I wasn’t sure how a mana matrix passing out actually worked, as there were no biologicals to support the action. Leeko was probably just a special type of- wait, I’d stuck him in a human body, which definitely had the capacity to faint. Wasn’t much I could do to fix it, but still nice to know.
I dissolved and manifested Leeko, resetting his biologics. The guy staggered a step as his matrix adjusted, wildly looking around with desperate intensity.
“Hi.” I tried.
Leeko froze for a second before responding, his voice shaking slightly.
“Who are you?”
“I… AM… GRANITE!” I bellowed, channeling my inner villain. The guy nearly crapped himself as Ryia started hysterically laughing.
“W-Who?”
“Granite? The dungeon you ticked off? Ringing any bells?” His face paled at my words, horror and confusion flashing across his expression. Still, he was an arrogant young master to the "core".
Ha.
“Very well, Granite. You may escort me out of your domain.”
“Ha! You wish.” Ryia snorted.
“You died, and I stole your cultivation. Basically, you’re one of my mobs.” I informed.
“Impossible! I demand you-”
He stopped as I turned his right arm into a sword.
“I’m not going to straight up torture you but let me get one thing straight. You are not my superior, not even my equal. You are literally a figment of my mana, your sentience is at best an illusion, at worst the delusions of an energy construct. If I wanted you dead, you would be dead. But, lucky for you, my wisp had a moment of weakness. As it happens, I need a magical matrix, and you happen to be the only person I dislike enough to use. As it stands, you’re too much of a spineless coward to work, so I’m going to put you through the fire again and again until you’re forced to grow up just to survive. When this is all over, I’ll give you a body stronger than you can imagine.
Good luck.”
The cultivator’s mouth flapped like a fish as his brain struggled to bring his delusions and reality into alignment, his sword-arm probably not helping much. I didn’t give him the time, resetting him into the first floor’s third room.
I really needed to name that place.
____________________________________________________________________________
Leeko blinked as his surroundings shifted, twisted stone spires blocking off his view of the surrounding walls.
He realized with a start that he was in a set of light armor, a set of weapons laid out before him. He sneered at the sorry unenchanted excuse for a weapon, but the expression faded as his brain once more struggled with the words of that irritating Core.
It couldn’t be true.
It just… couldn’t.
He was the chosen of-
A screeching cat seemed to materialize out of thin air, coming at Leeko with all the ferocity of a lion. With one final effort of supreme will he sneered at the cat, ignoring every lie that had been spoken to him, every lie his body screamed, every lie his memories pounded into his psyche. His guards would deal with the filthy-
A claw ripped a tendon out, sending Leeko to a knee with a scream. The sound was cut off as, for the second time, his throat was torn out by a cat.
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Leeko staggered as his surroundings once again shifted, the absence of pain hitting him with an almost physical force.
That… no, it was an accident, a fluke. This filthy excuse for a dungeon was trying to get to him, to tear down his inherent superiority with humiliating pain. But as a cat once more bounded into view, the sounds of a dozen snarling fights echoing around him, Leeko found himself turning, sprinting away from the little beast.
He was dead before he’d taken five steps.
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Leeko staggered as he was brought back, the sounds of conflict burning themselves into his psyche. He collapsed to his knees fear and the echoes of pain forcing him to confront the truth, ripping apart all the illusions he’d set up, all the lies he’d told himself. For the first time in his life, he saw himself for what he truly was, the presence of death dispelling all pretense.
He was the disgraced son of a dead father.
He was the shunned member of a declining family branch.
He was the last of his line, doomed to die in obscurity.
He was weak, in every sense of the word.
The beast killed, uncaring.
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“How are you ok with this? I mean, I’m fine with it but I thought you had a bleeding heart or something.” Ryia muttered as we watched the guy be ripped to shreds for the sixth time.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“I know everything about his psyche, remember? Give it a second.”
Leko died for the eighth time.
“Why not just modify his mindset with Intent?”
“Because I didn’t think of that.”
“You know, sometimes I worry about you.”
I copied Leeko’s matrix, recreating the pure matrix in my testing room. I envisioned a strong, battle-hardened warrior, someone who wouldn’t falter in the face of death itself. I pressed that Intent into the mana, watching as it shifted, a thousand tiny changes altering the cultivation technique. I had it, the perfect fighter, someone who would fight on through the most vicious battles. It was beautiful, it was awe inspiring, it was-... was…
Crap.
The constant, minute fluctuations indicating the matrix was conscious grew more violent, the matrix beginning to distort. In just a few seconds all I had was a jumble of Intent and stray mana threads.
“I think you killed it.” Ryia muttered.
“Ya don’t say.” I deadpanned.
I really didn’t know much about matrixes; but I could make a rough guess at what had happened. The mana had responded to my Intent and given me the matrix of a warrior. Either that warrior was in utter opposition to Leeko’s cultivation, or the mana hadn’t cared if the matrix was viable. Either way, it didn’t matter.
