Nothing was left of the box, so that had gone perfectly. Apparently if Avery demolished a thing containing a living organism, it would remove the non-living material and leave behind whatever was within the container without harming its occupants. Two crickets, two of some sort of ladybug with long curling pincers coming from its backside, and eight beetles that looked like they were made of solid gold. They seemed content to stay exactly where they were, even the beetles that had fallen from wherever they had been in the box down onto their backs. From what Avery knew of bugs, that was fairly unusual, as normally they would wiggle their legs in the air trying to catch onto something they could use to flip themselves right-side-up again. While she was tempted to go and spend her mana on more corridors to maximize her regeneration rate, these bugs were potentially interesting. If she could kill them somehow, she’d could get the mana from their deaths and bodies, and potentially the ability to spawn them as well. On the other hand, if they didn’t provide enough mana to offset the cost of whatever method she used to attempt their rapid murdering, she would be better off not even bothering. On the other, less used, third hand, if they provided a negative regeneration rate like every other creature that had thus far existed in this cave, Avery would need to put their extermination at a priority

Probably should have used the inspect option on the box before demolishing it, to be honest. Avery wasn’t entirely sure why she hadn’t. The thing was interesting enough that she ought to have made finding out what was up with it one of her top priorities, rather than simply taking it out of existence for whatever mana it offered, and the materials. Come to think of it, the reason she was demolishing it was only for the material, not the mana. Her plan had been to build it again immediately, not spend the mana on corridors. That was also odd.

At least now that her mana regeneration situation was sorted out she could slow down and think about things. Looking through her build menu, along with the generically named ‘door’ she could now build in a multitude of varieties and sizes, all with their own mana cost, the various switches she had hoped for, and numerous other items, like clubs made of wood instead of stone with no actual benefit for her in terms of creation, as they were both weaker and cost the same as the stone ones, that she was expecting to have obtained from demolishing a box made of wood there were also a massive quantity of objects that were completely unexpected. Apparently there was enough metal in that box to start making copper, iron, mythril, and some kind of metal that, when she attempted to select it, would show up both dull grey and bluish-white in the build menu. Actually trying to use the mythril was out of the question though, since it would add thousands of mana to the creation cost of any given object. That particular metal was likely the reason Avery was now sitting at a pool of 662 mana, and further investigation into the menu discovers that it is indeed the case, with the object being listed only as ‘box’, with a cost of six hundred fifty mana.

Considering for another moment, Avery decides to table the possibility of recreating the box until after she has finished running through the various menus and inspecting all the things. Interesting, she could make a hundred copper coins for one mana. Any and all reasonable money concerns of hers were taken care of right there. Actually, looking at all the costs for the various items in the build menu, it all aligned with the economy, at a rate of one gold coin being one mana spent. Ridiculous, since that was more than most people could make in a week. No wonder so many people became adventurers, if the dungeons could pump out that kind of currency. It would take a fairly large area to provide the thing with enough mana to do so, but a smaller area wouldn't even be noticed anyway so whatever. Avery hadn't studied economics as much as she could have, but did know copper, silver, and gold were all able to be consumed directly into the workings of magic and magic imbuing, most notably by priests bringing back the dead, craftsmen like her family transmuting the metal into raw energy that made equipment more effective, or the wall of iron spell. That last one was less costly than the priest’s notable ‘gold to magic’ spell, only using a percent of what they did for the least powerful of their granted powers, but it rendered fifty coins worth of gold into about nine hundred kilograms of iron, for a wizard of Avery’s efficiency. It wasn’t exactly the best, and without extensive preparation she wouldn’t even be able to cast it anyway, as someone who was able to effectively cast that particular spell with their own mana reserves would be producing two thousand five hundred kilograms with the same input, but it showed the same type of material transmutation ability of mana and metal that was evident in this build menu. She checks the costs again, and confirms that iron will produce five times as much for the mana as gold, which held with the market values and kept the value of the powerful spell where it was. With powerful enough wizards around, building materials were never in short supply, assuming they focused enough on the subject.

Then again, wizards would also charge out the nose for their services being invoked. For that spell, the minimum qualified wizard would charge five hundred gold for the mana of that spell, plus the gold required, which would return five hundred fifty gold worth of iron. However, they’d probably know that and bring up their price accordingly. How it shook out would depend on the individual situation of the wizard and whomever contracted them, and the quantities involved precludes said wizards from simply generating metal and selling it off any time they need to fund their projects due to flooding the local markets. Unlike metals like copper silver and gold, iron would need to be used as it was, rather than be converted back into mana for use in whatever magical purpose anyone could need.

