Levelling up… that had been something that the Entity had not done much of. It was not due to a lack of desire for it or anything. The Core wanted to level up more than anything since the benefits were so good. There was hardly a moment where the thought of more [Willpower] didn't cause some minor annoyance, mostly because the Core couldn't attain it easily.

There were too many risks attached to level up. No matter what was done, no matter how much skill had progressed, there was always the requirement of death before levels could be attained. The Core wasn't sure why this was, and why battle-experience had to wield in a higher place than skill-based experience, but who was it to judge the machinations formed by a god? Well… since it was the one using the system, it could judge as it pleased. It wasn't like anybody cared about what it had to say.

Yet the fact of the matter was that combat seemed the only way to truly progress. And… that was something that bore many risks. Every piece of combat that had been had in the life of the Core had been wrought with danger, the chance of the Core losing its minions and being forced to watch on as it was devoured was something it feared greatly. It was much inclined to live a day or two more if it was all possible. There was no reason to hurry death, with there being way too many things to try out before eternal nothingness.

The lack of ability for learning was the strongest inhibitor to trying out its luck to grow stronger the easy way. [Skills] had always been there to replace levels, though. While taking much more time and dedication, the Core’s power had grown massively when the fruits of labour finally began to sprout. Things were more efficient or a new way of thinking had been created, making the creatures that much more dangerous. Even now, independence had been created for its minions, allowing the Core to join the fight in some capacity. Who knew? Maybe it could even call itself relatively safe?

It was a term that the Entity didn't like using that much. Nowhere was safe as long as the enemy lived. Without sight over the entire world and the [Wild], there was a chance for them to be everywhere. The lack of oversight left too much potential for havoc, and the Core would have none of it. There was no desire greater than having them dead inside its domain, never to be able to move again. That queen of the ants most of all, her magic making the Entity shiver in ways it had never thought possible. That blackness made it more than a little uncomfortable.

Yet, the idea of safety was something that needed to be considered in some capacity. At the current moment, there was nothing the Core could do to improve. The [Blood-Moss] was growing well enough, the ants were ready to defend at any moment, and the Core itself was simply idling by, watching it all unfold. It would take months on end before it would be able to expand and fortify its defences even more. Anything beyond the current point would be without reason, it did nothing to truly delay the enemies. The only form of result from the current strategy would be that the enemy came back with an even stronger force.

And was that a situation that the Core would want to find itself in? Hoping that the [Queen of Hollows] wasn't planning on another attack, instead just hoping to have the last fight be that before they went on their merry way? No, of course not. With how many attacks had been had, it was clear that their base of operations was close by. Neither the Core nor the [Wild] creatures could accept the state of liveliness coming from the others. There were too many risks imposed by it.

So that was all it truly came down to. The Core could technically wait for weeks on end, never able to upgrade its defences, just hoping that what had been created at the current moment would be enough for every to work out fine. Or, it could go on the offensive, sending out groups of ants to pillage and destroy the living, to have their kills be the feed needed for the Core to gain levels. For that latter goal would truly bring forth progress. Another piece of [Willpower] could grant another creature, a point of [Intelligence] granting the speed of Mana-Regeneration, and a point of [Wisdom] letting the container for energy grow ever-stronger. Each would prove more useful than one could ever imagine, and the Core was sure it would be able to use them all for the best. And, yes, there was still the option of [Vitality] but that was closer to the stat that would make it possible for the Core to survive another hit from an ant directly. Yet, if that ever came to be, if an enemy creature was ever able to reach the Core without being killed, then everything else had already failed and doom would fall upon the Entity without any mercy anyway.

There was no real reason to wonder for long, the ideas, goals, and hopes outweighing everything else. Waiting patiently had never been the preferred strategy in winning the games, and neither had it been the way to win the war. The Core remembered its strategies from before. When ordering the [Giant-Ants] to go towards a more passive way of fighting, making sure that their health was more important than making the enemy lose theirs, the attention spent on oneself was more than enough to give the other the advantage. The Core had done just that in the current situation, thinking to itself that constant defence was the best choice to make. But it wasn't. Without ever attacking, instead only defending from attacks, the enemy was given more than just the advantage. They would never be able to lose, the ability to simply retreat and try again in a month being there. The experience could be had through that, the [Wild] creatures studying the methods of the dungeon. And with time, the Core would simply fall down, never knowing why its so-called brilliant strategy failed it.

