‘Not much to work with’ turned out to be an understatement. Not content with merely denying my divinity, my impious new denizens returned a short while later carrying sacks.

These sacks turned out to contain small, moldy black mushrooms, which they used to pelt my lone gnomish guardian – whom I’d decided to name Gneil – until he lost his balance and once again went rolling unceremoniously down the side of the hillock.

Satisfied, the other gnomes left, thankfully without throwing anything at me. My triumph at this was short-lived as Ket reminded me that this was likely because they still believed I was a demon.

Poor Gneil stumbled back up the hill and resumed his defensive stance. Meanwhile, I contemplated appropriately godlike responses to the actions of his miserable kin.

‘Can I set them on fire?’ I asked Ket.

‘No.’

‘Not even a little bit?’

‘No!’

‘But they don’t believe in me. That’s blasphemy! And they were mean to Gneil.’

Ket sighed. ‘A good god doesn’t just go around setting unbelievers on fire.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because,’ she said primly.

I mentally rolled my eyes.

Good argument. ‘

‘I thought gods were supposed to be all-powerful,” I grumbled. ‘What sort of god can’t even immolate a few heretics whenever he chooses, hmm?’

Ket sighed again. It sounded like a breeze whispering through leaves. ‘Remember when I told you that your power would grow in correlation with the number of your worshipers? Well, how will you increase your following if you kill all your potential converts?’

She had a point. Still, I couldn’t help but feel frustratingly impotent.

‘I thought this was meant to be my Sphere of Influence,’ I grumbled. ‘If that’s the case, I don’t seem to have very much influence.’

‘Not right now, no,’ Ket agreed bluntly. ‘But once you get a handle on your new abilities, things will change. You’ll see.’

‘And what abilities might they be? Growing moss? Talking to worms?’

‘Let’s find out, shall we?’

I grumbled some more, but ultimately decided to go along with whatever Ket had planned. Even if my so-called abilities were less than impressive, it was surely better than having none at all.

Besides, we all have to start somewhere.

Ket was glowing brightly.

Damn, she really does love bossing me about.

‘Right! Let’s start by looking around again. Do you need me to help you do it?’

‘No, no. I can do it on my own.’

I concentrated hard, straining to leave my body – no, not my body; my gem, I reminded myself again, glumly. Pushing aside such thoughts, I stared at the cave ceiling and focused every fiber of my being on willing myself up there.

Nothing happened.

I wanted to scream with frustration. Why could I not do this simple thing? I’d done it earlier, after all. Why not now?

‘Relax, Corey,’ said Ket. ‘Don’t be so tense!’

Relax? How am I meant to relax?

I was a rock, which was by definition structurally rigid. ‘Tense’ was my new natural state.

I huffed and puffed – well, as best I could manage without a pair of working lungs – and tried once again to forget about my physical predicament.

The first time I’d done this – left my gem of my own volition and gained that god’s-eye view of the cavern – it had been entirely accidental, my mind’s instinctive reaction to the shock of direct sunlight. That wasn’t going to work a second time, not now I was accustomed to the light. So, I tried a new tactic.

Recalling my recent stint in the abyss, I envisioned myself floating in the dark. Mindless, weightless, sightless…

A dizzying jolt, and then I was suddenly hovering several feet above my gem.

I did it!

In my triumph, I lost my balance and did a little roly poly in mid-air. In my incorporeal state, I had no idea how to regain my balance, and continued to tumble over and over.

As the cavern spun before me, anxiety replaced excitement.

‘Ket! Help me!’

My pride went out the window – or rather, through the hole in the ceiling above – as I found myself trapped in my own ridiculous gyre of incompetence. The scene before me spun: bright daylight, interspersed with flashes of greenery and the blurred, grim dimness of the rest of the cavern.

Just as I was preparing to panic, everything stabilized. The world went back to normal – or at least the right way up – and my center of non-gravity was restored.

‘Nicely done.’ Ket’s laughter tinkled in my mind like spiders tap-dancing on glass.

‘Your panoptic vision, Corey – which you’ve been thinking of as your ‘god’s eye’ - is an intrinsic ability all Cores possess,’ the sprite explained, zipping around in front of me like an obnoxious firefly. ‘As you’ve already discovered, it allows you to ‘leave’ your physical Core – in this case, your gem, though of course your soul will remain irrevocably tethered to it – in order to better survey your Sphere of Influence.’

‘And remind me: what’s the point of having a Sphere of Influence if I can’t control anything inside it?’ I grumbled.

She tutted. ‘The sooner you learn that ‘control’ is not the ultimate goal here, the better. Now, come on: use your god’s-eye vision to travel over there, toward the mushrooms.’ She guided my viewpoint in that direction.

I could just about see their gray-brown caps, grouped together in a dirty-looking mass.

