[Smag’s POV]

The dungeon is eerie quiet. There are no adventurers and no monsters.

“Let’s check the village.” I tell them. Asaru leads us there. Nobody ambushes us, and neither do we find anyone.

The village is empty. Adventurers took back their stuff, leaving only goblins’ buildings. There are some shrubs around, with berries on them. I take a look at them. They don’t feel real. I take them into my mouth and even insert a trickle of my mana into them to feel them up, and I find no water mana inside. Water mana wouldn’t be dominant in real fruits, but there would be some of it. I spit out the dungeon fruit.

The village has a lot of hidden passages, but according to Asaru, all of them have been well documented by adventurers by now. There is a small pond in the center, with a small stream adding to it. I can actually feel water mana, so it seems to be real.

The most interesting part, at least for me, is the shack of the shaman. I find an altar in there. There is some gold and a bowl full of blood on the alter. I don’t think any of this is real. I find a few magical tools. One of them, after an inspection, is a tool for the Transfer Vitality skill, the same I had. The runes are slightly different, but it’s probably the effect of different perks. I guess skills remain static through the ages, assuming we are really in an echo of the past, like Asaru said.

There are two more tools with runes on them. I research them for an hour, until Anastasia calls me for a meeting. I recognize small fragments of those runes, but they are not enough to figure them out.

“There are no humans here. What now, Smag?” Axi asks.

Asaru frowns. “It’s good that they have left. Now, we just need to wait until the dungeon respawns goblins and the situation returns to normal.”

Not wanting my leadership? Hm! “She is partially right. We need to wait for spawns. In the meantime, we should check the exit of the dungeon.”

“Why? Do you think it will be unmanned?” Anastasia asks.

“It’s more likely that it’s a trap. I’m not taking that risk.” Asaru declares.

“It’s true it may be a trap and an ambush, but I still think we need to check it out. I was thinking, what if we block the exit? Like, build a blockade. Maybe the dungeon will create a new exit for itself in a place that’s not heavily fortified.”

Asaru frowns. “Humans are likely to destroy your blockade.”

I shrug. “It’s worth a try. Let’s go,” I order. Axi, Anastasia and my hobgoblin follow me, while Asaru stays. Tsk! We are going to run away at the first sign of danger. I can't just wait in the villiage. I'm a coward, but being passive in this situation is just begging to be killed.

After fifteen minutes of walking, I acknowledge that we are slightly lost. I am not completely lost; I think I still know the general direction in which we should go, but I have no idea where exactly we are. Walking around with Asaru taught me a bit of the layout, but it seems not enough. It’s good nobody is here to use the chance for an ambush we are giving them.

Three hours later, we find the exit. On one hand, I’m elated, but on the other, I keep myself from overreacting. This is the most dangerous part. I frown. We may as well blow the trap from a distance.

“Axi, can you burn things ahead of us? You know, if there are any traps, I want to trigger them before they can endanger us. Try to conserve mana, if possible.”

She nods, and flames fill the corridor. We slowly move forward. Maybe too slowly. Fire without fuel is disappearing naturally, making it a rather expensive element to continuously conjure. We reach the exit uninterrupted.

Should we try to create a blockade now? The film of the exit seems to block sight and sound, so it’s unlikely someone will notice. It will leave us vulnerable, though. Humans can enter at any time. I sigh and decide to return to the village for now. I don’t know why adventurers stopped hunting for us, but right now they are probably not slacking. If the situation persists, there is less likelihood of scouting parties entering the dungeon after a few days, though.

Another problem is that the dungeon is going to start spawning monsters any time now. From what Asaru told us, dungeon doesn’t like when someone messes with the layout. We could fight spawned goblins for a while, but what if humans enter the dungeon at the same time? It’s too much risk.

Going back to the village takes us only two hours, so it’s an improvement. Asaru could probably make it in ten, or at worst, twenty minutes. The dungeon is not that large.

