagged at his thoughts. What if this wasn’t voice activated? Why was he trying to vocalize his queries, anyway? The only reason he was even speaking out loud in the first place was so that Alex could hear him. Judging by the sound of running water—and the faint echoes of emo music—coming from the bathroom, it wasn’t like his friend could hear him anyway.
This Akashic System, though, wasn’t his friend. It was something that Zack was integrated with. Zack wanted to take a deep breath, but had no lungs to fill. It was worth a shot.
“How do I get more mana?” Zack asked again. This time, instead of vibrating the threads of mana that composed his crystalline surface, he focused the words internally. To his delight, he finally got a reaction.
[Core function: Magic Filtration]
[As a Core, you possess the ability to filter Aether and convert it into Mana. In order to gain more Mana—both topping up your existing capacity as well as increasing it—you must absorb and convert more Aether.]
The words flashed across Zack’s vision, but also soaked into his mind. Normally a description that vague would leave him with more questions than answers, but he found his understanding of the concept surprisingly deep.
Magic came in two different states: eether was untempered and wild, making it impossible for normal people to handle without hurting themselves. Mana, meanwhile, was a more controlled and safe substance. Zack’s function as a core was to drink in aether and spit out the mana, exactly as a plant did for carbon dioxide and oxygen!
Before the question of how he could even get more aether could cross his mind, he found he already knew the answer. His plant analogy was spot on! Living beings converted mana back into aether when they used magic!
The idea got Zack so excited that his giddiness bled into Thumper. The dire rabbit immediately started hopping, rocking Zack around the table with its movements.
“Okay, okay, calm down Zack,” he whispered to himself, trying to clamp down on his infectious emotions. This information was a good place to start, but it wasn’t enough to go from.
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Not yet, anyway.
“What are the core types available to me?” Zack tried.
[Core Type: Unassigned]
[You presently have not chosen an assignment. Would you like to choose one? Yes or no?]
Zack shrugged and selected yes.
[Greater Core Type: Wild Land]
[Become the warden of a wild place. Your influence will grow to cover an above-ground space.]
[Perk: Increased monster spawn.]
[Monsters will spawn automatically within your influence and will gain an elemental affinity for your mana type.]
[Greater Core Type: Sky Palace]
[Become the warden of a flying fortress. Your influence will remain limited to your fortress, but you will be mobile.]
[Perk: Mobility]
[You will not be bound to a single location.]
[Greater Core Type: Dungeon]
[Become the warden of an underground labyrinth. Your influence will be limited to the interior of your dungeon and a small space beyond its limits.]
[Perk: Spacial Bending]
[You will be able to bend space within the confines of your dungeon, allowing you to make it bigger on the inside.]
[Lesser Core Type: Forge]
[Become the heart of a fiery furnace. Your influence will be limited to the items your craft.]
[Lesser Core Type: Portal]
[Become the heart of a tunnel between spaces. Your influence will be limited to the bridge between locations.]
[Lesser Core Type: Wand]
[Become the focus of a magic wand, enabling the wielder to use your mana in place of their own.]
Zack stopped reading as he reached the descriptions for the lesser core types. Not only did they come without perks, it seemed that lesser core types were more like menial laborers than anything. The greater types, though, those all caught his eye.
Like with previous access to information, Zack was able to learn far more from these descriptions than what was simply written there. He understood on a fundamental level what a basic example of each type would look like.
“Flying fortresses are cool and all, but that doesn’t really fit me,” he mumbled, dismissing that choice immediately. “Same with wild lands. I’m not really a country kind of guy. Not my style. That leaves the dungeon type as the obvious choice.”
Zack selected dungeon and didn’t even bother hesitating when it prompted him to confirm his choice. Almost immediately, he felt a change to the structure of his core. His crystal facets grew more refined, his shape more symmetrical.
[Congratulations. You are now a Level 2 Dungeon Core.]
