“So where are you building the base? “ Lily asked as I was about to go back. I paused for a bit and tried to find a way to answer her, as she couldn't follow my perception node. “How do I show you the spot? “
After a bit of silence, she said, “Oh! Take this and put it in the base! “ I then returned to her and saw a yellow orb with purple engravings on it. “What is that? “
She floated on top of it and said, “This is a spatial beacon. This will broadcast a signal I can trace back to it, so I can teleport to the place where you put this. Just give it a bit of mana and it will activate. “
I sent her a feeling of acceptance and lifted the orb to carry to the spot. When I reached the spot right above the base, I saw that the rain had stopped. The water had covered most of the ground, just leaving some muddy patches with some grass or bushes on them; some bushes could even be seen half submerged. I then went to a tree and put the beacon in it. I then sent it some mana; when I did that, the purple lines flashed slightly for a moment before dimming down slightly. It also started vibrating and humming. After a few seconds, a portal opened up, and Lily floated through.
After looking around for a bit she asked, “Where is the entrance? “
“It doesn't have one! I thought you could just port in. You wanted it to be secret; if there isn't an entrance, they can't get in! “ I was quite proud of my solution to unwanted creatures roaming inside the place I was building and she did say about it being a secret.
She seemed a bit surprised and she excitedly said, “Good! Just tell me how far down the space is so I can teleport down there! “ She then put the beacon somewhere.
“It should be about 3-4 meters from the floor.“ She floated to the water level and vanished from there. I dived down behind her and came in from the ceiling of the experiment chamber and saw her setting down the beacon here. “No, put the beacon in the next room. This is meant to be my experiment chamber. The next one is the entrance. “ She then picked up the orb in telekinesis and floated to the next room. This one was just like the room they came from, a 3-3 meter room with a pillar in the middle.
She put the orb on the floor but I had a better idea. I picked it up and put it in the pillar where I created a socket for it. Seeing that she bobbed up and down. Then she continued to the main lobby. “This is the biggest room I made. This is meant to be the main lobby/living room you requested.“
“The pillars are a bit of a problem but Zeta or Ember could fix that problem when they come by tomorrow. Let's get this going before that!“
“Who are Zeta and Ember?“
“They are my friends! Zeta is a machine spirit, he is pretty good at tinkering with machines and enchanting. He made the keyboard attachment to my phone as I can't use touchscreens with my telekinesis and Ember is a Fire Sprite; she is very good at working with metals and rituals, and she loves music. They are coming back from their contracts so I thought I could bring them here. They could teach you some things while they stay here!“ She excitedly told me. 'I guess I need to up my work if Lily's friends are coming.'
“At the left, you have your alchemy lab, and straight ahead are the storage rooms.” While she went to explore the rooms I started to think how to make this look better. I summoned a small block of granite and saw a 10 cm cube of grey stone appear. I then checked my mana to see that it took exactly 1 mana to summon. This was much cheaper than the strange stone. I manipulated it into a tile of 75 square cm. Then, I fit it into the wall using my earth manipulation.
After doing some not-so-quick math I found that it would take me around 950 tiles, with each tile taking 1 mana to create and around 0.2 to adhere to the wall, it would take about… 1140 mana. So about 12 hours of work. Let's get started. I started with the entry room and got in a rhythm with about 26 tiles in.
About halfway done with the second wall my trance broke when Lily telepathically pinged me and asked, “How long is it going to take you to finish this?“ “About 12 hours.“
“Ok, then I might be away to Gilspire when you finish. So take care!“ I sent her a feeling of acknowledgement and resumed my work.
When I finished placing the last tile I checked over to see if any other seems were showing and found the answer to a satisfactory no. After placing a bunch of tiles, I found that the seams between the tiles did not look good, so I had merged them together.
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I went up to my core to see if Lily was around and found her to be absent. I looked around to find the herbology book but didn't find it, she must have put it away in the box. So then I guess I should just do some experiments in my experimental experimentation room… hehe.
