After the herd of humans left for the second time, the core settled in to wait to see the results of its first test. Would more humans appear, or would it need to start over and change things?

Already the core could see different things that could be improved, but it also realized that there might be a limit to what the humans could handle. The core wanted the humans to be as powerful as possible before harvesting them, as that was the best way to maximize the results of its efforts.

In that case, did the core need to find a way to strengthen or improve the humans? What would be the best way to go about doing that? Could such improvements be used as rewards for certain chambers?

The core filed this possibility away, as it was important to first conduct further tests with more humans. Only by observing the overall results would it be able to understand the best way forward.

Days passed, and then weeks. With its weak concept of the passage of time, the core did not grow impatient, but simply continued to work on its creatures, and further build and expand deeper caverns that it intended to potentially open later on. Given humans’ propensity for learning and communication, the core understood that the first visit to each chamber would be the most difficult for them, and each subsequent visit would be increasingly easier, so growth and improved challenges would be very important to continuously implement until the humans’ limits were discovered.

Also, the core was hoping to see additional visitors, and if its wish came true, it would need plenty of creatures to replace the ones the humans eliminated. This was not very difficult, but it was a bit time consuming. The core could accelerate growth, or even induce near instantaneous growth, but reproduction was a process that still required at least a bit of time to occur.

Finally, after about four weeks had passed, the core finally received an answer from the humans: they accepted its offer.

On that day, the core observed three small herds of humans gathering outside of the entrance to its cave. They were clearly preparing to enter, and the only way that the core was able to tell that there were three groups was from the clear antagonism between the three. What were they doing? Was infighting so common within humans? That would not benefit the core at all.

By mid-morning, the three groups started moving into the first tunnel, each waiting about half an hour before following the previous team. It was clear to the core that the second and third herds were unhappy about the order, yet they also did not try to challenge the first team. Clearly, someone else was making decisions, though the core could not determine who that might be.

Seeing that it would be hosting three groups of challengers simultaneously, the core quickly started mobilizing its forces and prepared for multiple invasions.

The regular creatures were not an issue, but it took excessive amounts of mana to produce any of the powerful creatures that the core placed at the end of each cavern. It would need to start reaping some harvests from the humans, or else it would quickly suffer losses from the costs from needing to produce so many powerful creatures.

Well, it could simply prepare the creatures when the humans entered each cavern, that way if they did not make it to the end, the core would not need to suffer any extra costs. Also, the beasts could always be used for the next successful group.

The core was carefully observing everything, and it quickly noticed that while these groups were better prepared, and clearly had some knowledge of what awaited them, they were also nowhere near as coordinated or powerful as the first group that had explored the caves.

Wounds started to occur, and surprisingly, none of them were healed by the groups’ mana users. Were such humans rare? If so, why?

The first team pushed, aggressive and almost reckless as they tried to stay ahead of the other two teams.

The second team continued at a rather steady pace, but the third team fought with almost a degree of desperation that simply did not match the resistance they were encountering.

What the core did not know was that these three teams had been put together by the kingdom’s military to test out the effectiveness of training within the system of caverns. The most successful team would be made an official squad, and would also be promoted. Such opportunities were hard to come by, so even though the members of each team deliberately did not know each other, they were all very eager to prove themselves.

By the time the first team managed to push through the forest, their wounds had piled up, and two of their members were limping badly.

They encountered a four-tailed fox, and while they had aptly handled the two-tailed foxes within the forest, the four-tailed fox possessed far greater mastery of its illusions, and the humans were unable to gain the upper hand. The fox flitted about, attacking from the shadows while the humans attacked illusions.

This fox’s illusions were not instantly destroyed by any attack, and instead, the fox had the intelligence to show the illusions being wounded by the attacks, and so the humans continued to believe that they were succeeding, despite never once touching the actual beast.

The core still did not understand the correlation between the foxes’ illusion ability and how they grew more tails, but similar phenomenon had appeared in several different creatures, without any noticeable connection.

Ultimately, the team was forced to reluctantly retreat. The fox managed to take out an archer who had been at the back of the group, a sneak attack proving unbelievably effective, as the human fell to a single attack from the fox.

The core instantly seized upon the strange energy, yet once again the central seed of the energy was ripped away from the core. There was no struggle at all, the core was simply unable to contest with the power that seized the seeds.

However, this time, with anticipation and forewarning of what would happen, the core had managed to seize more of the energy that surrounded the central seed, and this meant it obtained more complete memories of Winston, the archer who had died.

The entire process took place in less than a fraction of a second, yet the sudden access to new memories and the surge of power then reinforced the core’s own overwhelmed it for several minutes, and when it recovered, it realized that it had failed to notice that before the group of humans had managed to retreat from the fox, another of their number had fallen to the beast.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

While the core felt quite disappointed that it had failed to seize upon the second harvest its caves had produced, it also felt comforted to see the success it was already enjoying, and also was fully confident that it would eventually be able to process multiple harvests simultaneously.

It used a bit of mana to heal the fox, and checked on the other two teams.

The second team was maintaining a steady and cautious approach, and they had not yet suffered any major injuries or difficulties.

The core was optimistic about its chances of obtaining a harvest or two from the final group, but that suddenly changed.

The group that had lost two members and failed to defeat the final fox was retreating through the forest, and while the core had deliberately directed the three groups along different paths, the failed team had fled without any regard for direction or paths, and had eventually stumbled upon the third group.

