‘I sensed a disturbance in the air,’ the Queen sent over to the Core. ‘Am I to guess that you have figured out the secrets?’

‘You can guess as you please,’ the Core said, making sure every single piece of its Domain was still there. The lack of direct contact was weird, to say the least. It understood fundamentally that it was still connected to each piece in the room, yet the lack of constant feeling was starting to become… less than pleasant. The lack of occupied space in its mind needed to be filled with something, and the empty void was not something it enjoyed at any level. ‘But, yes. I believe that I have accomplished what you wanted.’

‘Perfect,’ the Queen answered. ‘That should allow us to increase your size by tenfold, at the very least. The walls will likely take up some extra space out but I don’t believe we should cut corners with that. Instead, I think we can start up the process soon.’

‘Why not immediately?’ the Entity questioned, unsure of the need to wait. It had already accomplished the goal so why not use it to their advantage instantly? The benefits were the same no matter what, after all. ‘Would delaying it not prove pointless?’

‘Nothing is pointless as long as you progress,’ the Queen chastised, though it wasn’t said that harshly. She seemed eerily distant, looking back out of the Domain. Realizing it first now, the Core noticed the lack of the ants that had followed her originally. ‘Before we start out the expansion, I have to make sure whether or not you have access to a few of the Screens in your Status. Yet even before we get to do that, I have to ask you to widen the bridge I made a few hours ago. My children will have it hard dragging the bag inside if you don’t.’

Not able to do much else but follow her words, the Core widened both the hole and the bridge that stopped the ants from falling down onto the spikes underneath. And true as told, the five [Giant-Ants] all came into view not long after, their mandibles forced around a rather larger, rattling bag. It held no creatures and no real traces of Black Mana, yet its weight was gargantuan. Using Physical Arcane, the Entity floated it the rest of the way, not wanting to wait for the creatures to

‘Thank you for that,’ the Queen stated. ‘I wasn’t sure if it would spill when getting over the exoskeletons. They can be quite sharp and the bag might not be in the greatest condition after all these years.

The Core did not listen too deeply to the ant, instead of focusing its mind on sending out a few [Appraisals]. With how much there were inside, it just emptied its Mana-Container during the process, the items inside too closely together to truly tell apart.

Woven Bag

Uncommon Quality.

Bronze Coin

Common Shaped Material

Silver Coin

Uncommon Shaped Material

Gold Coin

Rare Shaped Material

Platinum Coin

Very Rare Shaped Material

‘I can’t say I expected you to have such a large variety of coins. And certainly not in so high amounts,’ the Core had to comment, again looking through the bag for what there was to see inside. It was mostly Bronze Coins, anything above increasing in rarity to the extreme. Platinum Coins were less than five in the Entity’s sound while the Bronze was in the upper thousands. Though, that was perhaps fair enough. When looking through the various costs of creating the different materials, it quickly became clear that the Core would likely not be creating [Platinum Coins] in too high amounts. Even one of them would be more than a day worth of using Manual-Regeneration at its highest output.

‘Neither did I expect to carry on with them, to be fully honest? They have been as much a burden as they have been a gift,’ the Ant Queen said. ‘This cave system has had many entities inside through the ages, and just as many has been carrying coin. On the deeper levels, it is not too uncommon to just find them lying around everywhere. And with how long I’ve spent down here, I had to do something to keep myself busy, that finally ended up to be me keeping any coins I found with me. Since I was planning to leave this forsaken place, there had been a plan to just leave the bag behind and let somebody else have it, but I have started to believe that you might have a desire for these.’

The materials were certainly something the Core wanted more of, the processed version certainly within its current repertoire. Though… what else they might have for the Core’s progress, it wasn't too sure about.

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‘What exactly am I meant to do with these?’ the Core questioned. It moved the bag itself over to the corner of the room, not wanting it that close to the tunnel down to the Manalock room. It hadn't closed off that section yet, seeing as it also hadn't removed its Mana down there, but that plan needed to be started soon.

‘Use them to entice adventures? The idea of being able to sell processed materials is quite lucrative for that bunch. And since we’re already hoping to get into the business of raw ore-veins, it would not be too hard to imagine giving out Processed Ore as well. Though… you will likely have to save the Platinum and Gold for later. There is no real chance that you will be able to gain any profits from putting out such lucrative things.’

The Entity wasn't really planning on it, but the Queen confirming its beliefs was not unwanted. Filing it away for use to another day, it began again to consider the process of locking away the Manalock room. First, before it could do anything of that kind though, it needed to move away from its Core.

