The preparations for the party the vitapygmy were throwing were accelerating. I helped out here and there and even introduced the Dire Nimbus Crab to them which was welcomed far quicker then I had expected since they could help put up decorations in places the vitapygmy had difficulty reaching. My Mist-walker Dire Hare helped carry things from time to time also but in truth I just had them positioned to make sure my Domain didn't get thinned out while the vitapygmy were becoming more relaxed and moved about the dungeon more freely.
I still kept them out of my Core chamber, I didn't want a repeat of my first encounter with them for many reasons. Primarily it was the potential drop in moral the close to the delvers return could prove disastrous. I also didn't want to risk the loss of monster power from any scuffles while so much still needed to get done.
I was able to plant the seed of throwing some sort of exhibition match in the sand pit to the vitapygmy. It wasn't easy to convey the idea with mostly pantomime but eventually my eldest hare and the veteran vitapygmy seemed to get the idea across to each other. They seemed to be excited about it although the idea of fighting for entertainment value seemed to simply confuse the Priestess and about half the other vitapygmy.
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To try and help out with the efficiency of organizing my own materials I spent a Cloud Mana Pearl to turn the chamber I was stashing the excess stone into a Stockpile and wound up with a rather interesting room. The walls and floors smoothed out like the library and map room before it and then every surface became covered with a number of holes. these then were further modified into rounded shelving units that became interconnected in a swirling mosaic of holes. I was incredibly glad I didn't have Trypophobia as they room shifted and more shelving units filled the room. Along with the shelving the room filled with a light fog that dropped visibility in the room to only a few meters. This had the intriguing effect of making the room feel far larger then it was since the shelves curved around each other in such a a way that you never hit a point where you could clearly tell if you were at the outer wall. At least not unless you found the door.
Chambers Bonus Stockpile Improved item management and reduced decay rate(Material Compiler)
The last change to the room was to the Mana Well at its center. The enriched water inside the round pool of water began to swirl as if draining but it maintained its water level. This was likely the Material Compiler the chamber window mentioned but I wasn't sure what it did. as a quick test I had a dire hare toss in a few stones and they were suddenly broken down into powder and vanished. Once it had finished breaking down the rubble a stone brick formed on one of the shelves that seemed to equal exactly a single unit of stone. I tossed some dungeon moss in and it had a similar result swirling down the cyclone at the center of the room and a spungy block of moss was deposited on a shelf.
I tried a couple other tests with the Compiler with less dramatic results. tossing a coin in would just shift the coin to one of the shelves that was now the coin shelf, same thing happened with the rings. So items that were intrinsically individual were treated as such while items that were more like resources would be divided up into some form of measured unit bricks.
The vitapygmy had were amazed by my creation of new chambers seeing as their own production of the Altar had been far less dramatic. After watching my hare toss things into the pool at the center a few of them saw it as a kind of game and began tossing a few berries or bits of material or a trinket in every time they went by the room on their way to the Sand Pit. It was mildly annoying having to guide them back out of the room as they would get lost in the labyrinth of shelves every so often but it was materials that I wasn't technically stealing so I wasn't going to discourage them.
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The Vitapygmy set up around the Altar and began their daily prayers and the Priestess brought along the Fleshborn Avatar and placed them in the bowl of the Altar. Once they were done the mild pulse of life energy washed over the room and they began to chant a different prayer. It took me a moment to work out what they were exactly doing but quickly realized it was the Prayer to Luciantisss. The translation I had was in plain English without the odd cadence or syntax of the vitapygmy language.
I was also at the time practicing keeping myself aware of multiple places at once so I quickly ordered a hare from the Grange to start herding the Fleshborn Progenitors over to the Alter room. Another hare that was guarding my core I ordered to grab ten coins and a ring to bring them also to the Altar. The prayer itself was quite long so I had some time so I quickly gathered a number of materials like berries and lengths of vine pulled from the vitapygmy territories dead ends, a stone and a moss brick, and a Cloud Mana Pearl.
