Mr Might looked at a small girl looking roughly 10 years old but besides the red skin and two horns, she looked almost completely human.
Lola was on her side and the last few imps shined and fell into the girls body and she got a little bigger but that was all.
“There… 50%.” Lola said as her life essence flowed to balance the energy used.
“I can already feel the large growth.” Mr Might said while his face was serious.
Indeed, this small child was Lily after she had become a greater demon.
Behind Mr Might was an even more impressive punching machine that he had obtained for the school after Robin destroyed the original one.
He moved aside without saying much else.
As for Lily, she smiled and looked at herself as she stretched her arms and moved around and stretched.
“Hmm, so this is my current 100% in this world... as expected, doubling this is 1% of my own reserves.” She said.
“You can tell the quantity?” Mr Might asked. “Of course but only for Lola because I became conscious of my own capacity and because Lola uses her life force to summon us.” She said and a pair of feathered wings appeared instead of black leather demon wings like before.
She tried to stimulate her body but this was the most of her element and sin she could display in this form.
“Well, I didn't expect much else.” She said and while stretching she walked to the large machine and in the middle of a stretch she suddenly launched her punch.
BANG!
Her punch was felt by the entire club who was watching on the side. It had been a day already and it was after school when Lily had taken the effort to call Lola to be summoned. They felt a slap from the shockwave of her punch like a firework going off.
Instantly the number shot up all the way to 30k.
Everyone gasped because none of the demons could even hit over 15k before. “Yes, that feels good, the new essence balance is truly a work of wonder.” She said.
“How did you boost your strength so much?” Mr Might asked.
“Of course, I evolved.” She said and kept moving her body excitedly and punched the air. Surprisingly each punch released a compressed air wave that was different from just a strength shockwave. “My control of wind has gone up tremendously.” she said as wind gathered around her body and she punched the machine causing another shockwave and this time the number jumped up another 8,000. She looked and grinned, “This is a great way to learn control, with barely 0.5% of my full life essence capacity i can draw out that amount of power and it just barely falls under your strongman in strength.” She said extremely happy. “Sadly at the rate that Lola gathers life force, it will take several hundred years for her to actively produce enough life essence to summon me at full strength.” She said.
“Huh?” Mr Might muttered, “How so?” he asked.
She smiled and closed her eyes. Her heart began to shine before the stored life essence in her body spread out forming visible veins and glowing nodes through her body until it returned and she opened her eyes.
“Demons are innately born with the complete system that you humans possess for the lower internal energy storage. The heart system is not connected to the entire body's system of acupoints so she can’t actively cultivate like the rubber boy who channels the rock’s energy.” she said.
“So you’re saying the ‘faults’ in Lola are that she lacks the full life essence system?” he asked.
“Exactly, that or humans have a system we demons don’t know about but from many records of demons, humans have only ever had the lower and upper systems channelling through the meridians and the nerves.” she said.
“I see.” he said.
Lola was on the side looking at a screen and smiled, “Yay! You mention that caused the system to update a new trait. It is 5 levels to develop the initial step so that the system can analyze and understand it.” she said.
“Don’t use that, being in control of the system, monitor my master.” She said and walked over and touched her heart. Her body shined and shrank down to like a 2 year old and she remained with 10% of Lola’s essence and the rest went into the heart.
“Master, please let loose and relax, this might hurt since it will not follow the natural systems of your body.” She said.
Lola nodded and she controlled her master's life essence and they saw it going through her body and after just a short moment Lola instantly clenched her teeth.
“Relax, I know it hurts.” she said but continued and slowly built a flow into the entire system of acupoints but not spreading beyond that, the system will be able to easily build off it.
Half way through she infiltrated the meridians in parts but at some acupoints she pulled the life force out to form different connections natural to her own body.
When it all returned she held the energy flow through Lola’s body. “This is the natural demon’s life essence flowing in my body.” She said.
She felt a strange energy run through her master's body tens of thousands of times every second catching every change until Kevin called out that it had gained sufficient data.
She let go and the flowing energy naturally dispersed into Lola’s body making her collapse and on the ground she started to naturally channel it through her veins.
Other life essence control students blinked after a bit, “Wha! It made a complete trait for 50 levels for a basic human life essence flow system!” he said.
“What are the side effects?” Mr Might asked.
“It deactivates all possibilities of using chi or lower dantian energies.” One of them said.
Mr Might nodded and knew there was always a price. Honestly it didn’t seem a bad trade because people who are naturally born with any singular energy are very unlikely to awaken any other. Getting a full flow system for life force means they could actively cultivate with the full body.