It was certainly a grim way to look at former ideas. The Entity was s quick to look down on its own ideas, think back to former opinions and think them stupid, that there might have been some issues. Was such a mentality truly productive, where ones own ideas were looked down upon the moment where they changed? Or, should the Core have looked at it more positively, being happy that it was able to grow more than just physically but also mentally, seeing the mistakes of its former self and improving upon them? The latter way of perspective seemed more productive, at the very least, the Entity not being able to see good results from clinging to old opinions purely based on them being it's own.

But time moved on, and the Core had yet to start up its gathering of creatures. There was some manner of ideas for how it would handle the group being sent out. What orders would be required before a good result would come around? It was supposed that it would be able to simply order them into running around until they died, trying to kill as many of the [Wild] creatures as possible. But on a similar note, there was the lack of desire to be forced to spawn in more level two ants, the process quite extreme on the costs. Instead, perhaps a more conservative way of preservation would be needed.

When the group of attackers found another group of ants worth killing, they would first estimate the size. If it was a group of three or less, they would attack no matter what. If it was a group of four to six, they would first try and figure out the level of the enemy. If this group had creatures of level two or above, the attack would be stopped and retreat back to the Core’s domain would be required. If the group was instead made of solely level one creatures, the attacking would commence. Finally, if the found group of [Wild] creatures was made up of seven creatures or more, retreat would be made without another word, the chances of success being much too low.

With that, the orders had been set up quite nicely. Gathering a group of five level two [Giant-Ants], the Core relayed the orders in detail, not trusting the intent enough that it would sacrifice the creatures to make a point. Additionally, it added in the order of having to return before a full day had gone by. It was more as a precaution than anything else, the Entity not wanting to wait for them to return without realising they had died. The moment a day had passed, another group would be spawned in and sent out. There was no chance of the opposite happening, some orders needing to be fulfilled no matter what.

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There were no other things required to be known, so the Core simply sent them out of the entrance. The group ran in formation, never stopping for a moment. They disappeared out of sight within a second. A burst of Mana was spent to make sure that they didn't instantly die outside, but even that was unknown after they went out of range of where the burst-fire method worked. Not even twenty mana allowed the Core to see so far out.

But it was of no matter. It was sure that there would be much fighting and just as much success. When they came back after a day, some would likely have grown to a whole level three, four, and maybe even five! The ability to grow with each kill simply made the chances of survival over time all the higher.

Or did it? If the leader of the enemy group catched wind about the roaming group, perhaps it wouldn't be too hard to guess that some form of extermination would take place. The Core certainly knew that it would use all its powers held to make sure that no small thing out of its control would be allowed to live in its domain.

…

The Core decided to try and refrain from thinking about it, knowing that it would just become too much of a wreck to make it objective. Subjectiveness was a harder fact of life, the concept steering creatures away from truth through time and experience. One would think that living for a longer period would make one wiser, yet it had done nothing but create more paranoia about things that hadn't been there from the start. The Core thought itself smart to avoid some of the things that it had seen in the last few days, yet maybe that avoidance was the sole reason behind its lacking gain? There was not the highest chance of that being true yet it was an example that fit the picture quite well. If it continued with the lacking desire for changing methods, having to convince itself over hours to alter its goals, then there would be much back-pay the moment where split. decisions had to be made. If it couldn't choose in a second, there would be times where nothing would be done, and all the blame would be on the Core.

Having the ability to have made it all work, to have stated the order that would rally the creatures into the spirit needed to win the overwhelming battle yet doing nothing but stay silent? It was close to the Core’s worst nightmare, the Entity not able to believe that it would be able to forgive itself if that was the case. Not that it would truly have time for anything like that in such a scenario, it being required to die not long after in such an event. There was hardly a chance of the enemy wanting to keep it around, no matter how useful the Core would be. It certainly wasn't every day that a [Core] came around.

At least the Entity hoped it was something like that, having its own race be rather rare. If more of its own kind would spring up close by, making themselves known over time, it would be hard to make them go away. The Core didn't want to kill others of its kind. If they were as intelligent as itself, they would be able to listen to reason. They would understand the need for the distance between them. And since the Core itself would likely have been the oldest, there was a good chance that it would be able to sway them into moving, giving them the needed information and skill required for such a thing. Getting an ant and making it carry the Core certainly didn't seem too hard to accomplish. While there were some ideas on how to move without the assistance of another creature as well, the Entity thought it best to save those for another day.