‘All right, now imagine yourself moving closer,’ Ket instructed. ‘Focus on the mushrooms, and will yourself in their direction. Imagine moving closer to them. Focus, now…’

She made it sound so easy, but when I did ‘move,’ it was sudden and unexpected. I zoomed across the cavern, landing once more among the mushrooms. Everything went dark.

‘Ket!’

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I shuffled and squirmed, trying to work out what had happened. I heard Ket giggling for a good long minute before she finally took pity on me and hauled god’s-eye-me out from the soil.

While I mentally shuddered at the sight of its patchy, grim-looking stalks beneath me, Ket guided me upward until we hovered just above the nearest mushroom’s rounded cap.

‘Nicely done,’ she said again. ‘Now, while we’re here, why don’t you take a proper look at this lovely little mushroom?’

The only thing that was ‘lovely’ about it was the fact that I wasn’t physically present to smell or feel it. Besides, she’d just pulled me out from inside it. What else could she possibly want to show me?

‘I think you’ll find I’ve already seen all there is to see about this particular specimen,’ I replied loftily.

‘Just look,’ she said.

Grumbling, I directed my gaze toward the offending mushroom. The rounded surface of its gray cap glistened damply; strips of skin had peeled away, either from scavengers or some kind of fungal disease, and—

‘Argh!’ I yelped.

As I stared at the mushroom, something strange began to happen. A vision of a second mushroom appeared – a perfect replica of the first in size and dimensions, except this apparition was blue and faintly glowing.

‘What’s that?!’

When I examined it more closely, I saw that it was comprised of thousands of tiny blue lines – like filaments in a butterfly’s wing, or strands in a spider’s web. They spread across the body of the mushroom, each strand branching out and interconnecting with others in a thousand different ways until they formed the perfect whole, superimposed atop the real-world specimen I’d been looking at.

I found that if I concentrated hard enough on the blue duplicate, I could move it wherever I wanted. I pulled it away from the mushroom and into the air, where I stared at it, bemused. Now that it hung suspended in the air, I saw the extensive network of fine roots that extended out from its base

‘What’s that?’ I asked again.

‘Remember those special abilities I mentioned?’ Ket replied. ‘Well, this is one of them.’

‘But what is it?’

‘This skill is known as Insight. As a God Core, you have the power to comprehend all living things within your Sphere of Influence. What you’re seeing now is what we call a ‘blueprint’ – the very essence of what living things are made of, distilled into a form only a Core can decipher.’

Huh. I’d never really thought of something so tiny and insignificant as a mushroom as an actual living being, but I supposed she was right. Faint, flowing lines streamed from countless points around the mushroom’s edges, eddying across the cavern directly toward where my gem sat atop its hillock. The blue lines appeared to be flowing into my gem.

‘What are those?’

I had no way of gesturing toward the flowing lines, but Ket knew what I was referring to.

‘Those moving lines represent ambient mana, which is a sort of excess life force naturally produced by all non-intelligent living things. In areas with no Core present, it’s simply reabsorbed into the atmosphere, but in areas that are ruled by a Core – such as this cave – the ambient mana is siphoned directly into the Core itself.’

I wasn’t sure how I felt about being force-fed these particular mushrooms’ life juice, but decided not to think about that for the time being.

‘So this ‘mana’ they give me… it’s sort of like a life tax?’ I asked.

‘Paid by things that dwell within your Sphere of Influence, yes, I suppose it is. Though it’s paid willingly, and passively. There is no way for you to directly extract it, or take more than your natural share – although you can manipulate it, if you work hard.’

‘Isn’t mana used by mages to cast spells?’

‘Correct!’ If I’d had teeth, I would have gritted them at the patronising note in Ket’s voice as she praised me. ‘When you eventually become more powerful, you’ll be able to employ mana in a similar way in order to use magical abilities of your own.’

Magical abilities? I’m going to be a wizard!

Ket’s voice brought me back from my fantasies with a bump. ‘Don’t get too excited. These abilities won’t let you simply do anything you want, like causing earthquakes – or setting disobedient gnomes on fire,’ she warned. ‘But they will enable you to better help your denizens and create a safe, stable base in which they can thrive. And it’s all thanks to the humble flow of mana from one being to another.’

Now that I concentrated, I could actually taste the mana from this particular mushroom. It was nourishing, yet hard and bitter, which I somehow knew was due to the absence of sunlight and the lack of proper cultivation.

I followed those swirling mana lines back to the mushroom, and examined the ethereal blue mushroom form beside it. I pondered its complexity – so much more than just the simple, ugly fungus I’d summoned it from. How had I done that, again?

‘The particular skill you’re using right now doesn’t require mana,’ Ket went on. ‘If it did, you’d notice your mana levels begin to deplete. See that blue globe in the bottom right of your vision?’

Now she’d pointed it out, I could.

How did I not notice that before?