The humans had spoken to each other, and learning of the deaths of two people instantly sobered the reckless group of humans. The first group continued out of the cavern, unmolested by any of the creatures living in the forest, and the third group took a few moments to talk to each other before continuing forward.

When they started again, the core noticed that a veritable transformation had taken place. Gone was the desperation and recklessness, replaced entirely with caution and careful deliberation. Each beast the group encountered became methodically eliminated in the safest and most efficient manner. Each person covered for their companions’ blind spots, and while they still showed some inefficiencies, they started to demonstrate an unprecedented degree of cohesion.

The core continued to observe the two remaining teams, curious to see how they would fare.

The second team reached the final fox, and with the same steady approach, they proceeded to slowly determine the beast’s strengths, weaknesses, and overall behavior.

After a lengthy battle, the team managed to put the fox down without suffering too many injuries, and they collected their reward and entered the dark tunnel that connected to the swamp, where they took the opportunity to rest and recover.

As for the final team, the one with the drastic change in behavior, the core watched as they pressed through the forest at a much, much slower pace from before. When they reached the final clearing, all evidence of the previous team’s fight against the four-tailed fox had already vanished, and the final team instead faced another of the life affinitied stags.

They proved far more efficient than their predecessors, and the stag was put down without any display of struggle or difficulties. They also proceeded to collect their reward and enter the tunnel, but at this point in time, the core had interfered. It did not want to see the two teams meet or combine, so while only a single tunnel appeared, it did not lead to the resting team. The core had sealed off that first tunnel, and opened a second tunnel that led to the swamp cavern as well, but by a different route. Neither team could sense the movement of stone and earth, and given the absolute darkness of the tunnel, not one person noticed anything unusual.

Both teams rested, less than fifty meters away from each other, yet completely ignorant to the other’s presence or location.

Unsurprisingly, the first team to enter the tunnel resumed moving forward first, and the newly cautious team rested for nearly double the amount of time as the first team.

Upon entering the swamp, things continued in the same manner as they had in the forest. One team proceeded slowly and steadily, while the other remained slow and cautious.

Deeper and deeper they pushed into the swamp. Neither team had any mana users, as they were members of the army, and all mana users were affiliated with one temple or another. While the temples were willing to assist in times of war or crisis, they were also not part of the kingdom’s military, and they did not answer to the military, either. Mage priests would have no part in training soldiers.

On and on the two teams pressed, struggling against the wind blades of the birds, but otherwise aptly handling the challenges of the swamp.

Things changed while the first team was challenging the final beast of the swamp, which this time was an incredibly swift heron that used its beak as a spear.

While the team was challenging the bird, the second team had encountered a mishap; a venomous snake had managed to bite one of the humans, and their reaction caught the core off guard.

The team sliced off the snake’s head, bagged the beast, tied off the leg that had been bit, and then simply left.

They did not know what kind of venom they were dealing with, and they had already agreed to do whatever it took to not lose any of their members, and so they decisively left.

Without any hesitation, they helped the poisoned member of their team back through the swamp, passed through the tunnel without a single moment’s rest, and then immediately continued through the forest and the final tunnel to leave the core’s domain.

The core had anticipated a greater insistence on pushing deeper into the caves, but it also felt that the humans had made the best decision for themselves. By retreating, they left themselves further opportunities to try again in the future, as well as ensured that they would all survive.

As for the final team, they managed to eventually kill the heron. The bird possessed almost no defenses, so when one of the humans finally managed to injure the bird’s leg, it lost its speed and was then quickly put down.

Just as before, the humans collected their reward, and then went to rest in the darkness of the tunnel for a time before proceeding onwards.

The core watched as the humans pushed into the warren of tunnels and slowly worked their way forward. By this time, all of the members of the team had suffered some minor injuries, and their fights started to drag out longer and longer. When they ultimately reached the final chamber, they took one look at the beetle that came up to their waists, and turned around and left without even trying to attack the beast, much to the core’s disappointment.

Apparently, the armored giant was too intimidating for the humans to attack.

Upon seeing the last of the humans moving outwards, the core turned its active attention to the new cluster of memories it had obtained, and it started to review the memories of the archer Winston.

While these memories were far more complete than what the core had obtained from the high priest, Avery, Winston’s memories also proved to be far less valuable.

The archer had been born a commoner, as nobles all became officers in the kingdom’s military, if they opted to join, and had thus been uneducated and illiterate. Winston had been the fifth son of a farmer, and given that the property would be divided between two of his surviving older brothers, a younger child like Winston had been left to find his own way in life. For commoners, this meant either the military, or becoming the serf of some noble. Winston had been the primary hunter of his family, as well as the provider of most of the meat they had eaten, and so he had chosen to join the military.

He had only been about twenty-two years old when he had entered the core’s caves, and so even though the core had obtained rather intact, complete memories, the total content spanned far fewer years than it had obtained from an older man like Avery.

Ultimately, the power that the core had gained from Winston’s death had provided far greater benefits than any and all of the memories. It had certainly not suffered any losses from the deaths of a handful of minions, and furthermore, none of the body parts that had lingered behind for a bit had been collected, and so the core had been able to reclaim everything that it had used on the three beasts.

The core felt quite satisfied with the results of its second test, as it felt that its minions had performed quite well against multiple opponents, and its reserves had barely been touched. If this rate of visitors entering the caves continued, the core would be able to maintain the three caverns indefinitely, and would even be able to reap extremely profitable harvests from its visitors.

The “farm” appeared to be ready.

In that case, was it time to try to start another?