Entering the village, we are greeted with the sight of ten goblins raising their weapons against us.

“Allow me!” Asaru comes over before the fight can commence. She waives her hand, and I reluctantly lower my defenses. I don’t feel any different, but goblins are no longer aggressive. “I faked your skin to make you look like a dungeon spawn.”

I send a bit of vitality mana to my skin to check on it. Indeed. My skin seems different. Vitality mana is suppressed. In practice, it’s impossible to heal skin wounds like this. I can probably overpower that effect with a lot of mana and heal myself, but that would likely break the disguise.

“Thank you. We found that the exit is unguarded from this side. I think it’s worthwhile to try the blockade after a while. By the way, do you mind if I experiment a bit on them?” I point at the spawned goblins. “Maybe I can figure out how to transform them faster. Would that break the disguise?”

“I don’t mind. As for disguise, I don’t know. The dungeon is not intelligent, so reapplying my fake mana or making it stronger should suffice to trick it again. Also, dungeon will still regard those goblins as its own until they evolve.”

I smile. “Good!” I walk to one of the goblins and observe him for a while in his natural habitat. It behaves like a living organism, which isn’t strange, given they have souls. On the other hand, they seem to be programmed to do some things. They walk around and don’t do much. There is dungeon food in the village that respawns on its own, but I don’t know if they actually have to eat. Do they?

I wish I had poison. That would be an interesting experiment. Would poisoning dungeon food kill them? Actually, it’s probable.

Time for research. I grab a goblin and drag him to shaman’s hut. I frown, looking at how the goblin keeps resisting. I let him go and find a rope. After that, I grab a goblin and tie up his hands and legs. I look around, and nobody attacks me. Good enough. I drag the goblin into the hut. It's time to figure things out.

How do you change the vital energy of someone? I know it’s possible. The only thing I can tell is that the souls of the dungeon goblins are slightly different. This means that the source of change is likely in the soul. Unless vitality changes the soul, but I can check that.

I create a ball of condensed vitality and send it inside the goblin’s body. Nothing happens, which is quite different from normal. Vitality isn’t personal, so the moment my vitality touches someone else’s vitality, they merge, and I lose control of it as it becomes connected to their soul, and I need to fight with their Will.

Nothing like that happens here. In a way, it’s just like I’m holding a ball of vitality in the air. Vitality outside of a living body dissipates quickly. When I’m throwing vitality here and there to heal others, I estimate that around 10 to 20% of it dissipates in the air. When possible, I prefer to transfer it by touch.

I keep spending vitality mana to keep the ball of vitality existing. The goblin is squiring and uncomfortable, and I observe nothing different. I move the ball of vitality to the goblin's head and to his soul. Normally, a dead soul seizes vitality for itself. That vitality quickly dissipates normally, as a dead soul, by its very definition, is outside of a living body. Throwing vitality at a normal soul in someone’s body just heals them.

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The goblin is in pain. I’m guessing the vitality mana in the ball is fighting with his vital mana for dominance. Dungeon mana probably transfers information just like vitality mana. Messing with his vital mana in his head probably messes with information and causes pain.

I take the vitality back into my own body, healing various lingering wounds and bruises. This approach is not working. I could maybe flood his body with all my vitality, but that would probably kill him. Even if it's successful, it’s too expensive. It would only be able to convert one, maybe two goblins a day. It would be an even worse rate with hobgoblins.

I need a different approach. Let’s assume the change happens within the soul, which is plausible. How do I affect the soul? My Move Soul skill uses isolating mana to interact with something I assume is soul mana. If soul mana exists, it’s probably a six-merged mana type. Wait! What about a non-magical approach?

I can control vitality mana, but there are ways to affect vitality without it. Hurting someone is the most common example, but there are others. Eating well is good for your health and vitality, and so on. Can I affect the soul this way? The soul is the mind. So… Should I treat him like a person and have deep, meaningful discussions with him to awaken his personhood? Like, be nice and friendly?