‘Would it be possible for you to go down the tunnel and grab my body?’ the Core requested. Now that it had an intelligent creature, it didn't have to rely on one of the dumber minds to make sure it wasn't damaged.

‘I don’t see any reason you couldn’t do that yourself,’ the Queen said, not sounding that understanding. ‘Just get out of the tunnel with your mind. It shouldn’t be too hard for you.’

‘You might not have realized this, but I have neither legs nor feet. There is no real chance of me walking out of that tunnel by myself,’ the Core responded, a bit confused that the ant could not remember the lack of physical traits.

‘Who said anything about you walking? You quite literally own this piece of space. Nothing is stopping you from just floating, you know?’

…

‘I can do that?’ the Core had to ask.

‘Yes? There is no reason you should be able to. With no foreign Mana-Elements, you can simply will the Energy to carry you around.’

Huh. Trying just that, the Core felt itself slowly disengaging from the earth it had been planted on moments before. With a steady mind, it began to move out of the tunnel and back into its main domain. It had previously sat on the side but had decided to move down into the tunnel when the Queen had arrived to kill it. Nobody expected that to be its hiding place. But, that section was to be removed. Making sure no creatures remained down there, the Core cut off the connection, sucking out all the Mana which had been left down there while also removing the support for the Arcane Boxes.

That small tremor of giant rocks hitting the ground unsettled the Entity slightly, but no fractures came in the walls. How lucky. And with that removal of Mana, the Entity was even more deprived of actual sensory data, the down-graded environment not providing nearly enough. Even the conversation with the Queen was barely hitting the itch.

‘I did not know I could do that,’ the Core said.

‘And you also didn’t know that I can pick up on obvious facts,’ the Queen stated. ‘But here we are.’

Sarcasm. How great to see it in action. The Core wanted to congratulate the Ant on such a discovery yet it felt that doing so would just side-track them even further. Putting down its crystalline body in a hole in the wall, it prepared itself for the oncoming conversation.

‘There were things about the system you wanted to make sure about,’ the Core stated, putting pressure on the ant queen again. ‘What were those?’

‘Mainly ones that you won’t have access to from the start, be that due to you not needing them or due to you not fulfilling the requirements. One of the obvious ones which I can think of would be… the underling list,’ the Queen stated. For whatever reason that such a terrible name had been picked, the Core hoped it was a personal choice rather than one the system had chosen. ‘Try to press the [System] to give you a list of all the creatures under your command. To start of with, we can limit it to showing their designation, their health, and then their stamina count. We could allow it to show Mana as well later on, but this should do for now.’

A list with all such details put out on display in an easy viewing format? That was certainly something the Core wouldn’t mind having access to, quickly beginning to put the focus onto the System. With each passing moment, it tried to order it into giving the Core what it desired most. Yet… nothing came from it, the [System] only providing one answer.

Warning!

This section of the [System] is restricted until you have proven yourself worthy. Work hard and you shall be able to reap what you have sowed.

That had been shown before but the Core couldn’t help but be a little surprised by it. The lack of access to such a thing was… annoying.

‘The system is saying I'm not worthy yet,’ the Core stated with no small amount of disgruntlement.

‘Well, that is to be expected,’ the Queen said while not showing the right level of surprise. The Core wanted her to be shocked as well yet that wasn’t happening. ‘I believe the standard requirement for attaining that list is to have about twenty-five creatures under your near-direct command. It can shift to twenty if you control them all at once or thirty if you leave them all near-fully disconnected.’

‘Couldn’t you have said that sooner?’ the Core said, already starting to plan the spacing of the new creatures. The Main-Domain would be quite packed with thirty creatures at once, but it could technically pull it off if-

‘Don’t even think about it, little rock. We don’t need that right now,’ the Queen cut before the Entity could even start moving around its Mana properly. ‘Likewise, the [System] does not always appreciate being exploited in such an explicit manner. If you try and reach the needed requirements while not being able to hold them stably, nothing will truly happen other than you get a pain in your mind.’

‘You could also have told me that,’ the Core replied, settling down its Mana once again. ‘What other Screens do you want to test out?’

‘Since you’ve promised some form of evolution with my Children, I do believe that this next one could be possible. Try to imagine a list of all the different creatures in your Domain and what possible Variants you have of them. They don’t have to be alive. You only have to know of them.’

… That seemed simple enough. Bringing in another burst of thought, it was released into the [System]. And the response was quite fast.

Evolution-Screen

Base creature

Variant

Rarity

Moss

Blood-Moss

Uncommon

Ant

Giant-Ant

Uncommon

Giant-Ant

Infested Giant-Ant

Very Rare

Undead Giant-Ant

Rare