Zack stared at the message for a moment, expecting something more to pop up. When nothing did, he mentally scowled and dismissed the words. A new one appeared to replace it a second later.
[Would you like to designate this Apartment Building as your dungeon? Yes or no?]
“Um… no,” Zack said quickly. From the instinctive understand he gleaned of his type, he knew that his dungeon would become an extension of himself. If his core was his brain, his dungeon was going to be his body. The absolute last thing he wanted was to designate an apartment building as his dungeon.
Partially because he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of forcing everyone in it out of their homes, mostly because it didn’t suit his needs. Dungeons needed to be large and sprawling, not tiny rooms sequestered on stacked floors.
Zack didn’t even question how or why he knew that. It wasn’t even instinctual, it was just an objective fact that was there when he tried to question it.
[Quest Available: Real Estate]
[As a newly awoken dungeon core, you must establish your dungeon in order to advance.]
[Reward: ???]
[Quest Available: Who the boss? YOU the boss!]
[Create a boss-level monster.]
[Reward: ???]
The sudden appearance of the messages took Zack by surprise. The quests were intrusive and distracted him from his thoughts. There was no option to turn them down, either, despite them being flagged as available. Mentally frowning, Zack studied them each in turn. Aside from the minimal flavor text and question marks, though, there wasn’t much else to glean from them.
“Cool. Okay. That’s something, I guess,” Zack murmured, dismissing the quests. Once more, he pulled his awareness out of his core and hovered around the apartment. It didn’t surprise him how effortless it was to move, like leaving his body was just something he naturally did.
An idea for a prank crossed Zack’s mind, and he started floating towards the bathroom. As he drew near, though, he found he couldn’t phase through the door or the walls. He thought this was strange, given he was a disembodied consciousness bound to a magical crystal.
It wasn’t the distance from his core that was the problem, either. He could enter the bedroom and sparse kitchen with no issue. Hell, he could even slip out of the apartment altogether and hover around the hallway—and it was only as he drew closer to the stairwell that the distance started to become a problem. The limit to how far he could go from his core was about twenty-five feet in any direction.
Curiously, he tried to access another apartment, only to discover he couldn’t. He tested it on a different apartment, and had no issue slipping inside.
“That doesn’t make any sense…” Zack mumbled to himself.
As one final test, he flew into this other apartment’s bathroom, and understanding dawned on him. This apartment was empty! There was nobody home. To test his theory, he lined himself up with Alex’s apartment and flew towards where he thought the bathroom would be. Sure enough, Zack slammed into the wall and bounced off.
“Ow,” he grunted, despite not feeling any pain. “Okay, so my disembodied consciousness can’t enter a room that has someone in it. Good to know.”
Zack quickly flew back to his core, just to keep from getting separated for too long. He didn’t think it would hurt him, but he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of leaving his body unattended.
Just in time, too. No sooner had Zack settled back into his core did the bathroom door open. Steam spilled out of the doorway as Alex stepped out, g-notes filtering from the phone in his hand. He was naked, save for the towel wrapped around his waist. For a moment, he paid the living room no mind. Then, he spotted the extra television sitting in the middle of the room.
“Um, Zack,” Alex started. “Why do I have a second TV?”
“What? Oh, right, that. I was just experimenting with stuff,” Zack said, making sure to vibrate his facets so Alex could hear him. “There’s a lot more to me than I originally thought, so I did some playing around and leveled up in the process!”
Alex did a double take, his scowl flicking from the TV over to Zack. “What? How!? Did you conjure some monsters to kill?”
“Um… no?”
“Then you shouldn’t have been able to level up. You have to kill monsters to level up, everyone knows that.”
Zack thought about that for a moment, Thumper cocking his head curiously. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works,” he finally said.
“Of course it is. Everyone knows that’s how it works.”
“Says who?”
“The universities,” Alex said, without hesitation. Before Zack had a chance to get another word in, Alex slipped back into his bedroom. He quickly dried himself off before tugging on some of the dirty clothes that lay strewn across the floor. Realizing his phone was still blaring music, he quickly shut that off.