He tried to get the system to show a basic diagram and surprisingly it could and used Lola’s body as a basis since it was scanned from her. After checking it out he knew what it was doing. The system was simply and purely disconnecting the lower dantian and meridians and connecting it to the heart acupoint making the heart the power center instead.
Meridians is a study from ancient China and the idea is that the body has 8 normal meridians and 12 extraordinary ones forming a system of 20 spreading through thousands of acupoints. In truth, Moonlight and Heatwave possess natural heart based systems.
“Are Harvey and Amber in the gamer space?” he asked.
Notice
Harvey Johns and Amber Fletcher do locate themselves within the school premises.
“Do a detailed examination of their meridian system. They possess heart centered flow systems.” he said.
After that the system began its work and within a minute, the two walked out with frowns on their faces from separate parts of the school, “Why do i feel like something is spying on me and discovering all my secrets?” they said, almost simultaneously.
Mr Might took the time to show them what was going on and they calmed down and allowed the system to work. They channeled their powers showing off the flow technique in action as well at it’s request and when it was done it began to analyze it and finally it came out with a final trait.
Human Heart Meridians System
A system of rearranged meridians with the heart acupoint as the center.
Effect: The Heart acupoint is the center of power and can channel different types of power but primarily life force.
Side effect: Deactivates all forms of connections to the lower dantian blocking the capacity to channel lower dantian energies like chi.
350 levels
Everyone present saw the updated trait and Mr Might nodded as he saw that. Lola and all the other life force users were extremely excited but many felt depressed that they needed so much energy for it.
“You kids had best work hard, we plan to make school work, tests and many other school related things into quests to give the maximum amount of exp gain possible.” he said.
“Yes sir!” everyone shouted.
Lola looked at Lily with a smile and hugged the demon for showing how to grow before she asked to be sent back so she could continue watching out for the others so she was sent back and the life force returned.
However, sitting down, Robin sighs as he looks at a different trait that showed up for him alongside the other.
Prototype Human Body Triple Meridian System
Through extensive records of psychics, normal humans and humans with heart networks, a prototype system which maintains all three systems balanced but fully connected to the bodies acupoint system
Effect: Unlocks acupoint channelling through all three dantian.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Side effect: This is a prototype and lacks extensive knowledge of healthy psychics. Side effects may vary intensely
700 levels
He didn’t need to ask why this showed up, him having three types of energies was all he needed to know to see why this was here. He just remained quiet and pushed it away because there is no way this was safe to use and would likely cripple him.
***
Zack grumbled as he walked and looked at his dungeon. Despite having sent images of three floors to Robin, the growth rate of his dungeon had been extremely constant and he was at five floors but he felt very pressured.
Every floor, with each additional one, after the 2nd floor, would double in size and number of rooms and required restructuring and all this space needed a certain amount of dungeon energy to power.
The recent 5th floor had caused him so much stress that he had to eat almost all the life force eggs that had been laying around in his dungeon. He was thankful that the dungeon had reached a big bottle neck and he found that his body was finally gathering up more life force than the dungeon required, which was huge.
That said, the interior of the dungeon was very different from the original single room.
After altering it and building a small world of his own, he had made riverways through his dungeon rooms. His fifth floor rooms had reached a point that he could create ponds. Of course the room that reached that size had been the result of an experiment where he pushed rooms together allowing them to merge into a larger one.
When he discovered this, he was able to make more maze-like dungeons with paths that circled around with one or two paths that connected to the actual path to the stairway.
The dungeons weren’t limited to bees though, he had purchased a lot of different animals through the help of the club funds. Thankfully nature was healthy and populations of animals were rich so getting young wild animals wasn’t as hard as it might have once been. With a bit of help from Milo’s family, aka a rich house with connections, he got bats, non disease carrying rats, several other types of rodents, several litters of cats and dogs, birds and more.
Naturally the environment had to accommodate that and purchased large bags of wild weed seeds. These are seeds from trees and bushes found in the wild regarded as weeds, not the smoking kind.
Naturally he added trees and more and spent a lot of time landscaping each floor before releasing animals into them.
More than obvious, there were a lot of bugs but almost all of them he got were the pollinator instead of invasive flora destroyer.
Until now, adding animals would usually be the final step of a floor which would grow downwards but this time it didn't. The last room was an empty big room with the only door mechanism that the dungeon had created naturally. It had iron bar doors which were always open even when other animals came in and out but they avoided the center of the room. His dungeon core was in the back but the center actually had a strange feeling to it and he felt like his excess life force was pulling towards it but had no exit valve very similar to how there had been a leak when there was no life in his dungeon to condense his core.