Leeko died for the ninth time.
I checked on the Underworld cultivators. Most were still passed out, their matrixes needing time to reset. Just because matrixes were made of mana didn’t mean they could just run forever. At least, that was according to Sigmundr’s books. The wind guy might have been awake, it was hard to tell. Did swirling in a circle count as being awake?
I thought about what I was actually going to do with the Underworld, assuming Leeko grew a spine. Obviously the floor was going to be undead themed, with skeletons as the main mob. Still, my whole deal so far was physics and all that. It wasn’t like there was some undead attuned mana I could use… to… ?
“Ryia, how does mana attunement work?”
“How in the crap should I know?”
“Your… a wisp. You're supposed to be my guide, helping me build my dungeon and all that.”
“Where did you get that idea?” She scoffed.
“It’s literally the reason for your race’s existence: to be a guide-”
“Nope. I’m supposed to hang out with you, so you don’t go mad and start killing people. I’m the stabilizing influence that keeps your psyche from going over the edge.”
“You're supposed to be a stabilizing influence? As in you… stabilizing… me?”
“Yes.”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Ryia glared at me, probably plotting some sort of elaborate revenge scheme. The sight only made me laugh harder.
Leeko died for the… hey, the guy finally did something.
____________________________________________________________________________
Leeko barely noticed the world reset, his mind still hazy from the pain of his last death.
A word burned itself into his psyche refuting his supremacy, crushing his arrogance. The word spoken by his father a hundred times, disappointment the only look Leeko ever received. The word spoken by his family members as they cast him out in the cold. The mantra whispered behind his back as he made his way through the Adventurer Society, robbing him of the respect his family demanded.
Weak.
Leeko had never been truly challenged. Sure, his family had put him through some truly intense training, but that was different. No matter how loud the instructors shouted, how hard the blows came, he’d always known that he was the last male of a dying family branch. The blood flowing through his veins guaranteed his safety.
But now, in the middle of a hostile, possibly insane dungeon that viewed him as little more than a mob, he was forced to make a choice.
He would be weak no longer.
____________________________________________________________________________
I watched Leeko lunged, smashing a pouncing cat out of the air with a clenched fist. Of course, it didn’t kill the mid C ranked cat. Still, pointless defiance was a big step up from laying down and dying. E for effort.
Leeko reached out, his hand landing on a katana. One of the Adventurers had lost it during a rough fight, and I’d taken the liberty of infusing it before the Adventurer found it, then making a copy here. Sure, the real sword was probably dissolving at the moment, but what did I care? It’s not like he’d come back seeking revenge or anything.
Ok, I really have to stop jinxing myself. I wonder how to… uh... Thats probably not good.
As has been mentioned, I’m no great expert when it comes to mana matrixes. Still, when a guy’s matrix starts to warp while some weird Intent starts twisting the ambient mana, I tend to pay attention.
Matrixes, and mana in general, were invisible, but thanks to Cores being awesome, I can sort of see mana… sort of. It’s like all an ENADs senses rolled into one, but way better. This allowed me to watch a teensy tiny little section of Leeko’s matrix, one so small and unobtrusive I hadn’t noticed it, start doing… things.
Sigh. If only someone had given me useful info.
Sure, I could go off what the books said, but I was 96% sure all the really important stuff was fake, or at least missing a few critical details. This left me with my natural ingenuity to try and figure out what in the crap I was looking at.
Ok, let's start with the basics. The section was noticeably different from the rest of Leeko’s matrix, but so small even after infusing the matrix I hadn't given it a second thought. It was still made using Leeko’s mana, but it felt cleaner, more refined. It was also near the parts I’d associated with vital functions: the actual matrix, rather than the cultivation technique layered on top. So, either Leeko was interfering with his own mana matrix, which was really, really dumb, or this was built into him. A hidden talent of humans? Unlikely, as almost none of the other matrixes I’d seen had this. So something inserted then.
Ok, we have an artificially implanted mana snippet existing in Leeko's matrix pretty much since the beginning that lights up just as Leeko stops being a wimp and picks up a katana.
Strange coincidence. Moving on…
The thing was messing with Leeko’s base matrix, carefully directing Intent like some sort of conductor. Faintly at first, but rapidly spreading, a pool of green spilled through Leeko’s mana; his base matrix gaining a slight attunement.
That couldn’t be healthy. From what I’d seen, mana attunement tended to affect how actual matter worked. Stick a stick in a room full of hydrogen attuned mana, and that stick was really easy to light. In all likelihood Leeko was a goner, his body would grow unstable and… and… uh…
____________________________________________________________________________
Something stirred within Leeko, a long-denied heritage rising to once more grace this mortal realm with its presence. All his life he’d waited for this moment, this true ascendence, the reason for his superiority. And yet it was only now that it arrived, only now that his folly was stripped away and all he had was a katana and his newfound determination to progress, his refusal to be weak, to once more become a failure.
The Bloodline of the Emerald King arose, bringing Leeko with it.