The Core watched with a keen eye as the count for the [Automatic Revival Procedure] reached zero. There was no real delay between it reaching that point and a bright surge of Mana appearing right in the middle of the room, leaving a Queen standing there healthy as ever. There was a small stagger in the initial landing on the floor but the Core decided to ignore that for now.

‘Welcome back to the realm of the living,’ the Entity sent out. ‘How was your time being dead?’

‘Surprisingly uneventful,’ the Queen of the Dead answered, some sarcasm detected. ‘Did you know that I can’t go to the afterlife without you being dead as well?’

‘I did not know that, no,' the Core answered, honest in its words. This was the first time it had even thought of there being an afterlife, to begin with. It wondered what that could entail.

‘I didn't expect you to,’ was the reply for a mildly annoyed ant. ‘But since I wasn’t able to get there, I was meant to just wait around in a void for some time. How many days have progressed outside here, by the way? I can imagine it must have taken some time to get enough power to revive me.’

‘About three hours in full,’ the Core answered, checking out the surroundings to make sure it had the time right. Without the ability to send that many pulses outside of its cave and beyond, it was hard to guess the time. The [Moss] had started becoming imprecise the moment a certain Druid wouldn’t stop stepping onto them.

‘... Did you eradicate the entire group meant to arrive here? Because I can’t see any other method you could have used to level up enough,’ the Queen said. Her lack of trust in the Core being able to level up by itself was rather hurtful but it didn’t matter too much. The Entity was proud of its progress, even if it had been rather fruitless lately.

‘No, I did not do such a thing or anything like it,’ the Core answered. ‘After the intruders left, I tried reviving you instantly. I know that we agreed on not trying that until I knew for certain I had enough power, but I barely even got the chance to do any sort of attempt on it before the [System] took over. Have you ever heard of anything called [Automatic Revival Procedures]?’

The Queen stood still for a few minutes, sending out bursts of Mana now and then. Some went quite far, to the point where they even reached the outside and beyond the river. Perhaps the ant was making sure that the Core hadn’t lied. There was a lack of trust in that but the Entity had no real dislike towards it. If given the chance, it too would validate all the claims made by the Queen.

‘The name doesn’t ring a bell. With the context, however, I suppose the [System] has some in-built functions allowing you to revive monsters beyond your Mana-Capacity. We have to test the limits of that at some point.’

Not being able to agree more, the Core was quick to regather its thoughts about the new mechanic. It wouldn’t be able to test if it only worked on [Dungeon-Bosses] just yet, seeing as there was only one of those at the current time and no [Dungeon-Born] that couldn’t be created through its mana-capacity alone. However, a few [Force Evolution] could fix that issue.

‘Did you learn anything while inside the void?’ the Core asked, still a bit curious to know about the state after death. Total darkness did sound like a quite dreadful endeavour but perhaps something more spiritual in nature had been acquired? Maybe some kind of secret that only those with a sense of true darkness could learn naturally.

‘I learned that being empty for a few hours feels like a few months,’ Mother Carapace answered dryly, clearly not seeing much reason to extend her explanation. Though, that was perhaps because there wasn’t much more to say. ‘Next time, try to revive me quicker. Being in there is the most boring place imaginable. Couldn’t even practice my [Skills] there.’

That certainly sounded horrendous. An inability to move, see, hear, or even act upon any emotion for extended times sounded like an utterly boring and uneventful time. Being forced to just sit around and do nothing with the mind would hurt the Core more than most things it had the chance of experiencing. Perhaps it could try and decrease the ant’s waiting period next time it received points. It had a few plans prepared for how it was going to distribute its points, yes, but making sure the underlings didn’t go insane was a higher priority. Mother Carapace was too valuable for that.