After seeing the system analyze Lily and Lola like that, he felt that he might get an answer and whispered a question.
It began to scan his body while they headed back to the clubroom and as he entered he got the notification
Notice
System possesses no information on this dimensional space. Severe interference from energy waves preventing the system from accessing the special space within for deeper analysis
He sighed and one of the newer students noticed, “Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Ah… well…” he said smiling weakly and said with minor frustration and Mr Might turned, “Oh, did your dungeon bottle up? Are you finally able to develop Life essence?” he asked.
“Oh… um not really, it doesn’t compress even when i do it, it just spreads through my body with greater quantity than the 50/50 i have like it is waiting for something in the last room.” he said.
“Oh… I was never one for being stuck to the internet, what exactly is a dungeon?” Mr Might asked.
“I’ll check.” Oliver said and began to search quickly, “Well, the real world answer is a dungeon is a prison underground generally inside castles to hold prisoners. For the fantasy description, it is a den of monsters generally mindless and living to protect the collective mind formed from mana in a fantasy world. Generally seen as a crystal like Zack has.” Oliver said.
“Okay, the structure likely changes right?” he asked.
“Yeah, the original concept was taking video game dungeons and giving it a mind which grows and learns from failure at making monsters, getting stronger and more intelligent. Eventually it became a trend where almost any structure from clouds to trees could possess dungeons depending on their special structures.” Oliver explained.
“What is different from his?” Mr Might asked.
He just shrugged.
Zack cupped his hands and revealed the full scope of the dungeon, surprising quite a few of them when the image showing all five floors appeared.
“Woah! It's so much bigger than the pictures you sent me during winter break!” Robin said.
“Yeah, I tend to work systematically, I make the vegetation first and then add bugs followed by bugs and grass eaters before adding hunters. Most of the things I could get were common city animals and pets like rodents, squirrels. I purchased rats that didn’t carry diseases, cats and dogs. Honestly, I’ve not purchased anything beyond what is up to the 3rd floor, after that I just took existing creatures and let them go down a level and fill the base ecosystem until it was stable.” Zack said.
“Oh, then I know the problem.” Herold said and waved his hand and a book from his bag appeared and he opened it and projected a very similar but different image of a dungeon after a mountain formed first and became transparent. “You’re lacking a boss monster.” he said.
“Ohh! That’s true!” the energy users all exclaimed but the stronger club members were all confused.
Harold smiled weakly, “I understand why none of you know this, I’m sure most of you haven’t touched fantasy based video games since you train for long periods of time. The people without powers to achieve that on the other hand live more normally and have likely played video games. Let me explain, a boss monster is a particularly powerful monster, it is also much more bonded with the dungeon to the point that it would be more correct to say that they completely control it. They tend to be a big block in the path down and are the primary protectors of a dungeon core of a fantasy dungeon. It might be that your ‘feeling’ in the last room is your requirement of a boss monster from, more often than not, an apex species. I’m really curious because i wonder if you will be able to control it like a summoner and if it will recognize you as the dungeon outside of your body.” Herold said.
“So I just need to toss an animal or monster in the center point?” He asked.
“Basically I think.” Harold said and closed his book and sent it floating back to his back.
“It's a cave… what kind of animal would make a good boss though?” He said.
“Imagine using something dumb like a rabbit or hare and because of the power it becomes something as big as a bear and super dangerous.” Lola joked.
Mr Might, however, was more serious. He walked to the computers and tried to search up information on fantasy dungeons and came upon something curious. “Zack, can you modify your monsters?” He asked.
“I can but it would use too much energy.” he said.
“That might not be true, maybe because your quality is too low you can’t do it.” He said. “Still, there is no guarantee so maybe we can go with something smaller.” He said before accessing his inventory and pushing his arm into space and pulling out an egg.
“What is that?” Robin asked.
“A monster’s egg, an interesting thing about monsters is that even mammalian monsters lay eggs. This egg is from a rare drop that came from one of the monsters in the horde we killed last year. I didn’t see a need to turn it in and it seems it was the right choice. The specifics seems to be a carnivorous giant hare which has the capacity to clad it’s body in rocks.” he said and tossed the large egg to Zack who caught it distressed.
“From what I saw of your creatures, the base ‘material’ plays a big part in how much it grows and this egg has a lot of potential and radiates a strong life force. For you, it should be extremely useful.” He said.
Zack swallowed hard, “Aren’t monster eggs super rare and expensive?” he asked.