“Are these the same universities that worked extra hard to make sure people had to pay big money to get a magical education?”
“Yeah, of course.”
That didn’t sit well with Zack. “And that doesn’t seem suspicious to you?”
“Of course it does, but that’s how everyone says it works. You train hard, you fight monsters, you get magical superpowers. This is known stuff.”
“I’m like ninety-five percent sure that’s not how it works at all,” Zack chuckled. “You’re level three, have you ever fought monsters?”
Alex paused with his pants half-on and glanced over his shoulder. “I mean… Not very often… Usually only when one sneaks into MallMart or something…”
“And you only know that you’re level three because you have that tattoo, right?”
Alex glanced at the brand on the back of his hand, and shook his head.
“Then how do you know when it happens?”
“You learn a new spell,” Alex explained. “Or you get access to some kind of elemental affinity.”
“And do you have spells or an elemental affinity?”
“One spell, one element,” Alex confirmed. “That’s how I know I’m level three.”
If Zack had a chin to scratch, he’d be itching it in thought. Instead, Thumper rose once more to his hind legs and did a good job imitating the motion for him. There was an aspect of Alex’s explanation that made no sense. You train, you fight monsters, you learn spells. What was Zack missing?
“What spell do you know?” Zack asked, his curiosity rising.
Alex finished tugging on his pants and threaded his scabbard through his belt, carefully sheathing the weapon at his hip. “Nothing too special,” he mumbled. He gave his status tattoo a quick glance to make sure he had the mana to spare, then raised a finger. A tiny flame appeared on the tip. “The Project Aether spell combined with my elemental affinity, fire.”
As Alex dismissed the spell, Zack could see thin threads of aether drifting through the air. Upon closer inspection, he was able to further see that Alex had used about half of the mana he recovered during his shower.
“You used two points of mana for that spell: one to cast the spell itself, and one to add your elemental affinity.”
Alex blinked in surprise and checked his tattoo. “Sure, I guess?” he shrugged.
Thumper nodded as understanding started to creep up in Zack’s mind. “Okay. Do me a favor: kill Thumper.”
“The rabbit?”
“His name is Thumper. Don’t worry, I can respawn him later. Just kill him.”
“But… He’s your bunny, isn’t he?”
“It’s fine. You can just stab him and he’ll die.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, I need to prove a point.”
“What point?” Alex demanded.
“That you don’t level up by killing monsters.”
Alex’s scowl only deepened as he drew his weapon again. The steel rang as it scraped against the scabbard. He held it upside-down in both hands as he poised to strike the rabbit. With only a few seconds of hesitation, he plunged the blade into Thumper’s back and yanked it back out again. There was no blood on the blade, instead there was a stream of blue-green light that flowed out of the bunny and into Alex’s arms.
Thumper made a show of dying, dramatically clutching his paws over his heart before collapsing into a pile of glittering particles. Those too flew up Alex’s arms.
“See, no level up,” Zack noted.
“Well, duh, it was a level one bunny.”
“Check your tattoo.”
Alex rolled his eyes and sheathed his sword, then did as he was asked. Sure enough, his mana bar was partially refilled. “Huh. What does this have to do with levels?”
“I’m pretty sure it has everything to do with levels,” Zack chuckled. “I don’t have an experience bar or anything of the like, and neither do you. You said yourself that this isn’t a video game, and yet levels exist. That means there has to be a reason we have them and a way to get more. What do you get when you level up?”
“A new spell or power, I already said that,” Alex reminded him.
If Zack could not, he would have. Instead, he settled for rocking his crystal back and forth. “No, you’ve got that backward. I’m fairly certain that in order to level up, you have to learn a new spell or power.”
“And what makes you so sure of that?” Alex asked.
“Because it’s my job as a dungeon core to aid in the process,” Zack said, a grin in his voice.