“So… that just happened.” I muttered, staring at the dissolving mess of a cultivator.

“Yup.” Ryia muttered back, equally fascinated.

The cat collapsed to its knees, then its face, blood pooling around it from the gaping hole in its chest. But before I could even think of healing the thing, my mana automatically reached out and patched it up. For a second, I just stared in blank confusion, before I remembered where Mr. Murder Cat came from. According to my subconscious, any kills made by him would be rewarded with an instaheal, per Melee Room regulations and all that.

The cat clambered back to its feet; a bit unsteady but already looking around for the next fight. A true murderhobo through and through.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.

“Murdercat vs Murderkitty?” Ryia grinned. We slapped mana in a totally professional high five equivalent.

Some would have viewed Leeko’s death as a tragedy, the snuffing out of a rising prodigy. The thing was, Leeko wasn’t quite dead. Sure, the original matrix, the one I’d used to bring him back each time he’d died, was done for. But the matrix was Infused, giving me detailed information on how to reconstruct it. I don’t understand all the complexities of matrixes, but you don’t have to understand something to reproduce it.

Cores are awesome.™

I mentally added “Run tournament to determine ‘real’ Leeko” to my to-do list, right after “Host catfight”. But before I could set up the showdown of the century, there were some chor-erm-Adventurers that needed tending.

I glanced at the waiting Underword cultivators, sending them a burst of Intent that… did… nothing. Turns out there’s one major problem with not Infusing Adventurers. I can’t talk to them. I could sort of talk to mobs, sending them bursts of Intent. They were made of my mana after all. The same method applied even better to Leeko, given that he was both intelligent and had higher cultivation than most of my mobs, but the Underworld cultivators had none of that. I could just drop them in the Underworld and leave them to their fate, but the whole point was to have them fight for their freedom. Sort of hard to do that when you don’t know freedom is on the line. Which left me with one option:

Pictograms.

Yeah... no. I’d put a lot of effort into figuring out skeletons and force fields and stuff and

Don’t judge me.

“Ryia, you're good with themes and stuff. How do I let these knuckleheads know what’s what?” She

“You can’t just…. make a mob for that?”

I opened my mouth equivalent to say no, I totally couldn’t, before pausing.

Huh.

“Thanks.” I muttered as I got to work.

My base mob formula was a skeleton with emerald woven in. This allowed Leeko’s emerald attuned matrix to manipulate it, while giving me some theme flexibility. I set up a skeleton along these lines, then stared at it, realizing I had a problem. Skeletons couldn’t talk.

Crud.

Back to square one. I could use pure Intent to make a mob, but it would have to be undead themed. Let's see, what matrix do I have that goes with undead? Rats just feel… wrong. Worms or maggots are a hard no. What about-oh. OH. PERFECT!

“Granite, stop laughing. You sound like some sort of stereotypical villain.”

I cough-equivalented, before putting my evil plan in motion.

As I manifested my new mob with Intent, I wondered at how… simple this was. All that work for the Leeko skeletons seemed like a waste, especially when Intent could make a matri- My thought process, and the manifestation, froze as several pieces clicked into place. I flicked my gaze over to the third floor, home of the Piggy Commandos. The thugs were bantering or playing poker as usual, but as I examined their matrixes my suspicions were confirmed. Sure, my Intent modified a matrix to suit my desires, but the thing was I really had no clue what I was doing. My Intent, whatever that was, apparently didn’t come with infinite knowledge of matrixes.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Or how to build ones that lasted.

I didn’t have to be a matrix expert to see the Commando’s matrix's were falling apart like a poorly woven sweater. I’d made the perfect matrix for a moment, one that fit my vision of a mana-accelerator wielding commando perfectly, but the strain of life wasn’t something my slapped together matrixes could handle. I wondered what would happen if I left them be. Would they dissolve? Go mad from pain? Just… die? But, and this might just be the World Core’s sentience package talking, I wasn’t quite that cruel. Probably.

So I was left with a choice. One way or another the Commandos had to be decommissioned, all that was left was how. I could just un-manifest them, but was that any way to treat such loyal fighters? Plus, I’d kind of screwed them over with the whole exploding mana accelerators thing.