“Yes but only as a collectors item, there is basically no medical or nutritional value for it, especially since 100% of eggs are fertilized.” He said.
Zack nodded slowly and looked at the egg and closed his eyes covering the egg in a light before it was absorbed.
It went through the entire dungeon and dropped into the very center where the strange feeling was and it instantly reacted.
The dungeon core shined brightly and released a bright light surrounding the egg while the strange feeling infused into the egg and Zack ‘felt’ the soul of the unborn infant get pulled out and pulled into the dungeon core and he instantly became conscious of the soul.
He put his hands together and called up only the last room and they saw as a small fragment of the dungeon core broke out and flew to the egg and the egg melted around it as it entered while reforming as if it never changed.
The next second, Zack instantly felt suffocated as his life force found a vent.
It collapsed breathing heavily.
“Quickly, draw out the life eggs!” Robin shouted.
Only the shout made him wake up but everyone felt cold as soon as he pulled dozens and swallowed it all at once.
“Wait, not so much!” Robin shouted but he swallowed and they felt the eruption of energy and he didn’t stop, he took out every last egg and swallowed it before he gained control of his body and began to channel all this pent up power.
The world around him vanished and he found himself as if he was in the dungeon core. He then felt the world go silent and in front of him, a normal looking rabbit formed but it quickly grew to adult size looking as big as a bear with three long claws and a deranged look that meant to destroy everything.
He scowled, not liking that mentality and shockingly the image changed, the deranged look vanished and seemed to be ripped out of the biology making the size decrease by almost a third but it regained a calm and intelligence in its eyes.
“This is reacting to my desires? Could it be that I actually can modify monsters?” he muttered.
He looked at it and desired that the three clawed hand changed into a five clawed paw and it did. He thought longer and changed the arms to have shoulders and improve the nimbleness but it seems something was working behind the scenes to fix more than just his desire as the size, muscle format and much more changed.
After he got the basic format changed, he noticed the dangerously soft belly and it instantly reacted by forming a thick hide over the underbelly and he checked out the ability and like Mr Might said, it had the ability to clad rocks over its body like armor but rocks were weak.
Shockingly it began to change and this ability was trashed releasing a lot of potential to modify this.
“It’s a rabbit but also a bear, let's give it enhanced lower leg strength and arms to break to be able move fast and nimble before giving it the ability to transform its claws into bladed weapons.”
That extra potential returned and he actually saw the size grow and increase to a fierce 4 meter tall rabbit bear with intense protective hide and enough strength to put fear into others. It was gentle but territorial and wouldn’t be dangerous to anything that didn’t invade the last room.
The eating habits were like a mix of hares and bears. It satisfied itself with roots like carrots and more while also liking fish and honey.
When the final form was confirmed, he woke up from that dark space and saw the dungeon core release a bright flash to the egg and immense energy from inside the egg burst out and begin to change the being inside into something else and the dungeon energy coming from Zack rushed in but almost nothing came out until finally the shell burst and walking out was a small little rabbit. From it, a very thin strand of life force came out and into the ground which was closer and that thin strange released only the thinnest energy but it was burning hot.
Zack felt the little bear rabbit’s body like his own and he felt the growing energy inside and began to channel life force. Even if the life force was burning, it needed to release more or it would absorb everything in his dungeon and this worked.
The pressure was already huge and it didn’t take much for it to change and that thin line expanded and released life essence.
The dungeon shook, and Zack with it, as he underwent a huge change to the higher quality of energy after getting his first boss.
At the same time, his dungeon core rushed down to the next floor but all the dungeon energy was pulled out and only what fed to the animals was feeding while everything was transforming inside Zack’s body until he finally changed it all and everything returned it returned and filled the dungeon with dense energy but it had a keen control and each floor gained only the required energy until it reached the 6th floor and it began to expand and each floor above began to grow to match the new floor that had grown but the peak amount of energy in each floor did not change and the dungeon decompressed this energy in all these floors.
The last thing to happen once all the floors doubled in number of rooms was that about a dozen eggs were formed in the 6th floor and hatched into weaker versions of the boss, at the same time, water pools and moss naturally formed before bugs appeared all through the natural energy in the dungeon.
Zack, however, was knocked out because of the transformation in his body.
Only later when he woke up he showed what happened and with firm confidence, he summoned the small rabbit and said that the infant soul had merged with his own, it was like a second body that had autonomy while he also had control.
Like Lola, they tested the strength but it was a newborn so it was sent back to properly grow first and Zack needed to adapt quickly and fix his dungeon floors from top to bottom and start to develop the floor with the dungeon born monster hares in the floor below.