I take another look at the goblin. He is tied up, lying on the ground, and looking at me hatefully. By the way he moves, it seems he is trying to escape. I may not be doing this right…

I will try this approach with the next goblin!

What else can I do with magic? I take another look at his soul. It’s hard to affect the soul. Mana, in general, follows the example of how the elements interact with each other. For example, when there are a lot of different mana types in the same space, those mana types fight with each other, decreasing the amount of mana of all mana types until one of them is suppressed below some arbitrary level. That’s not always the case, though. For example, heat mana and fire mana have no problem existing in the same place.

Or heat mana and lave mana, and so on. I wish I had access to those two mana types, so I could send both types into, for example, ice and check if they would fight each other. That would be an interesting experiment.

I have done a few experiments on souls. In one of them, I placed a soul over a fireplace. Could you roast a soul? The answer is: not really. The soul decayed faster, though, and disappeared a few hours earlier than usual. There was some conflict, but not strong enough. I would need a stronger mana type.

I create a ball of vitality and bring it to the goblin’s soul. This time, I don’t keep it near the soul but attack it directly. The goblin stops moving and seems to be sleeping while I observe the changes. The soul weakens, even though it’s still in a living body. Fascinating! The effect is slow, though. It’s not suitable to use this as a weapon; the enemy would keep moving in a fight, rendering this attack useless.

The vitality mana should be more potent than fire, but it seems it isn’t as damaging. Even so, the soul keeps weakening and even decaying, something I couldn't achieve with fire. Simply put, I can’t keep a ball of fire in someone’s head without killing them. After a few minutes and spending half of my mana pool on this, I suddenly lose control of my vitality.

The soul decayed considerably. I would even say I have never seen a soul in such a poor state. Normally, they would disappear already. The goblin is still alive, though unconscious. Vitality mana starts to spread from the soul into the body. I observe keenly. The amount of vitality is not enough to support a body. Is this the same as a natural process? I wish I could observe a natural transformation to compare the two.

The soul transforms slightly as well, but not at once. It seems the soul only transformed in one part to vitality mana, and that part is spreading it. A few minutes later, another part of his soul changes, and another stream of vitality goes into the body. The process is slow enough that the first stream managed to create a weak cycle. Over three hours, the soul completely transforms, and the goblin becomes the same as a born one.

With an experience of his soul, which is still decayed and weak. Will he recover? Do souls have a capacity for natural recovery? That’s very interesting, and the answer will help me in my project of carving runes on souls.

I leave the shack, and I’m startled. There are around fifty goblins and around twenty hobgoblins. The dungeon is fast! I find Asaru and ask her to show me how the dungeon is spawning new goblins. I’m interested in what my Soul Sight will show me.

I spend half an hour sitting in a place and awaiting a miracle of life. Just as the dungeon reclaims the bodies, a goblin is suddenly being molded out of the ground. A small soul appears inside, similar to a new soul in a fetus in a woman’s body. It grows quickly, though, and a whole goblin is created in ten minutes.

Observing the fast-forwarded process of soul growth was interesting, but ultimately gave me nothing. I go back to the transformed goblin. I’m not sure if his soul is recovering, but he has yet to awaken. I give him some vitality to top it off, and I leave. We are not going to stay in the village at night. The chance that humans would come is too big.

“Asaru, I have a question. You were once a dungeon goblin that became real, right?”

She nods.

“Do you remember how that happened?”

“Not really. I remember finding out that most other goblins are not like me. It’s a bit like waking up from a dream and then forgetting that dream.”

I sigh. No clue here. “By the way, has the dungeon spawned another copy of you? Can I find another female goblin here?”

“No. The dungeon doesn’t spawn goblins that break free and are still alive. If I die, the dungeon will spawn another me.”

I nod. I hoped for an infinite pool of females.

“By the way, where did you find a fake mana treasure?”

“Treasure?

“Yes. Where did you get your magic?”

She looks at me incomprehensibly. “Here. In the dungeon.”

