In the end, it turns out I needn’t have worried.

While it wasn’t an easy victory, and more on the extreme side of a pyrrhic victory, I still managed to overwhelm the adventurers. Besides, for a dungeon that can easily replace its monsters, even a pyrrhic victory is just a victory.

Turns out that numbers still mean something, even when faced by a much stronger force. Like the new group of what I called professional adventurers was. Though they did manage to last twice as long compared to the other group.

But that’s all in the past. The very recent past. In fact, it just happened. Now I’m just watching as their corpses lie there, waiting for the special mana to appear.

And I don’t have to wait long.

It starts with the first person from group one. After that, the rest of that group follows.

Interestingly enough, the mana from the pros takes longer to appear than I’d expect. It doesn’t take twice as long (like how long they fought for), but a bit more than that.

Be that as it may, all of the blobs of mana head out on the not-so-long journey towards my core.

My dungeon is in shambles. The ambient mana level has already dropped by half. Almost all of my toads are dead and the one vingeraoon is long gone. Only the vines and bacteria survived without any casualties.

Just in case this gamble on the special mana doesn’t work out, I give a command to the few remaining toads to feed on vines. That should give me more time in case this doesn’t work.

Speaking of, said mana blobs are just now arriving at my core.

One by one, they enter the already overfilled core. And immediately I can tell they do in fact enhance my mana.

But unlike the usual stream of mana, which simply increases the proverbial density of the mana, the specialized mana from invaders takes a different direction. Almost literally.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The feeling isn’t that different from a rise in density, but at the same time the two feel like night and day. Maybe a better descriptor would be the mana feeling more energized.

But other than that, nothing more changes. All of the mana from the stream keeps getting trapped in my core. And the mana of my dungeon keeps decreasing, consumed by the guardians.

It just keeps on and on, building up inside of me. It’s long past the amount summoned for the creation of a monster, and yet it continues to go up.

And all the while I have this massive storage of mana literally inside of me, I can’t help but wish for more. Not more to be trapped withing me, but for my dungeon.

I need more mana to go to my dungeon, otherwise it’ll be completely mana starved and my creations will die.

I just need more mana.

…

A pulse.

Beginning nowhere in particular, the pulse expands through all the mana stored in my core.

And then… movement.

The entirety of the mana, by now resembling more a star than a nebulous cloud, moves towards the centre of my core.

I can’t believe this. Is this… magic? Did manage to do it after all, or is this innate like my other abilities?

I have no time to think about that, as the process diverges from what I observed previously.

The converging mana doesn’t disappear once it gets to the centre like it did previously. No, it just stays there, condensing into one single ball even denser than how it was previously.

More and more, the mana compresses into that single spot of seemingly infinite energy.

Until something breaks. Not my core. In fact, it’s nothing I can perceive at all. None of that changes the fact that something gets ripped apart, just absolutely shredded.

That infinitely dense point of mana pierces through an invisible veil, a direction in space previously unknown, and vanishes. But in its place is something much greater.

In the next moment, a couple of things happen pretty much all at once.

From the point, where all the mana congregated and then vanished from, a new torrent of mana surges forth, as if out of nothing.

The facets of my crystal core become indistinct, as if I didn’t have any specific shape. To the best of my ability, I can only describe the core as a formless blob.

And third, which is the strangest and yet likely the most important of all, a simple line of text appears in my mind along with a background of deep blue, all contained in a neat rectangle.

Conscious entity detected…

Permanent aether portal detected…

Link to System? Y/N

(System Note: please)

No way. Absolutely no way! The System is real after all!? This changes everything!

Hold on, slow down for a second. Why is it begging me to accept it?

Actually, why didn’t I have access to it from the very beginning? Isn’t the System supposed to be something that is designed to help everyone grow?

Something doesn’t add up here. And my instinct is telling me that this System may very well have the answers.