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Nice, now when she got distracted by thinking about magic, she was gaining a frankly obscene amount of mana instead of losing it. When she had a body, Avery had probably something like a pool of four hundred mana total to work with, and her soul would stay in her body. Now, she had so much regeneration that her entire pool would fill in the course of two hours, whereas normally it would take her a full day. Things were going to seem positively slow when she got back to her body and home again, at least until she figured out what her plan was altogether. Considering that her normal mana regeneration rate applied while she was in her body, her bodies normal healing factor was probably in effect as well. It probably wasn’t working while she was dead, but with a good night's rest, or several castings of the ritual to leave her unconscious on the floor for two hours at a time, she’d be healed enough to make her way back home and get some assistance. With everything perfectly safe and planned out, Avery could get her parents to help with the legwork on getting some monsters in her dungeon, new materials for exploiting, and maybe some extra minds working on how to best optimize all this mana. Clearly investing in getting more mana was a good first step, and then once she got an example of onyx that wouldn’t involve breaking down the gem she was busy being she could pump mana into the build menu to get high carat stones in mass quantities, which would be easier to move than literal mountains of copper coins.

Then Avery hears footsteps coming back to the entrance of the dungeon and, panicked, recreates the box where it was originally sitting.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Moving as silently as he could manage, Ham creeps up to the door and starts rotting it into nothingness. All is quiet beyond the door, relatively, so the human continues with his standard tactic, quietly removing the barrier between himself and his quarry. With the door rotted away, Ham charges his pick with the energy of the grave, and sneaks forward into the room. Hidden in the shadows himself, Ham sees the creatures living in this dungeon. Three goblins, gathered around a pile of something or other. Whatever it was, it was likely the proceeds from the dungeon, and Ham would have it. Carefully, the necromancer slowly sneaks up to the closest goblin, one whose back was turned to him, and stabs down with his pick into the neck-hole of the small creature’s armor, where the energy discharges into its body. As the creature falls forward from the thick spike impaling it being lifted out of its unconscious body, the two other goblins react to the sudden appearance of a much larger creature coming out of the shadows and striking one of them down with a single blow.

On both sides of Ham, the goblins act in near unison, the one to his left slightly faster than the one on his right, both picking up weapons and charging forward to strike down the human that wanted to murder them. First to arrive, the one to Ham’s left strikes downward, slicing toward the necromancer’s crotch. While a large target for the creature, its small size and short sword rendered it just the tiniest bit out of reach of actually connecting with the necromancer, but still setting up for the second goblin to set up an attack. With the distraction offered from dodging the first strike, Ham is unable to avoid the goblin following up with a strike into the ribcage. Unfortunately for the goblins, the necromancer had somewhat thicker skin than the average bear, and what would be enough to critically wound a typical villager was a scratch to the necromancer.

Forgoing the pick, now that the element of surprise was spent, Ham reaches out to touch the goblin who had managed to wound him, missing as the creature dodges the action like an introvert at a party. The goblins swing their swords at the necromancer frantically, moving to either side of the larger creature to effectively surround him, but to no avail, and Ham’s next deathly touch does not miss its mark. A burst of negative energy enters the goblins frame, winding it and causing it to stagger to the side. Enraged by the attack on its comrade, the first goblin lands its first hit on the necromancer as his back is turned, dealing the maximum damage its sub-standard short sword would do in a single blow. Ham turns around slowly, and reaches for the goblin, only to find his aim off the mark when he is stabbed once more in the back by the goblin he had already touched.

Using the last of its strength, the small creature jammed its blade into the necromancer’s spine, then collapsed unconscious behind him. Ham spares a glance back at the thing, but his attention is brought back to the goblin still standing and trying to defend itself. It doesn’t hit him, but nonetheless it manages to keep Ham from touching it for another few seconds. When he does make contact, the goblin is jolted to a slightly lesser degree than its companions, and hesitates for a moment. Deciding that running away would do nothing, it stabs once more at the necromancer, who was bleeding from two wounds at this point. Unfortunately for the goblin, it is unable to find any kind of success in striking the necromancer before it is touched once more, and falls to the ground.

With those that would pose a threat to him laying motionless before him, Ham repairs his wounds with a single touch, and removes the possibility of survival from any who opposed him through application of pick to skull, before setting down to take his spoils.