“Oh? Do you think it’s possible to find another one?”

“I don’t understand. I never found anything. One day, I had a moment of understanding, and after that, fake mana gathered in me and created my core.”

I frown. Could this be a reason she can turn fakeness back into fake mana? Is getting a core this way better? Should I meditate on vitality? I already spend a lot of time on research.

“Was this understanding practical or more philosophical?”

“Philosophical?”

I shrug. “Not practical. Theoretical, maybe even based on emotions.”

Her eyes cloud for a moment as she thinks. “Both”

Asaru opens up one of the hidden tunnels, and we go to sleep there. The next day, most of the goblins in the village have already spawned, including the shaman. There is no sight of adventurers yet.

I observe the shaman for a bit. He ignores me, since Asaru magic is still on me. Interestingly, he also ignores the soul-damaged goblin in his shack. I find Asaru and ask her about it.

“Dungeon ignores those who become real until they evolve.”

“Do those have any lingering dungeon mana on them?” I ask. I have an impression she can see dungeon mana the same way I somehow can perceive vitality mana and souls. Personal talents, probably.

“Yes. I fake you being a dungeon monster, which gives you and your friends some fake dungeon mana.”

Mystery resolved, I grab the rope and find another experimental subject. The previous one seems a bit better, soul wise, but at this rate, it will take him weeks to completely recover. I don’t think that vitality counts as food. He will probably die from starvation, his body wilting away.

I drag the goblin to an empty place at the border of the village. I don’t want a possible hostility with the shaman, and it doesn't seem like anyone is going to bother me. I thought about the problem, and it seems that forcing vitality, or maybe vitality mana, into a soul makes it transform. This is my hypothesis. In this case, I need a better way to force it. I’m planning to further compress vitality and try to drill with it a small hole into a soul. I consider using isolating mana to help myself, but my control of vitality mana is better.

I start by drawing a considerable amount of mana from my core. I will try to decrease expenditure later, assuming the experiment succeeds. Then, I condense it as much as I can while slowly feeding it more mana to compensate for the amount dissipating. I move the ball to the soul. Should I place it on the border or move it inside it? Let’s try the first option first.

The goblin keeps moving, though, so I lock his head between my legs. Maybe I should find an assistant. After a few minutes, nothing happens, and I lose half of my mana. I move the ball inside the subject’s soul. Is the space here more than three dimensional? At least, it seems like the soul is in a different dimension than the rest. But on the other hand, I can still influence it. It shouldn't be possible if the soul is really in a different dimension. Is it just intangible? I don’t understand.

My musings are interrupted as I lose control of my vitality mana. I perk up. The soul starts to transform. Success!

I transform into vitality most of my remaining mana and give it to the goblin. His transformation goes smoothly, even faster than the previous one. His soul is also not as wounded. There seems to be a fracture at one point where my ball has been, but nothing else. I’m not sure how long the recovery will take, but I know the procedure is still too expensive. Even assuming the goblins will transform without me feeding them additional vitality, my whole pool can only last for four, maybe five transformations. Even if I were to only meditate on recovering mana and transforming goblins, my best bet is six regular goblins a day.

I’m not even sure I will be able to transform hobgoblins; their souls should be more resilient. But! I made progress. I take a break and leave the goblin behind. The ambient mana in the dungeon is sparse, but bringing it to my core still increases the recovery of my vitality mana. I spend the day doing that and thinking about another experiment.

Raising my stats would help, but unless I want to massacre the village, it’s impossible to get Experience Points here. Asaru may object to that. Dungeon may object as well. Asaru magic works for now, but what if I start to kill its monsters? Asaru claims the dungeon is not intelligent, but it’s still possible it will turn hostile. What if there is a precedent of one of the dungeon monsters going rouge and killing others?

So, my procedure needs to be better. The only way I can think about it is that vitality needs to remain in living flesh. I need a living fleshly needle I will be able to inject into heads and, therefore, into souls.