It was a small blue sphere, translucent, softly glowing and pulsing like a heartbeat. The sphere was superimposed against my surroundings, remaining in the bottom right of my vision no matter which direction I looked, and I somehow knew it was only visible to me – and Ket too, apparently.

‘That’s a mana globe, Corey,’ Ket said. ‘It’s full at the moment, but it will diminish with each mana-based ability you choose to use.’

‘But it will refill with…’ What had she called the blue lines? ‘Ambient mana?’

‘Over time, yes. There are other ways to regain mana, which we’ll discuss later, but for now, remember this: you must never expend all of your mana. That globe you see must never be allowed to empty completely, otherwise your crystal will shatter and everything we do here will be in vain. Do you understand?’

‘Erm. Yes?’ As far as I could tell, we hadn’t ‘done’ anything here yet, but shattering certainly did sound bad.

‘Promise me, Corey,’ Ket insisted. ‘Promise you’ll never let your mana deplete entirely.’

‘I promise,’ I told her. A rush of emotion washed over me: concern, anxiety, and then relief. Back at the hillock, I caught sight of my gem shimmering between colors, reflecting these unexpected sensations. ‘Whoa – what was that?’

‘You… you weren’t meant to feel that.’ She shuffled her feet awkwardly. ‘As Core and sprite, we share more than just dialogue. The nature of our bond means that we can also sense strong emotions from each other. For instance, the pain and confusion you felt upon regaining consciousness was what drew me to you.’

Huh. Interesting. And potentially inconvenient.

‘I try to shield my emotions as much as possible,’ she continued, ‘but sometimes they… slip out.’

I could sense her shame at this fact. Embarrassed by it, and by the intensity of the relief I still felt from her, I changed the subject.

‘Why is this ability called Insight?’ I asked, focusing on the mushroom’s blueprint once more.

Before she could reply, some of the blue lines began to move, darting and squiggling across my vision in a ghostly mushroom-shaped dance against the shadowy backdrop of the cavern.

It was different to the mana lines; this time, it was as though they formed words, except that I could not read them. Instead, they danced their way directly into my consciousness, so that my mind was filled with words and concepts I’d never known before – things I wasn’t entirely sure I even wanted to know.

For instance, I now knew that the network of roots spidering out from the base of the mushroom was called the mycelium, and that it actually formed most of the mushroom’s body mass. I also knew that this particular mushroom could be scientifically classified as a bolete, and belonged to the Basidiomycota division of the Fungi kingdom.

Whatever that means.

The bluish symbols continued to swirl and dance around the image of the mushroom. All the while, my mind swam with this new inrush of awareness. I had to admit, it was a fairly impressive – if slightly nauseating – trick. But what was the point of it?

Ket anticipated my reaction. ‘It’s more useful than it first appears.’

I mentally raised a skeptical eyebrow. ‘Useful in what way?’

She tutted. ‘Understanding your environment is the first step toward influencing it, Corey. But not only does this skill let you identify and understand all living things you cast it upon – such as this rather delightful fungus specimen – it also allows you to create more of those things, should you wish to.’

‘More of the weird freakish blue things?’ That didn’t seem very useful.

‘No, Corey. I mean actual living, breathing beings.’ Ket zipped down and tapped the mushroom’s disgusting slimy cap. ‘When you become a little stronger, you’ll be able to form as many of these beauties as you want. Or rather, as many as your mana pool allows.’

That… still didn’t sound very useful.

‘Why would I ever need the ability to make mushrooms?’ I demanded. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my days of imbibing them are long past.’

‘It’s not all about you, Corey.’ Ket’s scathing tone took me aback. Before I could ask her what she’d meant by that – of course it was all about me! – the blue-lined mushroom faded from view.

‘Hey – where did it go? How am I supposed to remember all that blue squiggly rubbish?’

‘Relax, Corey. This blueprint will have embedded itself in your consciousness by now. I’ll show you how to access it again later, but rest assured that this is something you couldn’t forget, even if you tried.’

To my amazement (though perhaps I should’ve stopped being surprised at this by now), Ket was right. I found I could conjure the image perfectly in my memory.

Something about this niggled at me; it was almost too easy. If I’d learned anything during my years as… well, whatever I’d been before, it was that nothing worth having could be gotten without a hefty amount of blood, sweat and tears – preferably someone else’s.

‘Ket… how is any of this possible?’ I had a vague recollection of magic – fire and flashiness, mostly, conjured from the twisting fingers of those who’d studied dusty books – but this sort of instinctual, intrinsic knowledge of the world itself seemed something different. Something more.

‘Anything is possible… for a god.’ This seemed to contradict what she’d said earlier – whatever happened to ‘no delusions of grandeur’? – but before I could question her further she clapped her tiny hands together.

‘Anyway, enough of my explanations for now. I can tell you’re getting bored, you ungrateful rock. Let’s go and find more blueprints. And you can practice maneuvering your god’s-eye self while we’re at it!’

Yippee. I can hardly wait.