For a moment I felt the weight of responsibility settle on my metaphorical shoulders, the burden of those in charge striding alone into the future.

Then I remembered that responsibility is for ENADs, and I’m with a wisp for a reason.

“So… Ryia. If, purely hypothetically, I accidentally created sentient mobs with a terminal condition, what would I do about it?”

“...”

“Ryia?”

“You're totally a war criminal, you know that right?”

“I am what I hypothetically am.”

“Eh, it's why I stick around. Did you ask the hypothetical mobs in question?”

“Uh...”

“Granite, you can’t possibly be this bad with group dynamics.”

“What’s that?”

“Seriously? The World Core couldn’t have dropped that into your little sentience thingy? Ya know, this explains a lot.”

“What’s that supposed to mean!? I have completely normal interactions with people.”

“You? Normal interactions? Ha! That’s rich.”

Grumbling, I copied the Commando’s matrixes before un-manifesting them. This pretty much put the whole situation on freeze until the Underworld Adventurers were taken care of.

While pure Intent mobs might not last long, they were undoubtedly convenient and frankly, I was sick of putting the Underworlders on hold. I finished manifesting my new mob, one to talk to the Underworld Adventurers, just as the perfect name came to mind.

So it was that Intro was born.

____________________________________________________________________________

If Reinmund could groan, the walls would be rattling.

His stone head felt like someone was using it as an anvil, and- wait, could that work? If he could control his temperature, he was basically a walking forge…

Yeah, he was out of it.

Still, skull splitting headache or no, duty called. Reinmund slowly clambered to his feet with the sound of grinding stone, scanning his surroundings as he did so. The first thing he noticed was the lack of exits. Normally being sealed in a stone room inside the dungeon that killed him would be terrifying but given the past few days of never-ending combat, this was just fine.

His party was fine. Probably. Judging the condition of an invisible wind elemental was about as easy as it sounded. Still, the Janus’s wind was breezing, Jeanette’s barrel sized flame was flickering, and the replacement guy’s metal golem form- Reinmund really needed to learn his name- was snoring to wake the dead.

There hadn’t been much time to talk, and the two intangible elementals couldn’t easily chat anyway, but one fact had been clear. Each of them had died and been turned into an elemental based on their cultivation. This wasn’t completely heard of, Reinmund could recall a few freak accidents with similar results, but there was one thing he didn’t get.

Why?

Dungeons handed loot to people who survived and consumed the matrixes of those who didn’t. Period. Sure, there were Cores who worked for the government or sold things for information, but Dungeons just… didn’t. Yet they were still alive, matrixes and all. In the end it probably didn’t matter but still…

On to business.

Reinmund slammed his palms together, the cultivation enhanced movement making the very air ripple. His cultivation rank had dropped from mid to low C, but somehow the movement felt… cleaner. Like this was how things were supposed to be.

The party stirred with the sound of roaring flame rushing wind, and one heck of a loud gong as Janus slammed his head into the low ceiling. Reinmund had to admit that whatever diabolical Core ran this place was a master at carefully calculated discomfort

____________________________________________________________________________

I winced as a rousing Adventurer slammed their metal head into a ceiling, leaving a sizable dent. On the ceiling, of course.

Whoops.

____________________________________________________________________________

Reinmund gave everyone a second to get their bearings before speaking, his voice so deep and gravely he barely recognized it.

“Everyone ok?”

“Crikey, you couldn’t have waited a few more hours?” The flippant words sounded strange coming from the massive metal golem, but at this point nothing about replacement guy surprised Reinmund.

Jeannete, the flame elemental, brightened twice, their agreed signal for yes. Janus sped up twice for the same message.

“Anything new?” Reinmund questioned.

There was a brief silence as the group shook their heads or pulsed once before a small, high-pitched, and entirely to gleeful voice broke the silence.

“Oh, I got one. You're all going to diiieeeee.” It sing-sang with a slightly unhinged cackle.

Reinmund jerked his head to the noise, eyes focusing on a small black form.

“What? Cat’s got your tongue?” The little spider that was Intro grinned.