Blinding pain, akin to the reason I hadn't drank again after my first hangover, but not as bad as what happened in deaths embrace is what I experience. I bury it down as I did all my others and watch as my core levitates and stretches growing another two or three inches in diameter, the pillar supporting it's throne becoming taller and gaining some engravings. As the core now rests again on it's pedestal the pain alleviates and as second nature I let out a sigh of relief. Doing so pops open more notices in my right eyes' view.
Mana Manipulation - As simple as breathing, allows Core type entities to control and manipulate mana from not just their domain but all around them.
Dominant Will - By focusing -error- on an entity one tier or more below the attunement rating of yourself you can command those in your domain to serve as needed.
Attunement Rating III
+37% -error-
+12% "Energy" Capacity
Atomic Construction +1
Atomic Deconstruction +1
Divinity Mapping Gained!
As I read through them all it seems as if I've gained the ability to construct things with atomic mass in my storage or mana if I'm out of the required element, the ability to take control of and impose my will on less advanced beings.... I break rules of physics now, I can consume one atomic mass of water by thinking that, but I gain 1.5x what I consume.... It's not much but I feel like I could really break reality by manufacturing something then consuming it and making it bigger over and over.
I have errors, but I already knew that, everyone does to some extent. The goal of life is to get through with as few of them as possible, but I get a sneaking suspicion that it's an error because I'm lacking something this core/soul/symbiote/thing would have gained if it had been fully successful instead of just taking up residence in my eye socket. I take a moment to appreciate the new surface map of my domain, most likely what Divinity Mapping was referring to. A view on my location from far above.
I let out a long sigh, I'm on an island with a singular run down looking building directly above me. A few places of my winding circular tunnel were only just a few feet, maybe at most an arms length away from breaching the outside, which would have saved me time, probably only a few days but it wouldn't have taken me a month to find a way out. My entrance feeds to a rather nice beach, with palm trees and wild grass nearby, away from the battering of the ocean waves but close enough for it to be almost like a Honolulu devoid of life. I see boats out on the ocean and a settled island just North of mine. I go back to thinking of what a dungeon core should be doing by definition. As I'm thinking it I am blessed and cursed with the answer. A voice that isn't my own, but still in my head.
"Consume Life....Hide Deep....Help Mortals Ascend..."
"No shit" I get no response from my failure of a soul thief. I might as well get back to it, but I check the inscription on my pillar that was added with a keen eye as I want to see what it is. It's text, my original goal has been chiseled into the stone plinth that my core sits on top of. One word, simple and sweet, filling me with the hope and drive to move forward.
Justice
I take a deep breath and dive into the pond in the corner. I know what I want to do, I don't think I need to breathe but habits die hard... hehe... I still release my held breath since it's pointless and start absorbing all the water. Once my pond is empty I start expanding in square tunnels under my first floor. The tunnels are big enough to swim through for those inclined, but you'd have to crawl if it was empty of water.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Every ninety or so feet I add a vent that connects up to the spiral above, only big enough for one person to shove their head into to breathe at a time. Being incorporeal has its benefits as I don't need to worry about getting stuck, and I continue on my idea for the second floor taking shape hour by hour. At the end I make a large square room, the tunnel being only as high as the floor here, so that once it's full of water it won't flood into the other floors deeper down. I create channels here, in a + shape with the center being a raised circular platform. In the middle of this platform a make what I can only refer to as a really large, 30 foot by 30 foot by 15 foot tall sink. I spend time making the edges smooth as possible, so that anyone wet from the swim wouldn't be able to climb out until they are dry, without climbing equipment at least. Smiling to myself I head back to my core room.
Upon entering I see several thin tendrils of mana seeping in from my skylights into my core, what I find surprising is the much thicker strand that comes from the winding circular tunnel. Removing the water from earlier means I had killed off more than a few creatures in the ecosystem, at least until it had rained again. For the sake of safety I decide to absorb all the creatures and plants here in my ecosystem. I'll miss the extra energy gained from them but I'd rather not have them die because I'm unable to keep track of time. Almost as an afterthought I realized that I probably just killed them all anyways, since everything is stored atomicly....
I float back over to my waterway maze and will water into existence, quickly running out of my original supply I start using the mana I had gained from the time I spent building the maze in the first place. It runs dry and while the regeneration rate is decent it's.... Less than desirable. It would take me easily thirty more days to get a full bar, and before I can curse myself again I decide to accomplish my task by other means. I move over to the the beach at my entrance, and leave my cave system. Every foot I move seems to deplete my energy somewhat but I don't have to go far to reach my goal. I check my maps and think hard about it, then create a sandstone pool by absorbing the sand of the beach in a circle around myself until it's a few feet deep, then solidifying the walls of the pit with an extra bit of carbon. When the tides change, it will fill with salt water from the ocean giving me access to H, O, Na, and Cl.... As well as other elements that would come from what is essentially a spirit made tide pool.... I quickly change the perfectly circular pit to seem more natural in appearance, just willing it to be and revelling in the idea that a new ecosystem would be born here. I didn't realize how long It took but the pool had filled with the coming of high tide and I got to work reversing global warming by removing the water from the oceans into magical nothingness. I watched my Dungeon Interface Eye (DIE) with glee as the power of 10 atomic masses turned into bigger quantities very very quickly. I let a few days of this happen and at the end of it I held 56^873 or enough to fill my waterways at least 50 times over. So I did just that, filling my waterways to the point the water was flush with the top, the only air pockets being the head sized drain vents and final room leading to my sink.
Where the drain should be at in a typical sink I start digging down consuming the earth down down through the bedrock and deeper than I have terminology for, I'd say your Mom but that would just be insulting myself. I add striations to the walls of the pit, my goal being to eventually have this infested by spiders... And a large one just poofed into existence. When I say large I mean the size of my head. She looks at me, and I gaze back at her, eventually I wave at the spider....... who lifts a leg.... and waves back.
Curiosity, Intent, Wonder
Yeah me too little one, me too. Uhhh, I guess it wants to know why it was summoned. "You are to make a nest among the walls of this structure, my goal is for those brave fools who descend into the depths to be made mockery of as spiders crawl all over them. Webs sticking to places they shouldn't be and a slow decent being filled with painful venomous bites." I feel like a villain, letting off a monologue of the details of my master plan before some hero comes to stop me.
Mate, Defend, Destroy, Wonder
The spider salutes me with a leg and climbs up the wall, presumably to look for a mate. I decide to summon her one. Only to feel pain. Like when I was shot, my non existent heart feels like it's got a foreign object in it. So much pain, at least this life continues the same trend as the last, some things never change.