Though, that was not due to any overwhelming safety issues related to its health. There was just the fact that any larger adjustments to its position within the room would do nothing but create a change in where its domain was. If it moved a meter to the right, it would be able to see a meter more in that direction while losing sight of one meter to the other side. That was certainly not a favourable method of living, yet the Core had no real clue on how to make the current borders stick.

They weren't even borders, were they? The current points were just the level where the Core’s Mana would dissipate enough to make it impossible to see anything further. That was why there was a constant need for more Mana to be pumped out. Everything slowly furthered itself into the wild, never to be seen again. Thinking about it more and more, it was quite wasteful. There was so much Mana spent on making sure everything could be seen, yet not a drop of it was normally used. Did sight truly cost so much?

Likewise, the need to constantly stay in the centre of the room was so impractical. The Core couldn't hide in the corner of the room, making itself more distant from the entrance that it needed to be protected from. Neither could it just make a wall to that side since that took up too much space before it would be effective?

There was no way that this was something Core’s dealt with normally. A solution had to exist somewhere. But how? The issue of the current time was that Mana escaped into the wild due to it just being pumped out into the air around the Core. Perhaps the solution was to just hold onto the energy to stop it from doing so?

No, that was quite the idiotic idea. While it wasn't always that obvious, the outer edges of the Entity’s domain were still quite… wide. Keeping track of every single point of Mana close by, constantly pushing it inside in the meanwhile, was something that required more effort than the Core could attain consistently. It could hold a small portion of the domain together, yes, but that just meant that more Mana escape through the other wide options. It was a journey into insanity.

What else was there to do? While the previous technique of partly holding together parts of the domain could save Mana in the long run, that was not the intended result currently. The Core desired a way to move around without having to be scared that some parts of its room would be lost to its sights. What was truly needed was a way to anchor the domain place without there being a need for the Core to control it from its current position. Instead of measuring the domain by the radius of the Core’s place in the world, there was the possibility to measure it through where the different walls were. They were the perfect indicators for such things, after all. Only… how would such a thing be done?

Already, the idea seemed more possible. Instead of going through empty air like Mana normally had the pleasure of doing, escaping its Domain required it to reach out through the stone and come through it. This was quite the hard task t accomplish due to the materials naturally resisting more energy sent its way, yet constant pressure did help make it give up.

But that was exactly what the Core didn't want it to do. it needed the stone and basalt that made up the walls to hold strong, refusing the foreign Mana entry no matter what. A barrier of sorts had to be created.

How would a barrier for Mana work exactly? Well, the materials from before showed some form of resistance, yet the energy’s partial ability to ignore physical laws stopped that from working entirely. Instead, one had to think outside of the box and realize that the only true influence of Mana was other Mana of the same variety. And from here, it got a little more complicated.

What happened when two groups of Mana, both having the same number and density, tried to pass by each other? Nothing would happen, honestly, since both were of equal power and could therefore not interfere without the other getting an equal reaction which would then make both powers nullified, making it possible for both parties to move on without a care in the world. Simple enough to understand too.

Yet what changed when one group of Mana turned out to have a higher density than the other? Well… in such a scenario, they would have the power on their side. If both pieces of Mana moved towards each other at the same speed, having the same size but different densities, the one with the higher density would decide which way all the Mana went. The other group would neither be able to move through the Mana due to conflicting densities and would also not be able to stop it due to having less power than the other, forcing them to move in tandem with the higher density. It was as easy as that.

The barrier was easy in hindsight. The Core needed to do nothing else but create a wall of higher density Mana before anchoring it to the walls already in place. When the two properties of the material and high-density energy are mixed, the Mana within the domain would be unable to do anything. It would also mean that the Core would need to almost stop the output of the Natural Mana-Regeneration, though, to not make the density inside outgrow the density meant to stop it from escaping. It was a high-level o thought, yet the Core was getting better and better at it.

Now… how exactly would it be able to create the anchors? Having the Core uphold the density would be another suicide mission, after all, so there had to be some form of thinking possible to make it happen. Yet, the Core was having trouble thinking of it.

…

The time for experimenting had come, it supposed.