Returning to the room I meditated for about an hour for my mana to regenerate. I blocked the entrance to the room with granite. I first summoned a handful of rich soil and a small piece of strange stone, it cost me 0.5 and 5 mana respectability. Then I used my Fusion ability. Selecting the soil as the primary and the strange stone as the secondary. As the ability activated the stone melted and soaked into the dirt. Then the soil took a greyish hue, and the ability stopped. I checked again and saw that it took 7 mana for the fusion. Identifying the fused soil resulted in a strange stone, huh.?I absorbed half of it and waited for the knowledge. This time, I tried to parse through what I gained and found fractals, mana chains, and molecules, then I stopped as I couldn't make heads or tails of it. The message I got from the system was also weird.
> The pattern Starnge Stone has been updated.
I can't really figure out what changed except for it getting greyish, at least physically. Because of a sudden idea, I channel a bit of cold mana into the soil and see it easily accept it! Water began to gather on it and make it damp. Not wanting to waste mana I cut off the mana flow and absorb all of it to regain more.
Onto the next! I now try to summon a seed of the berry bush I have. I had seen the system do that so it should be possible. But I felt like I was drawing a blank whenever I tried to summon one. Then it clicked, I don't have a seed for the bush! I quickly went outside and located a berry bush outside of the swamp. On it were small oval-shaped red berries And small white flowers; I quickly absorbed a whole branch of it. For that, I got the patterns of its leaves, wood, flower and berry.
While I was here, I quickly absorbed a branch of the thorny bush and a whole vine; for that, I got the bush's wood, leaves, flower and berry; the vine gave me its leaf, stem, and sap. Then I returned to the experimentation chamber. On the floor, I summoned a berry bush seed and some soil, that took 1 and 0.5 mana. Then I started the fusion with the seed as the primary. The soil started to pour into the seed, which started to turn into a brownish paste. After the whole seed became a paste, the rest of the soil stopped and settled down. I checked and saw that this took only 2 mana. I absorbed it and it gave me the nutrient paste pattern. I tried again with the berry of the thorn bush and it had the same result.
Now onto the next! This time, I summoned the seeds of both bushes and fused them. The summoning cost me 1 each but the fusion cost 5 mana. The fused seed was a lumpy discolored thing. I summoned some soil and planted it there and I also put a bit of nutrient paste in there just to try. Then I used my plant growth spell on it but the spell just would not work on it! After wasting nearly 20 mana on it, I declared it a failure and absorbed it. It didn't even give me a pattern!
'Ok then, let's try something other than the plants next, as I think I need those skills Lily mentioned for that to work. I haven't summoned any of the creatures yet, let's do that!' After looking through the list I chose the slime as my first. In the middle of the room a ball of clear jello with a whitish crystal in the center. After a moment the crystal started moving around inside it, most likely scanning the room. It spotted a drop of nutrient paste I had missed while cleaning up and started crawling towards it. 'I would have thought that the slime would roll.'
It then gobbled up the smidge of paste; in its clear body, I could see the paste dissolving away. After finishing that the crystal started moving around again. I checked my mana and saw that to summon this slime it cost me 15 mana. Identifying resulted in another interesting thing.
> Clear Slime — 1
I didn't summon just a slime as the pattern was named but a clear slime instead. I opened its status to see.
> Name: (unnamed)
>
> Race: Slime
>
> Subrace: Clear slime
>
> Level: 1
>
> Core: (Unattuned)
>
> Health: 100%
>
> Mana: 10/10
>
> Mana Regen: 1/hr
>
> Traits: [open tab]
>
> Class: N/A
>
> Skills: [open tab]
> Traits—
> Dungeon Borne: As long as the Dungeon supplies you with mana, your physical needs for water, nutrients, air, sleep, etc are negated. However, you will still experience the sensations of thirst, hunger, fatigue, etc.
> Unattuned: Untethered to any elemental or mana affinity, you are a true blank slate. Immune to affinity-based influences, both harmful and helpful, you move through elemental fields untouched but find it harder to harness mana directly.
> Amorphous: Lacking a fixed form, you can flow and reshape at will, slipping into any shape or size within your mass. This fluid nature lets you bypass barriers and adapt to tight spaces, though maintaining complex shapes or precise movements requires focus and drains energy over time.
> Corebound: As long as your core remains intact, you are unyielding to death. Your body gradually regenerates by consuming mana, though the process is slow, requiring a steady supply to mend wounds and recover vitality. If your core is damaged, however, your regeneration slows even more or ceases completely.