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My crab was in Lu Xians Core chamber collecting some caramelized life mana in a stone bowl as well as grabbing the new life pearls from the prayer so I decided to keep pushing myself and tried to simultaneously be aware of my own inner space and Lu Xians at the same time. Ultimately I was feeling rather stretched out that I nearly missed the time of day.
The vitapigmy brandished their stone daggers and then turned them on themselves, but it was a far less violent display now that they weren't actively under attack. They instead brought the knives against their biceps extending their arms over the inclined floor that lead to base of the bowl. Just as they started to sag the priestess cast a healing spell and in response to the second wind the vitapigmy switched arms.
Lu Xian appeared distressed which I would have to agree this was not a pleasant sight but the vitapygmy had prodigious healing abilities and I knew that they weren't at any risk of permanent or even legitimate short term harm from a simple stone knife. The Fleshborn Avatar was too small to get out of the Altar unaided and the Vitapygmy were deeply focused on the ritual itself to notice. Either way I knew we needed a behemoth in some form before the delvers arrived since that is what they would be expecting.
The Guardian ritual hit its crescendo with the Priestess shouting out Luciantisss three times. The day ticked over at precisely the same moment and I could see the Mana Sea from several perspectives at once. From my own Core I saw it as a new Dire Nimbus Crab was woven into being with primarily Animal and Cloud mana but it pulled together a smattering of dozens of others in the process that were in negligible quantities but were equally required. The same happened with my dire hare to a lesser extent as their structure was reinforced. From Lu Xians core I saw the same reinforcement and for the first time got a peek at what the Soul Mana Axis looked like and it was markedly different from the others, looking like a string of magnesium flare bright fire.
The offering beneath the Altar were consumed in some sort of interaction with the Soul Axis converting it into predominantly Life Affinity Mana and binding it to the Avatar on the Altar. Vines, berries, blood coins and rings were converted into the new material everything except the Mana Pearls for some reason and the Fleshborn Avatar grew. The storm of mana was disorienting but I also saw an arc of soul mana arc down and strike the stele and further empower the Avatar.
Just as the behemoth had taken shape before the diminutive Fleshborn Avatar shifted and grew and quickly settled into the form of a three meter tall human man. Well man shaped since it was anatomically incorrect and it had three eyes. Two of them were closed and were likely empty pits like the vitapygmy like behemoth that had been made before but the third eye that sat on its brow was a piercing verdant crystalline orb.
The massive Avatar stood and stared down at the gathered vitapygmy with a stern expression. He was not pleased. The Priestess flinched back and cowered as the imposing figure approached her flinching pack from his extended hand. The Avatar patted her on the head with surprising gentleness in comparison to his mass and then waved her and the other vitapygmy to follow him and lead them back to the vitapygmy Habitation chamber where he set about directing them in how to make a properly sized robe for their new frame.
I pulled myself together and noticed there was a new Mana pearl in additional Mana pearl beyond the new Life Mana Pearl. I quickly got my crab to quickly snag it all before returning to my Core chamber. I had things to work on while the festivities were temporarily on pause.
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After seeing that Lu Xian was becoming quite powerful I decided to take account of all the things I had at my disposal I tried to fiddle around with the variant tool to see if I could make something dramatic with everything. I started with a baseline of my crabs since it was a fairly stable base to start from.
I was able to stretch out what I could make and wound up with something rather intimidating. The Cay Hulk was some sort of Crab centaur with eight legs and a heavy carapace that stood about the same height of a human but it tended to hunker down bringing its large back shell down over most of its body.
Cay Hulk [https://i.imgur.com/0Y1RGym.png]
Tier ))%@* Monster species Cay Hulk Level <----> Mana Type Cloud, Life, Mana, Animal, Soul Skills Cloud Spellwork, Life Spellwork, Carapace Fortification, Emergency Molting
I was sure that I wasn't creating this thing in the most efficient way it could be but I felt confident that with what I had it could be done. Although I think it would need to have the entirety of a chamber to support it and quite a few mana pearls.
Tomorrow would be the start of the tournament if nothing unexpected happened. Maybe this thing could be the star of the show.