Character Screen

Name:

Mother Carapace

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Gender:

Female

Level:

9

Class:

Necromancer

Race:

Giant-Ant

Title:

Dungeon-Boss

Health:

180/180

H-Regen:

0.12/sec

Mana:

46/170

M-Regen:

0.13/sec

Stamina:

150/150

S-Regen:

0.14/sec

Cost:

XX MP

Basic Stats

Strength:

22

Wisdom:

16

Vitality:

17

Intelligence:

13

Dex:

14

Willpower:

10

Available points:

Resistances

Fire:

0%

Earth:

15%

Water:

0%

Arcane:

5%

Lightning:

0%

Light:

-5%

Wind:

5%

Darkness:

20%

While her physical and mental stats alone might not have shown how mighty she truly was, the Core knew of her skill better than anyone. Even the similarity level nine [Druid] under the Entity’s win couldn’t even think about beating the ant in a one-to-one fight. Even ten [Druids] would find themselves beaten thoroughly.

How the Core wished it could upgrade her. But, she was too high in cost alone for the [Force Evolution] to work, the Entity just getting negative feedback when it tried. And trying alternative methods was hardly something it wanted to do on her, the chance of loss, not something it wanted to risk.

At the current time, the Core had ten points towards Intelligence. With the increase from the [Title], it was effectively twelve. A respectable amount perhaps but not one which was good enough. It would still take hours to revive the Queen when she fell. Hours where she wouldn’t be able to protect the Dungeon and hours where she was unable to improve. That needed to be minimized as quickly as possible. The Core needed to level up and gain the points required for the time to decrease. But how? It needed to figure that out soon.

‘Where is that kid which we adopted recently?’ the Queen questioned. She likely hadn’t searched for him in her pulses of energy going out, leaving that task to the Core. ‘I believe he was meant to remain in this very room until I was revived.’

‘And that was certainly my intention,’ the Core explained. Even the thought of it was quite something. Communicating with the man hadn’t been the wisest of choice and even less had it been a needed one. The risks had been too high in the long-term for that to be done, after all. Yet the Entity had been forced into a situation where it was riskier in the short-term to not say anything. ‘But I was forced to become more lenient after he threatened to kill himself.’

…

‘What?’ the Queen’s response was. ‘The man which we specifically kept alive, who we scouted due to his extreme desire to live, threatened to kill himself so he could leave a room?’

‘Yes,’ the Core confirmed, still annoyed that he succeeded. ‘His actions before that made it too possible that he hadn’t been bluffing and I made the decision at that point to give him more freedom until you returned.’

Expecting him to just lie still while the Core was trying to modify his muscle structure might have been too much, yes, but it would have been a positive upgrade overall. That the man had then threatened to move in a way that would have severed too many pulse-veins was quite worrying. The Entity had understood the desire to get into a more productive position of power, yes, but to threaten one’s own life while there was too much.

‘Try to put it into perspective for me,’ the Queen said. ‘What exactly did he say which made you give him the benefits he currently enjoys?’

‘While making changes to his back muscles so that he could move more smoothly, he requested that I speak. I ignored these requests until he made it very clear that he would proceed to move if I didn't upon which I let him know that I existed,’ the Core explained, proud of itself for letting those many minutes of talking be abbreviated in such a manner. ‘This was followed up by the man lying down on his bed instead of being in a more ideal position purely because he complained about how his legs weren’t feeling good and me having to quicken the process to make sure he didn’t move around during the final steps of the improvement. It was a rather annoying ordeal that I hope we can avoid in the future.’

‘Little rock, you are too good at not understanding social conventions. In the future, just stop him from moving at all until I can handle the situation. Also, I don’t think he knew he was going to die from the movement. Use that information however you wish,’ the Queen said, a more defeated tone used. ‘Now… do tell me where he went.’

‘He’s in the middle of the Dungeon trying to make the other underlings fetch rocks for him,’ the Core answered, still not understanding the actions of the Druid. Each time the man succeeded in the action, he would throw it away again and get angry that they weren’t repeating their previous orders. The [Enlightened] were too weird sometimes.