> > When I look in my reflection, I am one with it. Because like the depth to any mirror, there is none to it.
>
> -Nameless great figure.
>
> This saying comes from a great figure of times passed, only a hundred or so years old, even though no one seems to know their name anymore.
>
> It is divided into two parts 'When I look in my reflection, I am one with it' and 'Because like the depth to any mirror, there is none to it'.
>
> The first has many interperatations floating around, those valid among them being:
>
> 1) That instead of seeing one's reflection as another being seperate from the self, one must see it as the self instead.
> 2) That the reflection is false and one should instead trust oneself.
> 3) That the reflection is not the self but also not false, but instead another form of the viewer.
>
> Then the second is more clear, directly stating that there is not depth in mirrors. But that does not mean it is the true meaning of the phrase, rather it is symbolism.
>
> It takes on the meaning a mirror image- Someone else similar to you- Has no depth for you to look for, stating that one has to look for the answer to their problems themselves.
-Exerpt from 'Sayings and their meanings' by 'Sarrah Haylen', distributed to all students of star academy since the 120th year of the new age.
----------------------------------------
Falc watched as one of the sentient remains he had left a little bit of will on was being transported by other sentients for some reason, it being brought all the way to the surface and quickly leaving his sight.
Well, that explained it quite clearly, they were retrieved by sentients for some reason. An interesting fact, but the more interesting thing was that the other corpse didn't have any mana keeping it together, though there was a bit of mana left over from somewhere in the body which had dispersed. It was not that much, actually- It was miniscule, just a bit more than the mana hidden in slime apostle 1.
Not the cost of the muscles, weave, skill or whatever else. Just what was passively remaining within it and was sometimes being used to use
But that did make him wonder how the sentients lived without mana binding them together, or how they even walked about without any mana muscles to their name. But, considering he now had the entire body's schematic floating in his mind, he would see if he could figure out the mystic power that let them move.
If he could, he may even be able to make sentients himself! Falc couldn't help but happily reduce the carcass he had recently recorded into his database into nothing by means of water and earth aspect usage.
...
The sentients had come back into the slime plains in full force, like he expected, there even seemed to be some attempts to enter the kill room. Though they sadly stopped on the way down, seemingly because their weird light brown strip made of countless other small brown strips wasn't long enough.
Kind of a shame, the amount of essence that he would've gotten from that would actually be somewhat enticing considering it wasn't one of the weaker sentients that were offed. Even if he wasn't exactly sure how much he'd get, considering some of the sentients gave more than ten times that of others, he was sure it would be at least a good bit more valuable.
Though all he could do was wait for the special day when his old scheme finally bore fruit, but that day was near, and his first stronger sentient kill would come!
With no other pressing or interesting matters to worry about, Falc returned to thinking about how to improve his slimes. The means were obvious, he had just recently used it to improve his understanding of
Falc could think of three other things that he had once used mana with, but had not compressed. First, the strange water he created as the slime's material anchor to the world. Second, the muscles, he hadn't even thought of it. Though, for some reason, the third reason eluded him for a slight moment even when he knew it existed.
It had something to do with weaves, but that couldn't be possible since he had already tested compression on the regular weave and skill weave. What other kind of weave could there... Be... The second weave.
Falc instantly got to work, mass producing mana strings of higher and higher order, seeing which round of compression would allow him to keep up two weaves at the same time along with the musculature and the physical body.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
And he found it, D-7. Just D-7, quite a bit lower than he had suspected. Since, well, his most revered creation was a D-14-0. Now, instead, he could create- If he kept the previous naming convention for the time being- A D-7-7 slime with only a bit of effort. Not even close to the effort required to make the D-14 weave, both because of the lower quantity and because he had made the entire process more efficient.
Then, a question came; What would he need to do in order to get a third weave on his slime?
Considering that his current creation had almost neared his maximum capacity before giving it life, it meant that the weaves had to be 2/3 the mental requirements they currently had. And that would be... D-11. Meaning that the next slime on the pyramid would be D-11-11-11, costing the same as a D-12 slime.
But, even if he could make one at will considering the stockpile he still hadn't touched since creating, he did not feel like making a D-12 slime's worth of mana threads right now. It was a time for experimentation, not one apt for mindless work. It wasn't as if slime apostle 1 wasn't still happily receiving his excess mana, so after he had finished designing and bringing that design in reality he let his natural mp regen into his dearest creation.
One might wonder, what was it that Falc had designed? It was simple, but also genius, at least in Falc's eyes. Instead of having the second weave being a regular weave, he made it a giant
There was a good weave perfectly good for the stabilization of its fellow weave, why not use it? After that was shown to not be a dead end, he also casually used the additional space left in his mind to create a complimentary D-8 ring floating in the center of the slime a layer above the
As he brought his newest experiment into reality, the only thing Falc was interested about as he brought it to life in the dark storage area was how strong the acid would be as a D-8 weave of
Diverting the mana streaming from slime apostle 1 in order to catalyse his new creation's nuclei's formation, he sat there and just watched.
-Eh? With a slight tug towards him from a seperate part of himself that sat with slime apostle 1, he went over to look. And it asked a question to him 'Is '[Uncommon]' good?'
Falc wasn't even sure how it even knew about the notion of something being [Uncommon], and he himself wasn't even sure whether it was good or not. But after a small moment of deliberation and dropped it a 'Yes' before returning to the important business he was partaking in moments before; watching the
Luckily the amount of mana it could take in wasn't that substantial, since Falc did need to fill the slime plains constantly considering his invaders had finally gotten some confidence again.
Even if that confidence was probably going to go down the drain soon.
At least, Falc really hoped it did, since then he could confidently add any of his newer creations to lower levels so that there was at least some proper anti-sentient capability within the dungeon.
...Again, there was nothing to do.
But he couldn't just aimlessly wait and not make the most of the time he had, who knew if that one second wasted would come back to bite him when more sentients came.
So, he had to get back to thinking what he hadn't used compression for; the variant of water used for slimes and muscles.
After a quick attempt with the water, he found it way too difficult. It just didn't mesh with his low control and affinity for the base elements, so he had to put it in the back of his mind for now. It didn't seem as if it was an impossible quest to do so, no, it just wasn't really worth the effort- Probably.
So, all that was left was to either build up the next room or see if compression was a help for muscles... Falc really wanted to experiment with muscles, he really did. But, well, it just so happened that it was already clear that he needed to prepare another diversion for when the sentients finally passed through the tunnels and the test box.
So, he had to start cooking up another scheme, one that improved upon the data he could collect from its predecessors.
Congratulations, your monster 'Slime apostle 1' has evolved from a slime [Common] to an elder slime [Uncommon]
Falc paused, and then wondered why his title 'Infant dungeon core' hadn't upgraded, taking a quick look at it.
Common Infant dungeon core
A new dungeon who has just breached the surface.
Inexperienced, unprepared, and most importantly; Weak.
-No effect.
Upgrade condition:
-Gain an uncommon schematic
-Survive for 10 days ✔
-Gain 1 leveled monster ✔
This had been the first time Falc had looked at the title since he obtained it, and he found an unfamiliar checkmark behind the condition that he had to survive for ten days. Which definitely couldn't be uncomplete considering his instincts were telling him a 'Day' was synonymous with a 'Cycle', so he quickly found himself confused as to why he didn't have question mark behind the uncommon schematic condition.
So, he went back to look at slime apostle 1 for possible answers.